I’ve been reading The Internet of Money by Andreas Antonopoulos recently.

You can buy the book here, it’s based on his lectures from a few years ago now!

https://aantonop.com/

![image.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/revisesociology/23xATpg7r99pn8ruNxmWXGMC38wnLkLPuhiZQQEmZn79y7FekhAEwomKoPvn2nUYTygD3.png)

Below I’ve selected a few quotes from chapter three which is on Bitcoin in relation to identity, privacy and surveillance and I must say it's very sociological, which appeals to me! 

Below I’ve selected a few quotes from chapter two which is on Bitcoin in the context of the history of money, and offer a few thoughts...



Neutrality, decentralization and privacy are some of the key features of bitcoin that make it so so special. 

Remember that bitcoin is not merely a currency but a broader concept: the concept of completely decentralized, network-based, flat networks for providing trusted applications. Currency is just the first app.

_Reinforcing what was said in previous chapters._

### Banking: Liberator to Limiter 

The history of human civilisation is one of social and economic systems developing, which typically happens over hundreds of years, and power gradually settles, becoming more and more centralised which leads to increasingly corrupt systems (because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely).  

Then new technologies emerge and disrupt those centralised systems, liberating those without power, but then new systems emerge in which power over those initially disruptive and liberating technologies becomes more and more centralised and corrupt, and so on. 

For example, when the banking system first emerged it was a disrupter - it gave ordinary people access to capital and finance whereas before it was only Kings who had access to finance, but now banking is centralised and no longer a liberating force.  

Similarly industrialisation disrupted the feudal order, but industrialisation also became centralised as huge corporations came to dominate industrial processes. 

_Very sociological this: but a rather simplistic, modernist theory in which there is a central dynamic behind systems development, things are almost certainly more unpredictable in reality, so maybe this is just a narrative that fits his computer science background._
			
### Negative Outcomes by Design, Not Intent

It is the architecture of systems that produces outcomes (an observation from his work as a computer scientist working with distributed systems). 

Hierarchical systems such as the banking system favour sociopathy so it is sociopaths that rise to the top (not the nice people, and there are plenty of bankers who are nice people), and hence we have negative outcomes - the banking system starts to express nativism, nationalism, tribalism, class structure, and all of these things make the world a smaller place.	
		
Communications Expanding While Access to Banking Is Declining
Over the last 15 years the internet has decentralised communications, it has been a liberating force because it has given billions more people easy access to information and communication, resulting in an emergent global culture. 

However economic inclusion has been decreasing because the institutions of finance are parochial, insular and separated. They raise walls which results in differences in how people’s finances are treated. 

It is the combination of state and money that produces toxic results - different systems of money for sending small and large amounts of money, different systems for consumer and business transactions and these are separated geographically based on borders. People are less and less free to interact globally where money is concerned.

_Personally I buy this, a straightforward critique of the problems of centralised power._		
				
					
### New Architecture, New Access

Bitcoin’s architecture gives us a new way of organising the global money system which is liberating for ordinary people, in a similar way to how the internet liberated communication. 

The internet flattened access to communication, made communication more equal because it is a peer to peer system: If you have and IP address, your packets are treated no differently to anyone else’s. For the most part the internet gives a voice to everyone, for example through desktop publishing everyone effectively has access to a printing press. 

Bitcoin will do the same by giving everyone the power of banking on a global scale. We can think of the architecture of Bitcoin like desktop banking - individually controlled banking with all of the power of the largest bank in the world. 

Bitcoin architecture allows every person in the world not only to execute transactions but also to create complex financial systems and instruments without asking for anyone’s permission. Simply by connecting to the network, anyone can start a new application. 

In contrast, in a centralized system, if you want to build a new application, you must first ask permission, and permission is only granted if those in power think your application will work in their own interests. 

In a centralized system, the further out you are, the less control you have. The closer you get to the system, and the farther you move up the hierarchy, the more controlled, the more limited the access is. 

On the internet or on bitcoin, all that is needed to start an application is two nodes, two people, two systems. They can start communicating, construct their own protocols, their own systems, and that application with only two people using it is just as valid as every other application on the network.

_A development here of previously mentioned themes of the liberating nature of network centric systems. Very interesting point about how banking as usual hasn't been keeping pace with communications technology._
		
### Net Neutrality and Non-Discrimination

Net neutrality is the key feature of the internet - the internet itself does not discriminate on the cases of source, destination or content. 

Bitcoin is the first financial network that exhibits neutrality. In a bitcoin transaction, the network doesn’t care about the source, the destination, the amount or what type of financial application it’s supporting. The only relevant question is, did you pay a sufficient fee to use the network resources? And if you did, your application is valuable. 
				 	 	 						
### There Are No Spam Transactions in Bitcoin

The concept of spam rests on the premise that whatever content is defined as spam is not as valuable as content which is defined as not-spam, but this rests on a value judgement which in turn is made by whoever controls the network. 

With Bitcoin there are no spam transactions because as long as someone can afford a transaction fee, the network cannot discriminate against that transaction.  
	
This is the foundation of the democratization of finance. 

