What makes for a "digital right?"
In meatspace we have life, liberty, and property and the right to defend them with force. But if someone hacks your email or a platform closes your access to it, who do you fight to defend those things?
If the answer is to self host your email or renounce the platform, you lose our on network effects and genuine conveniences they provide.
Bitcoin comes into the picture as a digital right that you can actually defend the same way you can defend your physical property.
- When you hold your keys, there's no limit to how well you can defend them.
- When you run a node, the cryptography and game theory of the network ensure that you cannot hold an invalid blockchain. And if you do, you're not part of the network.
- When you mine at scale, you are no longer beholden to the wider hashrate to see your transactions get confirmed. Even if you just mine on personal hardware, you are contributing to the collective defense of the entire network.
Bitcoin may well be the first "digital right" in Bastiat's sense of the world. A natural, defensible right that emerges from the individual in a world where such a right may never have existed before.
Jay
npub10m…x27hf
2026-05-23 15:08:58 CEST
Author Public Key
npub10mtatsat7ph6rsq0w8u8npt8d86x4jfr2nqjnvld2439q6f8ugqq0x27hfPublished at
2026-05-23 15:08:58 CESTEvent JSON
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"pubkey": "7ed7d5c3abf06fa1c00f71f879856769f46ac92354c129b3ed5562506927e200",
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"content": "What makes for a \"digital right?\"\n\nIn meatspace we have life, liberty, and property and the right to defend them with force. But if someone hacks your email or a platform closes your access to it, who do you fight to defend those things?\n\nIf the answer is to self host your email or renounce the platform, you lose our on network effects and genuine conveniences they provide.\n\nBitcoin comes into the picture as a digital right that you can actually defend the same way you can defend your physical property.\n\n- When you hold your keys, there's no limit to how well you can defend them.\n\n- When you run a node, the cryptography and game theory of the network ensure that you cannot hold an invalid blockchain. And if you do, you're not part of the network. \n\n- When you mine at scale, you are no longer beholden to the wider hashrate to see your transactions get confirmed. Even if you just mine on personal hardware, you are contributing to the collective defense of the entire network.\n\nBitcoin may well be the first \"digital right\" in Bastiat's sense of the world. A natural, defensible right that emerges from the individual in a world where such a right may never have existed before.",
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}