Pete Rizzo

David Canellis

Detailing Bitcoin’s rise from internet plaything worth less than a penny to global phenomenon disrupting money as we know it.

Supply Shock

In this episode, Bitcoin veteran Jameson Lopp discusses the growing threat of quantum computing to Bitcoin’s cryptography. He breaks down his new Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) that aims to prevent a catastrophic supply shock by encouraging a network-wide migration to quantum-resistant addresses. Lopp explains the nuances of Shor’s algorithm, possible migration schemes, controversies around locking old funds, and his phased plan to protect user assets. We also touch on the state of Bitcoin L2s, BitVM progress, mining risks, and the philosophical tension between ossification and innovation. Enjoy!
—
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Against Allowing Quantum Recovery of Bitcoin:
https://blog.lopp.net/against-quantum-recovery-of-bitcoin/ 
—
Join us at Digital Asset Summit in London October 13-15. Use code SUPPLY100 for $100 OFF
https://blockworks.co/event/digital-asset-summit-2025-london 
—
Ledn is the leading platform for Bitcoin-backed loans, offering a secure and transparent way to unlock liquidity without selling your Bitcoin. Ledn has issued over $9 billion in loans since 2018 and has never lost a single satoshi of client assets, earning a reputation as the name you can trust in the crypto space.
Visit https://www.ledn.io/ to learn more. 
—
Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction 
(02:38) Bitcoin’s Quantum Threat 
(07:18) Presidio Conference 
(10:27) Quantum Resistant Solutions 
(11:08) Ledn Ad 
(11:45) Quantum Resistant Solutions 
(17:14) Jameson’s Proposal 
(23:21) What If You’re In A Coma? 
(25:00) Ledn 
(25:45) Proposal Feedback 
(27:20) Quantum Mining 
(29:59) How Fast Is A Quantum Hack? 
(32:15) The Quantum Plan 
(33:41) How To Protect Your Funds? 
(35:39) Bitcoin Layers 2s 
(37:43) Core vs Knots 
(42:01) Is Bitcoin Progressing? 
(45:16) Final Thoughts 
 
—
Disclaimer: Nothing said on Supply Shock is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are opinions, not financial advice. Hosts and guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.
 
#Bitcoin #Crypto #SupplyShock

Quantum Computing: Solving Bitcoin's Greatest Threat | Jameson Lopp

In this episode, Co-Founder of StarkWare Eli Ben-Sasson joins the show to explore the philosophical and technical crossroads between Bitcoin and Ethereum. He recounts the early hopes of building zk-tech on Bitcoin, the cultural rift that pushed innovation elsewhere, and why Bitcoin’s potential remains limited without soft forks. Eli argues for a future where Bitcoin’s principles—decentralization, verifiability, and self-custody—can scale globally through new cryptographic tools like ZK proofs and Layer 2s. He reflects on governance, protocol ossification, and the critical need for experimentation to preserve Bitcoin’s revolutionary promise. Enjoy!
—
Follow Eli: https://x.com/EliBenSasson 
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—
Join us at Digital Asset Summit in London October 13-15. Use code SUPPLY100 for $100 OFF
https://blockworks.co/event/digital-asset-summit-2025-london 
—
Ledger, the global leader in digital asset security, proudly sponsors Supply Shock. As Bitcoin adoption grows, Ledger celebrates 10 years of securing over 20% of the world’s crypto. Buy a LEDGER™ device now for true self-custody and peace of mind in securing your Bitcoin. Devices are also available in Bitcoin orange. For every device ordered in BTC Orange, we’ll donate $5 to brink.dev. Buy now at https://Ledger.com.
—
 
Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction 
(01:41) Early Bitcoin Development 
(02:48) Privacy &amp; Alternative Cryptocurrencies 
(05:56) Bitcoin: The Asset vs. Tech 
(10:03) Ledger Ad 
(10:51) Bitcoin: The Asset vs. Tech 
(13:48) Ethereum's Emergence &amp; Impact 
(20:53) Experimentation &amp; Innovation in Crypto 
(31:54) The Cultural Impact of Bitcoin's Development 
(34:03) Historical Perspective on Bitcoin's Adoption 
(34:55) The Necessity of Experimentation in Crypto 
(35:54) Bitcoin's Global Product Market Fit 
(37:12) Ledger Ad 
(37:59) Challenges in Bitcoin's Consensus Process 
(39:18) Governance Issues in Decentralized Blockchains 
(41:33) The Future of Bitcoin &amp; Global Economics 
(43:34) The Role of Decentralization in Blockchain 
(54:51) ZK Technology &amp; Its Applications 
(01:01:32) Living on Bitcoin 
 
—
Disclaimer: Nothing said on Supply Shock is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are opinions, not financial advice. Hosts and guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.
 
