Let's View Displeasing Coins from an Anti-Authoritarian Perspective

When Bitcoin first emerged, the world was quiet. As numerous altcoins following Bitcoin appeared and coin prices soared hundreds of times, people were bewildered.

Let's View Displeasing Coins from an Anti-Authoritarian Perspective

When Bitcoin first emerged, the world was quiet. As numerous altcoins following Bitcoin appeared and coin prices soared hundreds of times, people were bewildered. When meme coins with dog and frog logos emerged, people clicked their tongues. Now, Bitcoin has become the most successful ETF in history, and we live in an era where the new U.S. president declares himself a 'Crypto President' and creates a meme coin named after himself and his wife.

Many are pondering how to view coins that constantly make them 'click their tongues' without giving them time to adapt. Let's view coins as a branch of the anti-authoritarian movement. Then, many displeasing things become understandable.

The Anti-Authoritarian Movement Alongside Civilization

As the rules governing human society evolved from violence to law and morality, anti-authoritarian movements have emerged worldwide. In 1215, the English made the king sign the Magna Carta, asserting that even the king must obey the law. The Renaissance movement of the 14th century, which turned the focus from the great God and church to humans, led to Martin Luther's Reformation. The Enlightenment movement of the 17th century challenged absolute monarchy and religious authority, laying the foundation for the French Revolution in 1789. As the awakened Europe created colonies worldwide with powerful armies, citizens of the 'Third World' opposed the authority of colonial rulers through nationalist and anti-imperialist movements. Our country's independence movement and India's nonviolent resistance movement are representative examples.

During the era when the military hegemony competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union intensified after two world wars, global citizens challenged military authoritarian regimes and social order through the '68 Revolution' that began in France. Movements opposing authoritarianism, such as the Prague Spring and the anti-Vietnam War movement in the U.S., spread worldwide, and this trend continues today. Even in our country, there was a president who dismantled the authority of the military regime and another who worked to dismantle societal authoritarianism.

What Does Coin Have to Do with Anti-Authoritarianism?

The biggest reason coins are perceived as unfamiliar and displeasing is because they are anti-authoritarian. Financial institutions that create, sell, and manage financial products are generally large, famous, trustworthy, and authoritative organizations. With globalization, financial companies in each country have formed alliances with global financial companies, and their names have become even larger with global authority. Consumers equate size and authority with trust, a phenomenon particularly strong in Asian cultures.

Coins are the opposite. They do not rely on the names of great companies or individuals with authority. The creator of Bitcoin, 'Satoshi Nakamoto,' is anonymous and still unknown. Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum, was born in 1994 and was only twenty years old when Ethereum was launched in 2014.

Brad Garlinghouse, the creator of Ripple, is a former Senior Vice President of Yahoo, but the authority of Ripple (XRP), with a market cap of $180 billion, seems insufficient to rely on. Justin Sun, the creator of Tron (TRX), was appointed as the Permanent Representative of Grenada to the WTO and acquired the grand title of "His Excellency Mr. Justin Sun, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of Grenada to the WTO," but this title does not establish the authority of the Tron network or Tron coin.

This is because Bitcoin, the ancestor of all coins, was designed that way. Bitcoin is philosophically based on cypherpunk, which inherited the anti-authoritarian spirit of the '68 Revolution. Satoshi Nakamoto is known to have designed Bitcoin by integrating ideas such as digital currency and decentralized networks discussed in the cypherpunk mailing list of the 1990s.

Ethereum, which added smart contract functionality to the decentralized, anti-authoritarian, trustless system of Bitcoin, was created in this way. Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX), Sui (SUI), Tron (TRX), and other so-called 'Ethereum killers' inherited the philosophy and functionality of Ethereum, improving speed and functionality. On various decentralized platforms created in this way, 'utility coins' designed to be used for specific functions have emerged, and coins have developed. Amidst the rise and fall of numerous coins, the principle of decentralization of Bitcoin has been continuously inherited. Only by not relying on the authority of a large central entity, that is, by having no authoritative entity, can it be a blockchain and a coin.

The emergence of meme coins, which seem like jokes to anyone, must also be understood in this context. Removing ideological and technical authoritarianism from coins and leaving only 'anti-authoritarianism' is precisely what meme coins are. Funny pictures or words from Reddit or Twitter (now X) are often used in the names or logos of meme coins, and there are no