I’ve never had any faith in representative democracy. Something always seemed off to me from a young age. When I wrote one of my state senators at age 19, it really sank in.
The year was 2009. Online poker was being outlawed in America. During the time while the matter was “open to public debate,” I wrote a letter to whoever my state senator was at the time.
I explained that poker is a game of skill, not luck, and therefore shouldn’t be regulated as if it were gambling. I’ll spare you all the details, but in poker, you don’t need the best hand to win, and you can choose to only play when the odds are in your favor. Most hands never make it to showdown, meaning whatever cards players were holding became irrelevant – one player folded, and the other won because they made their opponent believe they had the best hand. The cards that were dealt didn’t matter.
I explained this, and much more, in a letter to my senator. Her response was basically:
“Pound sand, peasant”.
She said we didn’t agree on the issue, so what I thought didn’t matter. And that was it.
She joined a bunch of other lawmakers in outlawing online poker in the USA. I’m sure most of those legislators received thousands of letters like mine, as poker organizations around the country were encouraging players to take action. But it made no difference.
Moral of the story: you can vote for whoever you want, and give your input on the rare occasions you’re allowed to. But in the end, elected officials do whatever they want, and it doesn’t always align with the desires of their constituents.
Yet still people care about these things as if they matter, and will argue about them, as if their anger at a subject somehow gives them power over it.
In Bitcoin, an individual can have some true power: they can operate a node.
Bitcoin has rules without rulers. It’s the only network in history that functions as both total anarchy and pure democracy. Not representative democracy, where people elect a stranger who they hope will decisions on their behalf. But real democratic decision making, where every network participant gets a direct “vote.”
Anyone can run their own node, choose which version of the Bitcoin software to run, and customize it however they like. Or, they can even create new versions.
Up until 2025, updates to Bitcoin Core, the primary version of the Bitcoin software, were decided on by a sort of rough consensus. Changes would be suggested via pull requests on Github, the conversation would spread, and whatever seemed to be the most widely agreed upon change would be the one implemented by the Core developers. This is an oversimplification of course but it’ll have to do for now.
Then Core decided they’d do whatever they wanted regardless of community input.
Sound familiar?
This is a deep rabbit hole, and there’s all kinds of things going on that I won’t go into detail about.
There are theories of Core being infiltrated by intelligence operatives, allegations of some developers being paid to implement changes that benefit certain companies, and a whole lot of technical debate that’s not appropriate for this newsletter.
What the change came down to is this: removing a certain data limit in bitcoin transactions, which would allow almost anything to be embedded within. In other words, turning the Bitcoin network into a potential cloud storage system that could be very expensive to use.
The point is not about whether allowing non-monetary data in op_return is a good idea or not: it’s about the fact that the change was made despite a dramatic uproar against it.
And while I’ve stated publicly that I don’t agree with this change, it doesn’t matter what I think. Everyone can choose to run whatever version of Bitcoin they want, because that’s how anarchy works: total freedom of choice at all times.
That creates problems, yes. Things get messy, complicated, and disorganized quickly. Enacting change becomes an uphill battle. But no matter what happens, the system remains malleable – it alters itself according to the will of its participants.
This can be seen in the fact that Bitcoin Knots, a fork of Core, has become the #2 most common node version in terms of the total number of nodes running it. According to Grok, 2770 nodes run Knots, and 3,871 run Core v30. About 78% of nodes overall run some version of Core, while ~22% run some version of Knots.
That may sound like Core still dominates, but it’s a dramatic change from the rest of Bitcoin’s history. Core used to account for ~98% of all nodes. Knots only had ~5% adoption as recently as 2024. Here’s what AI has to say to the following prompt:
[For most of bitcoin's history, Core was the dominant node software, and only recently has Knots risen to be a prominent contender. Is this statement accurate? provide proof and details but be brief as possible]:
Yes, the statement is accurate.
Historical Dominance of Core: From Bitcoin's launch in 2009 through 2024, Bitcoin Core (formerly Bitcoin-Qt) held >95-99% of node share, as it was the reference implementation with minimal competition from forks like Knots (introduced 2011 but niche).
Recent Rise of Knots: Adoption surged in 2025 due to debates over Core's OP_RETURN data limits and "spam" filtering; Knots offers stricter controls. Core dropped from ~98% to 88% by mid-2025, with Knots reaching 11%, then ~25% by Sep 2025 and ~22% by Jan 2026.
Currently, I run Bitcoin Core version 29.1, while I wait for a version of The Bitcoin Commons software that can be run on my Umbrel home server. I support people’s decision to use Knots, but I don’t fully trust it myself for various reasons I won’t get into here.
See my podcast with Gil Roberts for more on the subject of the Bitcoin Commons and different node variations: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-core-and-knots-rethinking-bitcoins-future-ft/id1649814816?i=1000736200089
In democracy, stagnation and stalemate become the norm. All issues become reduced to a simplistic black and white dichotomy. Half of people identify with one binary side of an idea, and half the other.
This often leads to impasses that result in progress being halted. Just look at government shutdowns as an example.
Anarchy, on the other hand, forces change. When problems arise, immediate action results, because no barriers exist. The lack of a structured system necessitates constant growth and adaptation.