#Bitcoin #Crypto #SupplyShock

Bitcoin Ossification Is a Threat to Its Survival | Eli Ben-Sasson

In this episode, Didi Taihuttu—aka the "Bitcoin Family" patriarch—shares the origin story behind selling everything to go all-in on Bitcoin, from early GPU mining and Dogecoin experiments to surviving bear markets and living unbanked for nearly a decade. He discusses why he believes Bitcoin is the only true tool for financial freedom, the moral cost of traditional finance, and how the rise of stablecoins, Lightning, and crypto infrastructure shape a new global reality. Plus, how Bitcoin can empower machines, children, and the next generation of digital nomads. Enjoy!
—
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Supply Shock Telegram: https://t.me/+SpmLg6P_QcgxNDcx 
Supply Shock Newsletter: https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock 
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—
Join us at Digital Asset Summit in London October 13-15. Use code SUPPLY100 for $100 OFF
https://blockworks.co/event/digital-asset-summit-2025-london 
—
Ledn is the leading platform for Bitcoin-backed loans, offering a secure and transparent way to unlock liquidity without selling your Bitcoin. Ledn has issued over $9 billion in loans since 2018 and has never lost a single satoshi of client assets, earning a reputation as the name you can trust in the crypto space.
Visit https://www.ledn.io/ to learn more. 
—
Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction
(01:14) Bitcoin Bull Markets 
(03:52) Early Days of Bitcoin Mining 
(08:23) Switching to Dogecoin 
(09:35) Ledn Ad 
(10:13) Switching to Dogecoin 
(11:33) Selling Everything for Bitcoin 
(13:58) Living the Bitcoin Lifestyle 
(20:36) Trading and the 2017 Crypto Boom 
(21:37) Bitcoin Maximalism &amp; Diversification 
(22:58) Living Unbanked 
(24:30) Ledn Ad 
(25:16) Investing in Crypto Projects 
(26:48) The Cultural Schism in Bitcoin Maximalism 
(30:01) The Future of Bitcoin &amp; Decentralization 
(33:20) Lightning Network &amp; Education 
(36:11) Stablecoins 
(39:50) The Future of Bitcoin Adoption 
(43:11) Predicting Bitcoin's Future 
(46:22) Final Thoughts 
 
—
Disclaimer: Nothing said on Supply Shock is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are opinions, not financial advice. Hosts and guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.
 
#Bitcoin #Crypto #SupplyShock

He Traded His HOUSE For Bitcoin In 2017—Why He's STILL HODLing | Didi Taihuttu

This is a segment from the Supply Shock newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



A few years back at Bitcoin Amsterdam, I <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/SSVajSFE14Q?feature=shared&amp;t=14160">watched</a> Core contributor Sjors Provoost make a point about the right to financial privacy in today’s digital world.



“I go to the bathroom at the train station right now. If I pay with my debit card, these records are kept for at least a decade. So the bank can actually look up, 10 years from now, exactly at what time I went to the bathroom. I think that is ridiculous, and I think everybody would agree that&#8217;s ridiculous.



“I think we should change the financial system to [stop doing] that.”



The panel featuring Provoost was about how the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) threatens Bitcoin privacy.



Which, to be fair, is something the intergovernmental agency has absolutely done over the past decade or so. FATF’s anti-money-laundering policies directly influence how worldwide regulators treat Bitcoin mixers and other privacy protocols built around more trustless implementations like CoinJoin.&nbsp;



Surprise, they really don’t like them.



