VIDEO: Lyn Alden Responds to Ben McKenzie’s Bitcoin Claims on The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

I’d venture it’s a weak assumption that many of us Progressive Bitcoiners may indeed also be longtime fans of Jon Stewart. So as a longtime Bitcoiner myself as well, it’s incredibly frustrating to see misinformed takes like that of Ben McKenzie recently on “The Weekly Show,” misleading the very people we here most often try to bring along on the nuance of Bitcoin vs. the scam that is cRyPTo.

Lyn Alden does a great job in the video below responding to Ben’s mis-takes. And granted, many of Ben’s criticisms of the Trump administration’s grift are completely valid and very likely true. We don’t want that shit either! We agree with you there, Ben.

(Which is why Jason Maier’s article in Bitcoin Magazine, “When Bitcoin Picks a Political Side: Faith, Freedom, and the Fault Lines of Political Power,” does a fantastic job of laying out this very risk which many of us foresaw when influential leaders in the Bitcoin/Crypto space, like David Bailey, decided to align themselves with Donald Trump in 2024. 🤦🏻‍♂️. Worth the read.)

And yet, Ben still misses the nuance of what Bitcoin is outside of wider-cRYpTo.

Bitcoin is not a gamble. It is not a speculation. It is not even an investment. It’s also not a GET-RICH-QUICK SCHEME (although yes, some—those who figure this all out sooner than others—have and more may); rather instead, we can say Bitcoin is more akin to a DON’T-GO-POOR-SLOWLY PROTOCOL (through loss of purchasing power by debasement due to monetary inflation caused by the Central Banks’ inevitable and mandatory printing of fiat currency, out of thin air, in order to avoid defaulting on insane debt).

Bitcoin is an open protocol with network effects. And as an open protocol (WHICH CAN’T BE SHUT DOWN), it is a public utility, providing a globally decentralized, permissionless means of savings. Bitcoin is the savings account of a more fair economic system for 8 billion people who no longer want a small group of Central Bankers to dictate monetary policy that steals the value of the time they spend working to earn that money currency.

THAT’S IT. AND ALTHOUGH IT LIKELY IS THE LARGEST WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN, STOP THINKING ABOUT BITCOIN AS A WAY TO *MAKE MONEY*.

Or as Michael Saylor figured out in 2020:

#Bitcoin is not a currency, nor is it a payment network. It is a bank in cyberspace, run by incorruptible software, offering a global, affordable, simple, & secure savings account to billions of people that don’t have the option or desire to run their own hedge fund.

— Michael Saylor (@saylor) November 12, 2020

Where we now find ourselves makes sense. When you realize the revolution—hyperbolic though that word may seem to be to say—of what Bitcoin IS, it makes total sense that scammers, like flies to light, would inundate this change—this revolution—in this field, the field of money, to grift and attempt to make money currency quickly, taking advantage of the confusing nuance. We must do better at emphasizing the difference. And of course this is confusing to most because, “Wait, isn’t Bitcoin a ‘cRyPTOcurrency’?” as they ask, head tilted askew. The nomenclature hasn’t been updated in the minds of 98% of people who haven’t yet obsessively listened to 40,000 hours of Bitcoin podcasts at 4x speed.

Ben McKenzie somewhat correctly sees the scam of crypto, but he is misapplying this distorted lens to Bitcoin. He seems to be coming from a well-intentioned place; still, missing this critical nuance and lumping Bitcoin in with the rest is dangerous. Bitcoin acquisition is a global race of geopolitical game theory. Time is on no one’s side. The longer it takes those on the Left to grok Bitcoin, the less Bitcoin there eventually will be for those from our side of the aisle. (Not that the Left/Right aisle dynamic is one to reinforce; it’s obviously more like Top/Down…)

Tick tock.

Worth the watch:

#StudyBitcoin. UPGRADE YOUR DENOMINATOR.