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    Bitcoin Daily Discussion, December 22, 2021

    December 22, 2021

    Bitcoin Daily Discussion, December 22, 2021

    Daily Discussion, December 22, 2021

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 09:02 PM PST

    Please utilize this sticky thread for all general Bitcoin discussions! If you see posts on the front page or /r/Bitcoin/new which are better suited for this daily discussion thread, please help out by directing the OP to this thread instead. Thank you!

    If you don't get an answer to your question, you can try phrasing it differently or commenting again tomorrow.

    Join us in the r/Bitcoin Chatroom!

    Please check the previous discussion thread for unanswered questions.

    submitted by /u/rBitcoinMod
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    If satoshi nakamoto doesn’t speak up by 2060 then it’s safe to assume he’s dead. The last bitcoin will be mined 2140, it’s a shame he won’t be there to witness such milestone.

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 01:22 PM PST

    Story time: Do you accept Bitcoin?

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 03:28 PM PST

    For a few months now, been going to some of the places I frequent (cafes, restaurants, barbershops, etc.) and constantly ask if they accept Bitcoin. Some say "no," others "would like to."

    Got a haircut one day. Ask my barber if he'd accept bitcoin as a tip. Excited, he said yes. Said he only had a Gemini account, but no wallet. Blank canvas to work with here. Showed him how to use a Bitcoin wallet (BlueWallet), and tipped him using Lightning. His mind blown. He had no idea you could actually use Bitcoin. Went to the counter to pay, heard my barber say to the other barbers in the shop, "yo, I just got my first Bitcoin tip!" They all start chatting about it and he shared what he knew and the wallet he used. They keep chatting away. At the register, I asked (for the 3rd time in 3 months), "do you accept Bitcoin." The gal at the register says, "We might have too."

    Later that night, went to dinner with the misses at our favorite restaurant. We know the owner. Asked him (again), if he accepts Bitcoin. Says he wants to. Shows me his Coinbase account. I introduce him to Breez Wallet (he's a small shop) and get him set up. Dinner paid via Lightning.

    A couple months have gone by; fast forward to today. Checking the local news and see an article listing several dozen small stores (the barbershop and restaurant I frequent included) that are now starting to accept Bitcoin, and a few more dozen looking into it.

    Been working with the local chamber of commerce and economic development board on how to educate more business owners onto Bitcoin for some time, but by far, the simplest way to share Bitcoin and see growth in the area was to just keep asking, "do you accept Bitcoin?"

    Anywho, thought I'd share.

    🍺

    submitted by /u/FalconPunched007
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    #bitcoin never going to 0 as I am buying every hour. PS. I am FIAT poor.

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 08:13 PM PST

    Banks in Argentina are not letting unvaccinated people to get inside... The only way to withdraw dollars from your account is to do it physically in your bank

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 07:53 AM PST

    Whether you are pro vaccines or anti vaccines, this is nuts.

    My decision to go all-in on Bitcoin has been the best decision I've made in my life.

    EDIT: It's important to clarify that we cannot withdraw dollars from ATMs, just our local currency. If we want to withdraw dollars from our bank accounts, we have to talk to a bank's employee to request our dollars.

    submitted by /u/EntaronAdun
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    Youtuber doing Bitcoin TA in 2011

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 04:12 PM PST

    Can I restore my bitcoin from 2009?

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 04:40 AM PST

    Hey guys I have a question that I am sure must of been asked hundreds of times before...here goes.

    In 2009 I was really interested in anything related to economics and specifically currency. I came across the whitepaper for bitcoin and after doing some reading, I decided to download the bitcoin client. I remember I was mining for weeks on end not really knowing the significance of what I was doing but was just really trying to support the idea of a virtual currency as I knew this could be the future. Around 2010 I threw my computer and all my furniture in storage and moved overseas. My computer has been sitting in storage for about 11 years now and I am going back soon to open it up and see if I still have the bitcoin client. I am not really in sync with how bitcoin operates nowadays, all i know is you either have your private keys in cold storage or hot storage. I think in 2009 my computer should hold the private keys on cold storage as there weren't any virtual wallets back then.

    When I go back soon, I will attempt to recover my potential riches or perhaps cry in despair so...

    I have a couple of questions.

