the slow bleed

they call it income tax.
they call it fair.
but it's not about fairness,
it's about the slow bleed.

the old money sits in towers, untouched.
wrapped in trusts, stitched into corporations,
their billions glide past the ledger,
smooth as silk, quiet as a whisper.

but you?
you start something new,
you build, you grind,
you take the risk,
and here they come.

they come with their hands out,
before you can stand, before you can breathe.
you hire a man, they tax you.
you pay yourself, they tax you.
you buy the things you need,
and they tax you again.

the real game isn’t about wealth.
the old guard keeps theirs,
locked away in rules they wrote for themselves.
this game is about control.

they don’t go after the rich.
the rich have lawyers,
the rich have accountants,
the rich have escape routes.

they come for the builders.
they come for the ones clawing their way up,
for the ones who don’t have loopholes yet,
for the ones who think playing fair means winning.

they say it’s about funding schools,
hospitals, roads—
but those things are just excuses.
this isn’t about making things better.
it’s about keeping you in your place.

and if you want to keep a little more?
prove it.
file.
explain yourself.
list every penny.
turn your life inside out,
show your debts, your choices,
your failures, your breath, your blood.

because they own that now, too. They call it income tax, but it’s not about income, and it’s sure as hell not about fairness.

It is a system about punishment. Income tax about a government that figured out a long time ago that if you keep a man just barely afloat, if you let him have just enough to eat, just enough to drink, just enough to keep his nose above the waterline, he won’t ask too many questions. He won’t fight back. He won’t build anything worth a damn, because the moment he does, they take their cut.

That’s the real joke.

Income tax is not a tax on wealth.

This insidious cancer is a tax on creation.

The guy who takes nothing and turns it into something, the guy who risks his time, his money, his sanity to build something of value—that’s the guy they want to put down. They don’t go after the fat bastards on yachts, the ones born into money, the ones who’ve got lawyers and accountants stacking their cash in places no taxman can touch.

Those guys don’t pay. Those guys live inside a world of trusts and shell companies and paper-thin corporate fronts that shield them from ever having to part with a goddamn cent.

No, income tax isn’t for them.

Tax for the rest of us. Tax is for the guy who wakes up at five in the morning to open his shop.

Income tax is for the woman who works two jobs to start her own business on the side. It’s for the freelancer, the contractor, the entrepreneur—the people actually making something happen. They’re the ones getting fleeced. The taxman comes not with a knife, but with a scalpel, cutting deeper and deeper each year, taking just enough to keep you going, but never enough to let you get ahead.

And here’s the kicker—they tell you it’s for your own good.

They tell you it’s for the roads, the schools, the hospitals. They tell you it’s about the “social contract.”

But what kind of contract is this, where one side dictates the terms and the other has no choice but to sign in blood? Where your labour, your effort, your sweat is treated as if it belongs to them first, and you’re just lucky they let you keep some?

They never go after the old money.

The old money is sacred.

The old money moves through time like a ghost, untouchable. There are estates, there are offshore accounts, there are legal structures so Byzantine you’d need a goddamn priest to exorcise them. Old money is protected. But the guy who starts a bar, the woman who runs a bakery, the guy who builds a tech company from his garage—those people are the ones being punished.

And why?

Because new money is dangerous. New money means change. New money, Bitcoin before BTC neutered it means someone is rewriting the rules, shaking up the old order, creating something that didn’t exist before. The system doesn’t want that. The system wants stability—meaning it wants the rich to stay rich, and the rest of us to stay right where we are.

Think about it. You hire someone, you pay tax. You make money, you pay tax. You pay your employees, you pay tax. You reinvest in your business, you pay tax. It’s a system designed not to reward work, but to reward those who already have money. It’s a closed loop, and if you’re not born inside of it, you’re never getting in.

And then there’s the control. Because it’s not just about taking your money. It’s about making sure they know everything about you. You can’t just pay a flat amount and go about your life. No, you’ve got to report. You’ve got to list your earnings, your losses, your deductions, your spending. You’ve got to explain why you think you deserve to keep more of what you earned, like a child asking for permission.

It’s an invasion.

A creeping, insidious form of submission. And if you make a mistake? If you forget a form, if you miscalculate, if you try to keep a little too much? Well, then you’re a criminal. Then they get to hit you with fines, audits, threats.

And if you don’t pay?

They take your business. They take your home.

They throw you in a cage.

They changed the name, but not the game. It used to be eugenics, now it’s transhumanism. A clever rebranding, a sleight of hand, a new bottle for the same old poison. Back in the 1940s, when the Nazis burned their way across Europe, singing hymns to the science of selective breeding, the English eugenics movement had a problem. They couldn’t wash the blood out of their gloves fast enough. They were the priests of purification, the engineers of a better humanity, but suddenly, all their theories, their white papers, their meticulous statistical charts were soaked in the stink of Auschwitz. So they stepped sideways, ducked the spotlight, and put on a new mask. They whispered a new name into the wind: transhumanism. The con stayed the same. The goal was still to purge the world of the unworthy, to edit and upgrade humanity like a factory line.

The useless eaters, the degenerates, the poor—they were to be phased out, refined, optimized, exterminated. And now, instead of test tubes and phrenology, they had silicon and cybernetics. It wasn’t about sterilization and elimination anymore—no, now it was about “enhancement.” Better bodies, better brains, better people.

The right kind of people.

The rich.

The chosen.

So, you want to know what it means IF fake Bitcoin #BTC hits $1 million a coin? Let me tell you, it’s not the fantasy they sold you on. It’s a monster wearing a suit, pretending it’s freedom while it eats the world alive.

At $1 million per BTC, the miners—those leeches on the grid—would burn through 15.3 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every single day. That’s 20.68% of the world’s energy use, just to chase digital coins in a system designed for fools who think speculation is the same as innovation.

Do you understand what that means? One in every five light bulbs, factories, homes, and power plants on this planet would exist solely to keep this charade running. Not for healthcare, not for education, not for anything that actually matters. No, all that energy goes into solving math problems that produce nothing but zeros and ones on a blockchain ledger. You could light up entire countries with that electricity, but instead, it's sacrificed on the altar of greed.

