We publicly announced Foundation in May of 2020 with the goal of making Bitcoin and decentralized technologies accessible to each and every individual in order to build a new era of sovereignty, ownership, and privacy. We aimed to build a different kind of hardware company with an emphasis on open source and local manufacturing.
Since then we’ve shipped our first 1000 devices, raised funding from investors, and built a superstar team. We’ve also had more time to reflect on the state of the world. Censorship, privacy violations, uncontrolled money printing leading to historical inflation. We’ve asked ourselves – what can we do to help guide humanity through these challenging times? As in Asimov’s Foundation trilogy – what can we do to reduce this period of chaos and more quickly usher in a new era of freedom and prosperity?
We realized that an evolved mission and logo were necessary to crisply communicate what we are building and what we stand for. We are proud to unveil both today.
With the rise of the Internet, a digital currency like Bitcoin was inevitable. The Sovereign Individual, authored in 1997, presciently details how society will be transformed in this fourth stage of human society – the transition to the Information Age, powered by the Internet.
Beloved by Bitcoiners and digital currency enthusiasts, The Sovereign Individual predicts the separation of money and state, the corresponding decline of the nation state, and the rise of the individual.
Today, most people know there is something wrong with the world. They know their privacy is being violated by technology companies that resemble surveillance apparatuses. They know that corporate media and social media are censoring factual information. They know that quarantine camps and social credit scores are simply wrong. They want privacy, they want sovereignty – they just don’t know where to start.
That’s where we come in. If we can lower the barrier to becoming a sovereign individual, we believe that more and more people will reclaim their sovereignty and freedom. This is not a guess; this is our conviction.
Foundation builds Bitcoin-centric tools that empower you to reclaim your sovereignty.
This starts with Passport, our best-in-class Bitcoin hardware wallet. But over the coming months and years we’ll release a suite of hardware and software that makes it easy to become a sovereign individual.
With our refocused mission, we realized that a new logo was also needed. Our current logo evokes a strong foundation and a futuristic cityscape. The triangle evokes strength and positive change, while the trapezoids represent a sturdy bedrock on which to build. But the current logo does not represent sovereignty or properly reflect the state of our world.
Instead of a prominent triangle, we designed a logo that consists of three chords arranged in a circle. A chord is filled with meaning in the fields of linguistics, mathematics, culture, science, and technology. When we consider a chord we think of harmony, we think of geometry, we think of engineering.
Our new logo, in its purest form, is three chords – three notes – that represent the classic three-act structure.
In Act I, the Setup, Bitcoin was invented as the global financial system was faltering. Cypherpunks served as early adopters, rapidly improving the network so that it could compete directly with fiat currencies.
In Act II, the Confrontation, things seem bleak. A global pandemic has been twisted into a worldwide authoritarian power grab via mass lockdowns of populations, restrictions on movement, vaccination passports, mandatory quarantine camps. But on the sidelines, Bitcoin is slowly gaining adoption from millions of individuals, numerous corporations, and even nation states. We are currently in Act II, and it’s where we will likely stay in this decade.
In Act III, the Resolution, we emerge victorious with a Bitcoin standard. Billions of people are transformed into sovereign individuals. A new era of progress and prosperity begins.
Our new logo evokes a strong foundation, but the triangle is not actually there; the triangle is simply the space between the chords. The three separated chords demonstrate that a collection of sovereign individuals – though decentralized – can form a sound foundation for human freedom, strength, and progress.
We’re humbled by the opportunity to build such important technology at a critical moment in human history. Join us as we transition to the era of sovereign individuals!