    1)What is the name of the bitcoin client that was operating in 2009? I only ask this because I tried to go to the bitcoin website and it says I need to log in. There were no accounts back then, it was just a client on my computer.

    2)In the case that I formatted my computer (which i do not recall if i did or not), can I get my hard drive professionally restored saving my potential private keys to restore my coins? (I heard its an expensive process but with the use of magnets or something, you can restore your hard drive even if formatted)

    3) I had a powerful graphics card in 2009, how many bitcoins can someone have mined in 2009 per day given the low amount of mining back then with a top of the line video card? ( I was mining every day for maybe a few weeks or a month)

    ​

    (UPDATE)

    I've been getting a lot of DM's, mostly positive some skeptical which is understandable, and alot of questions, I'd like to just clear some things up.

    The reason I got into bitcoin so early was out of pure chance and curiosity. It was after the 2008 crash that lead me to have low confidence is the USD as a reserve currency. I was deeply into studying economics and I was considering Majoring in it. I was definitely not some investor that was bullish on BTC and thought I could come out of this with riches. I really just wanted to support a new idea of virtual currency and I thought the act of mining was supporting the project. If there are any OG's that are familiar with the original bitcoin client, you would remember that the mining process consisted of a little construction worker with a yellow hard hat on his head and a mining pick swinging away at some ore and a reoccurring loading bar. If I can find the original client from 2009 I might turn that into a gif, might make one heck of a NFT similar to the first twitter post that was sold as an NFT lol. I tried to google it but couldn't find any images of it.

    For those that owned a PS3 at the time you might remember that there was an app on the home screen that had something similar to mining. You would run an app and it would be running a bunch of algorithms in sync with PS3 users across the globe to help cancer research for the university of I forget where. If anyone remembers this please comment.

    Anyways for many reasons that I can't share online, I wont be able to travel until march but as long as I am getting my storage bills every month, I am sure my computer is safe and secure (no storage wars here folks). I will definitely update you guys in a few months.

    Someone suggested I make a youtube video leading up to the moment. Cool Idea, I may do that but I would only upload the videos after I sell a BTC and hire a crap load of security lol (if I do find any)

    Thanks for all those who supported me and to the skeptics, you just wait.

    submitted by /u/Southern_Lawfulness1
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    Jack Dorsey Stirs Uproar by Dismissing Web3 as a Venture Capitalists’ Plaything

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 03:48 PM PST

    Is there a person or group who if they proved to be Satoshi Nakamoto, you'd think to yourself "Yeah, that makes total sense."

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 04:48 PM PST

    Is there a person or group who if they proved to be Satoshi Nakamoto, you'd think to yourself "Yeah, that makes total sense."

    submitted by /u/SunRev
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    I finally got access to my old Coinbase wallet which I last used in 2016. I thought there may be something in there but wasn’t sure. When I get the access today I had £304! The last time I used it I had £3.50. Has anyone else found a ‘lost stash’ of bitcoin?

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 09:00 AM PST

    The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) attempt to delegitimize Bitcoin’s decentralization is the new low in spreading misinformation with no evidence.

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 08:33 AM PST

    The lack of knowledge of the researchers is mind boggling, completely ignoring all wallets for off chain applications, 2nd layer, funds, custodian's, etc. I saw on Twitter after the backlash the journalist responsible for this garbage said they excluded all exchanges (see link below). Then what the hell did you guys study lol? Here is the real bitcoin distribution:

    https://insights.glassnode.com/bitcoin-supply-distribution/

    https://twitter.com/paulvigna/status/1473030205832941574?s=21

    submitted by /u/Phreesion
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    Housing market insanity - Bitcoin to follow?

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 04:28 PM PST

    In Canada the housing market has hit peak insanity, even far way from the "desirable" cities of Toronto and Vancouver it is becoming impossible to own a home in Canada. Crappy little shitboxes in cities like Peterborough and Sudbury are going over 600-700k, when a few years ago they were 300-400k. Hamilton, ON has seen a 33% house price increase in a year, and 138% in 10 years. Many places are going several hundred over asking with insane bidding wars. The low build rate, and population surge (400k+ immigrants per year) will make this even worse. Many are treating housing as their anti inflation hedge and their sole investment/retirement plan. However, there are significant barriers and upkeep costs to owning a home. Bitcoin is the new low cost, no barrier entry and produces similar (or better) yields

    submitted by /u/dupleVe
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    Do you think Bitcoin Will ‘Replace The U.S. Dollar’?

