Clear Thinking v. Bitcoin Cult

This is, after all, a philosophy blog.

Something fascinating has happened to Bitcoin over the past decade. What began as a technological innovation—a peer-to-peer electronic cash system—has metastasized into something far more expansive: a worldview, an identity, a comprehensive theory of everything. Along the way, it has accumulated all the hallmarks of what we might call a secular cult, complete with prophets, sacred texts, eschatological predictions, moral strictures, ritual practices, and even dietary codes that extend far beyond economic theory.

I should be clear: I've worked on Bitcoin in my previous job. I'm quite fond of it as a technology. I don't think a world where Bitcoin is the only currency is either desirable or achievable, but I do see its genuine utility and value. The problem isn't Bitcoin itself—it's the cult that has formed around it.

This is, I believe, part of what clear thinking demands. As I wrote previously about Ayn Rand's Objectivism: “Some ideas deserve to be dismissed, not because they challenge our preconceptions, but because they fail to meet even the most basic standards of philosophical coherence.” The same standard must apply to Bitcoin maximalism.

Bitcoin maximalism—for those unfamiliar with the term—is the belief that Bitcoin is the only legitimate cryptocurrency and that all other digital assets are inferior, fraudulent, or doomed to fail. But it goes much deeper than just cryptocurrency preferences. It's a comprehensive worldview that extends to politics, culture, aesthetics, and even diet. Maximalists don't just advocate for Bitcoin; they believe it will inevitably replace all other currencies and fundamentally transform society, a process they call “hyperbitcoinization.”

It is a faith with food rules, conversion rituals, and saints. It demands not just belief in a technology but adherence to an entire cosmology of virtue and vice, with Bitcoin at its center.

One of the more interesting features of the ideological architecture of this cult is the concept of “time preference,” which has been elevated from a descriptive economic term into a comprehensive moral framework. In standard economics, time preference simply refers to how individuals value present versus future consumption. In Bitcoin maximalism, however, it's transformed into a moral hierarchy that sorts humanity into the virtuous "low time preference" individuals (who save in Bitcoin) and the degenerate "high time preference" masses (who spend fiat currency).

This transformation of time preference into a moral sorting mechanism sits at the center of Bitcoin maximalist ideology. Saifedean Ammous, in “The Bitcoin Standard,” goes to extraordinary lengths to moralize this concept. Those with “low time preference”—Bitcoin hodlers, naturally—are portrayed as possessing superior moral character, foresight, and cultural refinement. Those with "high time preference" are cast as impulsive, short-sighted, and culturally debased.

The moralization of time preference reaches beyond economics into almost every aspect of human life. According to Ammous, everything from your dietary choices to your artistic preferences reflects your time preference. The “Bitcoin carnivore” movement—which advocates an all-meat diet—is justified as an expression of low time preference. Modern art is condemned as the product of high time preference degeneracy. Even family structures and social institutions are evaluated through this lens, with traditional arrangements praised as expressions of low time preference virtue.

This isn't just economic theory; it's a value system that imposes a hierarchy of virtue across every domain of human life—from food to family to aesthetics. It takes a straightforward concept from economics and transforms it into a comprehensive framework for judging moral worth and cultural value.

The parallels between Bitcoin maximalism and Ayn Rand's Objectivism are both striking and instructive. Like Objectivism before it, Bitcoin maximalism has transformed from a specific idea (digital currency in one case, ethical egoism in the other) into an entire cultural and political ideology with views on aesthetics, morality, history, and human nature. And like Objectivism, it has attracted devotees who don't merely see it as useful or correct, but as the fundamental lens through which all of reality must be interpreted.

In “Clear Thinking v. Ayn Rand,” I noted that “Objectivism is actually stupid. It's a stupid philosophy.” And while I recognize that such bluntness may offend, the same judgment must apply to Bitcoin maximalism when it ventures beyond technical questions into moral and aesthetic pronouncements. Not because it challenges conventional wisdom, but because it fails on its own terms—committing the same errors of circular reasoning, unjustified leaps from is to ought, and fundamental misunderstandings of human nature that plagued Rand's philosophy.

