A Vision for a Value-Enabled Web â We all know that the Web is broken in more ways than one. Clickbait, misinformation, bot farms, anonymous "troll-demons"âthe list is as endless as it is depressing. How did we end up here? I believe
Bitcoin Is the Rediscovery of Money â Bitcoin is the rediscovery of money. It is money reconsidered. It is the removal of counterparty risk. It is the purest, fastest, soundest money, re-imagined from the ground up. It is computational proof of historical events, building up
The Other Side of the Coin - Computational proof of the chronological order of transactions â Cryptography is only one side of the coin, and cryptography is not enough. Why? Cryptography is not enough because cryptography requires secrecy. It requires key holders, and when it comes to a global monetary system, we
Bitcoin ist... â Bitcoin ist 12 Wörter, verschrĂ€nkt mit dir. Und doch wird es mehr als 12 Wörter brauchen, um dies zu erlĂ€utern. Wenn man ein Dutzend verschiedene Leute fragt, was Bitcoin ist, bekommt man zwei Dutzend verschiedene
Dear Crypto & Fiat Bros - An open letter to the confused and dismissive. â It should be obvious by now, but I'm afraid I'll have to spell it out anyway: Bitcoin, not blockchain. Bitcoin, not crypto. Bitcoin, not distributed ledger technology. Bitcoin, not DeFi. Bitcoin, not Web3. Bitcoin, not
Bitcoin Is Digital Scarcity â We should treat computers as fancy telephones, whose purpose is to connect people. Information is alienated experience. Information is not something that exists. Indeed, computers donât really exist, exactly; theyâre only subject to human interpretation.
Cryptography is Not Enough - A long(ish) Speech on Paradoxes and Antinomies â Warning: This presentation contains example private keys. Do not import any sample keys or send bitcoins to any of the associated addresses; you will lose your money. Watch on YouTube This talk was originally given
I Miss the Old Satoshi â I miss the old Satoshi, straight from the node Satoshi. Chop up the code Satoshi, set on his goals Satoshi. I hate the new Satoshi, the lawsuit Satoshi. The always rude Satoshi, go on a
The Words We Use In Bitcoin - Words, Language, Terminology, and Linguistic Attacks â It canât be said often enough: Bitcoin is confusing. However, itâs not complicated like a Rube Goldberg machine is complicated. Itâs just very foreign and thus very misunderstoodâit is a completely new thing. âThereâs nothing
Freedom and Privacy - Two Sides of the Same Coin â We take many things for granted: running water, electricity, washing machines, the internet, our mobile phones, and a myriad of other technologies. But itâs not only tangible things that we donât think twice about. In
Inalienable Property Rights - The Law, Language, Money, and Morality of Bitcoin â If speech and the free exercise thereof is sacred, then Bitcoin is sacred, because all that Bitcoin requires of you is to think and to speak.
The Egg of the Phoenix â Youâve heard it before: "Bitcoin fixes this." It sounds like a joke at first. An off-hand comment uttered by a complete fool, by someone who is at least partly delusional. Surely, bitcoin doesn't fix this? Right?
The Freedom of Value - How Value-for-Value Fixes the Monetization of Information â The internet has a problem. Few people know that this problem exists, but hey, that's the nature of serious, non-obvious problems: they are invisible until they aren't. The problem with the internet is that information
Magic Internet Money - The Magical Origins of Bitcoin â Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke Technology is a marvelous thing. We are so quick to accept things as they stand, rarely taking the time to reflect on how magical
Moving Towards a Bitcoin Standard - The Stairway to Omnipresence â What a historic day. The first country moved towards a Bitcoin Standard, albeit partially. A lot can be said about Bukele's decision to make bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador. Yes, it is a government
Implications of Outlawing Bitcoin â Bitcoin is complicated and scary. Just like fire, electricity, computers, and every other ground-breaking invention before it. It is complicated and scary because most people do not understand how it works and why it might
Bitcoin Is An Idea â Donât worry about people stealing an idea. If itâs original, you will have to ram it down their throats. Howard H. Aiken Thereâs no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. Thereâs only an
The Responsibility of Adopting Bitcoin â There is a saying among bitcoiners, and it becomes more truthful and apparent as time goes on: You donât change Bitcoin. Bitcoin changes you. Why is that? At first, I wasnât sure how to answer
Bitcoin Privacy: Best Practices â There is a sacred realm of privacy for every man and woman where he makes his choices and decisionsâââa realm of his own essenÂtial rights and liberÂties into which the law, generÂally speaking, must not intrude. Geoffrey
Bitcoin Is Time â One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. Robert Frost, Acquainted with the Night (1928) Time is still the great mystery to us. It is no more than a concept;
What Is 21ism? â Morpheus: I imagine that right now, you're feeling a bit like Alice. Hmm? Tumbling down the rabbit hole? Neo: You could say that. Morpheus: I see it in your eyes. You have the look of
On Bitcoin's UX â There is an ongoing discusÂsion in the Bitcoin space revolving around the topic of user experiÂence, or UX for short. Bitcoin still feels weird, clunky, and compliÂcated at times. The main reason for this is