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 06:39 PM PST

    Online Chess Tournament on lichess.org puts up 1BTC prize money...

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 11:10 AM PST

    Over 20,000 participants and the site immediately crashes.

    Agadmator CakeDeFI Christmas Arena https://lichess.org/tournament/WMEZdyxr

    Lots of big name chess players coming for the BTC.

    submitted by /u/toddgak
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    Huge development for bitcoin: you can now make tax deductible contributions towards open source bitcoin development

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 05:19 PM PST

    New Jersey bank to let clients to buy, sell and hold Bitcoin

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 05:54 AM PST

    Crypto Funds Explode in Boom Year Marked by First U.S. Bitcoin ETF

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 10:08 AM PST

    Time is the scarcest thing we have in our lives. What bitcoin buys you is your future time, the time you can spend doing things you like, with your family and loved ones. Every pleb stacking today will eventually be free given enough time. Would be beautiful to see us a lot in 2030.

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 12:56 PM PST

    Bitcoin will be the best smart contract platform in 5 years.

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 11:04 PM PST

    Back in 2016 / 2017 there was massive discontent with bitcoins slow block times, small block sizes and expensive transaction fees. People promoted "fee-lees" coins, big block forks and labeled bitcoin a dead project. Here we are 5 years later and bitcoin is still king with lightning network making it more useful than any high transaction volume shitcoin.

    Today there is massive discontent with bitcoins lack of smart contracts, lack of turing complete programmability and seemingly no path to building web3 Dapps and DAOs on bitcoin. People are promoting a plethora of smart contract shitcoins and labeling bitcoin dead boomer technology. In 5 years from now bitcoin will still be king with 3rd layer scripting solutions making it more useful, more secure and more scalable than any of todays smart contract platforms.

    Patience is a virtue in crypto.

    submitted by /u/slvbtc
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    The number of bitcoin ATMs almost tripled in 2021

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 04:01 PM PST

    Kraken's Lightning Network Integration

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 09:45 PM PST

    Kraken posted in 2020 a blog post announcing they would integrate lightning in 2021.

    ​

    With 2021 coming to an end and no support for lightning in sight, is there an update? Have they abandoned the implementation?

    ​

    The only major exchange that seems to support it is Bitfinex and for consumers, there's strike.

    ​

    Why is there so little integration for lightning after years of development? I understand there's several limitations regarding lightning and difficulties in the implementation, but I would imagine Kraken would have the resources to overcome those difficulties.

    submitted by /u/jacobburrell
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    Abilene, Texas to Build $2.4B Data Centre Hosting Bitcoin Mining

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 08:51 PM PST

    Stronghold Digital Mining Buys 9,090 Bitcoin Mining Rigs

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 08:20 PM PST

    In light of the recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) unfounded FUD attack on Bitcoin’s decentralization. Here's the rebuttal:

    Posted: 21 Dec 2021 10:22 AM PST

    Regarding this WSJ unfounded FUD:

    https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/bitcoins-one-percent-controls-lions-share-of-the-cryptocurrencys-wealth-11639996204

    Credit for post and DD goes to u/xcryptogurux

    Original post here:

    No, Bitcoin is not controlled by a small group of investors and miners (A rebuttal to the TechSpot article)

    It is well documented that Bitcoin is not centralized, in any way.

    Here's a Glassnode thorough analysis regarding distribution:

    https://insights.glassnode.com/bitcoin-supply-distribution/

    Highlights:

    No, Bitcoin Ownership is not Highly Concentrated

    1. Not all Bitcoin addresses should be treated equal. For instance, an exchange address holding the funds from millions of users needs to be distinguished from an individual's self-custody address.

    2. A Bitcoin address is not an "account". One user can control multiple addresses, and one address can hold the funds from multiple users.

    Edit: Also this info from Woo

    This is good for Bitcoin.

    Willy Woo on Twitter:

    A longitudinal study of #Bitcoin's supply distribution since the genesis block.