What makes this transformation particularly concerning is how it fits into a broader ideological project that I've documented extensively in “The Plot Against America.” The Bitcoin maximalist worldview doesn't exist in isolation—it's part of a dangerous ideology born from the libertarian movement that now stands ready to seize America. This techno-authoritarian project, engineered by figures like Curtis Yarvin, Peter Thiel, and Balaji Srinivasan, sees democracy itself as obsolete technology ready to be “disrupted.”

Bitcoin plays a crucial role in this vision. It's not just a currency but a proof-of-concept for governance without democratic accountability. When Bitcoin maximalists celebrate the technology's resistance to state control, they're not just making a technical claim about cryptography—they're advancing a political argument that decisions about monetary policy should be removed from democratic deliberation entirely.

We should probably take some time to confront the fact that Austrian economics is actually a political position. It's not a neutral economic science. It takes a point of view that libertarian institutions are ideal. Bitcoin maximalism builds on this foundation, presenting what are fundamentally political preferences as inevitable economic outcomes.

Consider Saifedean Ammous, who we mentioned earlier. His work extends far beyond the technical aspects of cryptocurrency to pronounce judgment on art, music, architecture, and culture writ large. His critique of modern “degenerate art” employs language and concepts chillingly reminiscent of fascist aesthetic theory. In Ammous's worldview, the hard monetary standard represented by Bitcoin doesn't just offer economic benefits—it creates moral superiority, cultural refinement, and societal virtue.

This is not economics. This is not even political philosophy. This is a totalizing worldview that uses monetary theory as a Trojan horse to smuggle in comprehensive judgments about civilization, cultural production, and human potential. And in many cases, it is explicitly fascistic.

Just as Rand attempted to derive ought from is with casual disregard for the logical impossibility of such a derivation, Bitcoin maximalists attempt to derive moral imperatives from monetary properties. Just as Rand's heroes declare their independence while depending entirely on a social and technological infrastructure they did not create, Bitcoin maximalists celebrate their freedom from the state while relying on the internet infrastructure, legal protections, and social stability that state institutions help provide.

From a moral philosopher's point of view, there are important questions to ask about the Austrian conception of what “good” money looks like. Why ought saved money increase in purchasing power over time? The answer, that say Jeff Booth gives in The Price of Tomorrow, is because that rewards savers with the benefits of productivity gains over time. But why is that obviously the correct thing to do? It sounds good. It feels good. But as David Hume might say, it's nothing more than a moral sentiment. Why is this an obviously better way for an economy to distribute productivity gains than the stock market, redistributive welfare in the form of transfer payments, or even sovereign wealth funds? There's nothing obviously correct about this.

The “hyperbitcoinization” narrative warrants special attention. Its adherents believe that Bitcoin represents an overpowering force that will render state-issued fiat currency unfeasible, eventually bringing about either the end of the state entirely or reducing it to a frugal night-watchman role. According to this view, Bitcoin's properties make it beyond legal regulation and unstoppable—a force that no system of laws or political culture can resist.

It's a seductive viewpoint that speaks to the classical liberal or libertarian impulse toward economic emancipation. The problem is that it presupposes that this tendency is relatively universal in people—that once everyone has “studied Bitcoin,” they'll naturally arrive at the same libertarian conclusions as its most fervent advocates.

This is astonishingly presumptuous. It assumes that the welfare state, which remains broadly popular across the political spectrum, will be willingly abandoned once people understand the “true evils” of the fiat system. It imagines that populations will reject, by popular opposition, the idea that the state can demand payment for taxes in a currency of its choosing. In essence, it projects a libertarian fantasy onto the general public without engaging with what most people actually want.

This presumption is precisely what makes Bitcoin maximalism so compatible with the techno-authoritarian project I've documented. Both share a fundamental disdain for democratic processes and a belief that technical solutions can and should replace political deliberation. Both embrace a deterministic view of technological change that frames the dissolution of democratic institutions as inevitable rather than a choice.