_I think the premise of the first section is undermined by the second - Bitcoin only allows access to those who can afford the fees! Maybe a case for the power of Hive here - very cheap to interact compared to bitcoin!_
					
### Network-Centric Money

Bitcoin is not a mere digital currency, digital currencies have existed since for decades. The Dollar and the Euro are both digital currencies… less than 10% exist in digital form, the rest are in bits, on ledgers, but they are controlled by centralised organistions. 

Bitcoin is different, it runs on a decentralised open network. 	
			
Hence Bitcoin isn’t a digital currency. It’s a cryptocurrency. It’s a network-centric money.

Such a network that allows you to replace trust in institutions, trust in hierarchies, with trust on the network, a network over which no one has control. 

_A useful reminder: CBDCs aren't crypto, especially now we are hearing a lot more about them!_ 	 	 		
			
				
### Totalitarian Control over All Financial Transactions

Since the 1970s the dream of governments has been to create centralised digital currencies without privacy, under surveillance, such that every financial transaction can be viewed by those in power. 

This system rests on KYC, which actually excludes the majority of the world’s population who have no access to it. 			
					
### Censorship of Financial Transactions

If you’re prepared to give up your identity you can establish a bank account, credit and a brokerage account in hours, which is something, but the same powers that giveth can also take away! 

WikiLeaks, for example,  was completely cut off from the world’s financial system simply with extrajudicial pressure applied on the few major payment providers: Visa, MasterCard, the banking transfer system, PayPal, etc. 
This means that nation states are able to apply pressure with no legal recourse on global financial institutions and prevent activist organisations from functioning in the FIAT world. 

The dream of nation-states, to create a totalitarian financial system, died on January 3rd, 2009, with the invention of bitcoin and the mining of the genesis block. 

_Fair enough, we need reminded over and over again that with banking we have no control over 'our' money!_
		 	 	 		
### Network-Centric Money Is Censorship Resistant	
	
Bitcoin is censorship-resistant. You cannot control where money is transmitted in bitcoin. It’s not attached to identities or geography. In bitcoin, surveillance of everyone is not possible. In bitcoin, censorship resistance is a function of neutrality, the architecture of a flat network without borders.  	 	 		
				
### Sousveillance, Not Surveillance

In this section Antonpoulos contrasts privacy with secrecy. Privacy is a human right and secrecy is a privilege of power.

- Privacy is the right not be surveilled by the powerful. 
- Secrecy is the power of the very few to escape accountability 

Where the financial system is concerned, billions of people have no privacy because their transactions are visible because they are surveilled and sometimes intelligence services and banks collaborate to the extent of freezing people’s assets. 

However many corporate and government transactions are completely opaque, they are secret, they are not accountable. 

This world is upside down. Bitcoin rights it. 

We need to flip the system upside down because Privacy is a human right because that is a cornerstone of the freedoms of expression and  association while secrecy is the basis of the continuing centralisation of power and the corruption that goes with it.

We need to live in a world where secrecy is fickle and easily pierced, where power has to face accountability because they are under the spotlight of transparency. 

Sousveillance is the opposite of surveillance. Surveillance means to look from above; sousveillance means to look from below. 

Historically modernity has been founded on a system of surveillance, on the few observing the many. 

There is a basic problem with this model - it is very difficult to maintain a system in which the few observe the many. 

Bitcoin is one of the first steps in the transformation from surveillance to sousveillance. 	

_Right on! Very sociological. Although we have had sousveillance in politics of a form for a long time in our society, through social media, albeit with the platforms being centrally controlled, another plus for Hive!

### Bitcoin the Zombie of Currencies
	
The ability to transact across borders means that we will now be able to extend financial services to billions of people who have no access. 

All it takes for people to be able to access Bitcoin is a phone close enough to a cell tower and charging facilities, which is already most places on earth. 

And that gives them access not only to money, but effectively to a bank. 

With a mobile phone I have a Swiss bank in my pocket, with the ability to generate 2 billion addresses off a single seed and use a different address for every transaction. That bank is completely encrypted, so even if that phone is unlocked, I still have access to my bank. 

_I love the way he throws in these subtle reminders of the power of crypto - not just control over currency, but over the mechanisms that allow you to generate currency, although maybe that didn't work out too well in that crazy DEFI Spring of 2021!_

### Currencies Evolve

Will governments try to  ban bitcoin? Do you think they will try to regulate it out of existence? Even if they do Bitcoin will evolve into something new to resist these attacks. 

Bitcoin is a dynamic system with software developers that can change it. If governmental predators attack bitcoin anonymity, it evolves to become more anonymous. If they attack its resilience, it evolves to become more decentralized.	

This is because In network-centric systems, attacks cause the system to adapt, evolve, and become more resistant.

### Attacks Build Resistance

Denial-of-service attacks used to take down Yahoo, AltaVista, and even Google for hours, sometimes days. What happened between then and now? How many times have you seen Google go down in the last five years? These attacks haven’t stopped, applications have just become more resilient. 

Governments They already are. They have been, almost since the beginning, and it is under a constant denial-of-service attack, that is on the internet being attacked by hackers, by agents, by other systems, 24 hours a day. It is one of the biggest honeypots out there, after all!

But Bitcoin keeps on getting stronger! 

_OK a utopian sounding ending, unfortunately I don't have the technical expertise to comment on the capacity of bitcoin to keep evolving, but I guess the evolution of many other cryptos shows that this is happening!?!