    Summary:

    Bitcoin continues a 12 year trend of distributing evenly. Small holders are a rising force. (Includes new data unseen before from Entities, not addresses on-chain analysis.)

    https://twitter.com/woonomic/status/1418192184767963136

    https://preview.redd.it/vli0ofqwf6w71.jpg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2a704c47375637858c27216379ae8313dadf8be8

    This could be a long read. Kindly bear with me.

    I write this primarily in response to the TechSpot article from yesterday (r/technology mods told me they only allow "mainstream news articles with editorial oversight and fact-checking" so I'm sharing this here).

    But I'd also like to take this opportunity to write about Bitcoin more broadly as someone who has been following it for more than a decade and I'll try to do so without complicating the conversation for anyone unfamiliar with Bitcoin.

    The TechSpot article cites a non-peer-reviewed National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper from Igor Makarov and Antoinette Schoar.

    NBER claims to be non-partisan but it is a private NPO funded by the likes of Bill Gates foundation.

    The chairman of NBER, Karen Horn, is a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and Head of International Private Banking for Bankers Trust.

    The authors of this working paper, Igor Makarov and Antoinette Schoar are no experts in Bitcoin.

    Makarov is employed by Financial Markets Group (FMG), which focuses on policy research into financial markets and works alongside banks and regulators in Europe.

    Schoar is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-chair of NBER Corporate Finance group, who has previously made it clear that she is no fan of Bitcoin with some pretty misguided takes on it.

    It's critical to note that the data regarding miners cited in this study is from when mining was largely concentrated in China. This is no longer the case.

    The paper claims the authors have "the ability to trace miners on the blockchain." The tracking method shown in the paper is based on subjective, unverified "algorithm to track the distribution of mining rewards from the largest 20 mining pools to the miners that work for them."

    The validity of this conjectural method of tracking was also subjectively verified before all mining operations migrated out of China to many different parts of the world.

    ​

    Bitcoin distribution is not highly concentrated

    The first thing we need to acknowledge with Bitcoin is that it is still very much a nascent monetary system. It has come a long way in a short space of time but it's only been around 13 years and only 3% of the world's population currently use Bitcoin.

    It took the Internet 25 years to get to that point. So while adoption is certainly happening a lot quicker, we still have 97% of the world's population to bring on board. Unlike the banking system, which has ostracized nearly half of the world's adult population, Bitcoin can actually work for every person in the world, no matter who they are or where they come from.

    The top wallet addresses here do not belong to individuals. Almost all active addresses holding greater than 10 basis points of the total supply (greater than 0.1%) are addresses belonging to exchanges and custodial services holding custody of Bitcoin that belong to millions of individual users. Not all exchange addresses have been tagged by bitinfocharts. For instance, the third largest address, looking at activity and transaction patterns, very likely belongs to Coinbase.

    Now you're not supposed to be holding your Bitcoin in exchanges as that defeats the whole point of Bitcoin, besides enabling rehypothecation, which can artificially inflate the supply, and other security risks, but a lot of people do since they're new to Bitcoin, unfamiliar with the concept of self-custody, and inadequately appreciate the purpose and potential of Bitcoin. There are ongoing educational efforts to encourage people to take ownership of their Bitcoin.

    Not your keys. Not your sats.

    The wealth distribution is admittedly far from where it needs to be, but it's heading in the right direction. As more and more users adopt Bitcoin, the Gini index improves markedly. The game theory embedded into the protocol ensures that it does over time. The article from TechSpot claims that 10,000 individuals control a third of the supply. This, even if we assume to be accurate at face value, is a vastly improved figure from only 2 years ago, when less than 5000 wallets were estimated to own half the supply.

    On-chain analytics firm, Glassnode, published a finding earlier this year that ownership of Bitcoin is not highly concentrated and it naturally disperses over time. I'll explain a little later in this article why that is the case.

    ​

    Beyond the cryptocurrency

    Let's try to first understand Bitcoin beyond the cryptocurrency, as a software protocol and what it represents for humanity. Sure, price speculation is fun but for me, it's the least interesting aspect of Bitcoin.