It was on this day in 2017 that BitMixer, then considered the largest Bitcoin mixer by volume, bowed out altogether amid rolling raids on darknet marketplaces across the world.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcmYMqecVq-gcQkiSW0YZahYx_Gt2YobG_RNx1M8va3ZzvqYnsdzXMR0ETxK9DYvZef7Tab2myFecHTrkx3me3Dv236R8mFAUZDh8-YQIMOWuAc0SjKkXgBMCnU44hZYBUtiRUP?key=5Mb2084A0KY4WJoOqHZcdQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">In the comments, the OP was adamant that they were not shutting down due to any interaction with authorities.</figcaption></figure>







BitMixer was the quintessential centralized mixing service. Users would enter some parameters onto a website and send bitcoin to an address, after which they would receive the same amount of coins back, minus a fee. The bitcoin received was made of entirely different UXTOs, which helped to break any blockchain analysis that might link them to the original sender.



All standard for most Bitcoin mixers, including its predecessor <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-fog-founder-convicted-by-jury">Bitcoin Fog</a>. Where BitMixer stood out was its reliability and speed, particularly for large orders, having accepted up to 2,000 BTC at a time ($5.4 million when it shut down and almost $236 million today), with operations backed by a larger liquidity pool than its competitors.&nbsp;



In November 2015, BitMixer had <a href="https://themerkle.com/interview-with-the-owner-of-bitmixer-io-a-high-volume-bitcoin-mixer/">reported</a> processing around 65,000 BTC in one month (around $44 million back then).



BitMixer’s owner also promised that the servers were out of reach of regulators. (“Our servers are located in a country where US authorities can’t get access to the server without a local court order. Bitcoin is not considered as money here, so we can’t be a money-laundering service.”)



They added that they use encrypted disks and delete all order data after 24 hours, including erasing used bitcoin addresses from the official wallet after mixed coins were distributed. “Even if the server is seized, they will find nothing,” the owner was <a href="https://themerkle.com/interview-with-the-owner-of-bitmixer-io-a-high-volume-bitcoin-mixer/">quoted</a> as saying.&nbsp;



Users could additionally generate a letter of guarantee signed by BitMixer’s PGP key that would represent an obligation to send the mixed coins, so that any shortchanging could be cryptographically verified.



It was no <a href="https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/46785.pdf#:~:text=five%20ransomware%20families%2C%20the%20top,given%20family%20Cerber%20CryptXXX%20CryptoDefense">secret</a> that BitMixer was relied upon by users of darknet marketplaces and ransomware hackers. And the service’s retirement post came only days after a multi-national sting on AlphaBay, which ran outgoing user transactions through unnamed tumbling and mixing services to provide users with privacy.



Over the following years and until today, a number of high-profile mixing services would either shut down voluntarily or be forced to close by authorities, including Helix (with the owner later indicted and sentenced), BitBlender, Bestmixer, Blender.io, ChipMixer, Sinbad.io and Bitcoin Fog. Darknet markets followed a similar trend.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdFRRPWqN6DfQvbvDE_IJZ3oErO-tgZLelSHnwTd88ZlRACW9Fu4HZKiwIB2PqKMAHoH2VW81EQ1c7wPkTcH1-vIodpW-GC4pZi8xPItocfq2EQYOOSBWn8uO-7QeElJIDeE2BpOw?key=5Mb2084A0KY4WJoOqHZcdQ" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A helpful explainer on the philosophy behind BitMixer was <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150314222329/https://bitmixer.io/why.html">posted</a> to its website. (NB: Take caution in interacting with any service using the same domain or name today.)</figcaption></figure>







Of course, regulators eventually came for decentralized alternatives through the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/samourai-wallet-matters-memecoins-privacy">case against Samourai Wallet</a>, which is still pending pre-trial motions set for later this year.&nbsp;



Meanwhile on Ethereum, smart contracts and their developers have been under fire via the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/roman-storm-trial-opening-statements">Tornado Cash case</a>, which has seen one co-founder given a 64-month prison sentence, now under appeal, while the other continues to face up to 45 years in prison.&nbsp;



So, where does that leave Sjors’ quest to keep our bathroom trips at European train stations private?&nbsp;



Frustrating as it may be, while these cases shake out, it might be safer to simply hold it until you get home.



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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thebreakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
</ul>

Bitcoin

Why Bitcoin’s biggest mixer walked away from ‘huge profits’

This is a segment from the Supply Shock newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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If you won the lottery, how would you spend it?



