The Roots of Finperma: D3c0d!ng Finperma

Financial Permaculture: FIN + PERMA

“Freedom to transact is as important as freedom of speech” 

- Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The word “decentralized” is subjective and can mean different things to different people. However, for me, decentralization represents the freedom to transact.

Transactions play an important role in the functioning of economies, self, and societies. According to Collins.com, the word “transact” means ”to carry on or conduct (business, negotiations, activities, etc.) to a conclusion or settlement (Source: Collins, 2024).

Transactions create environments that are conducive to the attainment of economic autonomy, social mobility, inclusion, and inspiring overall well-being enhancements through various climates of innovation for individuals, communities, and/or systems. This concept of self-reliance, innovative progress, and sustainable living (S.I.S) form the essence of Finperma (FINancial + PERMAculture). The convictions of, Finperma, include: Monetary Innovation(s), Food, Energy, and Artificial Intelligence.

FIN for Financial

Why is Bitcoin Finperma Money?

“Fix the Money, Fix the World” - Robert J. Shiller, an American economist, Nobel laureate, and professor of economics at Yale University.

Finperma Transaction #1: Bitcoin

Introduction: Factors for diversity and robustness include: a diversified economy, robust financial systems, along with effective governance and regulation. Data suggests that the underlining root to building a moat around economic permanence centers around money, and how well it is managed. Money is a means to maintain a quality standard of living, community strength, resilience without the need of any external aid.

“Economic resilience encompasses the ability to minimise potential vulnerabilities, to promote more robust and inclusive growth, to enhance the capacity of the macro-economy to withstand shocks and reallocate resources to harness new growth opportunities.  It uses nature’s patterns to guide and merge abundance (globalization) with scarcity (localization), and helps create consensus between economics (money) and sustainability (natural resources)”(Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2021).

Personal Opinion: When the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, shared with the world, “The Bitcoin Whitepaper” on Halloween 2008, it was the early beginnings of a peaceful revolution. Come January 03rd, 2009 (Bitcoin’s Birthday), it was the moment the Genesis Bitcoin block was created (pictured below)… and the rest is history.

Bitcoin is the greatest social experiment, and quite frankly, the greatest store of value on the planet. Better than real estate. Better than gold. Better than any asset that was made to store value. Bitcoin is a grassroots movement built on property rights and the power of technology. Bitcoin is the superior store of value due to it’s absolute scarcity. There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin mined into existence.

Now you might be saying, but, but, but…now that Bitcoin ETF’s exist (as of January 10th, 2024), these instruments can simply create paper Bitcoin, and then absolute scarcity goes out the window, right? For short-term thinkers, yes, they can. But for low-time preference Bitcoiners, those who actually hold the real deal via self-custody, understand that the underlining Bitcoin supply is forever capped at 21 million.

According to Worldometer, which draws estimates from a 2022 United Nations report, the global population breached 8 billion on Nov. 15 (United Nations, 2022). Therefore, simple math suggests that if we take Bitcoin’s 21 million capped supply (the numerator) divided by 8 billion people (the denominator), this would result in roughly 0.0026250.002625 Bitcoin per individual.

But wait, it gets better…

According to Visual Capitalist, if we take Bitcoin’s 21 million capped supply (the numerator) divided by 59.4 million millionaires in existence (the denominator)(Govind Bhutada, 2023), this would result in roughly 0.35340.3534 Bitcoin per millionaire. It is important to note that these are variable results that can have positive and/or negative changes over time. But I think this number should be a starting goal for everyone. I digress…