    Bitcoin is open-source software collectively hosted by a pure P2P permissionless network of ∼ 60,000 nodes distributed across the world — by far the largest pure P2P network ever. Anyone in the world can propose changes to this software no matter who you are. There's no central server or hierarchical structure to this network. You don't need anyone's permission to access the network. We don't need to know who Satoshi was to trust the system because the code is open for every single human being in the world to read and scrutinize. Satoshi was simply the first, founding contributor to this open software.

    This is such a revolutionary egalitarian concept so far removed from all the corruption and iniquities that inhere within our extant hierarchical technology and monetary systems that a lot of people understandably find it difficult to grasp but this could fundamentally fix the world and make money and technology at large work for everyone without privileges.

    There's a common misunderstanding that Bitcoin has great value because it was the first digital currency. This is untrue. There were several prior attempts — B-money, Bit gold and Hashcash the most prominent among them. Satoshi's proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm solved a critical flaw in the use of blockchain as a public ledger known as the Byzantine Generals Problem (BGP).

    Solving for BGP meant that we could have an open ledger network without a central server or middlemen where nobody had to trust anybody else for the system to work. Every node within the Bitcoin network is a server with a live copy of the ledger and each node is able to verify the authenticity of its copy of the ledger without having to trust any of the other nodes.

    The concept of blockchain predates Bitcoin by almost two decades. So the value was never in blockchain but the way Bitcoin was able to utilize blockchain as a trustless, permissionless, decentralized public ledger to democratically create, distribute and exchange value.

    On the face of it, it's easy to mischaracterize Bitcoin as some kind of an investment scheme. It is absolutely not that (The Newcoiner Dilemma). Who is to benefit from an investment scheme where nobody is in charge?

    Bitcoin is a complete revamp of our monetary system to make it work for everyone and more broadly, as a software protocol, Bitcoin has the potential to fix the Internet's original sin — centralization at the hands of few privileged gatekeepers — and restore it to its originally intended form as a decentralized P2P network protocol.

    A network protocol is only decentralized if any participant within the network is able to access and verify the truth (the state of the ledger) on their own in a very economical manner without requiring permission or trust. We've seen many predatory knock-offs since Bitcoin, which are little more than snake-oil marketing gimmicks with fundamentally flawed protocol designs and centralized node architectures. Cynical rent-seeking and exploitation just comes with the territory for any revolutionary technology.

    Permissioned, quasi-permissioned, DINO (decentralized in name only) blockchains are a waste of time. Blockchains are comparatively inefficient databases unless truly decentralized. What makes them special is the ability to individually host, validate and audit the ledger.

    Throughout Bitcoin's history, Bitcoiners have staunchly defended the right of users of the network not to be priced out of running their own node, most famously 4 years ago when Bitcoin users stood firm in the face of pressure from miners and corporate interests to prove that it was the users who truly controlled Bitcoin, not miners and not wealthy investors.

    Anyone can host their own Bitcoin full node on a Raspberry Pi. This allows them to be an equal rights citizen within the network without delegating trust to a third party. If you cannot self-host a node on your own, you're going from trusting bankers to trusting a random person on the internet. That doesn't seem so revolutionary, does it?

    ​

    How does such a network scale?

    Let's take the Internet as an example. The IP suite is a software protocol like Bitcoin. It originally had a monolithic design until we figured out that it could not scale without layered architecture. Bitcoin has undertaken a similar multi-layered approach to scaling in recent years.

    Bitcoin's base layer is the network layer protocol and the monetary settlement layer. Priorities for this layer are maximizing security and trust-minimization. Built on top of this is a payments layer called Lightning Network.

    Lightning Network is a decentralized layer-2 network protocol that uses a native smart contract scripting language to enable instant, almost feeless, global Bitcoin payments.

    In Lightning Network, parties to a transaction are required only to have a sufficiently funded open channel active in the network. This is done through a single on-chain transaction.

    If there is a direct channel open between the parties, the transaction is routed directly and incurs no fee. Without a direct channel, the transaction is routed through routing nodes, incurring a small fee, typically no more than a few sats (fraction of a cent), paid to routing nodes hosted by users of the network.

    You can find a live node map for Lightning Network here. It's pretty remarkable how far Lightning Network has come in only 3 years.

    With Lightning Network's maturation as an infinitely scalable decentralized global payments network, Bitcoin is shifting focus to its next big milestone, Taproot, which is due to go live in mid-November at block height 709632.

