Last night, I had the distinct pleasure of having an in-depth conversation with Jeff Booth, who I often refer to as the Eckhart Tolle of Bitcoin.

Booth, soft-spoken yet direct, harped on one point in particular in the conversation that, while at first I didn’t grasp, ended up resonating deeply with me.

He said multiple times “We are Bitcoin” in efforts to drive home the point that Bitcoin will continue to work if we continue to make it work.

At first this statement seemed antithetical to Bitcoin. Technically, of course, we’re not Bitcoin. Bitcoin is an open-source protocol that allows people to transfer value securely and permissionlessly. Also, Bitcoin was designed in a way that actually requires less human involvement than the traditional monetary and financial systems, as its inflation rate can’t be altered by humans and there are no middle people involved in Bitcoin transactions.

Yet we are Bitcoin, just as Booth said.

We are the ones that have to spin up nodes to keep the network decentralized.

We are the ones that plug in the miners to help power and secure the network.

And we are the ones who educate others about Bitcoin as well as defend it in the social arena.

We’re human nodes in the network, doing our part to technically keep Bitcoin running and propagating information about Bitcoin to the world.

Without our taking responsibility as human nodes, Bitcoin becomes less decentralized, less secure and less understood.

So, if you’re reading this, know that you are Bitcoin, a component of the most incredible system for human freedom and prosperity ever created, and both savor that and act accordingly.