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A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin: A Path Toward a More Just, Equitable, and Peaceful World
A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin is for everyone who is starting to learn about Bitcoin and wants to understand the reality behind the buzz. Exploring the value proposition of Bitcoin through a progressive lens, Maier's book explores why Bitcoin is good for the environment, how it helps poor and marginalized communities, and why Bitcoin serves as a protest against too-big-to-fail all the people-centric reasons Bitcoin was created in the first place. This inspirational read, which requires no background knowledge, is a great starting point for anyone who is curious about Bitcoin beyond the boundaries of western privilege, clickbait headlines, and social media chatter.
“Jason’s book is outstanding, and fills a niche that has been seriously underserved until now —a treatise on Bitcoin for progressives. He thoughtfully walks the reader through the shortcomings of the current financial system and the benefits that Bitcoin can bring to people around the world.”
—Lyn Alden, Macro Economist and Investor
“In A Progressive’s Case for Bitcoin , Jason offers an uncommon perspective of how Bitcoin can be used as a tool for progressive social change. Through a combination of introspection and real-world case studies, Jason explores how Bitcoin can help to empower marginalized communities including the unbanked, those affected by hyperinflation and more.”
—Lamar Wilson, Founder, Black Bitcoin Billionaire
“ A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin offers a refreshing perspective on Bitcoin particularly suited for a more liberal voter. Maier writes with humility and clarity inviting even the most ardent Bitcoin critics to question their assumptions. It is one of the best books written on Bitcoin.”
—Dr. Mark Stephany, Physician and Host of The Progressive Bitcoiner
“—If you care about the environment, human rights, or equality, you need to read this book and share it with everyone you know who considers themselves to be a progressive. This is a must read book!”
—Dennis Porter, Co-Founder and CEO of the Satoshi Action Fund
“Jason Maier has written what may be the most consequential Bitcoin book to date. In our historical moment, everything is politicized, often before it is even understood. So it is with Bitcoin, a technology attacked by many on the political left and embraced by those on the right, but which is actually nothing more than a few hundred lines of code. The social, political, economic, and environmental consequences of Bitcoin have hardly been thought through. Maier shows how Bitcoin—yes, Bitcoin!--actually aligns with the deepest values of progressives and serves their highest goals, most surprisingly, aiding the fight against climate change."
“Reading this book, you realize that humanity is on the verge of a devastating mistake. Progressives have always pointed out injustices and critiqued systems of privilege. Yet, in a brilliant PR campaign, those very systems have enlisted progressives to protect themselves from being reformed or disrupted by an upstart technology. Maier’s book is a desperately needed corrective. He explains Bitcoin like a veteran teacher, breezes through arguments in a conversational style, yet his careful reasoning reminds you he is a mathematician. Open-minded progressives, and maybe even close-minded ones, will have to rethink their opinions on the possibilities and promise of neutral, digital money.”
—Troy Cross, Environmentalist and Professor of Philosophy, Reed College
C. Jason Maier is a teacher of mathematics with a personal conviction about how Bitcoin will reshape the world. More of Jason's writing can be found at www.bitcoinmagazine.com
“Jason’s book is outstanding, and fills a niche that has been seriously underserved until now —a treatise on Bitcoin for progressives. He thoughtfully walks the reader through the shortcomings of the current financial system and the benefits that Bitcoin can bring to people around the world.”
—Lyn Alden, Macro Economist and Investor
“In A Progressive’s Case for Bitcoin , Jason offers an uncommon perspective of how Bitcoin can be used as a tool for progressive social change. Through a combination of introspection and real-world case studies, Jason explores how Bitcoin can help to empower marginalized communities including the unbanked, those affected by hyperinflation and more.”
—Lamar Wilson, Founder, Black Bitcoin Billionaire
“ A Progressive's Case for Bitcoin offers a refreshing perspective on Bitcoin particularly suited for a more liberal voter. Maier writes with humility and clarity inviting even the most ardent Bitcoin critics to question their assumptions. It is one of the best books written on Bitcoin.”
—Dr. Mark Stephany, Physician and Host of The Progressive Bitcoiner
“—If you care about the environment, human rights, or equality, you need to read this book and share it with everyone you know who considers themselves to be a progressive. This is a must read book!”
