"I knew that online digital cash was a great thing for libertarianism from the moment I heard of it… So, as soon as bitcoin came along I thought, ‘Oh my god here it is, it’s finally happening!’" In a Skype call from Tokyo, investor Roger Ver is explaining what first drew him to bitcoin, and his well-documented passion for the digital currency network is evident and infectious. "I think it’s [a chance] for the individual to be in complete control of his or her funds," he adds. Having been a prominent early investor in bitcoin startups, Ver is now putting most of his time into Bitcoin.com, a new forum and information platform which he set up due to a perceived lack of openness in the debate on existing forums. This drive towards openness and resistance to any top-down control, along with a reverence for freedom of choice as the ultimate right, is emblematic of Ver’s own mentality and that of libertarians as a whole. But beyond his enthusiasm in bitcoin, this interest has spread to the broader Libertarian community. But, what was it about the philosophical groundings of libertarianism that made it such a perfect ideological fit for bitcoin in the first place? The full story goes far beyond the world of cryptocurrency. The revolution today Libertarianism in America is a strange beast. According to the most recent Pew survey in 2014, more than one in 10 Americans identify as libertarian, yet almost 45% of survey respondents could not correctly identify a description of the ideology in a multiple-choice question. There’s a Libertarian candidate in the presidential race, but he’s expected to win less than 8% of the votes; even so, this makes him the most popular Libertarian presidential candidate ever by a long shot. Today, many libertarians proudly […]
