- Bitcoin is a permission-less peer-to-peer, electronic cash that can be transferred instantly and securely by anyone, anywhere, around the world.
- Bitcoin is the first digital currency that truly separates money from state. Its greatest innovation is finite, digital scarcity with a strict supply cap of 21 million units, offering a new form of sound money outside the control of any authority or government.
- Bitcoin’s decentralized technology was the way out of this broken financial system where in an economic crisis, governments rescue banks and failing corporations at the expense of the people by taxing them by inflating the money supply.
- Through the power of cryptography, each digital bearer asset is truly owned by the holder, and therefore can never be confiscated. These characteristics of Bitcoin give people complete financial control, freedom, and protection over their individual property.
- Now, people can opt out of a broken financial system and take back control of their wealth and future as sovereign individuals
- Money solves the problem of the double coincidence of wants (or barter). If I want to trade my ball of yarn for your chicken, I don’t have to worry about you not wanting my ball of yarn (or whatever good I have). Instead, we both agree that the best good to exchange is money.
- Money provides a way to 1) exchange goods and services and 2) save/store value for the future. The best money is one that people find to be the most salable and liquid asset to use as their store of value (SoV).
- Under the Gold Standard, prices in the economy were based on the true market forces. Innovation bloomed, and people could buy a greater variety of goods with less money. The quality of life and society flourished with prosperity.
- Ending the gold standard allowed governments and central banks to print money out of nothing, turning hard money soft by removing its scarcity. This debased the currency by increasing the money supply at will, diluting the value of each monetary unit in circulation.
- To this day, the global supply of money is dictated by governments and central banks (primarily, the United States Federal Reserve). They dictate how much money goes into the world economy, where it goes, and for what purpose. In 1971, President Richard Nixon officially took the world off the Gold Standard, and everything started to kinda suck …welcome to inflation.
- #BitcoinFixesThis
A New Store of Value (SoV)
- Unlike gold, Bitcoin is decentralized, 2) finitely scarce, 3) and easier to transport and store. It’s the most powerful, and inarguably the Best Money Ever.
- Ultimately, the core role that money provides in society is to give individuals the incredible benefit of efficiency. If the money is being debased by inflation, our liberty to choose how to use it is stolen from us, along with the value of money itself.
- The innovation of bitcoin is having such value that’s based on its monetary premium: finite scarcity, and the ability to measure, divide, store, and transfer value.
Unforgeable Costliness
- Unlike gold, Bitcoin is decentralized, 2) finitely scarce, 3) and easier to transport and store. It’s the most powerful, and inarguably the Best Money Ever.
- Ultimately, the core role that money provides in society is to give individuals the incredible benefit of efficiency. If the money is being debased by inflation, our liberty to choose how to use it is stolen from us, along with the value of money itself.
- The innovation of bitcoin is having such value that’s based on its monetary premium: finite scarcity, and the ability to measure, divide, store, and transfer value.
Scarcity
- The major innovation of Bitcoin is finite, digital scarcity. There will only ever be 21 Million bitcoin. This rule will never be changed, and is the way out of a broken financial system where in an economic crisis, governments rescued banks at the expense of the people by taxing them through inflation
- Bitcoin is prime real-estate. Just imagine if the entire world was in a bidding war for a piece of the moon, only it’s really made out of cheese… Its fixed amount increase demand, which makes it even more scarce, kicking the laws of supply and demand into overdrive
- The major innovation of Bitcoin is finite, digital scarcity. There will only ever be 21 Million bitcoin. This rule will never be changed, and is the way out of a broken financial system where in an economic crisis, governments rescued banks at the expense of the people by taxing them through inflation
A New Medium of Exchange (MoE)
- Money that preserves value into the future will be used as the best medium of exchange. This lets us to convert our time and skills into a range of choices, and invest in our human capital to make our lives better
- So now that the world has the BME with the best SoV, everyone agrees its value is worth exchanging for stuff!
- Ever try to make a wire transfer? IT SUCKS!!! Today’s financial system is controlled by large institutions and governments, acting as middle-men. These authorities which process payments can also prevent, freeze, and even confiscate transactions because their service enables them to be the custodial owners of said funds
- Today, people don’t really own their money. Banks custody your funds and promise you access to those funds. Meanwhile, they lend your money to strangers who may or may not pay it back, and so the bank just types a number in your account (credit) in place of the money that’s supposedly yours to spend…if they let you…Solution? #BitcoinFixesThis
Gatekeepers
Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash (P2P)
- Bitcoin is a Digital Bearer instrument. It is the ultimate form of cash, meaning it is something meaningful in and of itself. Actually owning and holding money is part of what gives it value; the fact that it’s yours, and no one else’s.
- Bitcoin works like emailing a photo, but the sender doesn’t keep a copy. When you send someone Bitcoin from your digital wallet, it goes directly to their digital wallet.
Permissionlesss
- Just like cash, you can exchange it digitally, person to person, because it’s permission-less. You have the freedom to simply memorize your private key (password), and store you life savings in your brain in Bitcoin. No more worrying about delays in bank transfers, currency exchanges, account freezes or anything else that gets in the way of your every day purchasing habits. Pay for anything at any time, anywhere.
