The Dharma of Bitcoin

How adaption of theology maintains dominance

In high school, we studied the worlds religions and their history and one thing always stood out to me, and that was the history of Hinduism, its near usurpation and reconquest afterward.

After the Buddhas death, Buddhism spread throughout the subcontinent of India into China and central Asia. The original Vedic religion that Indo-Aryans brought with them to the subcontinent was, over time, slowly molded and changed with new ideas being developed internally as well as external interactions with Buddhism and Jainism.

Around 200 B.C. there was a synthesis of Hindu beliefs incorporating Buddhist and other religious traditions into it. As Buddhism continued to focus on the monastic tradition this caused a disconnect between the public and the priestly class, where Brahmanic practitioners reinvigorated the popularity of the ancient religion through the worship of Vishnu and other popular gods. Their ability to recognize market forces, interact with consumers and incorporate proven winning strategies gave them a competitive edge. Over time Hinduism regained its dominance of the Indian Subcontinent and continues to this day.

I would argue that it was able to regain its status by incorporation of competition and flexibility in theology. It found the aspects of its competitors that people liked and were attracted to and incorporated that into practices and/or the virtuous characteristics in its pantheon of gods.

Bitcoin will continue to gain market share through this very concept. Other projects like Monero or Zcash can tout privacy as a selling point that Bitcoin doesn’t currently have. However, as we already see, technology like CoinJoin and other mixers are bringing aspects (not the same or perfect) of privacy to Bitcoin already. If the tech found in Monero or Zcash proves beyond a doubt to be viable long term who’s tradeoffs make sense, Bitcoin can merely adopt it as well and destroy the use case of that competitor.

As an investment thesis in terms of Bitcoin over other projects, this is the most compelling one that I can see. Sure your coin or token can now do X that Bitcoin doesn’t, but in 18 months after you’ve done all the hard work and spent the VC’s money, Bitcoin can just take that and put it in the next version and with one merge on GitHub the entire pitch to investors of “why us, not Bitcoin?” is gone.

An interesting thing, however, is the development of the Bitcoin SV purists who reject this view of Bitcoin and wish to stick to the original Veda’s (the oldest scriptures in Hinduism) with all additional incorporations into the faith being a form of heresy and muddying the purity of belief.

The Hindu example shows that those who do not adapt, those who hodl to the rigidity of original structures dwindle; they may survive in small numbers but they never thrive. Those who adapted that which the market has shown is true and incorporated it into themselves were able to compete at a higher level and ultimately survive and grow.