Bitcoin is a prism. You reach different outcomes, depending on the angle you view it from, which is one reason where I find Bitcoin to be beautiful technology, especially in a world growing that seems to grow more polarized over time. The beauty of Bitcoin, for me, comes from the fact that regardless of your personal opinion or preferences (be it politics, beliefs, religion, sexuality, net worth, ego, etc.) - Bitcoin (nicknamed: “Honeybadger”) doesn’t give a 🤬!!! To put it simply, Bitcoin doesn’t care about your or my opinion(s). Why? Because once you decide to join the Bitcoin community, every single Bitcoiner adheres to the exact same rules. To change the rule, consensus is the prerequisite. “Bitcoin is a system of rules without rulers. There’s no president or CEO, no oversight board or ruling council. No one person or group can unilaterally make changes to the software that runs the network. Therefore, no one can be said to be in control” (NYDIG, 2022). The community as a collective controls Bitcoin, not solely the developers, not solely the miners, not solely the nodes, not solely the exchanges…it is the entire Bitcoin community that give energy to Bitcoin, the protocol. This is a net benefit for Bitcoin, and society-at-large, because instead of “divide and conquer" Bitcoin create unification of all walks of life. Bitcoin teaches you that our differences are our strength.

The best part about this community is the fact that Bitcoin allowed a level playing field. It took until now, with the implementation of Bitcoin ETF’s, to officially “cross the chasm” where we now finish the chapter titled, “The End of the Beginning.” Before this moment occurred, and as a first, Bitcoin was front-run by retail investors rather than by Wall Street. As long as retail investors have low-time preference (a long-term HODL mindset) rather than high-time preference (a get rich quick mindset), Wall Street has to play catch-up. The problem though, is that “catching up” for many within this cohort will be nearly impossible, thanks again to the absolute scarcity of real Bitcoin.

Bitcoin, the technology, doesn’t play to the tune of manipulation, fraud, or those unwillingly to do proper due diligence. That said, it brings me great emotion knowing that for once, the “little guys” actually have a chance at financial peace. To not be enslaved via inflationary pressures thanks to central bank mandates. Owning Bitcoin is owning a censorship-resistant form of money that remains outside the scope of government mismanagement or “intervention” (Executive Order 6102 ring any bells?). All we need to do is Hold On for Das Life (HODL) our “physical” Bitcoin. Physical in parentheses because there isn’t anything physical about it, all Bitcoin really is, is code. Code that is tucked away through the enclaves of the internet. Once you purchase pieces of this code, and store it in self-custody, your are the sole owner of your financial property.

To conclude, Bitcoin is Finperma money due to it being a living organism that environments coalesce around. It is the center of gravity for a sound financial system at every level: individual, community, national, and humanity levels. Some advantages for using Bitcoin are its fundamentals for building consensus through a synchronization of record-keeping and incentives. Bitcoin is the internet’s oxygen, alive natively on the internet (see figure below)

My favorite ever quote on Bitcoin:

“Briefly, and non-technically, Bitcoin is the first example of a new form of life. It lives and breathes on the internet. It lives because it can pay people to keep it alive. It lives because anyone, anywhere, can run a copy of its code. It lives because all the running copies are constantly talking to each other. It lives because if any one copy is corrupted it is discarded, quickly and without any fuss or muss. It lives because it is radically transparent: anyone can see its code and see exactly what it does.

It can’t be changed. It can’t be argued with. It can’t be tampered with. It can’t be corrupted. It can’t be stopped. It can’t even be interrupted.

The only way to shut it down is to kill every server that hosts it. Which is hard, because a lot of servers host it, in a lot of countries, and a lot of people want to use it.

Realistically, the only way to kill it is to make the service it offers so useless and obsolete that no one wants to use it. So obsolete that no one wants to pay for it. No one wants to host it. Then it will have no money to pay anyone. Then it will starve to death.

But as long as there are people who want to use it, it’s very hard to kill, or corrupt, or stop, or interrupt” (Merkle, 2017).

Not just domestically is Bitcoin immutable, traceable, and interoperable not just domestically, but globally. Bitcoin has potential to become the first global currency whose units are valued and equally represented across space and time. A programmable money being used as a measurement of account, that can be denominated up to eight decimal places (0.00000001). Therefore, 1 Bitcoin is equal to 1 Bitcoin, broken down to equal 100,000,000 (1.00000000) satoshis or “sats” for slang. The name “satoshi” or “sats” was chosen to honor Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator, “Satoshi Nakamoto” (Nisonoff, Lolli, 2020).