- Bitcoin payments aren’t tied to your personal information, therefore you aren’t as exposed to threats like identity theft. Bitcoin can also be backed up and encrypted to ensure the security of your money. Bitcoin lets you opt-out of the broken financial system (which btw tracks all your financial activity) whenever you want. Bitcoin lets you truly protect your identity. In Bitcoin, no one can hack your credit card, steal your money, or sell your data
- Bitcoin can only be used by the owner (YOU!) of the cryptographic private key (or your secret password) which controls the funds. Basically, cryptography keeps your money safe so only you can spend it. This pseudonymous nature (again, thanks to cryptography) gives people privacy, autonomy, and certainty in their transactions. Just think of it like tipping your bartender with a $20 bill, *but in super-secret-ninja mode.
A New, Truly Accountable, Unit of Account (UoA)
- A money’s unit of account allows us to measure our productivity, investment, and most importantly, our time. In a fiat-world where the supply of money is centralized and inflated by a higher authority, each unit that we worked for loses value and becomes less accountable. All of our time that we invested to make money has been stolen from us and seems like a waste. Not under a Bitcoin Standard.
- Major players in the world economy are realizing that fiat currency is no longer accountable, nor reliable to hold and appreciate their hard-earned wealth. Companies like Microstrategies see that Bitcoin has more long-term appreciation than holding cash
- Each Bitcoin is divisible into 100 million units each (satoshis). Since there’s a finite supply, the value of each satoshi increases, and is able to buy more goods/services with less units of the money (like buying a milk shake for a nickel). This makes it a deflationary currency, which are designed to combat the government’s hidden tax of inflation and redistribute your hard-earned wealth (AKA the Cantillon Effect).
Trust
- Solution: Bitcoin is Freedom Money: No more having to hold strangers accountable for your wealth… #BitcoinFixesThis
- Each Bitcoin is divisible into 100 million units each (satoshis). Since there’s a finite supply, the value of each satoshiincreases, and is able to buy more goods/services with less units of the money (like buying a milk shake for a nickel). This makes it a deflationary currency, which are designed to combat the government’s hidden tax of inflation and redistribute your hard-earned wealth (AKA the Cantillon Effect).
Today, we're forced to trust heavily centralized institutions, like payment processors and central banks, will keep our money safe. Just as people had to trust the gold in their vaults was solvent, relying on today’s clunky, expensive, inefficient middle men, puts us at risk of hacks, fraud, theft, and censorship. We have no choice but to depend on these oracles behind the scenes just to make our money work (most of the time, if we’re lucky…)
How?
- Payments are processed by miners (special computers in a global competition of finding/mining new bitcoins) and broadcasted openly and publicly on the blockchain, a distributed public ledger/database: AKA Time Chain. Think of it as a hybrid of a public bank statement, and a calendar.
- Just like the internet, instead of being in one specific place, Bitcoin spreads across a network of nodes (or computers running Bitcoin’s software) that talk to each other all around the world. You even have the option to run your own node. Think of it like setting up your home router, but it’s also your bank that lets you automatically route payments and audit the economy’s money supply 24/7
- The Time Chain keeps track of who holds what Bitcoin and records the transfer of funds from one address to another (shoutout Peer-to-Peer). Btw, you get to keep your own copy of the Time-Chain. So if bitcoin ever did crash, you got your own backup to fire up and pick up where you left off. You can literally kick-start/reboot the entire world economy from your bedroom…
A New, Truly Accountable, Unit of Account (UoA)
- A money’s unit of account allows us to measure our productivity, investment, and most importantly, our time. In a fiat-world where the supply of money is centralized and inflated by a higher authority, each unit that we worked for loses value and becomes less accountable. All of our time that we invested to make money has been stolen from us and seems like a waste. Not under a Bitcoin Standard.
- Major players in the world economy are realizing that fiat currency is no longer accountable, nor reliable to hold and appreciate their hard-earned wealth. Companies like Microstrategies see that Bitcoin has more long-term appreciation than holding cash
- Each Bitcoin is divisible into 100 million units each (satoshis). Since there’s a finite supply, the value of each satoshi increases, and is able to buy more goods/services with less units of the money (like buying a milk shake for a nickel). This makes it a deflationary currency, which are designed to combat the government’s hidden tax of inflation and redistribute your hard-earned wealth (AKA the Cantillon Effect).
- Bitcoin is the first money ever to be truly free. No central authority owns it: No king, president, dictator, government, bank, or leader of any kind. It’s owned by the people, and is therefore truly resistant to confiscation. No higher power can take it away from you or make you give up your Bitcoin. Nobody has power over it but you, because you own the private keys of this bearer treasure.
- The Time Chain keeps track of who holds what Bitcoin and records the transfer of funds from one address to another (shoutout Peer-to-Peer). Btw, you get to keep your own copy of the Time-Chain. So if bitcoin ever did crash, you got your own backup to fire up and pick up where you left off. You can literally kick-start/reboot the entire world economy from your bedroom…
- Freedom is ultimately what a reliable form of money provides: the freedom to pursue individual interests (specialization) and the ability to convert the output of that value into the value created by others (trade).
- For the first time in history, there is a separation of money and state. With Bitcoin, people finally have complete autonomy over their finances. Now, you can opt out of fiat, and be 100% in control of your money and future.