This is the first in a series of adapted excerpts from “Bitcoin Is Venice” by Allen Farrington and Sacha Meyers, which is available for purchase on Bitcoin Magazine’s store now[1].
The below is a direct excerpt from the book’s foreword, written by Alex Gladstein.
What if the year was 1400, and you stood at the brink of the Renaissance but didn’t know it? What if someone handed you a magical book that would explain what the coming Renaissance was, reveal the injustices and inefficiencies of the medieval system, and foretell why and how things would change in the coming decades?
What you have in your hands, dear reader, is a book that will do just this for you today, as we approach the Bitcoin Renaissance.
Humanity has potentially begun a historical transformation on par with the agricultural and industrial revolutions, and one with potentially even greater impact.
That may sound outlandish, but this book makes a compelling argument that it is, in fact, true. In the same way that medieval Venice set the stage for the peoples of Europe to break free of the empire and transition from serfdom to liberty, and from financial slavery to financial sovereignty, today the Bitcoin network is the path to escaping the broken and unsustainable post-1971 political economy.
In newspapers and on television we are told not to worry about inflation, that employment is more important than saving, and that we can own nothing and be happy. We should be satisfied, in other words, to work for those who own the assets, just as we watch their wealth continue to grow and concentrate, while we see the currency that we earn depreciate and see our way out of debt vanish.
This book is a stunning rejection of this emerging