A new house, maybe, or a car. A warm summer holiday to a sunny beach, at least.



I’d bet good money, however, that using it to attack Bitcoin would be low on the list.



Well, ten years ago, someone burned good money doing just that.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">On This Day: 2015</h2>



You would already know that the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae_V0upRlGk">debate over transaction filtering</a> has been going on for years. More than a decade, even.



It was around this time in 2015 that a mysterious user, or group of users, decided to take matters into their own hands.



An entity going by CoinWallet.eu had begun executing what it <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1094865.0;all">described</a> as the “Ultimate Bitcoin Stress Test.” They were going to systematically spam the chain with dust transactions and fill each block to the brim, driving fees sky high in the process while drastically increasing wait times for legitimate users.



CoinWallet.eu hoped to demonstrate that Bitcoin’s 1MB block size limit was too small, and ultimately convince the community to raise it. After all, if spammers could cheaply overload Bitcoin’s blocks as they were, then so could anyone else at any time.



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe3ygB_RZOuzI6CYVbUWaKHsAnM0jY5nm2jQmdkVp1IaPeV3OaJNbq5_NJ-yQPRYFGlntAHzGA_A-d6F3noeqeLHb-j80-4Cl7PPrhR2DZ8BIASTD5qRFoIdloM4C1vgxeVi869?key=i8o9LS5veR-8RvED07BMPg" alt="" style="width:758px;height:auto"/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The campaign caused havoc for the network, with the line showing the number of unconfirmed transactions. (<a href="https://damonmccoy.com/papers/bitcoin16-final22.pdf?ref=blog.lopp.net">Source</a>)</figcaption></figure>



In a recent <a href="https://blog.bitmex.com/the-2015-spam-attacks/">blog post</a>, BitMEX Research wrote:



“The logic was that at a fixed fee rate, filling up an 8MB block with spam would cost a lot more than filling up a 1MB block. The small blocker retort to this argument was that the larger blockers had it backwards, if there is spam, letting it all go onchain quickly and cheaply wasn’t stopping the spammer, but letting the spammer win.”



“Besides, if the blocksize limit was increased, fees would decline, making the spam cheaper. However, a key metric to the large blockers was how much money it would cost in fees to fill a block. This number was considered far too low for Bitcoin to be secure and raising the blocksize limit would help increase this value, making Bitcoin more resilient, in their view.”



CoinWallet.eu waged its campaign across four attacks between June and September 2015.



The first actually failed. It was supposed to generate 1MB worth of transaction data every five minutes, causing a backlog of transactions 241 blocks long (1.67 days). The mempool would contain 241MB unconfirmed transactions by that point.&nbsp;



But after spending 2 BTC ($500 then, $235,800 now), their servers began to crash under the weight of a mempool that was just 12MB.



The second came five days later and was more effective, and even managed to seemingly convince one user that the big blockers could have a point.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXd9gtmJ1zP2jiPlvDvRkYPB2c4kw5zCwhk9MsBr7vCG6rWTnXfRe9FYqG4iQIVfdjRoYSUz6rFVeFGXp8dsf_yeoJonta0QwcrJA5tkMS-H1T3rkYQDvbD8O_Pfi3Tmo4_4Jr1N?key=i8o9LS5veR-8RvED07BMPg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Marecek666 was not happy about the spam campaign.</figcaption></figure>



CoinWallet.eu never explicitly took responsibility for the third wave, but it’s assumed the group was responsible.&nbsp;



The attack, between July 7 and 11, resulted in a backlog of between 27,000 and 80,000 transactions, with many of the dust transactions (0.00001 BTC) sent to well-known wallets like WikiLeaks and Voat, as well as generic public key addresses generated from simple key phrases, like “cat” or “dog.”



Motherboard calculated that the attackers in total spent 30 BTC to flood the network for that third wave, worth $8,000 then but more than $3.5 million right now. Undoing the backlog meant F2Pool would need to consolidate the bulk of the spam outputs with a number of 1MB transactions.