—Dennis Porter, Co-Founder and CEO of the Satoshi Action Fund
“Jason Maier has written what may be the most consequential Bitcoin book to date. In our historical moment, everything is politicized, often before it is even understood. So it is with Bitcoin, a technology attacked by many on the political left and embraced by those on the right, but which is actually nothing more than a few hundred lines of code. The social, political, economic, and environmental consequences of Bitcoin have hardly been thought through. Maier shows how Bitcoin—yes, Bitcoin!--actually aligns with the deepest values of progressives and serves their highest goals, most surprisingly, aiding the fight against climate change."
“Reading this book, you realize that humanity is on the verge of a devastating mistake. Progressives have always pointed out injustices and critiqued systems of privilege. Yet, in a brilliant PR campaign, those very systems have enlisted progressives to protect themselves from being reformed or disrupted by an upstart technology. Maier’s book is a desperately needed corrective. He explains Bitcoin like a veteran teacher, breezes through arguments in a conversational style, yet his careful reasoning reminds you he is a mathematician. Open-minded progressives, and maybe even close-minded ones, will have to rethink their opinions on the possibilities and promise of neutral, digital money.”
—Troy Cross, Environmentalist and Professor of Philosophy, Reed College
C. Jason Maier is a teacher of mathematics with a personal conviction about how Bitcoin will reshape the world. More of Jason's writing can be found at www.bitcoinmagazine.com
- GenresFinance
243 pages, Paperback
Published April 13, 2023
8 people are currently reading
101 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 14, 2023
It seems as though many so called “no-coiners” in America focus on bitcoin’s price and see the Bitcoin movement fueled primarily by speculation. Jason was successful at parsing through many of the actual use cases for bitcoin and how vitally important the asset is for those that are unbanked/underbanked, live in financially oppressive societies seeking financial sovereignty, etc. For these people, the need for bitcoin is very real and a necessity. Bitcoin is and should be a bipartisan issue. I typically don’t subscribe to many progressive ideas, but I found this book refreshing and even learned a thing or two like the historical redlining by banks. I am encouraged that people like Jason are providing clarity on Bitcoin to those - specifically progressives in his political sphere - that otherwise may see it in a negative light. And I am encouraged that he has recently personally handed copies of his book out to civil servants in DC to further provide proper education.
May 13, 2023
Love that this is finally available after spending the last few years feeling the same way that Jason describes in the introduction. Glad to see his hard work has paid off and I’ll be sharing this with friends.
July 20, 2024
I loved this book as it clearly states what kind of problems the crypto-revolution can solve. It is an excellent introduction for the progressive layman, and also has plenty to offer for those who already did their recommended 100 hours of Bitcoin study.
But the main area of improvement is the altcoin blindspot. I can imagine why C. Jason Maier doesn't mention those. He tries to make Bitcoin the new World Reserve Currency, and with that aim, altcoins are just distractions. Personally, I think Bitcoin can never become a World Reserve Currency as it simply isn't built to scale. But Cardano is. I'll explain why in a minute; first, I need to explain the problem with Bitcoin.
Maier argues that ASICs are much more efficient than regular PCs to mine Bitcoin, so from an environmental perspective, it was an improvement when miners switched to ASICs. I disagree. Bitcoin mining used to be a background task, and therefore didn’t use any extra electricity. The switch to ASICs made that impossible. The quick rate in which ASICs need to be replaced is also an issue: the production of electronic equipment is one of the industries that negatively impact the environment the most. The book states that solar and wind energy has a variable supply, and Bitcoin uniquely is able to use that surplus energy, and can be turned off when energy is more expensive. But given the rapid speed in which mining rigs need to be replaced, it is not wise to turn those machines off for longer stretches of time.
The elephant in the room is that complexity of mining is just one of the symptoms of Bitcoin’s recentralisation. I can’t start a profitable mining business without needing to invest millions into ASICs and having to locate right next to a cheap energy source. This inevitably will decrease the number of miners worldwide. It will end up in fewer and fewer hands, making a 51% attack increasingly likely.