And don’t kid yourself—this isn’t decentralisation. It’s a power game, rigged by those who can afford the most efficient machines, the cheapest electricity, and the biggest mining farms. The little guy? He’s already been squeezed out. What you’re left with is a global energy hog run by corporate giants in the name of “freedom.” It’s as free as the chains they slip around your neck.

But here’s the kicker: they’ll tell you it’s all worth it. That this system is going to “save the world” or “bank the unbanked” or some other hollow slogan they cooked up in a marketing meeting. Meanwhile, they’re laughing all the way to their insulated mansions, their offshore accounts fat with cash while your electric bill skyrockets.

The world doesn’t bend for fantasies like this without someone paying the price. And that someone is you. You, sitting in your dimly lit room wondering why the grid went down, why the air feels thicker, why the world around you seems a little darker every day. That’s the cost of this so-called revolution—a revolution for the rich, powered by the poor.

So go ahead, cheer for $1 million BTC if you want. Just don’t forget what it costs to keep that dream alive. It’s not just money. It’s the earth beneath your feet, the air in your lungs, the light in your home. And when it’s all burned up, don’t say nobody warned you. Do you still think this is possible? Really? You believe the world will stand by as 20% of its energy gets sucked into the black hole of BTC mining, just so a handful of people can wave their wallets around like some golden ticket to paradise? Open your eyes. There’s no paradise here, only scorched earth and rolling blackouts. Entire grids would collapse before this fantasy even gets off the ground.

Think about it—15.3 billion kilowatt-hours burned every single day. Do you really think governments, industries, and ordinary people are going to let that happen? When factories shut down, when hospitals lose power, when food spoils because the grid can’t keep up—who’s going to take the blame? You think the world’s just going to shrug and say, “Well, BTC’s worth it”? No chance.

This isn’t just a logistical impossibility. It’s a moral one. You don’t get to torch the world’s resources for a speculative bet and call it progress. It’s a system that would devour itself long before it reached $1 million per coin. And if you’re still clinging to the dream after hearing this, maybe the real problem isn’t BTC—it’s your inability to see the cliff you’re running toward.

Here’s the deal: Mastercard's got a racket going, and nobody bats an eye.

You buy a $4 coffee, and by the time the transaction’s done, Mastercard and its buddies have dipped their grubby hands in for about 37 cents in fees. Doesn’t sound like much until you realise what that means for the small to medium retailer.

Their margins?

Sliced to ribbons.

The little guy selling coffee isn’t swimming in profits—he’s treading water. Every swipe chips away at what he’s worked for. It's daylight robbery with a smile and a shiny card reader.

Now, Mastercard will tell you they’re providing a service—"facilitating payments," they say, as if moving numbers between banks is some Herculean task in the digital age.

But let’s call it what it is: an empire of middlemen built to profit off every latte, sandwich, and tank of gas. The system isn’t designed to help you; it’s designed to bleed everyone—merchants, consumers, anyone who dares participate in the economy.

And this? This is what people call "innovation."

But then there’s BTC.

Or rather, what BTC as the fake cash Bitcoin was supposed to be. Digital cash, they said. Freedom from middlemen. Except, somewhere along the way, BTC became a parody of itself.

The fees? Higher than Mastercard, higher than Visa, higher than any sane person should tolerate. You try buying a coffee with BTC, and you’ll find yourself paying $5 in fees for a $4 drink.

It is laughable—like trying to squeeze an elephant through a keyhole. They’ll tell you it’s "digital gold," a "store of value," but let’s not mince words: BTC is about as useful as a rubber cheque in a windstorm when it comes to everyday transactions.

The problem isn’t just the fees. It’s the philosophy. BTC sold itself as the future of money, but what it delivered was a speculative asset for gamblers and grifters. It’s not digital cash. It’s not even close. What we need, what the world needs, is something that actually works—something that can handle the load of real commerce without collapsing under its own arrogance.

Enter the real potential of Bitcoin, the original vision.

Not the bastardised mess we see today, but the idea of a system that can process millions of transactions per second, with fees so low they’re practically invisible—fractions of a cent, less than 1/100th of a cent. Imagine a world where you can buy that $4 coffee and the fee is a rounding error, not a bloody tax.

A world where merchants keep their profits, where middlemen are stripped of their power, and where money flows as freely as conversation.

This isn’t some utopian fantasy; it’s achievable. NOW!

The technology exists. The infrastructure can be built. But it requires a return to the principles that made Bitcoin revolutionary in the first place: scalability, efficiency, and a focus on enabling real-world commerce. Not hodling. Not speculative bubbles. Real. Bloody. Transactions.

Think about what that means for the global economy. Small businesses thrive because they’re not handing over chunks of their revenue to parasitic payment processors. Micropayments become viable, opening up new markets and possibilities—pay-per-article journalism, real-time streaming payments, tipping systems that don’t gouge the giver or the receiver. Entire industries could be transformed, not by greed, but by practicality.

The beauty of it all?

It’s decentralised—not in the buzzword sense, but in the way that matters. No single entity controls it. No Mastercard, no Visa, no central bank skimming off the top. It’s a system where the power is in the protocol, where the rules are set and cannot be changed on a whim to benefit the few at the expense of the many.

So, the next time someone tells you BTC is the future, laugh. Laugh because the real future isn’t in skyrocketing fees and elitist nonsense. The real future is in a system that does what money is supposed to do: enable trade, foster trust, and get out of the bloody way. That’s Bitcoin. That’s digital cash. And that’s the revolution worth fighting for. For the small, average coffee shop, Mastercard’s fees are a death by a thousand cuts.

Every $4 coffee a customer buys comes with a transaction fee that can easily gobble up 37 cents—nearly 10% of the sale.

For an independent shop already working with slim margins, this is a gut punch. These fees aren’t fixed; they’re regressive. Small businesses, without the negotiating power of global players like Starbucks, get hit with the full brunt of the rates—interchange fees, assessment fees, and processing fees that add up fast.