    Taproot brings a set of protocols that enhance Bitcoin's privacy, scalability and unlocks the path for seamless integration of application protocols on top of Bitcoin while also ensuring that users are still able to economically run their own Bitcoin full node.

    ​

    Game Theory of Bitcoin

    Cypherpunks were pursuing the concept of Bitcoin, a decentralized P2P monetary system, for two decades. Satoshi completed the final, most important, piece of the jigsaw — solving the Byzantine Generals Problem to prevent double-spend.

    In doing so, Satoshi sought to address two fundamental flaws with fiat money,

    1- Centralized, focused issuance and control of money supply and monetary policy

    2- Trivial cost of issuance

    While issuance entails no cost, the money remains at the mercy of the basest of human qualities, self-seeking greed. All corruptive tendencies of fiat money are a direct consequence of the trivial cost to issue infinite money.

    Satoshi's proof-of-work algorithm solved for these two flaws by implementing an ingenious cost of issuance algorithm that keeps every actor honest and forever scales in proportion to Bitcoin's value as a monetary network —the higher Bitcoin's value, the higher the cost of issuance.

    Proof-of-work requires those who acquire the new supply of coins (miners) to continually input real-world work for their rewards and cover recurring operational costs. The work ensures that those who receive the new supply of money cannot keep hoarding it for themselves. Miners are forced by the game theory embedded into the protocol to redistribute Bitcoin into the market.

    Any monetary system where the creation of money entails no work and cost would be fiat 2.0 all over again, a system where wealth equals power, where the rich forever get richer and the poor get poorer.

    In proof-of-work, wealth != power

    Miners input work and recurring costs to find blocks and receive compensation for their work but the blocks are validated by full node users, not miners. Full nodes enforce the rules — accept or reject blocks found by miners — and hold the power to keep miners honest. Every full node user has one vote. Proof-of-work admits of no corruption or privileges.

    A very large portion of the world's population is affected by either hyperinflation and/or lack of banking services (c. 4 billion people). Bitcoin allows them to connect to an open, permissionless network to generate, store and exchange value where nobody can stop them. The combination of proof-of-work and economical self-hosted nodes distributed all across the world is what ensures Bitcoin's antifragility, securing the network from state attacks.

    ​

    Bitcoin, a global leader in clean energy innovation

    20 years ago, the Internet was boiling the oceans. Today, it's Bitcoin. In 20 years, the next emerging technology. Energy, in manifold forms, has always been fundamental to human interaction and its impact, an ineluctable consequence of human evolution.

    Bitcoin is at once the most fundamentally important technological and monetary evolution for humanity. For the first time in human history, every human on earth can become financially sovereign, set free from the whims of other humans.

    Bitcoin is a huge net positive for humanity and a global leader in renewable energy innovation. The renewable energy share of the Bitcoin network is over 4 times that of the average grid. In 2020, renewable energy sources accounted for only about 12% of total U.S. energy consumption. 58% of global Bitcoin mining operations are powered by renewables.

    According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), 66% of the primary energy used to create electricity is wasted by the time the electricity arrives at the customer meter. Bitcoin is able to harness stranded/wasted energy, while also mitigating the climate effects of other industries by capturing flared gas that would otherwise be vented into the atmosphere contributing to climate change. Other industries find the cost of transporting energy prohibitive. With regards to coal, almost all of the coal-powered mining was happening in China. They've all since been shut down.

    ​

    The quest for perfect money

    What's money? Anything that's accepted as representing value by the parties to any transaction. It's really that simple. Three thousand years ago, cowrie shells were used to represent value. We've had various forms of money since but the quest remains the same. Humans have always sought money that can hold value over time until it was required to purchase other things that hold value to them — goods and services.

    If we look at money from this perspective, we could argue that money is technology but until now, we never had the technology to come up with a money that was able to fulfill all three functions of money — store of value (SoV), medium of exchange (MoE) and unit of account (UoA).

    Bitcoin is at once a good SoV (scarce and incorruptible), a good MoE (the payments layer — Lightning Network), and a good UoA (infinite divisibility and instant portability across the world).

