If you seek to know the stars within the world of digital currencies, search the stars above instead of using a search engine to find these individual constellations. Look to space, where everyone from parents and children to teachers and students has a chance to watch not only the rockets’ red glare but to take a gander—to stand before the dawn’s early light—while missiles of peace carry payloads to the International Space Station; where astronauts will receive and test these experiments; where there is a tight bond rather than a tenuous connection between what these explorers do in the heavens and what many entrepreneurs seek to do on the ground.
That bond is magnetic, not because of its physical force, but because of its fiscal importance to executives and its metaphysical significance to the nation entire. Or: America cannot be at the forefront of financial and technological innovation if she is a laggard in the race not to conquer space but to maintain—and exceed—her competitive edge in space. Everything that ensues from that effort, including the dynamism of the blockchain and the predominance of Bitcoin, starts with fluency in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
The question is whether we will have workers who are at least conversant in these subjects and schools that will subject themselves to adopting—and promoting—these issues. Put another way, we cannot own or create capital if we do not have the intellectual capital to do so. That capital, with its reliance on a citizenry that is as numerate as it is literate, will determine the fate of this nation and the relative wealth of all nations.
The richness of America, therefore, depends on our ability to enrich the minds of students and workers alike. It also depends on our ability to exact positive change, from the classroom to the boardroom, so the barren places—from the woodshop to the shop floor—can become fruitful plains of hope and opportunity.
Indeed, if schools plan to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment, if parents and students can pay private school or college tuition with digital currencies instead of paper dollars, if they can use virtual coins instead of metal ones, if they can mine what previously only the government could mint, is it not reasonable to assume that this shift will go beyond how we buy and sell things?
Will we not also need to know the science behind this shift and the technology responsible for this transformation? What about the engineering coincident with these events and the mathematics relevant to this moment?
The questions are rhetorical, but the real-life consequences are many. The message from space is clear: Either we will champion a curriculum worthy of our talents, or we will squander our right to acquire new skills.
Let us choose the former, so the latter is neither possible nor probable. Let us choose to realize our dreams and actualize our mission to achieve greatness. Let us go to space.