So why my theory of why Bitcoin is valuable in the current context? It's valuable because while fiat money within a stable political order is generally preferable, there's always political risk. There's risk the central bank will engage in bad policies leading to out-of-control inflation. There's risk that political orders will break down, and financial freedom will be undermined. Bitcoin is financial technology that allows pricing and trading of that political risk. It is non-political money, which means one might speculate it to have a non-zero expectation value as a hedge against political uncertainty.

This means Bitcoin has a bright future and will likely keep growing in value. But it doesn't mean hyperbitcoinization is in the cards. That's highly unlikely. And you probably don't want to live in a world where political risks have become so acute that hyperbitcoinization would be rational for all economic actors. That world would be extremely dangerous.

Meanwhile, the Bitcoin community displays cult-like characteristics that would make even the most devoted Objectivists blush. Michael Saylor speaks of the cryptocurrency in explicitly religious terms, describing Bitcoin as “a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth.” The community enforces orthodoxy with religious fervor—investor Nic Carter recounted facing a wave of vitriol for merely investing in a non-Bitcoin crypto startup, noting that some Bitcoiners have "made Bitcoin their entire personality" and "suffer from an ideological monoculture."

Although, on Nic Carter, I am inclined to agree ironically enough that most of what goes on in what is known as “crypto” is well... fraud. It's fraud. At least Bitcoin doesn't try to be more than it is. But when you start trying to put podcasts on the blockchain, which was Marc Andreesen's killer app for “Web3,” you've entered the realm of solutions in search of problems, technologies in search of use cases, and venture capital in search of greater fools.

The movement has developed its own lexicon of slogans that function as terminating clichés: “Have fun staying poor,” “HODL,” and “Bitcoin fixes this." Ritualistic behaviors have emerged: laser-eye profile pictures as loyalty badges, Bitcoin conferences resembling revival meetings, and the practice of “orange-pilling” friends and family (converting them to the Bitcoin faith). Many Bitcoiners recount personal “journey” stories structured exactly like religious conversion narratives: initial skepticism, gradual learning, then a moment of revelation where Bitcoin's truth suddenly clicked.

The arguments for hyperbitcoinization take for granted what kind of world people want to live in. It assumes people will see little value in the government's role of provisioning public goods. That they will embrace hyper-privatization. That they will endure higher levels of business failures as a necessary cleansing ritual of creative destruction, because they'll believe this outcome is the most pure and moral.

I'm sorry, but we'll never build a political economy around that idea. If for no other reason, it's because it's small, and there's nothing human about it.

The tragedy is that, as with Objectivism, Bitcoin maximalism almost stumbles upon a genuine insight: that there need not be an opposition between individual financial sovereignty and collective good, that sound monetary principles can serve human flourishing. But instead of exploring this productive tension, it collapses it, reducing all value to hard money principles, all virtue to hodling, all social progress to monetary discipline.

In doing so, it misses the most profound truth about human existence: that meaning emerges precisely from the tensions it tries to eliminate. It emerges from the interplay between individual and community, between stability and innovation, between saving and spending. It emerges not from collapsing these distinctions but from holding them in creative relationship.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And no monetary system—however innovative, however potentially useful—can justify such sweeping pronouncements about civilization, culture, and human potential.

The center must be held—not because it is easy, but because it is ours to hold. And holding it requires recognizing when technological innovation crosses into theological certainty, when economic theory transforms into moral absolutism, when a potentially useful tool becomes the foundation for a new cult of true believers.

Bitcoin may yet prove a valuable addition to our financial ecosystem. But the moment its advocates begin pronouncing on “degenerate art” or sorting humanity into the enlightened and the damned, they've left the realm of technological innovation and entered the familiar territory of dogmatic certainty that has characterized every cult of absolute truth throughout human history.

Mike’s Note: Normally my Clear Thinking series essays are subject to a five-day paywall. This is made available to everyone for free today. My goal here is not to profit maximize, but to make my writing sustainable long-term.