Why I Joined Swan Bitcoin â I have a picture on my wall that says the following: âYou literÂally ought to be asking yourself all the time what is the most imporÂtant thing in the world I could be working on right now,
True Names Not Required â In 1981, at a time where the internet was in its infancy (and I was just a gleam in my fatherâs eye), the legendary mathematician, computer scientist, and science-fiction author Vernor Vinge published his prophetic
The Bitcoin Journey â A couple of weeks ago I had the immense pleasure of giving the opening talk at the Value of Bitcoin conference. I would like to revisit some ideas of this talk and maybe dig deeper
Dear Family, Dear Friends - A letter to all of you who still have no bitcoin. â I am writing this letter because I am convinced of two things: (1) our current money is fundamentally broken (2) using superior money will benefit you in particular â and society in general â in
Dear Bitcoiners - An optimistic letter to friends and foes around the globe. â The madness of this world became obvious in an instant. Everything is changing way faster than most of us ever imagined â but Iâm not worried. To the contrary, Iâm weirdly optimistic â because of
Dear Legacy People â The world you know and love is no more, even if it isnât obvious to every one of you just yet. We will look back at this moment in time, the months we are currently
Bitcoin's Habitats - How Bitcoin is surviving and thriving between worlds â As I have argued previously, Bitcoin is a living organism. But where does this organism live, exactly? As with many questions in the world of Bitcoin, exact answers are hard to come by. Living things
Bitcoin's Eternal Struggle - How Bitcoin Thrives on the Edge between Order and Chaos â Bitcoin works. No matter what other opinions you hold about this strange phenomenon, it undoubtedly works, marches on, or, as I (and others) have previously argued, is alive. Even if most of the world would
Bitcoin Boots on the Ground: Venezuela â JosĂ© is a bitcoiner. Like many others, he discovered bitcoin a couple of years ago and is fascinated by the technology. Unlike many others, however, JosĂ© lives in a country where the traditional financial system
How to Kill Bitcoin â What follows is an elaborate, in-depth, and practical step-by-step guide on how to kill the beast which is Bitcoin. Bitcoin is remarkably resilient. As Rep. Patrick McHenry famously said: governments can not stop this innovation.
The Rise of the Sovereign Individual - How power is re-aligning itself in an internet-native world â Not too long ago, the internet was a fringe phenomenon. Very few people saw the benefits of a global communications network. Even fewer people had the vision and the foresight to see what it might
Proof of Life - Why Bitcoin is a Living Organism â The definition of life has been a challenge for scientists and philosophers alike. While many definitions have been put forward, what precisely differentiates the living from the non-living remains elusive. Are viruses alive? DNA molecules?
The World is Waking Up to Bitcoin â Not too long ago, Bitcoin was a niche interest. Cryptographers, cypherpunks, and some libertarian-minded folks were the only ones interested in the idea of magic internet money. Fast-forward to today, and the U.S. President, the
Bitcoin's Gravity - How idea-value feedback loops are pulling people in â Bitcoin is different things to different people. Whatever it might be to you, it is undoubtedly an opinionated and polarizing phenomenon. There are certain ideas embedded in the essence of Bitcoin, and you might be
Technological Teachings of Bitcoin - What I've Learned From Bitcoin: Part III â What is Bitcoin? The many answers to this question are as interesting as they are varied. Bitcoin is both a social and a monetary phenomenon, but it is also a technological one. The intersection of
Economic Teachings of Bitcoin - What I've Learned From Bitcoin: Part II â Money doesnât grow on trees. To believe that it does is foolish, and our parents make sure that we know about that by repeating this saying like a mantra. We are encouraged to use money
Philosophical Teachings of Bitcoin - What I've Learned From Bitcoin: Part I â Some questions have easy answers. âWhat have you learned from Bitcoin?â isnât one of them. After trying to answer this question in a short tweet, and failing miserably, I realized that the amount of things
The Magic Dust of Cryptography - How digital information is changing our society â Imagine you have a hammerâââa magical hammerâââwhich can smash anything into pieces with one stroke. Not only that, this hammer can completely pulverize everything it touches into a fine gray dust. Further imagine that there
Bitcoin's Energy Consumption - A shift in perspective â You might have heard that Bitcoin wastes a tremendous amount of energy. You might also have heard that Bitcoin will use half a percent of the worldâs electric energy by the end of the year,
Not all code is words, but some words are code:
/gmbot /vew /rediscovery /computation /momo /crypto /digital /cryptography /satoshi /terminology /https /speech /phoenix /busking /magic /elsalvador /law /idea /responsibility /privacy /time /21ism /ux /swan /names /journey /family /bitcoiners /legacy /habitats /chaos /venezuela /kill /rise /life /wakingup /gravity /technology /economy /philosophy /dust /energy
Proud host of the Bitcoin Whitepaper.
We are all Satoshi.*
* Except for Craig Wright.