What Is The Ideal Bitcoin Culture?

It is up to us as Bitcoiners to decide what values we want to represent in the community and the industry.

Teggy Altankhuyag is the COO and Co-Director of Coinfloor.

This is a time of great change and great opportunity — both for the finance sector and, more widely, for society. We in the Bitcoin industry are actively participating in the evolution of money. There’s no denying that our current financial system has its benefits, such as affordable and fast banking and payment processes for some consumers, but it also has many drawbacks that, until recently, were not possible to address. The current financial system is centralized and enables inflation and exclusivity. The users don’t have choice or power over the impact it has over them. Furthermore, these standards have a wider, graver influence. As humans, our actions became more inflationary and more exclusory. In my view, this is evident in how we consume resources without regard to the impact we have on other species and our planet.

Bitcoin is already contributing toward changing this by providing us with an alternative system. Public blockchains encourage everyone to rely less on central parties and be more independent and responsible with their money. By reducing inefficiencies in the current system, it also allows us to concentrate on more important societal matters like reducing financial crime, achieving better financial inclusion and, perhaps most importantly, promoting values designed to empower its users to be more responsible.

Driven By Values

In my opinion, this last goal is something that everyone involved with Bitcoin should aspire to — for the promotion of a financial system that will benefit all of humanity and our environment. Our industry is new, and its culture is still developing. We have the chance to shape its culture into something that’s driven by values; something that encourages and enables us to act in a more sustainable, reliable and inclusive way than anything that’s gone before.

Indeed, the basis for such a culture is embedded in the Bitcoin code: Bitcoin doesn’t discriminate on the basis of race, creed, gender or nationality. It’s up to us to work from this base and apply it to our everyday work and life. We can encourage, collaborate and appreciate — even celebrate — our differences. We can stop competing against each other and start competing against poverty, injustice and unsustainable practices instead.

The Next Step

Some people may think this is a little idealistic, but I’m confident we can bring about these cultural changes and become a truly great industry. After all, collaboration and our ability to work together successfully have already brought us to where we are today.

Taking the next step requires us to identify the values and principles we want to live by then sharing and acting on these. Evangelizing and taking deliberate actions — however small — will help us make sure we’re continuously growing as an industry and progressing toward achieving our goal of a values-driven culture.

We’re not there yet, of course, and there are obstacles in the way that we need to overcome; I’ll explore these in more detail in my next post. For now, I’d ask you to consider what your ideal Bitcoin industry culture would look like, and which areas you could tackle as part of this ongoing evolution. Each of us has an opportunity to contribute to our combined success — which action will you choose?

This is a guest post by Teggy Altankhuyag. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.