Ten Million Bitcoiners
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Ten Million Bitcoiners: The Intransigent Minority
By Cory Klippsten
Posted February 21, 2020Â
Not too many years from now, the number of Bitcoiners in the United States of America will cross ten million. When we hit that milestone, it’s game over: Bitcoin wins.
My favorite writer and thinker, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, wrote about “the intranÂsiÂgent minority” in his book Skin in the Game. Here’s the concept at work: almost every packaged food product for sale in the U.S. has a tiny U inside a circle printed outside. Very few U.S. residents require the kosher certiÂfiÂcaÂtion indicated by that U, but it’s easier for food compaÂnies not to have to make two separate lines for every product, so they generÂally make everyÂthing kosher. The rule, per Taleb: “A Kosher eater will never eat nonkosher food, but a nonkosher eater isn’t banned from eating kosher.”
For most observed complex systems, the minority continÂgent required to flip a populaÂtion to comply with their intranÂsiÂgent view is in the 3 – 4% range. With a U.S. populaÂtion of 325 million, 3% is 10 million.
For most observed complex systems, the minority continÂgent required to flip a populaÂtion to comply with their intranÂsiÂgent view is in the 3 – 4% range. With a U.S. populaÂtion of 325 million, 3% is 10 million.
A fintech fund that’s been in the Bitcoin space since 2012 recently ran intense analysis resulting in the best estimate I’ve seen for Bitcoin ownerÂship. Just 7 million people globally are storing $100 of value or more in the Bitcoin protocol. For round numbers, let’s assume half of those people are in the U.S., and that one-seventh of those are above a more signifÂiÂcant threshold like $2500. That’s just 500,000 U.S. citizens with a meaningful amount of Bitcoin. And of those, what percentage actually underÂstand and care about Bitcoin to the point where they would fight for it? Let’s be generous and say 20%.
There are approxÂiÂmately 100,000 Bitcoiners in the United States. This means that just to get to “intranÂsiÂgent minority” levels, we need a 100x increase. This is why adoption dominates all other priorÂiÂties for Bitcoin.
Bitcoiners have already knocked out so many potenÂtial attack vectors and handled so much FUD that there’s not much downside risk.
Another concept Taleb referÂences throughout the five volumes of his Incerto is: Protect Your Downside. Bitcoiners have already knocked out so many potenÂtial attack vectors and handled so much FUD that there’s not much downside risk left for Bitcoin. But there is some, whether you handicap it at sub‑1%, sub-10%, or more. And by far the most threatÂening attack vector, in my opinion, would be a concerted effort of the U.S. governÂment at many levels attempting to stamp out Bitcoin in an effort to maintain dollar hegemony across the globe.
Let’s be clear: Bitcoin would survive even the most concerted and vicious attack by the U.S. governÂment. It might even thrive, Antifragile-style (another Taleb book), with people around the globe snapping up sats en masse as they witness the erstwhile hegemon lash out. But it could also play out differÂently, with a massive drop in network activity and value, thousands of individual lives irreparably disrupted, and the delay of our bright orange future by decades or longer.
This, to me, is unacceptÂable. That is why I have dedicated my life to recruiting the other 99% of our intranÂsiÂgent Bitcoiner minority here in the United States. There are 100,000 of us already. Help us recruit the other 9.9 million.