While Americans use and acquire cryptocurrencies more than ever, independence day celebrations are increasingly reflecting this trend. There is a Fountain fireworks brand called “crypto” and many retailers who respond to the July 4 plans for customers Now take payment in cryptocurrency.
And it is a subject of conversation during the rallies of July 4, because many reflect on freedoms combat by the founding fathers. Like News News News Benzinga Crypto notes“While the day is important for all Americans, the cryptocurrency community takes on special satisfaction in the link between the day and the origins of Bitcoin, … rooted in the financial independence of the companies controlled by the State.”
These Americans who make crypto part of their vacation on July 4 are in fact – if without knowing it – pay tribute to the innovative spirit of the founding fathers, George Washington in particular. The characteristics of the cryptocurrency and the events that have fueled its growth would not have been only signatories to the declaration of independence, which would probably understand the cryptocurrency than the cryptocurrency than chatter class Going beyond crypto as attracting Americans in an unnecessary risk or adage He has “no use cases”.
As I write in my book George Washington, Entrepreneur: How the private commercial activities of our founding father changed America and Le MondeOur first president would have a particular understanding and probably a penchant for cryptocurrency. In the book, I write that Washington, as “a scholarship holder who kept detailed registers and used invisible ink”, would be “fascinated by encrypted books at the heart of cryptocurrency and his associated blockchain technology, which both promise new levels of confidentiality and efficiency in transactions”.
I show in my book that Washington, although lacking in university education, was a learner for life, a passionate reader and a knowledge researcher. He used this knowledge of reading and listening to build several innovative companies in a whiskey distillery (rebuilt by the Mount Vernon Modern in 2006) at the Mulets Reproduction Service in the United States
Washington was also a champion of the first American inventors and emerging technologies of his time, such as steam power and hot air balloons. After hearing about the new balloons that could transport human beings in the air at limited distances, Washington made an incredible prediction. He wrote in a letter that “our friends in Paris, in a little time, will come in the air, instead of plowing the ocean to go to America”. That he can consider long -distance plane trips before the invention of railways illustrates his foresight.
So, it is not an exaggeration to assume that Washington would discern the familiar crypto properties and would embrace technology, or at least the freedom of the Americans to use it. The three familiar properties that he would probably recognize in cryptocurrency is encryption, registers and the currency issued by private.
Encryption. The “crypt” of “cryptocurrency” refers to cryptography and encryption. Cryptography and encryption were there at the time of Washington, and he used them as general of the continental army.
Like those who have read the revolutionary book by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger Secret Six by George Washington or watched the AMC series Turn are aware, Washington and its Culper Ring spy network used invisible ink to match. Washington worked with doctor James Jay (brother of the future Supreme Court judge John Jay) to develop an ultra -modern ink that could only be visible with the use of another product. He would also use Secret codes and figures– Number groups to represent certain words – to communicate secret information. The recipient of the message would then decode it with a “key” which corresponded to these numbers to words, similar to the “private key” passwords held by the recipients of cryptocurrency.
Registers. In cryptocurrency, the blockchain works as a large distributed book, in which several users keep encrypted recordings of a transaction. While Washington and his contemporaries had not yet found a large distributed book and would not have the power of calculation to deploy it even if they had, Washington kept sophisticated books of its commercial transactions almost all its life. As I note in my book: “Since the age of 14, Washington has kept and preserved its … business registers.” Today, many of these books are available on the Mount Vernon website and highlight many of its innovative commercial operations, including the whiskey distillery.
Alternative money issued in private. As I note in the book, “the currency was still short in the colonies because Great Britain had no national banks or mints to directly issue its currency outside the motherland.” The colonists had a variety of exchange methods of foreign currencies such as Spanish dollars. Received in tobacco warehouses – deliberately issued promising tickets that were good in a number of tobacco warehouses in the colonies and later the original American states – began to be exchanged to buy other items as well. They have become an essential currency of Washington day.
As I point out in a paper For the Enterprise Competitive Institute, cryptocurrency “simply adds an electronic dimension to currency and private emitted tokens which existed thanks to a large part of the history of the world, because various articles assumed the role of money without the government playing a lot, if necessary.” Thus, Washington would recognize the use and the need for a currency on the private program and would probably consider cryptocurrency as an innovative and beneficial extension of the private money that circulated in its time.
Finally, Washington and other founders would probably see the advantages of the decentralized cryptocurrency as a mechanism to protect freedom, given the arbitrary actions of Gel bank accounts Taken by our neighbors to the north. In his farewell speech delivered towards the end of his presidency in 1796, Washington warned against “the spirit of encroachment” which “tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one and therefore to create, whatever the form of the government, a real despotism”.
Given the warning he issued, it is not an exaggerated to conclude that Washington would agree with this declaration on the cryptocurrency of PJ O’Rourke, a national treasure which died much too early in 2022. O’Rourke, who venered Washington and the other founders, said During a Cato Institute forum in 2018, “I am much more worried about the abuse of his police powers than people about individuals abusing their purchasing powers. This is therefore the case in favor of cryptocurrency.”
John Berlau is senior colleague and director of finance policy Competitive company Institute and author of the book George Washington, Entrepreneur: How the private commercial activities of our founding father changed America and Le Monde.
Harrison Cerone, research partner with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, contributed to this article.