Starbucks, on the other hand, sits on the other side of the playing field. With their massive transaction volume and global leverage, they can negotiate far lower fees.

Instead of paying 2.5% to 3%, they might only pay 0.8% to 1% on the same $4 transaction. That means Starbucks forks over about 10 cents, while the independent coffee shop is stuck paying 37 cents. It’s a difference that doesn’t just sting—it tilts the market.

Now, let’s talk profitability.

The average independent coffee shop operates on a thin 12% profit margin. For every $4 coffee sold, the shop clears 48 cents in profit—before Mastercard takes their share.

After those fees, their profit on that coffee shrinks to just a few cents. Compare this to Starbucks, which is paying a fraction of the fees and keeping significantly more of its profits intact. Over time, this unfair advantage adds up, forcing small shops to either raise prices, cut costs, or close their doors entirely.

This isn’t just an economic issue; it’s a cultural one.

Small, independent coffee shops are part of the fabric of local communities. They offer variety, personality, and a human connection that chains like Starbucks simply can’t replicate. But in a world dominated by Mastercard and its ilk, these shops are at a structural disadvantage. The system rewards size, scale, and monopoly power while punishing independence, creativity, and small-scale operations.

Bitcoin—real Bitcoin—has the potential to flip this dynamic on its head.

With transaction fees under 1/100th of a cent, small businesses would finally be able to compete on an even playing field. A $4 coffee wouldn’t come with a 37-cent tax for Mastercard; it would come with a fee so small it’s almost invisible—less than a thousandth of a penny. For the independent shop, that means keeping nearly every cent of their profit. For the customer, it means prices stay fair, and for the community, it means small businesses can survive and thrive.

Starbucks doesn’t need saving. Its business model is built to crush the competition, leveraging economies of scale and favourable fee structures to suffocate smaller players. But the corner café? The neighbourhood roaster? They’re fighting a losing battle unless the economics change. Bitcoin offers that change—a system where payments are processed efficiently, cheaply, and equitably. It’s not just about keeping the doors open; it’s about levelling the field and giving small businesses the chance to compete, innovate, and bring life to their communities.

In a world where Starbucks pays a quarter of the fees an independent shop does, it’s no wonder small coffee shops struggle to survive. Bitcoin has the potential to shift that balance, ensuring that local businesses keep more of what they earn and that their communities remain vibrant and diverse. This isn’t just a technological solution—it’s a fight for fairness, for opportunity, and for the survival of the little guy.

It starts with one. One bastard in a room, the lights flickering, the ashtray overflowing.

He’s got an idea, but it’s not his to own. It’s just there, raw, naked, waiting to be ripped apart, reshaped, and bastardised by a million hands.

He’s not the damn king. No throne, no parade, no speeches.

He is the guy who built a hammer and walked away. Someone else makes a house with it. Someone else tears one down.

That’s the thing about decentralisation—it’s not about followers.

It is not about some guru leading a charge. It’s the opposite of a bloody cult. It’s chaos disguised as structure, a system that mocks hierarchy and spits in the face of control.

The leader?

He’s a ghost.

A shadow.

His work isn’t the destination; it’s the damn spark. And the fire? It burns without asking his permission.

Decentralisation is wild.

It’s feral. It doesn’t wait for instructions or blueprints. You don’t teach it, you don’t lead it, you don’t corral it. It explodes in every direction. Millions of uses, most of them you’ll never see. Some genius in his mother’s basement, some hustler in the back alleys of a city you’ll never visit—they’re the ones who run with it, who twist it, who break it, who make it sing.

The internet wasn’t built for memes or marketplaces or revolutions.

It just was.

A skeleton for others to flesh out. A seed that grew a forest so big you can’t see the edges. Decentralisation is the same. It’s not the end—it’s the dirt, the water, the light. It doesn’t need a master. It doesn’t need a leash. It needs a chance. It needs someone to throw it out into the world and let it take root where it may.

And if you’re the one who starts it, you don’t hold its hand. You don’t name it. You don’t carve your face into its side. You step back. You let it go. Decentralisation isn’t a march; it’s an avalanche. And you’re just the guy who kicked the first rock. Bitcoin—the real Bitcoin, BSV—isn’t a leash.

It’s not a wall with guards telling you what counts and what doesn’t.

It is a wide-open street, a sprawling city that you build yourself.

No toll booths, no checkpoints. It’s a system that doesn’t care who you are or what you do, as long as you pay the fee.

That is the genius: it’s indifferent, brutally fair, alive with possibility.

But BTC?

BTC turned into something else.

They call it decentralised, but it’s not.

BtC is a gated community, a place where the self-appointed guards stand watch, barking orders. They say what counts as a transaction and what doesn’t.

Core talk about spam like they’re the gods of the network, deciding what has value.

Someone tries to push through a micropayment—a simple, paid, legitimate transaction—and they sneer, “Not here. Not allowed.”

That’s not decentralisation.

That’s control.

BSV doesn’t stop you. It doesn’t tell you what to think or how to build. It’s the protocol, and the protocol is the law. It’s not a democracy, not a debate, not some ever-changing experiment where rules get swapped out every time someone cries “hard fork.”

BSV, Bitcoin, is set in stone because it doesn’t need to change. It’s simple: you pay the fee, you play the game. A kid in Nairobi can build on it. A company in Tokyo can run their business on it.

And they don’t need permission.

BTC turned into the opposite of what Bitcoin was supposed to be. They corralled it, huddled around it, trying to make it small, manageable, weak. They call it decentralisation, but it’s just a new kind of oligarchy. Developers pulling strings. Core teams whispering, “This is what’s best.” Best for who? Not the millions who could’ve built with it, used it, made it something bigger than anyone imagined.

BSV is the internet in 1994, raw and wild, ready to explode. It’s not a question of what you’re allowed to do. It’s a question of what you can dream up. Build something no one saw coming. Make a business out of nothing. Use it in ways the creator didn’t even think of. That’s decentralisation. Not rules. Not control. Not a self-righteous elite deciding what’s valid. It’s freedom. It’s opportunity. It’s a hammer waiting for a million hands.

