But is anyone who says “bitcoin is a CIA inside job” also trying to convince people not to use the internet because of some early government involvement?

It’d be ridiculous to do so.

I think this really gets to the heart of it and is the most important point.

It was a mathematical property innate to our world waiting to be discovered.

If they, with the resources they have at their disposal, were the ones to uncover it, that doesn't taint what Bitcoin is in the same way that it doesn't taint what the Internet is.

I consider it plenty possible that the CIA or some sort of special intelligence had a hand in it, tho.

If you know that this is the next paradigm (which I figure they're capable of knowing), then you should want to get out ahead of it.

So it's not that they want there to be an alternative to the current paradigm. It's that they know the fiat system only lasts for so long anyways, so why not have a hand in the next paradigm and stockpile a lot of coins (and maybe have some mining influence, etc).

There's also the aspect where China is set to be the new boss, holding so much fiat and debt in fiat. So if the paradigm flips, it affects some powers more than others. Assuming there's not global collusion, there can be reasons why the US powers prefer to rush the new paradigm a little sooner.

And they could want there to be a soft landing rather than chaos and it being obvious that fiat never had a chance.

So I don't know. Really interesting topic, and great article. I probably consider it more likely than you do that there was CIA involvement. But like you said, it shouldn't matter or be a reason to avoid it. Bitcoin is a mathematical property that's useful to us, and it doesn't matter at all who discovered it.