How Bitcoin Supports the Arts

At the Pacific Bitcoin conference of Nov 10 & 11, I learned much about the Bitcoin community by meeting the people face-to-face. My very first conversation was with Logan Bollinger, self professed lawyer by day, writer by night, and author of Think Bitcoin™ a free biweekly newsletter.

This is my review of his article, How Bitcoin Creates A Better Environment for the Arts. It was initially posted as a Twitter thread on Nov 19. This is basically the same content, one paragraph per tweet in the thread.

In “How Bitcoin Creates A Better Environment for the Arts”, Logan Bollinger (@TheWhyOfFI) describes how the low time preference of a Bitcoin Standard brings the gift economy of the arts into balance with the market.

In summary, his article describes how the low time preference of a Bitcoin Standard brings the gift economy of the arts into balance with the market.

Bollinger calls out an unmet need. Culture starves when artists starve. The artist without time and money cannot respond to the redemptive art that yearns to be released through their talent.

We can better understand its economy when we see a work of art as a gift, inspiration received by the artist and expressed through their talent to an audience. See The Gift by Lewis Hyde for background.

Crypto purports to fix this, but falls short. Web3 commoditizes the art, turning the audience into speculators. A Bitcoin Standard slows down the time preference, but only for the artist. The audience is still on the fiat system, stuck in a market mindset.

What both sides miss is the evidence that great art is still being made. It’s not the lack of the art that is at issue, but the lack of appreciation for it.

Bitcoin fixes this by restoring low time preference to the audience, which encourages a return to the gift exchange ethos. Each of us will then have the time to appreciate true, redemptive art for the greater gift that it is.