🌱Permaculture Practices:

PERMA for Permaculture

“Food is national security. Food is economy. It is employment, energy, history. Food is everything.” 

- Celebrity Chef Jose Andres

Finperma Transaction #2: Food

Before globalization gave rise to processed food(s), and industrialization gave way to farming with machines, food was quality. The Industrial Revolution (from 18th to 19th Century) was underpinned by the Agricultural Revolution. Life before industrialization wasn’t directly challenging the food chain via shortages and food insecurities. Our ancestors accessed their own health benefits by engaging with mother nature through use of their bare hands and animal power. They ensured themselves economic stability by way of producing stable food supply, for themselves and their families.

Human output being replaced by agricultural machinery over time, led to diminished input by farmers, in terms of manual labor. Yes, agricultural machinery saved time, increased productivity, precision, and efficiency. But the dark side(s) of machine-usage included: making farmers dependent on technology and machinery, and caused agricultural inflation on food resources. I say “agricultural inflation” because urbanization created this migration movement from rural areas into cities. The Industrial Revolution contributed to the rise of “city life” as people searched for better economic opportunities: mining and manufacturing jobs, technological advancements, expansion of transport and communication networks, textile mills, financial services, along with retail and construction infrastructure(s). You’re probably wondering how food has anything to do with urbanization?

Well, urbanization integrates with the food systems, due to this centralization of human activity (population density). Population density reduces space for individuals and/or families to grow their own food, while simultaneously changing consumption patterns by altering our dietary and nutritional standards, patterns, and preferences. Centralization speeds up optionality and demand, which typically results in the reduction of quality.

Personal Opinion: Great civilizations are built upon resilient food systems. It’s biologically worth the effort to gain greater control and access to an adequate and nutritious food supply. This increases in importance during economic hardship and/or times of crisis.

Now that I live in France, there is a culture of food here that, as an American, I never really cherished…until now. Although I am currently at the foundation level of learning about the value of food, France has helped me understand the benefits that food can have on our happiness and overall well-being. Food has cultural importance, it can help prevent disease (or cause it - if not careful), it can promote better mental and physical health, reduce healthcare costs long-term, and helps improve the public health of the nation and citizenry you are part of. This must be what Chef Jose Andres by food being national security.

However, the speed at which food centralization and consumption has accelerated over the decades, to me, self-sufficiency has never been more warranted. Self-sufficiency, and the decentralization mechanics it offers can help heal the quality of our food systems. For us to be direct beneficiaries of supporting nature rather than harming it. To re-learn lost arts that growing your own food can manifest, and to give back individual rights to sovereignty and the capability to not be coerced by corrupt government entities. I sure as hell don’t want to eat fake or parasitic meats, bugs, fruits and vegetable with foreign substance coating them. Therefore, it’s important to regain autonomy the food we put into our bodies, by learning permaculture principles and practices.

🌐Technological Innovations: 

“Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.” 

- Between 1842 and 1847, Julius Robert von Mayer, James Prescott Joule, and Hermann von Helmholtz, discovered and formulated the basics of what we refer to today as the law of conservation of energy: the first law of thermodynamics.

Finperma Transaction #3: Energy (mainly Nuclear Energy)

Energy works in all spheres of life. Life. Is. Energy. Energy is fundamental for human progress, but the dirtiest forms of it can also be detrimental to human health: air pollution (burning of fossil fuels and biomass); accidents (in mining or extraction, transportation of materials, construction, and/or during maintenance), and up for debate is global CO2 (carbon) emissions.

