Bitcoin & AI: From Libertarian Exit to Democratic On-Ramp

Key Takeaways

• Perspective on how Bitcoin is evolving from a tool for libertarian exit to a bridge into global capitalism.
• Analysis of AI's role in democratizing education and expanding access.
• Discussion on how new technologies serve as on-ramps, not just mechanisms to escape legacy systems.

While living in Brazil, I attended the wedding of the daughter of a driver who worked for my family. In Brazil, drivers are not just transportation; they are protectors, often extensions of the family, safe harbors in a turbulent world. The wedding was held a fifteen-minute drive outside of São Paulo, one of the world’s largest cities. During the reception, a plane flew overhead, and a little boy tugged on my sleeve, asking if I had ever been on an airplane, if I had ever visited the great city of São Paulo. His world ended just miles from us. That moment has never left me. It revealed how disparities in opportunity can coexist with geographic proximity. The gap between developed and developing nations isn't about wealth as much as access.

I thought of that boy earlier this week when I heard Peter Thiel's remarks again. These were initially delivered in 2024 when Bitcoin was trading around $60,000. Thiel stated, “I’m not sure it will go dramatically higher from here.” He also reflected, “The original idea behind Bitcoin was supposed to be this libertarian, anti-central-government mechanism… That was what excited me initially. It doesn’t seem to have worked quite that way.” After an extended period of consolidation, these words carried even more weight. In Thiel’s view, the asset once symbolizing rebellion had become institutionalized, traded via ETFs (ETPs, sorry), accepted by governments, and absorbed into the mainstream financial system. But what he saw was perhaps just the middle of the story.

For billions still excluded from stable finance or fair opportunity, Bitcoin’s function has changed: from a libertarian exit tool to a democratic on-ramp, a bridge into global capitalism, not an escape from it. Thiel's remarks also symbolize a deeper shift beneath the surface—a quiet transfer of power. As I wrote in “Bitcoin’s Silent IPO,” the current consolidation is not a failure but a liquidity event. Those early believers, cypherpunks, miners, and investors who pulled Bitcoin from obscurity into legitimacy are now realizing the rewards of their initial faith. They are selling not out of fear but out of accomplishment. Thiel’s comments perfectly encapsulate this transition: the libertarian founders who built the system are now stepping aside, transferring ownership to the institutions and individuals who will carry it forward. Ideological differences or opportunity costs are irrelevant. They are moving on. Just as an IPO distributes a company’s shares to a broader audience, this stage is distributing Bitcoin ownership to global users. This is how an idea born of rebellion begins to stabilize, how liberty morphs into infrastructure.

From Liberty to Accessibility

Libertarianism and democratization share the theme of freedom, but their meanings diverge sharply. Libertarianism is freedom from control; democratization is freedom to participate. The early architects of the internet and crypto were inherently libertarian, visionary pioneers committed to breaking down information gatekeepers, decentralizing power. Yet most were well-educated insiders, privileged with the resources to opt out of legacy systems. Their pursuit was sovereignty, not inclusion. The challenge now is extending this freedom to those who lack the tools, education, or infrastructure. Democratization is the process of liberty becoming accessible.

The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto and the Toughest Frontier

Before Bitcoin, Satoshi, and the white paper, Timothy C. May’s “Crypto Anarchist Manifesto” (1988) captured the early libertarian dream of digital autonomy. May envisioned cryptography, not politics, as the force to liberate individuals from institutional control. He predicted a future where people could communicate and transact anonymously, and the state would be powerless to regulate or tax the flow of information. “These developments,” he wrote, “will alter completely the nature of government regulation, the ability to tax and control economic interactions.” In later writings, May warned that money would be the toughest realm to liberate. Governments could tolerate encrypted speech, he said, but not commerce they couldn’t tax or track. “Anonymous digital cash is the most dangerous application of crypto technology.” Two decades later, Bitcoin achieved what he deemed nearly impossible: separating money from the state through math. But May’s manifesto did not emerge in isolation; it was part of a broader current in early internet developments. The internet, too, initially carried a kind of anarchism: open protocols, anonymous forums, ungoverned peer-to-peer information exchange. For a time, it embodied the same libertarian ethos: information wants to be free, code is law. Yet even this digital anarchism has been in constant evolution. To democratize access to information, it needed usability, security, and trust. The chaotic frontier of the original internet was gradually tamed by search engines, browsers, and standards—tools that enabled billions to go online. Today, Bitcoin and AI are at a similar inflection point. If Bitcoin represents the liberation of capital, AI represents the liberation of knowledge. Both spring from the same anarchist genes but are moving toward a more inclusive future: transforming tools of individual sovereignty into platforms of collective empowerment.