While the book is very convincing in its reasoning why Bitcoin mining isn’t that wasteful, there is another problem: scalability. The transactions per second will never surpass around 7 per second. This can only be extended by adding centralised layer-2 solutions (like the Lightning network) to it, that combine several transactions into one. It doesn’t really solve much, and it just adds to the recentralisation of Bitcoin. But okay, let’s imagine that this doesn’t matter, and it just helps worldwide adoption. What will that do to the energy usage of mining? There is an obvious correlation between adoption and energy usage. If Bitcoin becomes more widely used, the price rises, and mining becomes more lucrative, which in turn makes the competition in mining more fierce. Let us assume that this is linear (it is not; it likely is exponential, but for now let’s assume the best case scenario for now). Linear in this case implies that if the amount of active BTC addresses doubles, the energy usage also doubles. If Bitcoin becomes the new world reserve currency, the energy usage will go up as well. Based on mid-2021 data, we had 1 million active BTC addresses, which is 0.013% of the world population, and mining was around 121 TWh. If all 8 billion people would use Bitcoin, the energy usage would become around 1 million TWh, which is more than 5 times the current energy consumption of the entire planet. In other words: worldwide adoption is impossible.
Maier praises the Lummis-Gillibrand bill because it embraces innovation. However, this bill sees Bitcoin as a commodity while every altcoin is labeled as a security. Bitcoin is a great innovation; that’s for sure. But there is no roadmap for any improvements. Today, all the innovation in crypto is in altcoins. I often compare Bitcoin to the steam engine: it indeed started a revolution. But then came the combustion engine, or in crypto, that would be 2nd generation coins like Ethereum. It enabled innovation to really take off, but it still has its problems in terms of sustainability. The modern solution that is designed with the future in mind, is the electric engine: 3rd generation coins like Cardano, that really embraces durability. We shouldn't keep using steam engines because it used to be innovative. And neither should we remain Bitcoin maximalists.
Cardano took the scientific approach to develop a blockchain that is future-proof and ready for worldwide adoption, and then took years to implement these scientific recommendations. It is not merely a concept that solved the Byzantine General problem and not much else. It went the extra mile and wanted to truly deliver on the promises Bitcoin made.
Apart from this issue, the book makes a very strong case to let the layman truly think about having an alternative for the monetary system. And the proof it provides, is even more applicable to Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrencies like Cardano. These are much more technologically advanced, and WOULD be ready for worldwide adoption.
But the main area of improvement is the altcoin blindspot. I can imagine why C. Jason Maier doesn't mention those. He tries to make Bitcoin the new World Reserve Currency, and with that aim, altcoins are just distractions. Personally, I think Bitcoin can never become a World Reserve Currency as it simply isn't built to scale. But Cardano is. I'll explain why in a minute; first, I need to explain the problem with Bitcoin.
Maier argues that ASICs are much more efficient than regular PCs to mine Bitcoin, so from an environmental perspective, it was an improvement when miners switched to ASICs. I disagree. Bitcoin mining used to be a background task, and therefore didn’t use any extra electricity. The switch to ASICs made that impossible. The quick rate in which ASICs need to be replaced is also an issue: the production of electronic equipment is one of the industries that negatively impact the environment the most. The book states that solar and wind energy has a variable supply, and Bitcoin uniquely is able to use that surplus energy, and can be turned off when energy is more expensive. But given the rapid speed in which mining rigs need to be replaced, it is not wise to turn those machines off for longer stretches of time.
The elephant in the room is that complexity of mining is just one of the symptoms of Bitcoin’s recentralisation. I can’t start a profitable mining business without needing to invest millions into ASICs and having to locate right next to a cheap energy source. This inevitably will decrease the number of miners worldwide. It will end up in fewer and fewer hands, making a 51% attack increasingly likely.
While the book is very convincing in its reasoning why Bitcoin mining isn’t that wasteful, there is another problem: scalability. The transactions per second will never surpass around 7 per second. This can only be extended by adding centralised layer-2 solutions (like the Lightning network) to it, that combine several transactions into one. It doesn’t really solve much, and it just adds to the recentralisation of Bitcoin. But okay, let’s imagine that this doesn’t matter, and it just helps worldwide adoption. What will that do to the energy usage of mining? There is an obvious correlation between adoption and energy usage. If Bitcoin becomes more widely used, the price rises, and mining becomes more lucrative, which in turn makes the competition in mining more fierce. Let us assume that this is linear (it is not; it likely is exponential, but for now let’s assume the best case scenario for now). Linear in this case implies that if the amount of active BTC addresses doubles, the energy usage also doubles. If Bitcoin becomes the new world reserve currency, the energy usage will go up as well. Based on mid-2021 data, we had 1 million active BTC addresses, which is 0.013% of the world population, and mining was around 121 TWh. If all 8 billion people would use Bitcoin, the energy usage would become around 1 million TWh, which is more than 5 times the current energy consumption of the entire planet. In other words: worldwide adoption is impossible.
