Donate to Reason in Bitcoin, You Kooky, Decentralizing, Alt-Culture Freakazoids!

It's Day One of Reason's annual webathon, in which we cajole, bargain with, and tickle you into donating whatever you can–$10, $100, $10,000—for the cause of helping create ever-more libertarian journalism and commentary. Our ambitious goal is to raise $100,000 of tax-deductible donations during this week-long bell-ring, and so far we're off to a pretty good start…except in one key category.

You see, as my comrade Nick Gillespie pointed out earlier, at the bottom of our donation page, underneath a detailed list of goodies you'll get for different giving levels, there is a button there saying "Donate Bitcoins." Because if there's one thing I know about you tuned-in, far-out libertarian freakers out there is that you want to talk in a VERY INSISTENT AND CONVINCING VOICE about how Bitcoin is more than just money—it's an entire alternative ecosystem, a source code for routing around any centralizing force, a blueprint for undermining the nation-state itself. My analog brain might be a bit slow in grasping fully the momentousness of this revolution, but thankfully we've got smarter minds on the case: Jerry Brito, Brian Doherty, J.D. Tuccille and the like.

So I just knew that announcing our ability to take webathon donations in Bitcoin would lead to the sound of big, fat coin-like thingies clanging in our virtual inbox or whatever. Sure enough, we checked the status this noon and saw that we had…two Bitcoin donations, totaling $102.13.

Now, I will never look any Reason gift in the mouth, but…really? TWO BITCOIN DONATIONS???

Do you think Commentary magazine was taking Bitcoin during its recent pledge drive? Hail nah! How 'bout your local NPR affiliate? Yeah, no. At Reason, we are not standing athwart the future yelling "Huh?", we're rushing headlong into the stuff, guided in so many cases by you, the futuretastic, spy-on-this, foundationally experimental Reason reader.

It is through you that we've learned about and understood the urgency of all sorts of what we in the June 2013 special issue called "Experiments in Libertarian Living." There are the free-cities pioneers (and their seasteading antecedents), the Free Staters and Jefferson-loving secessionists, and the DIYers vs. The State—from Cody Wilson and his 3D-printable gun to, well, whichever weirdoes birthed Bitcoin into the world. We are the journalistic source that tells these stories better and with more insider knowledge than anyone out there, and our first and best tips come from you, the cutting-edge, freedom-expanding readertariat.

So…two Bitcoin donations? As a great man once said, "Come on!"

Won't you please donate some Bitcoin right the hell now?