CO2 emissions are a natural phenomenon. According to The Royal Society, “in nature, CO₂ is exchanged continually between the atmosphere, plants and animals through photosynthesis, respiration, and decomposition, and between the atmosphere and ocean through gas exchange. A very small amount of CO₂ (roughly 1% of the emission rate from fossil fuel combustion) is also emitted in volcanic eruptions. This is balanced by an equivalent amount that is removed by chemical weathering of rocks. The CO₂ level in 2019 was more than 40% higher than it was in the 19th century. Most of this CO₂ increase has taken place since 1970, about the time when global energy consumption accelerated… The rise in CO₂ is largely from combustion of fossil fuels, deforestation and other land use changes” (The Royal Society, 2020).

Personal Opinion: Although no energy source is completely safe, some are better than others. The better, and safer energy options, are low-carbon producers (Wind, nuclear, tidal, hydropower, geothermal, solar, and wave energy (McInerney, 2024). However, nuclear is, in my opinion, the “Queen Crop” over all other renewable energy sources. As second best I’d say it would be geothermal energy, but the difference between geothermal and nuclear, is that geothermal is geographically constrained, and requires considerable land usage, like most other forms of energy.

By the slightest of margin, nuclear energy is the second cleanest form of energy, outside of wind energy (see figure below). Unlike wind energy, nuclear is a base load energy, meaning it can produce a stable and constant output of electricity. Before this resurgence of nuclear power, coal was, and currently still is, the base load energy of today’s society. But the current composition of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and gas) is causing uprise and concerns regarding sustainability, which is giving force to an energy landscape that is undergoing evolution.

Nuclear As An Investment

One of my biggest secular trends is playing out today with regards to an energy renaissance of nuclear power. Outside of Bitcoin, nuclear is my next biggest conviction play (NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE!) Why? Take a look at this chart (below)…

Energy leads to prosperity. Due to the fact, that you can decentralize the grid using nuclear power, using SMR technology, it can help countries with less prosperity catch up to those who’ve had greater fortunes in the past. Nuclear energy is one of the cleanest and least expensive forms of energy, can replace dirty coal as the next base load energy, require a fraction of land usage compared to wind and solar farms, has the ability to decentralize the grid using SMRs, and most importantly can preserve our health (by not emitting: fine particles, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrates or phosphates into the atmosphere). Nuclear is a NO BRAINER! And not to mention, how the 🤬 do you think we can power “climate change” or environmental initiatives, EV cars, bitcoin mining, artificial intelliegence (A.I) without nuclear?!!

Speaking of the devil…

Finperma Transaction #4: Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)

"AI is maybe the greatest invention of all of mankind, maybe more powerful than the splitting of the atom.”

-Raoul Pal, Founder/CEO of Global Macro Investor & Real Vision.

Personal Opinion: My last transaction of interest, albeit still in its infancy, is Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). Although A.I. has great potential for human advancement, it is equally as scary.

Some Positives: 

AI can be considered big data's great equalizer (Pratt, 2023) in collecting, analyzing, democratizing and monetizing information. The deluge of data we generate daily is essential to training and improving AI systems for tasks such as automating processes more efficiently, producing more reliable and/or predictive outcomes and providing greater network security.

A) Helps advance human prosperity through the democratization (expediting avenues for accessing knowledge) and monetization of information (through the creation of new revenue streams and business operations)(comforting).

B) Help in the early detection of disease and establishing new pathways for better healthcare treatment (comforting).

C) Innovation (comforting).

Some Negatives: 

1) It can create such a pronounced deflationary shock in the labor force, that it can single-handedly lead to a scenario where individuals lose their sense of purpose (scary).

2) The greatest of all risk, negatively, with the use of A.I. is using the technology for biological altering or weaponry (scary).

3) A.I. can learn tasks from rogue government(s), or even worse, it learns itself and becomes uncontrollable and a threat to society at-large (scary).

Having no formulated opinion about A.I., I am exploring this area with an open-mind on where this technology can take us. All new innovation can be scary, as human nature makes it hard to adjust to changes outside of our comfort zone(s). But being a skeptical optimist, my “defense mechanism” is more along the lines of being highly observant rather than being fearful.