Maier praises the Lummis-Gillibrand bill because it embraces innovation. However, this bill sees Bitcoin as a commodity while every altcoin is labeled as a security. Bitcoin is a great innovation; that’s for sure. But there is no roadmap for any improvements. Today, all the innovation in crypto is in altcoins. I often compare Bitcoin to the steam engine: it indeed started a revolution. But then came the combustion engine, or in crypto, that would be 2nd generation coins like Ethereum. It enabled innovation to really take off, but it still has its problems in terms of sustainability. The modern solution that is designed with the future in mind, is the electric engine: 3rd generation coins like Cardano, that really embraces durability. We shouldn't keep using steam engines because it used to be innovative. And neither should we remain Bitcoin maximalists.
Cardano took the scientific approach to develop a blockchain that is future-proof and ready for worldwide adoption, and then took years to implement these scientific recommendations. It is not merely a concept that solved the Byzantine General problem and not much else. It went the extra mile and wanted to truly deliver on the promises Bitcoin made.
Apart from this issue, the book makes a very strong case to let the layman truly think about having an alternative for the monetary system. And the proof it provides, is even more applicable to Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrencies like Cardano. These are much more technologically advanced, and WOULD be ready for worldwide adoption.
August 13, 2023
Great read, though I really wouldn’t think of it as a partisan book. 95%+ of it is just a fairly in the weeds explanation of what bitcoin is and how it works. There’s a small amount of pleading with liberals that I guess would otherwise reject the technology, but personally (not being a liberal) I found those parts fairly off and irrelevant.
What he is really saying here — and he’s correct — is that bitcoin is a very important technology, it’s here to stay, and it’s non-partisan. I’d note that his explanations are just very good and helpful to anyone. I especially liked the explanations of how BTC is actually NOT terrible for the environment. On that point, I do think it’s super important to have liberal voices making sense of this.
More generally, the most compelling parts of the book for me were the tie-ins of the technology to simple political accountability. In the US, we have a massive non-partisan problem of extreme debt, which seems guaranteed to increasingly paint politicians into a corner. No doubt liberals will attack the wealthy. No idea what the conservatives will do (maybe flee?), but we are here because of politicians of all stripes that have consistently chosen the easy path of unaccountable spending. In the short run, we can look at insane inflation (e.g., I’m not one to believe real estate values are going up — they simply reflect massive debasement of the dollar). But there are other ideas in here as well — unchecked war power — that should concern all citizens.
All to say, the “progressive” side of this book may be overblown, but it’s nevertheless a great book.
What he is really saying here — and he’s correct — is that bitcoin is a very important technology, it’s here to stay, and it’s non-partisan. I’d note that his explanations are just very good and helpful to anyone. I especially liked the explanations of how BTC is actually NOT terrible for the environment. On that point, I do think it’s super important to have liberal voices making sense of this.
More generally, the most compelling parts of the book for me were the tie-ins of the technology to simple political accountability. In the US, we have a massive non-partisan problem of extreme debt, which seems guaranteed to increasingly paint politicians into a corner. No doubt liberals will attack the wealthy. No idea what the conservatives will do (maybe flee?), but we are here because of politicians of all stripes that have consistently chosen the easy path of unaccountable spending. In the short run, we can look at insane inflation (e.g., I’m not one to believe real estate values are going up — they simply reflect massive debasement of the dollar). But there are other ideas in here as well — unchecked war power — that should concern all citizens.
All to say, the “progressive” side of this book may be overblown, but it’s nevertheless a great book.
August 9, 2023
A superb high-level introduction to Bitcoin. It covers the essentials and examines Bitcoin's value through a progressive and social justice perspective. There's an excellent section debunking environmental misconceptions. I'd recommend this to my left-leaning friends seeking solid Bitcoin resources.
January 31, 2024
I read this book because my husband wanted me to. It was interesting and informative but a bit repetitive at times. Would recommend to people that want to understand bitcoin as more than what they see in the news.
August 24, 2023
A great summary of Bitcoin’s promise as a technology to tackle and solve many of the issues that are high on a classic liberal’s radar.
December 13, 2024
Book provides a good overall stance of the benefits of bitcoin. Does not heavily focus on progressives or political views
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews