Softwar is Jason Lowery‘s MIT thesis and the founding text of the Softwar rollout. Per The Bugle’s canonical description, it “superimposes the history, tactics and rhetoric of warmongering, over the intentionally peaceful Bitcoin technology,” exploring Softwar as “a kind of social structure, with its own rules, norms, and values, totally divorced from actual Bitcoin, but requiring government intervention.” It is designed to be more than a government program — it’s a way of life.

Within weeks of release the US State Department had adopted it and partnered with Compass Mining to bring it to the masses (State Department Announces Partnership with Compass Mining). Its reception on Bitcoin Twitter was more mixed: Stoney Bitson pledged to buy the book expressly to burn it, a protest whose economics favor the author (CIA Director Insists Jason Lowery’s Engagement Is Organic).

irl: A real February 2023 MIT master’s thesis by US Space Force major Jason Lowery, arguing Bitcoin proof-of-work constitutes non-lethal power projection (“softwar”) that the US military should embrace. It topped Amazon’s charts in self-published form and genuinely dominated Bitcoin discourse for a season. No State Department program exists.