From Libertarian Spark to Democratizing Flame

Every great technological revolution begins with a libertarian spark and matures in a democratizing process. The printing press freed information from the control of the church; the American Revolution freed citizens from monarchy; the early internet freed communication from centralized media monopolies; Bitcoin frees money from intermediaries. Yet in each case, the earliest beneficiaries were the educated few. True democratization comes only when the tools become simple, affordable, and universally accessible. Libertarians build the gates; democratizers distribute the keys. The Bitcoin white paper promised freedom from gatekeepers, while AI promises to break down intellectual and institutional barriers. Both begin with the libertarian quest for sovereignty, but realize their fullest potential only when they become inclusive tools. The challenge ahead is ensuring that this cycle—innovation, consolidation, rebellion, democratization—does not ultimately devolve into a new power grab but leads to lasting empowerment.

Bridge Technologies: Scalable Compromises

No revolution comes without compromise. In crypto, stablecoins—digital dollars that bridge the decentralized world with the traditional one—are that bridge. To purists, stablecoins are heresy, tethering blockchain technology to government currencies. Yet to billions, stablecoins are the most convenient on-ramp to the global financial system. Stablecoins are to crypto what HTTP and SSL were to the early internet: practical layers that make complex systems usable and trustworthy. The same dynamic played out in the 1990s. Early internet libertarians dreamed of an unregulated digital commons, but it was companies like AOL, Netscape, Amazon, and later Google, Apple, and Meta—the commercial intermediaries loathed by purists—that enabled the internet for the masses. The real breakthrough wasn’t ideological but technological. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption allowed credit cards and personal data to be safely transmitted online, birthing e-commerce. Compromise is how freedom scales. Stablecoins and user-friendly exchanges play the same role for crypto: imperfect bridges that translate concepts into actual participation.

Popularization as Democratization's Engine

Every major technology starts with rebellion, but ultimately fulfills its promise through widespread adoption. As Marc Andreessen has said, “Innovation that can’t scale is just a hobby.” The goal isn’t just to build systems that resist control, but systems that benefit the masses. Chris Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz Foundation has also aptly noted, “The next big thing will start out looking like a toy.” The real transformation happens when toys become tools, when the ideals of a few evolve into the infrastructure of the many. The internet, mobile phones, cloud computing, and today, Bitcoin, have followed this trajectory. They all began with libertarian energy—open, permissionless, decentralized—but only truly democratized when they became usable, trustworthy, and accessible. This isn’t a binary choice between anarchism and control but a continuous process. To benefit eight billion people, technology must move from ideology to inclusion, from resisting legacy systems to upgrading them.

Democratizing Education: True Libertarian Freedom

If libertarianism’s highest ideal is individual sovereignty, the democratization of education is its purest manifestation. True freedom isn’t just freedom from control; it’s the freedom to understand, create, and participate. AI continues the concept from which Bitcoin was born: decentralizing power through code. Bitcoin disrupted banks’ monopoly on capital, and AI is disrupting institutions’ monopoly on knowledge. About six years ago, Michael Milken and I spent an afternoon exploring the future. One thing he said has stayed with me as I consider Bitcoin and elder concepts. I was arguing that the dollar would eventually decline, and he interrupted me: “Don’t think of it from the perspective of the dollar dying based on what’s in the economic history books, but think about what it represents.” He told me that if you opened the doors to America tomorrow and invited everyone in, there would be 7 billion people lining up. His point was simple but profound: the dollar isn’t just a currency; it symbolizes opportunity, resources, and a belief in education and liquidity. That conversation was eye-opening and reminded me of my days in Brazil, recalling the boy at the wedding who had never visited São Paulo. He didn’t lack intelligence, he lacked opportunity. As Milken often says: “Intelligence is equally distributed, but opportunity is not.” An equitable future won’t come from wealth redistribution but from expanding pathways for people to acquire capabilities. Bitcoin gives people the freedom to participate in capitalism without permission. AI can play the same role in education and entrepreneurship. Together, they push us toward the kind of freedom Milken described—one built not on wealth but on everyone having the opportunity to learn, create, and contribute.

A New Definition of Upside

Peter Thiel may be right that Bitcoin has limited price upside, but its benefits to humanity are just beginning. The same holds true for AI. Early libertarian developers created systems for those who wanted to exit. The next generation of developers is building a system that allows everyone to opt-in. The initial rebellion is evolving into inclusion. Libertarianism animates Bitcoin; democratization scales it. Network effects are the invisible bridge that connects the two, demonstrating that freedom grows with participation. For that boy outside São Paulo who had never flown on a plane or even seen the city fifteen minutes away, the real value of Bitcoin and AI isn’t about price on paper. It’s about opening a door to a new world, where distance no longer dictates possibility, where knowledge and capital can flow without borders, and where technology’s greatest hope isn’t to escape the system, but to become integrated into it. That’s why I call Bitcoin the purest AI investment.