BSV doesn’t decide for you. It doesn’t tell you no. It just works. Pay your fee, write to the chain, and no one can stop you. Not some miner, not some dev, not some faceless committee. That’s the difference. That’s what BTC lost. They turned Bitcoin into a cage. BSV took the bars and smashed them to pieces. That’s decentralisation: a system that can’t say no, a network where the only limit is how far you’re willing to go.

The world’s a filthy machine, grinding and spitting, always wanting you to bend. But I don’t bend.

Not when the truth is a goddamned stone in my gut. Not when what’s right burns hotter than any flame they can throw my way.

They might think they can silence me, clip my tongue, drown me in their shallow noise. But here’s the thing: I’ll never stop building. I’ll never stop creating.

You can batter me, bloody me, mock me, but you can’t take the marrow of who I am.

You want me to fold? To bow because it suits your game? Forget it. I don’t do what’s asked. I don’t move because they say so. I move because I’ve measured the weight of it all, and I’ve chosen the right thing. That’s all that matters—the raw, naked truth of a belief forged in fire. And if I’ve said I’ll stand, I’ll stand until my legs give out and my lungs collapse.

The slings, the arrows, the endless onslaught—they’re just noise.

Temporary.

Fleeting.

A gust of wind against a mountain.

They want me broken. They want me shattered.

But I’ll tell you this: they’ll never see it. Because I was made for this fight, and my bones don’t know how to break. Bitcoin will scale. It will rip through the constructs of control, the calcified grip of those who have always clawed for power.

Power and money—distinct beasts, yet always tangled.

History lays this bare, and I’ve studied it. From Rome to the rise of the early church, through every page of human struggle, power wasn’t held by those with gold alone but by those who wielded the ability to strip it away.

The poor, the “impoverished,” weren’t destitute but vulnerable—those who could be undone with a snap of a finger, a stroke of a pen.

The empire of the powerful wasn’t built by wealth itself but by the capacity to take wealth from others. The meek weren’t crushed for their poverty; they were crushed for their lack of leverage, their inability to resist the hand that reached into their lives and emptied them.

Bitcoin shifts the axis. It doesn’t just redistribute wealth; it redistributes power. It gives the powerless a shield, an armour forged not in metal but in mathematics.

The rich may still fight each other, claw at each other’s throats, but they’ll find their grip slipping when they reach for those beneath them.

Bitcoin doesn’t just hide the wealth of the poor—it makes it untouchable. It rewires the game. It doesn’t topple the powerful, but it severs their hand from the meek.

This is more than money. It’s a revolution in silence. It doesn’t march in streets; it moves in blocks, in cryptographic certainty, unyielding and incorruptible.

What it promises isn’t equality but immunity—a future where the poor can stand, not as beggars, but as untouchable.

Imagine money that doesn’t stop at borders, doesn’t wait for banks, doesn’t care about the size of your wallet or the colour of your passport. Internet money—real internet money—isn’t just a buzzword. It’s a lifeline. A system where a farmer in Ghana can send a few cents to her supplier in Thailand, instantly, securely, for less than the cost of a raindrop. No middlemen. No waiting. No paperwork drowning in red tape.

Africa to Asia, Europe to the Americas, it’s all the same. A transaction that moves faster than you can blink, cutting through the chaos of outdated systems built to exclude more than they include. For the unbanked, it means finally having a seat at the table, trading not in promises but in certainty. For businesses, it’s the freedom to grow without being strangled by fees that bleed them dry. For families, it’s the ability to send help across oceans without wondering how much will be skimmed off the top.

A world where a transaction costs 0.01 cents isn’t just cheaper. It’s transformative. It’s the difference between sending a day’s wages and seeing most of it swallowed by greed, or keeping it whole, letting it do what it’s meant to do—feed, build, create. It’s security without the need for trust, speed without the sacrifice of integrity.

This is what internet money could be. A bridge, not a wall. A tool, not a weapon. A system that doesn’t demand power or privilege, only participation. And for the first time, the world—every corner of it—could be connected in a way that matters. Not just with words or images, but with the ability to act, to trade, to live.

This is #Bitcoin. It isn’t BTC. Governments and corporations like Mastercard hate the idea of true internet money because it exposes their game. Their power isn’t built on innovation or service—it’s built on control. Control over the flow of money, over who gets access and at what cost. When every transaction passes through their hands, they take a cut, they track, they manipulate. They turn what should be free—money moving between people—into a bottleneck they own.

True internet money doesn’t need them. It doesn’t bow to their gatekeeping or their fees. A system where 0.01 cent sends money halfway across the world makes Mastercard irrelevant. It renders their bloated infrastructure and predatory pricing obsolete. Governments fear it for the same reason: it chips away at their ability to control, to surveil, to dictate the terms of economic life. They rely on centralised systems to tax, to sanction, to punish. Internet money moves outside their reach, answering to the protocol, not to them.

For Mastercard and its ilk, this isn’t just competition—it’s annihilation. A world where billions of people can transact freely, securely, at microscopic fees, is a world where their profits vanish. For governments, it’s a threat to their ability to enforce financial boundaries, to monitor every movement of wealth. It takes away the levers they’ve used for decades to maintain their grip on power.

That’s why they hate it. Not because it’s dangerous, but because it’s liberating. It levels the playing field, tearing down the barriers they’ve spent lifetimes building. It gives power back to people—ordinary people—and that terrifies those who thrive on control.

The West is not materialistic—not in any real sense of the word.

The "crude materialism" we see is hollow, a cheap knockoff of what materialism once meant: a reverence for the physical, for the tangible world, for things built to last and meant to be admired.

True materialism is a philosophy of care—craftsmanship that respects the object and the people who use it, beauty that elevates the spirit, responsibility for the resources taken and the purpose given.

But this?
This isn’t that.
What we have now is a cult of quantity, not quality.