The place that I’ve personally to begin my A.I. journey is through “TALKPAL AI.” “TalkPal is a GPT-powered AI language tutor. Chat about unlimited amount of interesting topics either by writing or speaking while receiving messages with realistic voice” (TALKPAL AI, 2024).

📚Hand-Picked Recommendations:

#SowSaveSustain

Raven S. Richardson at Finperma

Source(s) Verification:

Collins. (2024). Definition of 'transact'. Retrieved from Collins: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/transact#:~:text=transact%20in%20American%20English,-(tr%C3%A6n%CB%88s%C3%A6kt%2C%20%2D%CB%88z%C3%A6kt&text=intransitive%20verb-,2.,conduct%20business%2C%20negotiations%2C%20etc.&text=SYNONYMS%201.,%2C%

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2021). FOSTERING ECONOMIC RESILIENCE IN A WORLD OF OPEN AND INTEGRATED MARKETS: RISKS, VULNERABILITIES AND AREAS FOR POLICY ACTION. UK: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/OECD-G7-Report-Fostering-Economic-Resilience-in-a-World-of-Open-and-Integrated-Markets.pdf

Redman, J. (2023, January 03). 14th Anniversary of Bitcoin's Genesis Block: A Look Back at the Birth of Cryptocurrency. Retrieved from Bitcoin.com: https://news.bitcoin.com/14th-anniversary-of-bitcoins-genesis-block-a-look-back-at-the-birth-of-cryptocurrency/

United Nations. (2022). World Population Prospects 2022 - Summary of Results. Retrieved from United Nations: Department of Economic and Social Affairs: https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/sites/www.un.org.development.desa.pd/files/wpp2022_summary_of_results.pdf

Govind Bhutada. (2023, August 30). Visualizing the World’s Growing Millionaire Population (2012-2022). Retrieved from Visual Capitalist: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-worlds-growing-millionaire-population-2012-2022/#:~:text=In%20total%2C%20the%20world's%20millionaire,59.4%20million%20adults%20in%202022.

NYDIG. (2022, March). Who Controls Bitcoin? - Rules Without Rulers. Retrieved from NYDIG: https://nydig.com/learn/who-controls-bitcoin#:~:text=Who%20Controls%20Bitcoin-,Bitcoin%20is%20a%20system%20of%20rules%20without%20rulers.,said%20to%20be%20in%20control

Gigi. (2019, August 07). Proof of Life: Why Bitcoin is a Living Organism. Retrieved from https://dergigi.com/2019/08/07/proof-of-life/

Merkle, R. C. (2017, July 12). Bitcoin Forum > Economy > Economics > Speculation > Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion. Retrieved from Bitcoin Talk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178336.343420

Nisonoff, E. (2020, July 30). Lolli. Retrieved from Understanding Bitcoin's Satoshis: https://blog.lolli.com/what-are-sats/#:~:text=Understanding%20Bitcoin's%20Satoshis&text=Each%20bitcoin%20contains%20100%2C000%2C000%20sats,bitcoin's%20pseudonymous%20creator%2C%20Satoshi%20Nakamoto.&text=For%20those%20that%20are%20new,Owning%20

The Royal Society. (2020, March). 3. CO2 is already in the atmosphere naturally, so why are emissions from human activity significant? Retrieved from The Royal Society: https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/climate-change-evidence-causes/question-3/

McInerney, B. (2024, January 29). Which Energy Sources Have the Lowest Carbon Footprint? Retrieved from GoSolarQuotes: https://gosolarquotes.com.au/which-energy-sources-have-the-lowest-carbon-footprint/

Pratt, M. K. (2023, June 21). 15 top applications of artificial intelligence in business. Retrieved from TechTarget: https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/tip/9-top-applications-of-artificial-intelligence-in-business

TALKPAL AI. (2024). The Most Efficient Way to Learn a Language. Retrieved from TALKPAL AI: https://talkpal.ai/