Opinion: Bitcoin and Ethereum will merge into a new digital Leviathan

Nature, the art by which God created and governed the world, was imitated, like many other things, by the art of man, so that artificial animals could be created... The gigantic creature called the Republic or State (Civitas in Latin) Leviathan was created by this art, and though it was much greater in size and strength than natural man, it was only created by man to protect him.

-Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

A metaphysical body

In his book Leviathan (1651), Hobbes described a commonwealth of nation-states as an “artificial man,” a political entity modeled after the human body: a gigantic human form constructed with its citizens as body and a monarch as head.

Each of the components of a nation contributes to the creation of a social contract. This strong social contract is what keeps the individuals cohesive and organized into a whole. Importantly, each of the individual components of the Leviathan body contributes their own variation or interpretation of the social contract, which in turn influences how the social contract manifests itself as a whole.

Hobbes believed that this social contract, along with the rule of a single absolute monarch, was the most powerful way to organize a state. A strong, undivided government could enforce the rules of the social contract and keep the body organized and functioning.

This has become even more true with the advent of democratic republics, where the “one person, one vote” system has been established, reflecting the contribution of each individual’s values ​​to the health and vitality of the nation as a whole.

Democracy is the tool through which individuals can integrate their personal values ​​and spirituality into the national social contract: the law.

Digital Leviathan

We have discussed this before, and both Ethereum and Bitcoin have their own "kingdoms", and each "kingdom" has its own Leviathan, which is composed of the code of the protocol and the individuals who use it. These new Leviathans make an important update to Hobbes's Leviathan theory: replacing the sole sovereign leader with unstoppable, publicly verifiable code.

Of course, Bitcoin and Ethereum will have roles like monarchs, prime ministers, presidents, or dictators. The role of enforcing the social contract is now replaced by running software code.

The responsibility of enforcing the code guidelines is split into millions of pieces and placed in the hands of the people.

The progress and development of the ancient Leviathans suggests that this is what the people who comprise them want. Throughout history, Leviathans have discovered mechanisms to formalize and prototype their social contracts into specific and clear laws. Progress in this endeavor is similar to building a nation's communications and transportation infrastructure. The more roads and cables a nation lays, the more integrated and comprehensive it becomes. Likewise, the more formalized and understandable its social contract is, the easier it is for the masses to follow. The effort to clearly lay out the rules that govern a nation means that the nation can expand its Leviathan into a more powerful beast.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are the new absolute sovereignty for these emerging nations. We haven’t eliminated the role of president, king, or dictator, we’ve automated it. Not only that, they’ve automated much of the necessary infrastructure to maintain the cohesion of the body: value and value management.

People’s bodies will always make up their nation-state Leviathan, but value is perceived, and there is nothing to stop the constituent parts of a Leviathan from choosing to perceive value in existence outside the boundaries of the Leviathan they constitute.

Leviathan is not made up of people, but of things that people consider valuable.

The migration of value from physical Leviathans to digital Leviathans is the footsteps for these Leviathans to establish themselves as real, growing life forms. If they hold and manage our value, we have an incentive to stick with these institutions.

The migration of currency is only the first outflow. After migrating the funds, we will migrate our identities.

As the Digital Leviathan grows in size and capability, it will come at the expense of the Physical Leviathan. This is not a zero-sum game, the Digital Leviathan exists to generate net value, but at the same time, the Physical Leviathan will suffer losses while the Digital Leviathan will have all the gains.

Bitcoin vs Ethereum

Perhaps this perspective provides an answer to why tribalism seems to be an integral component of the cryptocurrency industry.

Bitcoin and Ethereum are presidents, prime ministers, monarchs or dictators whose voters create their legitimacy and power.

Furthermore, I believe that Bitcoin and Ethereum will combine to become a more comprehensive digital Leviathan, and the large amounts of BTC flowing into the Ethereum network in recent months suggest that the two systems will merge into one larger system !

Cultivating our Leviathan

We are all part of our own Leviathan, and we all play a role in its growth and health. Leviathans thrive best on civic engagement and community (Gitcoon’s seventh round of funding launches in a week!).

Just like a baby learning to operate in an unknown environment, the developing Leviathan needs dialogue and community participation to understand the world it lives in. "Narratives" such as encryption, P2P electronic cash, world computer, digital gold, gas, DeFi, etc. are all conclusions given by these Leviathans based on their understanding. Through experimentation and failure, these things are discovering how to best operate for optimal development and health.

These digital Leviathans are leaderless, we have replaced the monarch with a protocol, and therefore we are all responsible for the health and growth of these new species.

The whole point of these systems is that they turn the tragedy of the commons into the festival of the commons, where using and aligning with these digital states adds value, rather than depletes it. However, every action still has a cost, and it is everyone’s responsibility as stewards of our own Leviathan to ensure that our own social contracts are upheld.

We have a very young Leviathan on our hands, and it still needs our care!

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