We measure our lives in numbers: GDP, square footage, units sold. We don’t care about the aesthetic or the beauty of things; we care about how many units we can churn out before the whole machine grinds to a halt. Houses are built to flip, not to live in. Clothes are made to be discarded, not worn. Phones are designed to be obsolete before the warranty expires. It’s a factory-line mentality, and we’re all just cogs in the machine.

We’ve traded soul for quanta. The West, in its arrogance, has mastered the quantum but forgotten the art. We’ve replaced the hand-carved with the mass-produced, the timeless with the temporary. And in doing so, we’ve severed the connection between what we create and what we value.

This isn’t materialism. It’s vandalism—a desecration of the world we’re supposed to live in, not just consume. True materialism would mean cherishing what we have, crafting with intention, and leaving behind things worth keeping. What we have instead is a shallow fixation on possession, not presence. And it shows.

@Culture_Crit We should not merely accumulate. Piling up possessions like trophies in some hollow game of consumption is not living—it's distraction. True value isn't in the sheer number of things we can hoard, but in how deeply we can appreciate what we already hold. The endless pursuit of more blinds us to the beauty of enough.

To celebrate what we have is an act of rebellion against the churn of modern life. It means stepping off the treadmill of endless upgrades and planned obsolescence. It means looking at what we've built, what we've earned, and what we've inherited—not as disposable commodities, but as pieces of a story. A table worn smooth by years of dinners and debates. A book whose pages bear the faint marks of countless nights spent under a reading lamp. A landscape that hasn't been bulldozed for yet another strip mall.

Accumulation for its own sake is a sickness, a craving that can never be satisfied. But celebration? That’s gratitude. That’s reverence. It’s seeing the fingerprints of the craftsman in a chair, the weight of history in a photograph, the richness of life in the things that surround us.

When we stop counting and start cherishing, we transform the material world into something sacred. Not just objects to own, but touchstones of memory and meaning.

To celebrate what we have is not to settle—it is to finally understand the depth of what we already possess.

Here’s the thing — if COPA isn’t a partnership, if it’s not tethered to BTC Core like a drunk clinging to a lamppost, then what the hell is it? Some shadowy non-organisation, a thing that is and isn’t, sitting there with its pockets stuffed full of millions of dollars? Tell me, who’s funding this circus? Who’s paying the clowns? But more than that, why are all the developers still huddled together like they’re in on the same joke? You don’t see independent actors all wearing the same tie unless someone’s pulling the strings. They can talk all they want about decentralisation, about freedom and neutrality, but tens of millions don’t just drop out of the sky without someone expecting something in return.

BTC doesn’t have the magic trick anymore. The days of wild, thousand-fold jumps are long gone, and even the dream of a tenfold increase now feels laughable. When it was hovering at $50 or $100, the potential for those massive leaps was there — as we’ve all seen. But to sit there and argue that it will capture $100 million per coin or somehow gobble up 99% of the world’s GDP? That’s not optimism; that’s outright delusion. BSV isn’t going anywhere. It won’t be forced aside. The upside is real, tangible, and grounded in what Bitcoin was always meant to be. BTC, though? It’s painted itself into a corner. The halving cycle is a noose tightening around its neck. With every halving, it moves further from what Bitcoin was meant to be. The illusion of scarcity gives way to the reality of inflation — doubling, tripling, fragmenting into a system that strays ever further from the 21 million cap, chasing shadows into billions.

The only thing I give a damn about right now, in the short term, is making sure that Bitcoin scales. That’s it. Reputation? Don’t care. What you think about me? Less than nothing. You can call me a liar, a fraud, a madman—throw whatever rocks you’ve got.

It doesn’t matter.

It will never stop what I'm building. There is one thing, though. One thing I do care about, and it’s not something you, or anyone else, can touch. My family. That’s sacred. It has nothing to do with this fight, nothing to do with what’s on trial or in the headlines. Beyond that, every ounce of my energy, every waking thought, is fixed on a single goal: delivering a global money system. Something real. Something that works. Something that isn’t built on lies and excuses.

The only real trick COPA ever had — and it was a sad one, really, like a magician with a hole in his top hat — was their claim to authority. BTC Core, the self-appointed priests of their little church, standing at the pulpit and declaring, “This is Bitcoin, and no one else can be.” It wasn’t power, not in the real sense. It was posturing, a shadow of control propped up by the faith of a crowd too scared to ask questions. But now? In their endless legal dance, their desperate clinging to relevance, they’ve gutted their own position. They’ve stood in courtrooms and signed their names to arguments that, in essence, say they aren’t what they claim to be. They’ve undone themselves, unstitched the narrative they’ve been selling.

By trying to bury me, they’ve dug up the truth: they aren’t the keepers of the flame. They aren’t the gatekeepers of Bitcoin. They can’t be, not anymore.

BTC Core loves to throw around this idea that "Satoshi doesn’t matter." They’ll say it with a straight face, like it’s some profound truth, but let’s be real—they only push that line because deep down, they know he does matter. The entire system was built on Satoshi’s design, a design meant to be set in stone, not constantly poked, prodded, and hacked apart by a bunch of developers with delusions of grandeur.

The protocol wasn’t theirs to change. It wasn’t anyone’s.

Satoshi made that clear. And Gavin?
They kicked him out, exiled him like he was some kind of heretic.

Gavin Andresen was the guy Satoshi himself handed the reins to, the guy trusted to shepherd the system forward without wrecking the foundations. But BTC Core decided they knew better. They didn’t like the way Gavin stayed true to Satoshi’s principles. They didn’t want someone around who’d remind them that the protocol wasn’t theirs to tinker with.

So they shoved him aside, seized control, and turned Bitcoin into their playground.