    I view Bitcoin to be the culmination of humanity's 7000-year technological quest to perfect the representation of value by truly democratizing its creation, distribution and exchange. Never before have we had a money with all the necessary properties of sound money. All previous forms of money had compromises.

    Scarce money has always been sound money but previous iterations of scarce money lacked the other properties required to be viable as MoE and UoA — fungible, readily portable, infinitely divisible, incorruptible, indestructible, provably finite and objectively verifiable.

    Bitcoin ticks all the boxes. It further adds a new dimension to money hitherto unimaginable, obviating the need for trust, eliminating counterparty risk without the burden, cost and attendant inefficiencies of involving trusted middlemen.

    ​

    Fiat money is a pyramid scheme

    It would be remiss not to highlight at this time just how inequitable our current monetary system is and, something we don't often speak of, the jarring impact of inflation-driven compulsive consumerism on climate change.

    The current system of credit constantly incentivizes you through a myriad of machinations to keep spending money from tomorrow's labor, but the new injection of money from your tomorrow's labor ends up being concentrated at the top, with the ultimate consequence of inequitably diminishing your purchasing power and continually enriching those at the top of the pyramid.

    In short, money borrowed against your future labor ends up destroying your own purchasing power while the lender profits off your future labor, both in the form of interest and by being closer to the new money. It's a double whammy. Fiat money post hoc undercuts the value of our work and time, except for the top 0.01%, some of whom have seen their wealth grow almost 10-fold during a once-in-a-hundred-year global pandemic.

    In 1971, President Nixon canceled the convertibility of the US dollar to gold. The subsequent collapse of the Bretton Woods system gave central banks absolute monetary authority as the dollar was no longer required to be backed by gold reserves.

    Central banks' newfound ability to continually manipulate supply, interest rates, and velocity of money has led to deleterious consequences. Perpetual expansion to spur illusory "economic growth" has sent deficits spiraling out of control and resulted in, inter alia, a vicious cycle of high inflation, recession as a consequence of efforts to mitigate the effects thereof and ever-increasing, now extreme, economic inequality.

    I'll just leave it here as to the enduring effects of the Nixon shock.

    ​

    Triffin paradox

    The Triffin paradox explains why any sovereign currency serving as a global reserve currency is unworkable — the state issuing the reserve currency is required to continually run up a deficit to meet the world's demand for its currency. This creates a conflict of interest between domestic and international monetary policies, which becomes untenable in the long run, leading to the collapse of the system. The average lifespan for reserve currencies is 95 years.

    Bitcoin is the only monetary system in history that has the properties to last forever, for, unlike all previous monetary systems, it doesn't derive value from the authority or wealth of the issuer, which is fleeting, but a timeless universal constant — hard-coded mathematics.

    ​

    Closing thoughts

    I'd like to earnestly urge everyone to read mainstream articles about Bitcoin through a lens of scrutiny as to the interests of those who own these organizations. There's an ongoing campaign to poison the well with blatant disinformation while simultaneously accumulating Bitcoin for themselves.

    When you really burrow down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, you come to realize that Bitcoin is quite the culture shock, a monetary paradigm shift irreconcilable with the status quo sustained by immoderate expansion normalized through generational indoctrination of the rationally vulnerable to acquiesce to furtive post hoc theft of the value of their work and time, especially in the last 50 years post-Nixon shock.

    Mainstream media organizations are owned by the banking establishment and beneficiaries of the fiat pyramid scheme who stand to lose a lot of power if 8 billion people were to understand the peaceful revolution that is Bitcoin.

    There are no C-suites, marketing/PR teams in Bitcoin to manipulate public opinion or issue any official statements in rebuttal to intellectually dishonest journalism. Bitcoin keeps plowing along honestly, paying no mind to assorted naysayers motivated by self-interest seeking to further various agendas.

    Tick.. tock.. next block..

    ​

    https://i.redd.it/86izkxf9g6w71.gif

    ​

    I hope the irony of an organization chaired by a former Federal Reserve president decrying the concentration of wealth in Bitcoin while we do not have the ability to peer into an open ledger to scrutinize the concentration of wealth and the transactions of bankers in the fiat monetary system is not lost on anyone.

    Bitcoin fixes this

    submitted by /u/simplelifestyle
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