Tag: satoshi

Quoth the Raven’s bitcoin conversion: “Bitcoin could very well be the exit ramp that millions of angry people look towards in such a situation.”

It’s been amazing to see more and more people believe in the bitcoin story. Not just the why of investment (because bitcoin number go up), but why bitcoin even exists to begin with. He explains it far, far better than I can, so I just want to share some of Quoth’s recent content.

In particular I enjoyed his appearance on Peter McCormack’s What Bitcoin Did podcast:

(embedding this YT video was the first time I saw what Quoth looked like and I did NOT expect a beanie wearing Sopranos character with sleeves lol)

Also his writing is fantastic and funny:

https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/the-catalyst-that-could-standardize

…where he talks about how growing anger at institutional failures and government corruption — as voiced through moments like Occupy Wall Street and r/WallStreetBets — could find its ultimate form through Bitcoin

https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/why-i-bitcoin

…where he talks about his own falling down the rabbit hole journey through a combination of listening to people he respects (Lepard, Saylor, Lyn Alden) and better understanding the technology

As an aside, one of the most commonly misunderstood and yet critical aspects of bitcoin is that it’s actually TWO important things: one is the currency ($BTC), which gets ALL the attention; and two is the NETWORK (the Bitcoin technology) which is like a self-sovereign Paypal.

So when you buy bitcoin, what do you own? You own a share of the 21M bitcoin coins that will ever exist (like a piece of digital gold), and you ALSO OWN an “equity” share of the Bitcoin network, the permissionless banking and savings platform that is Satoshi’s genius.

Thank you for listening to my mini ted talk.

Why 21 million bitcoins? “I ended up picking something in the middle”

Another fascinating glimpse into Satoshi’s thought process:

My choice for the number of coins and distribution schedule was an educated guess. It was a difficult choice, because once the network is going it’s locked in and we’re stuck with it. I wanted to pick something that would make prices similar to existing currencies, but without knowing the future, that’s very hard. I ended up picking something in the middle. If Bitcoin remains a small niche, it’ll be worth less per unit than existing currencies. If you imagine it being used for some fraction of world commerce, then there’s only going to be 21 million coins for the whole world, so it would be worth much more per unit.