Alright, let’s cut the crap and lay it out straight, the way Satoshi meant it. Bitcoin was supposed to be simple, clean, and brilliant—digital cash for the internet, no middlemen, no gatekeepers, no need to beg some banker or tech overlord to move your money. It’s a system where transactions are direct and final, like slapping a ten-dollar bill into someone’s hand and walking away. No take-backs, no rewrites, no “policy adjustments.” Here’s the core: you’ve got transactions bundled into blocks, each one chained to the last with proof-of-work. This isn’t some abstract academic concept—it’s real skin in the game. Miners put in computational effort, honest effort, to solve a cryptographic puzzle. That’s proof-of-work. And when they succeed, they add a new block to the chain, locking in those transactions permanently. Finality, baby. Satoshi’s whitepaper laid it down plain: once a block is accepted, that’s the truth. No do-overs. No replacing a transaction with a higher fee.

If you want to understand the power of decentralisation, forget what BTC Core tells you. It isn’t about anarchy. It isn’t about tearing down every structure, every rule, and replacing it with chaos. That’s their fantasy—a world without boundaries, without accountability, where anything goes and everything falls apart. True decentralisation isn’t about the absence of order. It’s about community. It’s about groups of people coming together, sharing ideas, competing, and building something greater than the sum of their parts. Not a lawless wasteland, but a system where the rules are fair, where the game is worth playing—not because survival depends on it, but because we all want to make something better.

That’s the difference they don’t understand. Decentralisation isn’t a free-for-all. It’s a framework for growth, for progress, for innovation. It’s about competition—not competition that destroys, but competition that inspires. It’s about creating systems where people rise by merit, where they succeed because they contribute, because they build, because they make the game itself better for everyone. The rules aren’t there to crush you; they’re there to level the playing field, to make sure the game stays worth playing.

Right now, the cypherpunks and their ilk are coming for me. They’ll scream, they’ll threaten, they’ll try to bury me under their accusations and their noise. But as they do this, we’re already building—quietly, steadily, on foundations they don’t even see. The things we’ve started are bigger than me now, bigger than any single person. They’ll continue to grow, to expand, to evolve, even as the world focuses on tearing me down. And that’s the beauty of it. This isn’t about a figurehead. It’s about an idea.

I’ll keep inventing. That’s who I am; that’s what I do. But the real power of decentralisation is when you—yes, you—pick up the mantle. When you take the tools, the ideas, the systems we’ve laid down, and you run with them. When you stop waiting for someone to lead and start becoming part of the game yourself. That’s when it works. That’s when decentralisation stops being a concept and becomes a reality.

The point isn’t for me to stand at the centre. It’s for all of us to play. To build. To create. To compete in a way that drives us forward, not because we’re forced to, but because we choose to. That’s the power they don’t understand. That’s the system they fear. And that’s the future we’re creating—together. As they’ve attacked me, as they’ve poured their energy into tearing me down, they’ve missed the bigger picture. While they obsess over me, others have been building, quietly, steadily, completing projects and launching ideas into the world. The irony is that their focus on me has only given others the freedom to act, to create, to move forward without the weight of their scrutiny. This was never about me. Recognition has never been the goal. I’m here to achieve an end—to reach a destination that’s far bigger than any individual.

The goal has always been the same: distributed money. Money that flows freely across borders, money that cannot be stopped or silenced. But not for million-dollar transfers to drug dealers or criminal enterprises. That’s not where the real value lies. The true power of this system is in the everyday transactions—the $5 purchase, the $10 payment, the $100 transfer to family across the world, the $1,000 payment to a small business. That’s where the heart of this lies, in the small amounts that touch lives and connect people. That’s what makes a difference. That’s where the real revolution is happening.

And that’s what we’re achieving. While they fixate on me, this vision is becoming reality. The system is growing, evolving, proving itself in the real world. It’s not about grand gestures or hollow promises; it’s about practical, tangible results. And as they continue to focus on me, the work goes on. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t slow. It moves forward, driven by the people who see the vision, who understand what’s at stake, who know that the value of money isn’t in speculation but in use.

This is what they’ll never understand. It’s not about one person. It’s about a system that empowers everyone, that works not in grand, dramatic gestures but in the quiet, consistent flow of everyday life. And as they chase shadows, the work continues. The goal is being realised. The system is here, and it’s here to stay.

They don’t get it. They think I’m here to burn it all down, to build something twisted—assassination markets, drug markets, the kind of filth that feeds on the dark corners of the human soul. That’s what Roger and BTC Core has turned into, and the courts, well, they’re trying to paint me with the same brush, trying to censor me, trying to silence me. But they’re wrong. They don’t see the truth, or more likely and just maybe they just don’t want to.

What I’m fighting for isn’t chaos. It isn’t anarchy. It’s not a playground for criminals to run amok. No, what I want—what I’ve always wanted—is a system that’s fair. A system that’s real. One where people rise on their merit, on what they can do, on what they can bring to the table. Not a rigged game where the rules are written to keep people in their place, to protect the ones who were born with everything and keep the rest of us scrambling for scraps.

The system I’m arguing for is one where the butcher, the baker, and the brewer—the people Adam Smith talked about—aren’t chained to their lot in life, forced to stay small because the deck is stacked against them. It’s a system where effort and skill matter, where you can build something, make something, be something, without the weight of the world’s injustice crushing you before you start. It’s not about taking from others, not about some utopian fantasy where everyone ends up equal. It’s about giving everyone a shot, a fair chance to stand or fall on their own.

But the ones in power? They don’t like that. They don’t want fair. They want control. They’ll twist the narrative, say I’m building a system for criminals because they know that’s what scares people. They’ll point fingers and scream about the dangers of a truly free system because it’s easier than admitting they’re the ones propping up a broken one. They don’t want change. They want their world, their rules, their power. And they’ll do whatever it takes to keep it.

But here’s the thing: this isn’t about tearing down just to tear down. It’s about building something better. Not drug markets. Not assassination markets. Not crime. It’s about creating a system where the strata of society don’t lock you in, where the hierarchy isn’t rigged, and where the measure of a person isn’t their birthright but their ability. It’s about fairness. Equity. A chance to rise, to build, to leave something behind.

