Bitcoin has the ability to empower artists and creators who may have gone unnoticed under a fiat standard.
I see bitcoin as an astonishing instrument. The more you pour yourself into it, the more of yourself comes out of it. The more you pour your dreams into it, the more your dreams become reality. The canvas is wide open, but a true masterpiece requires an extraordinary artist to create it. Bitcoin is money fit for kings, but you must conduct king-like behavior to see king-like results.
I worry a lot about incompetent gatekeepers who get to decide how money gets distributed. Perhaps they’re in charge of a foundation that claims to support living artists. Do they know high quality when they see it? Do they know how much someone really needs? Are they willing to give that much when they find out? Will they close their purse when they discover that someone’s political views differ from theirs?
This is why bitcoin excites me like nothing else: you don’t have to depend on these gatekeepers anymore! The game opens up and now there are thousands of players on the field when once there were only two or three. That one person with an extraordinary vision no longer has to depend on an extraordinary opportunity for funding. There is an explosion of new opportunities, whether for self-funding or for acting as a private patron and deciding that you want to help fund others. You get to bet on yourself like never before. The underdogs can make themselves heard.
Do you know exactly what you can do? Do you have an ambitious idea that only a small handful of potential sponsors would appreciate or understand? Well with bitcoin, and especially when we’re on a bitcoin standard, the likelihood increases dramatically that that rare person with a deep understanding of your potential has the resources to help you.
I can give you some personal examples, because from 2018-2019 I gave it my best shot as an art patron. Bitcoin gave me the opportunity to help living artists in a way that I never could have dreamed of in the years prior. Two opportunities in particular appeared out of the blue: one to send $5,000 CAD to the author Alexander Dawkins to help fund the publication of “Understanding Northwest Coast Indigenous Jewelry,” and another to send $10,000 CAD to the Haida artist Lyle Campbell to purchase a 40-foot red cedar log that would be used to carve a public totem pole as a memorial for his late mother. These were two of my favorite projects that I’ve ever participated in, and without having bitcoin as a long-term foundation neither would have been possible.
My dream is that the neglected genius suffers no more, or at least as little as humanly possible. That the rare artist and the rare patron are empowered to make even more idiosyncratic choices because they are on a bitcoin standard. Eccentricity and creative genius becomes the focus and a matter of pride and joy at a time when everyone can afford the basic necessities, because the money is no longer broken. That if you think you have something important to say, you get as many opportunities as you want to try and make a difference. And that we no longer have to keep silent because there wasn’t enough money to go around.
You are on the frontiers of what bitcoin is capable of. You get to decide – your ambitions, your dreams, your vision.
This is a guest post by Stephen Chow. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
