Interestingly, many of the ideas behind Bitcoin first emerged among a group of thinkers preparing for extraterrestrial contact
The
extropian movement of the 80s and 90s was based on the belief that humans could use technology to radically improve civilization, explore the cosmos, and eventually meet other forms of sentient life.
A group of extropians concluded that humanity would need to digitize its monetary system in order to accelerate our collective evolution and make space travel possible.
The group included
Hal Finney and
Nick Szabo, cryptographers whose early advocacy of digital cash laid the groundwork for the emergence of Bitcoin.
Finney and Szabo have both been speculated to be
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, based on their contributions to cryptography. Finney received the first Bitcoin transaction ever, and Szabo has the distinction of being deemed “most likely to be Satoshi” by Elon.
Bitcoin’s historical roots in the extropian movement has meant that alien-talk hasn’t had the same stigma with crypto folks that it does elsewhere.
For example, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, worth nearly a $100 billion dollars, said he
99.99% believes in aliens, and even suggested that they could operate in
other dimensions: “They could look very similar to us but they could as well be very different to us in such a way that we can not really interact with them.”
Whether they’re right or wrong about ETs, the extropians were onto something when they talked about digitizing Earth’s money for outer space.
Whenever humans establish a lasting presence in space, they’ll need a way to transact.
Crypto makes more sense than anything else because it is portable, easily transferrable, and doesn’t rely on banks, governments, or other centralized earthbound entities for validation.
If aliens use money, there’s a good chance it operates on the same principles as Bitcoin.