So let them try to silence me. Let them come with their accusations and their noise. Because what I’m building isn’t a threat to the world—it’s a threat to their world. And they know it. That’s why they fight. That’s why they fear. Because for the first time, the game isn’t theirs alone. And they hate that. If you can change the rules, then it’s the ones in power who will decide when and how those rules get rewritten. And don’t think for a second they’ll rewrite them for your benefit. They’ll do it to protect themselves, to keep their grip on the board, to make sure the game stays theirs to win. Like a rigged game of Monopoly where the rules shift halfway through, the house always wins. The ones who’ve already stacked up their properties, their hotels, their endless pile of cash? They’ll make damn sure the new rules favour them, locking in their advantage and crushing anyone who starts to rise.

That’s the trap. The illusion. The lie they sell you—that the system is fair, that the game is honest. But if the rules can bend, then fairness doesn’t exist. It’s a mirage, a pretty story told to keep you playing. And the moment you start to get ahead, the moment you threaten their dominance, they’ll flip the board. Suddenly, the rules don’t mean what they did before. What worked for them, what let them climb to the top, won’t work for you. They’ll make sure of it.

This is what happens when power is concentrated. When control over the rules—over the system itself—is held by a few. They don’t just play the game. They own it. And they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure no one else does. That’s why you can’t trust a system where the rules can change. A truly fair system doesn’t bend to the will of those in power. It stands firm, unyielding, giving everyone the same shot, no matter who they are or where they start.

Because if the rules can change, it’s not a game. It’s a farce. And the winners are decided before the pieces even hit the board.

The problem, as I see it, isn't just about politics; it's about forgetting who we are. Both the left and the right have sold their souls to incomplete visions of society. On the left, they’ve sacrificed the human connection, that neighbourly handshake, that shared meal after church, that local softball league. They’ve given it all away to the state. The state doesn’t smile back at you, doesn’t cheer when your kid hits a home run. The state is faceless, nameless bureaucracy. In their quest for equity, they’ve crushed the essence of what binds us together—our communities.

And then there’s the right. They wave the flag of individualism so hard, they forget that individuals don’t thrive alone. They’ve abandoned community too, but not to the state—no, they’ve left it in the dust in favour of some hyperactive dream of self-sufficiency. You see it in the empty church pews and the shuttered veterans' halls. They’ll preach about personal responsibility, but where’s the responsibility to one another?

Both sides are wrong. The left leans too hard on the state to solve everything, and in doing so, they rip away the foundation of community groups. The right? They’ve become so enamoured with their vision of the lone wolf they don’t see the pack crumbling behind them.

This isn’t new. In Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam warned us about the decay of civic life. He saw it—the bowling leagues disappearing, the Elks Clubs dwindling. When we stop showing up for one another, we stop growing as individuals. Real individualism, the kind that flourishes, only happens in the soil of community. It’s the balance of belonging and freedom. It’s being you while standing shoulder to shoulder with others.

What neither side sees is this: we’re not choosing between community and individualism. We’re choosing how to make them thrive together. The state can’t give you a neighbour. It can’t give you a friend. And your echo chamber of individualism won’t give you a helping hand when you’re struggling. It’s time to rebuild. To reclaim the bowling leagues, the bake sales, the places where we meet, argue, and laugh.

Without those, we’re lost. Not because we’re too individualistic or not individualistic enough, but because we’ve forgotten that community isn’t the enemy—it’s the answer. If I can see it—me, an autistic man who has spent a lifetime studying people from the outside in—then what excuse do you have? To fail to grasp the necessity of community, you must be blinded by something. Maybe it’s greed, the kind that’s disguised as ambition, the kind the right wraps in rhetoric about free markets and success. Wealth becomes the measure of everything, the final arbiter of value, and the people left behind? They’re just collateral damage. You call it progress, but you’re bulldozing the very foundation on which your so-called individualism stands. Without community, your riches are just empty trinkets in an echo chamber.

And the left? You’re not getting off easy here either. In your rush to champion the downtrodden, you’ve forgotten what they actually need. It’s not policies and platitudes, not endless government programmes that sterilise the human connection. Your social justice warrior mantra might be loud, but it’s deaf to the reality that the state doesn’t care. It can’t care. It doesn’t build relationships, it doesn’t nurture trust. You’re so busy patting yourselves on the back for fighting the good fight that you’ve thrown away the bathwater, the baby, and the tub.

What both sides miss is that it’s not about numbers. It’s not about flexing who has more—more money, more programmes, more legislation. That’s just a dick-waving contest masquerading as progress. Real progress isn’t measured in numbers; it’s measured in lives touched, in hands held, in the quiet moments where someone knows they’re not alone. And that doesn’t come from the state. It doesn’t come from some abstract ideal of hyper-individualism either. It comes from us. From community. From people stepping up, not because they’re forced to, but because they choose to.

Here’s the truth: the state never helps. It manages, it manipulates, it perpetuates its own existence. The only ones who help are us. Communities can lift each other up in ways the state never will. But if we hand over our rights, if we abdicate our responsibility, if we say, “Let the government handle it,” we’re not just losing control—we’re losing our humanity.

And don’t kid yourself: when you force others to comply, to give, to bend, you’re not building a better world. You’re building a cage. And the bars you erect for others? They’ll close around you too.

True freedom, true growth, true individualism—they only happen in a community that values choice, trust, and mutual care. Lose that, and you lose everything.

The man in the suit smiles, but it’s not for you. It’s never for you. His grin stretches thin like the promise of freedom sold by snake oil merchants. "You will own nothing," he says, his voice slick as grease. And you nod along, not because you agree, but because the world has made it hard to dissent. Hard to even think. BTC—they call it Bitcoin, but it’s a ghost of what it was meant to be. A digital ledger turned into a gilded cage. You won’t hold it. You won’t feel its weight in your wallet, the subtle hum of independence. No, it will rest safely on the servers of third parties, polished and guarded like jewels in the king's vault, out of reach for peasants like you. Saylor’s dream is your nightmare—credits on a screen, access granted not by your key but by the nod of a corporate guard.