Anarchy conjures images of chaos and destruction – the word carries connotations of lawlessness, fire in the streets, and a strict lack of structure or societal cohesion of any kind. It feels dangerous
Ridiculous, given that for most of human history, we lived under something much closer to anarchy than the system of the last century or two. And while monarchies may have been more repressive than your average representative democracy, at least there were little pretensions about people’s freedom. The king ruled and everyone knew it.
Today, people think they have a choice, and if only their chosen leader can reign, then everything will be okay. This provides an even greater system of control than the most tyrannical king could have ever dreamed of.
There is no greater enslavement than to create the societal conditions that influence and control a population from the shadows while providing the illusion of freedom. That’s exactly what the fiat central banking system does: we’re mostly oblivious to the fact that groups of unelected bureaucrats and academics make the decisions that have the greatest impact on our lives, through the monetary system that we can’t escape (without bitcoin).
Any potential threat to that monolithic system will be attacked relentlessly from all angles. The powers that be won’t sit back and tolerate the existence of an “escape hatch,” as IMF chair Christine Lagarde once described Bitcoin.
Some of the most common ways to attack an entity that threatens the status quo include:
Rhetoric – denounce, deny, and ridicule in an attempt to rhetorically destroy and discredit the image of something.
Divide and conquer – create divisions within a community or movement and manipulate the resulting fractures to distract or destroy it.
Violence - usually used as a last resort or when there will be no resistance or public backlash, or if the threat is too severe to tolerate at all.
Bitcoin has been subjected to rhetorical attacks from day one. Divide and conquer seems to have begun in 2025, perhaps even 2017 (the block size wars).
When it comes to creating doubt around Bitcoin, a long list of narratives have been circulating for some time. One of them has gained a lot of momentum recently and keeps snowballing despite all reason.
On that note, quantum computing is back is back in bitcoin media (again). And the sense of urgency is really being ramped up: now some pundits are saying that ECDSA, the encryption that protects bitcoin wallets, will be at risk in just two years:
Deloitte also recently reported that roughly 4 million BTC, around 25% of all usable supply, sit in addresses that expose public keys vulnerable to quantum attacks. Researchers have long warned that a sufficiently advanced quantum computer could derive private keys from exposed public keys using Shor’s algorithm, enabling attackers to instantly drain legacy wallets.
But when you dig deeper, and interesting conflict of interest emerges. The writer of this article for Cointelegraph is not a journalist. He is the CEO of a company that owns…wait for it…a “quantum-resistant cryptocurrency.”
It’s called “Naoris Protocol,” and the token’s price has, predictably, collapsed by nearly 90% from its all-time high:
Source: Coinmarketcap.com. NAORIS price on 1/24/26 = $0.025, vs. all-time high of $0.15
That’s right. The people promoting this narrative of bitcoin’s alleged vulnerability to quantum computing aren’t shouting from the rooftops because they care about Bitcoin.
They’re doing it to promote their own tokens and enrich themselves – spreading fear about a nascent technology so you will buy into the next hype token.
One of the biggest proponents of the “bitcoin is vulnerable to quantum” theory is Charles Edwards. He’s also been included in some Cointelegraph reporting, and has even given talks at crypto conferences on the subject. He confidently concludes that the Bitcoin network must upgrade to post-quantum encryption by the end of 2026, or it’s all over (by the way, Edwards even admitted in one of his talks that he is invested in quantum computing stocks – equities of companies that have no real product or revenue whatsoever at this time).
Let’s assume that the premise is correct – it’s as simple as a quantum chip with enough power (logical qubits) to crack ECDSA, and then game over – someone starts cracking wallets and stealing coins, dumping them on the market and destroying trust in Bitcoin as a whole.
The most important, and most unaddressed question here is:
Who exactly will be doing this?
No one seems to be asking this obvious question. It came to my mind in in late 2024, when I was working on an article about the subject for a large Bitcoin mining company.
We had to do a lot of in-depth research to debunk this narrative. It’s complex, with many different variables at play, but in my opinion, this one basic question is the easiest way to comprehend the core fallacy at play.
I recently became aware of a Michael Saylor interview in June 2025 where he did, in fact, bring this subject to light, saying “Google or IBM won’t sell you a computer that can crack modern encryption.”
It really is that simple. Quantum computers may be advancing. But even if they were truly on the cusp of being powerful enough to break ECDSA, that doesn’t mean it’s possible for someone to go and steal bitcoin out of people’s wallets.
There’s not going to be a quantum laptop that a hacker uses from their basement to steal all the coins and disappear into the night.
Bottom line: quantum computers are real, and the technology is advancing. A functioning quantum with enough logical qubits could, eventually, pose a real threat to all modern encryption, including Bitcoin. But the reality is not that simple. There are no practical applications for quantum computers yet, and not a single quantum computing company produces revenue (aside from the tech giants who dabble in the field).
One last thing: for more details on why deriving a private key from a public key isn’t as easy as it sounds, listen to my recent podcast with Greg Mikeska, who has been in bitcoin since 2010: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revolutionizing-bitcoin-custody-w-greg-mikeska/id1649814816?i=1000742424098
If you made it this far, thanks for reading.
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