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The Chain Desides

By Bob

Stackchain has become a number of things in its lifetime, a support group for plebs stacking their asses off at the bottom of a bear market, an experiment in human psychology and a breeding ground for new memers. Perhaps its most interesting function has been its attempt at a decentralized society. How do we and can we function as a group without any authority telling us what we can or can’t do? Bitcoin has given us a window into what this might look like and hope in a new way of doing things as we watch the structures around us failing. We have tried to mimic the bitcoin protocol as much as possible since the beginning, sometimes with great success and other times we have bumped into the reality that there is no second best. Bitcoin does not have rulers, but it does have rules. Satoshi created these rules and over time more and more people have been attracted to what he created and follow these rules or are ejected. He left us the ability to change these rules with consensus; no central authority has the ability to do so. If you have a personal problem with this protocol, without consensus, your only options are to submit or leave. Of course this has happened many, many times over the years and the results are forks, shitcoins and I’m sure eventually CBDCs (shitcoins created by banks and governments). The inception of stackchain was much different and moving forward may be the future of other truly decentralized networks. We had no Satoshi and so we have never had rules or even a way to implement or enforce new rules.

   We began with receipts of bitcoin smash buys made n+1, one dollar more than the previous smash buy. For a while this was simple enough to follow and its participants did just that. There was very quickly a fork and attempt at a new protocol where people started stacking much larger amounts than just a dollar; this went on for a few blocks before interest was lost and engagement increased on the n+1 smash buy chain: the market decided. Excitement around block 69 started to grow and somewhere in the 50s a large account came in and broke the n+1 protocol to stack 69. If stackchain were bitcoin it wouldn’t have recognized this block at all, but it’s not and individuals had to decide if this was following the protocol they were building and engaging with or not. It was forked, orphaning it forever. Stackchain would continue like this to this day. Individuals have to make decisions whether or not a block is following protocol; stackchain will not do it for us and so begins the lord of the flies structure of stackchain. Countless discussions take place, sub tribes are formed and any block that’s a little different is examined and decided upon. These decisions and discussions were important and fascinating, but ultimately the chain decides and whoever has the cuckbucks to burn and the will to do so would decide the direction of the chain. Sometimes discussions broke down and a fork war would commence to determine which side was willing and able to burn the most cuckbucks in support of their beliefs or ideas. As a group we had a common goal of taking this chain as high and as long as we possibly could and so we were incentivized to find solutions that were acceptable to all. It could never be perfect for everyone but to continue we had to find solutions that most people could accept; this wasn’t always possible and we lost many people to the fire of the rage-quit along the way. Early changes in the protocol were things like stackjoins, people putting their hash (or burned cuckbucks) together to form a block or multi blocks, where an individual would stack enough bitcoin to include multiple numbers in one block. This got us a little farther down the road, but as time went on and the blocks fell we found another problem. 

    The chain decides. Whoever can stack the blocks will ultimately decide how the protocol is run or altered. This gives all the power to the people with cuckbucks to burn and very little to those of us that didn’t, because we didn’t have the same kind of income, we had already burned all our cuckbucks or both. This is fine if the only driving force of our society is cuckbucks, but it’s not. A lot of us were putting massive amounts of time, creativity and brain power behind organization, memes (art, journalism and literature) and left with very little say or voice on how the chain operated moving forward. As stack height grew if you weren’t able to burn thousands and thousands of cuckbucks at a time you were left with two options: submit or leave. It was here the OGchain was born. Unable to have any real influence on governance and unable to accept the current governance, we went elsewhere and formed a new society, bringing the original protocol with us. There was no violence involved, and there was nothing our previous society or “mainchain” could do about it. Neither cuckbucks nor force could stop us from breaking away and doing exactly what we wanted to do, n+1 with a shit ton of memes. Now our previous group was left at a loss: they had the cuckbucks but they had lost the contributions we had been bringing in shitposting, support, memes and organization (art, philosophy, journalism, etc.) They were now left with a choice: they had to consider what we had to say and what we thought or go on without us in a world rich in cuckbucks but not much else. (It wasn’t as absolute as all that, but for the sake of this article I’m just gonna say that). They did listen to us and change what they were doing enough for us to return and we did…..until the next time. This went on for a few rotations and eventually I personally made a permanent move. 

   In this new structure of a decentralized group or society unaffected by authority or use of force, I was able to remain very good friends with people on the mainchain. We have no power over one another and we all get to personally decide the protocol or perceived “rules” we want to live under. We are all able to shift from group to group at a moment’s notice without approval from anyone and if there isn’t a group or protocol we feel represents or considers us we can simply create another one. If other people feel the same way they will join and a new society will emerge. People with cuckbucks will always have control over how the blocks fall, but they must listen and make room for people that are contributing in other ways or lose them. We are still early in this society called stackchain and I think some of these network effects have yet to become clear, but as chains continue and we continue to bump into the same problems I believe they will become apparent and the fights and fork wars will become less common and consideration and cooperation will grow to be the norm. 

     The structures we formed and the discoveries we made here are much bigger than stackchain, much bigger than twatter. I live in a society that I don’t think represents or considers me at all. I know many other people feel the same way. We are without options. We can vote for this clown who represents a bunch of shit I don’t like or the other clown who represents…..well the same shit, and no matter how I vote I for sure will get the same shit sandwich either way. I believe bitcoin represents the beginning of a new way. We have been given a way to opt out of the monetary system that has been forced upon us, until now. We have had no choice but to be a part of a system that victimizes many and benefits few with no method of escape. They can’t stop us from leaving and being a part of something else. Their weapons and use of force have been made obsolete. I believe bitcoin and money is just the doorway to an entirely new world without borders, where militaries have lost all function. A world where individuals can decide to be a part of the society or organization they believe in and leave any that doesn’t. A world of societies that is incentivized to take care of its members or lose them, the birth of new form of unforced socialism where people take care of and look out for the neighbors and community, not under threat of violence but because it’s in their best interest to do so and they know it.

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Note from Stackchain Magazine: No Bitcoin (or inferior monies) were exchanged for this article. This article was written by Bob. Bob was reasonably the person who actually started Stackchain. While AzHodl was without a doubt the man who stack the Genesis Stack, it was Bob the stacked the first stack creating the actual first link in the chain. Bob is Legend. He has since moved on to other projects, rode off into the orange sunset, no one has seen or heard from him in many moons. Some believe that his eternal spirit has ascended to the great stacks in the sky and every time a pleb walks down to the Bitcoin ATM to smash buy he is smiling down on them. You can try to find him on X @HappyClownTime