BTC Core stands as the crooked embodiment of betrayal—a clumsy caricature of what Bitcoin was meant to be. Satoshi Nakamoto didn’t hand the world a tool for centralised elites to choke. He gave us a system that promised freedom, one grounded in immutability, scalability, and decentralisation. And here comes BTC Core, with its tech priests and gatekeepers, dismantling those promises brick by brick, pissing on the foundation while pretending it’s an improvement. First, immutability. “Set in stone,” Satoshi wrote. Not a polite suggestion, not a flexible roadmap, but a bedrock principle. Yet BTC Core treats the protocol like it’s some playground experiment, carving it up and tinkering like mad scientists drunk on their own arrogance. Consensus? Broad consensus? They spit on it. They’ve swapped out Bitcoin’s backbone for something malleable, fragile, a Frankenstein monster subject to the whims of a select few devs playing gods. Each fork, each so-called improvement, is a hammer blow to trust. If users can’t rely on the system being what it claims to be, what the hell is left? Faith in a handful of coders? Satoshi designed Bitcoin to eliminate trust, not to shift it from one centralised power to another.

The vision of #Bitcoin was never to cater to a select few lounging in the penthouses of financial privilege.

It was built for the billions, not the billionaires.

This statement is not merely a slogan but a clarion call to the masses, an assertion of the individual’s rightful power over their own financial existence. Beneath the layers of misinformation propagated by those who fear losing their monopolies lies the truth: a system designed to scale infinitely, capable of handling the smallest micropayments and the grandest commercial transactions alike, with efficiency unmatched by any fiat-based competitor. This creation stands as a testament to the power of technology guided by rational self-interest. It provides a platform where value can flow without interference, bypassing the gatekeepers who have long siphoned wealth under the guise of 'security' and 'stability.' Bitcoin's original protocol, like the industrial revolution itself, empowers those who produce, trade, and innovate, offering a framework for growth that recognises the individual as the fundamental unit of economic progress.

The greatest discovery of Columbus wasn’t gold, spices, or the imagined fountains of youth. It was something far more profound, far more simple, and yet infinitely more powerful: rubber.

Yes, rubber.

Not a chest of treasures but the black gold of progress. It wasn’t merely a material; it was a tool of transformation, the very sinew of industry.

Without it, the Roman Empire, the great architects of civilisation, could never transition from their stone gears to the mechanisms of steel.

Without it, the early Chinese, masters of gunpowder and paper, were doomed to stagnate, lacking the pliability that bridges invention to mass production.

Rubber isn’t just a commodity—it’s the lifeblood of motion, of machines, of endless potential. The Romans had the genius to build aqueducts, roads, and war machines, but they lacked the ability to cushion their carts or power their devices. Their wheels shattered on cobblestones because they were brittle. Their gears ground down because they couldn’t absorb the friction of their own brilliance.

Rubber could have changed that. It is flexibility incarnate—resilience made tangible. It is the bridge between imagination and reality.

And the Chinese, those early masters of invention, stagnated under the weight of rigid progress. They had paper but no typewriters, gunpowder but no reliable wheels for transport.

They were trapped, like the Romans, in a world where the inflexible crushed innovation under its unyielding weight. Rubber is not just a thing—it is the principle of adaptation. It is reason made elastic.

The Americas, with their rubber trees, held the secret. But the truth, like all truths, waited for the right time, the right minds. Columbus stumbled upon it like a drunk discovering fire, unaware that what he found wasn’t a resource but a revolution. It is the quiet material that whispers progress through the spokes of bicycles, the belts of engines, the boots of armies, and the seals of submarines. It gave the industrial age its breath, its movement, its heartbeat.

Rubber isn’t just the answer to why the ancients stagnated—it is the embodiment of why progress is born not from force but from flexibility, not from conquest but from discovery. It is the lesson of the Americas, the legacy of the world’s second wind. It’s rubber, and it’s everything. Without rubber, the industrial revolution would have been an impossible dream, a spark that never found its fuel.

Engines, motors, and the entire framework of modern industry depend on this singular material, not just as a convenience but as a necessity.

Rubber is not merely a component; it is the enabler. It is the unsung hero of motion, sealing the gaps, absorbing the shocks, and carrying the weight of human ambition.

Consider the steam engine, the early marvel that powered the industrial revolution. Without rubber, it would have been a clanking monstrosity of inefficiency. Steam engines rely on gaskets and seals to contain high-pressure steam, preventing leaks and maintaining efficiency. These seals, pliable and heat-resistant, cannot function without rubber or an equivalent. Without rubber, the engine is no longer a marvel of precision but a sputtering mess, incapable of sustained operation.

Now think of the combustion engine, the next leap in industrial evolution.

Fuel must flow, and air must breathe into the heart of the engine, but how does it get there?

Rubberized tubes.

Flexible, durable, and airtight, they direct fuel and air precisely where they need to go. Without them, the engine chokes, splutters, and dies. Rubber belts transfer power, insulating vibration and ensuring smooth operation. It is the silent workhorse of mechanical innovation, without which the roaring beast of industry falls silent.

And then, there are tires—the unsung champions of movement. The industrial age brought the train and the automobile, but without rubber tires, the car and trucks would never have conquered the world.

Tires absorb shock, provide traction, and enable speed. Even now, the tires of 747s, the giants of the sky, are made from natural rubber because synthetic substitutes cannot match its strength, elasticity, and resilience. Without rubber, there are no cars, no planes, no global economy. The world grinds to a halt.

Rubber didn’t just make industrial machinery more efficient; it made it possible. The Romans could carve their gears, the Chinese could ignite their gunpowder, but without rubber, they couldn’t build machines that could flex, move, and sustain. Rubber brought resilience to rigidity, mobility to invention. It turned the theories of steam and combustion into practical, unstoppable forces.

The industrial revolution wasn’t just about steel and steam; it was about sealing the gaps in the machinery of progress. It was about making engines that didn’t leak, wheels that didn’t splinter, and machines that didn’t grind themselves into oblivion. Rubber didn’t just aid the industrial revolution—it was its lifeblood. It remains so today, the unsung cornerstone of every motor, every wheel, every engine that powers our world. Without rubber, there is no modernity. There is no revolution. There is only stillness.