Why I Wear a Bitcoin Lapel Pin
“What’s that?”
This is how it starts. With a squint of curiosity at my jacket lapel, these two words express not only a simple inquiry but an opportunity to share some ideas I know will change the world.
I, like a freshly pressed vinyl album longing to be pick-up and played on any turn table, catch the eye of some passer-by with my jacket artwork. We let our guards down. We sit at a table. We share some food or drink. The needle on the record player falls into the groove we have made for ourselves.
This is how a song of ideas begins.
“Oh that,” I say, “is Bitcoin. It’s the symbol for Bitcoin.”
“What’s Bitcoin?”
I begin to explain. I’ve learned to be unafraid to say “blockchain.”
Jumping into a full-blown deep end of technical jargon is certainly ill-advised, but I’ve found a few new technical words are still needed to tickle the mind along with vivid metaphors and historical analogies.
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I make a point to say “blockchain,” for that is the pith of Bitcoin’s technological breakthrough. If only I could instill an understanding of that one word, “blockchain,” into the minds of everyone on the planet, it would make the world a better place overnight. Yet such being the stuff of dreams, I make and take each opportunity when and where I can, especially when someone asks me about my BTC lapel pin.
Reactions vary but everyone–my father, mother, brother, grandparents, aunts and uncles; my high school friends, college friends, part-time friends and petty acquaintances; the barkeeps, the waitresses, the bar soaked strangers, the bosses, the girlfriends, and the roommates–they all hear the passion of what I’m saying. They don’t always understand, not at first and some still yet, but they hear my intensity and how my wonder and awe overflows with the highs and lows of my inflection.
Ideas are much more visceral than we often realize, especially when expressed through the spoken word; they are the music of the mind as real as any street corner serenade. We should treat them as such.
Yet, how often do we get to hear the next great musician before their fame has unfolded? Or witness a soon to be classic song played live in studio as it’s recorded?
I recently met a man who had experienced just that. A man with an ear and touch for piano strings like no one else. A man requested by the stars of his day to make their pianos’ sing to their fullest. He was the man who tuned the Steinway piano for the Beatles’ recording of “Let It Be.”
Not only was he there to witness the making of a classic, his handy work had brought to bear the tone of what was forever captured to be heard and celebrated by millions of people he will never know but will have always touched.
Accordingly, how often do we get to speak of truly revolutionary ideas before they rise to the status of common knowledge?
I have often wondered if Bitcoin will prove to be such a phenomenon. I speculate that maybe we are seeing a marvel of tomorrow being built right before our eyes and ears. So I let the ideas of people much smarter than I be etched and pressed onto my mind so that I may share their music to the passers-by. And for this I hope to say I was a small part of making this beauty known to the world.
This is why I wear a Bitcoin lapel pin.
To get the conversation going and hopefully whisper words of wisdom of a future I wish to see brought to bear for all the world.