CoinWallet.eu’s fourth attack arrived months later, in September, when it posted thousands of private keys to Bitcointalk, each one lining up with an address containing a slice of 200 BTC.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image is-resized"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdememZQIHnSSfNyK0C365l4WEemdsC5e3YdtTTLUpsNWNVpIcxdYTrs6oWF8GaFf4VvEZeUpKJKZJRrhys8LwGIHa13isrQPxvGrmeEAQO1GDZ3-xRc6UzVr3TIO4kNVRLwVc_eQ?key=i8o9LS5veR-8RvED07BMPg" alt="" style="width:756px;height:auto"/></figure>



Users rushed to collect the free coins, submitting 90,000 transactions. Many of them related to the same bitcoin, so they could easily be discarded by miners, reducing the attack’s effectiveness.&nbsp;



CoinWallet.eu gave up after that, with the actions of miners, pools and key players, including <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1878079505052413965">Gregory Maxwell</a>, largely mitigating any adverse effects over a short enough time.&nbsp;



As BitMEX pointed out, the situation closely rhymes with the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4Ckiw4nI_E">modern-day discussion</a> over the role of node runners in filtering out certain types of transactions, with Luke Dashjr at the time pushing for widespread usage of filters to suppress CoinWallet.eu’s spam.&nbsp;



It’s still unknown who was behind CoinWallet.eu, with theories including Gerald Cotten and big blocker Craig Wright. In any case, an academic <a href="https://damonmccoy.com/papers/bitcoin16-final22.pdf?ref=blog.lopp.net">study</a> concluded that a little less than a quarter of transactions across a 10-day period at the peak of the campaign were spam (385,256 out of 1.65 million). It increased fees by 51% (45 to 68 sats/byte) and processing delay by 7x(about 20 minutes to 2 hours and 45 minutes).



“This shows that an adversary who is willing to expand modest amounts of bitcoin (at least $49,000 USD), to pay higher fees, can DoS Bitcoin,” the authors found.



And there’s the kicker. The four attacks indeed cost only about $49,000 worth of bitcoin to execute — in 2015.&nbsp;



Today, with bitcoin at all-time highs, those 201 BTC would fetch almost $24 million, equivalent to a jackpot lottery prize and enough to buy a house, a car and multiple vacations to far-off exotic beaches. Oops.



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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
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How Bitcoin survived a DoS attack now worth $24M

This is a segment from the Supply Shock newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subscribe</a>.



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Adoption does not follow a straight line.



At least, not at the local level. But definitely, if you <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ict-adoption">amalgamate</a> the world’s adoption rate for mobile phone subscriptions and the internet, the line will indeed go straight up.&nbsp;



Zoom into individual countries, though, and you’ll soon see that the road to widespread usage can be rocky — but the result is still the same.



Greece in July 2015 was in the midst of an all-out banking crisis.



The European Central Bank had declined to further prop up Greek banks with emergency debt. By this point, Greece was only just <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/greece-meets-imf-payment-deadline/a-18371436">scraping</a> together repayments for a 1.6 billion euro ($1.9 billion) loan from the IMF which had fallen into arrears at the end of June.



Greece’s government scrambled to secure alternative financing but failed. Having judged the terms of the ECB’s deal as politically <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31055069">toxic</a>, the then-prime minister instead called a snap referendum over whether to accept.



Initial deal <a href="https://content.fortune.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/draft16h.pdf">terms</a> ranged from indefinite austerity to further cuts to pensions to forced pre-approval of domestic laws to the placing of 50 billion euro ($58.5 billion) in national assets into a fund supervised by EU representatives.



Greeks <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/third-greek-atms-empty-saturday-tsipras-declares-referendum">rushed</a> to ATMs to withdraw cash as soon as the referendum was called, resulting in an <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33305019">emergency</a> bank holiday and capital controls. Withdrawals were restricted to just 60 euros ($70) per day, international transfers were mostly barred and the local stock exchange was closed.



Three days later, Greece became the first developed country to ever default on an IMF loan obligation. This effectively isolated Greece financially until votes were counted.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Greece almost left the euro at 6am this morning <a href="http://t.co/xDCYXouFaZ">http://t.co/xDCYXouFaZ</a> <a href="http://t.co/BiQsArYs1d">pic.twitter.com/BiQsArYs1d</a>&mdash; Matt O&#39;Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) <a href="https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/620565071039627264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 13, 2015</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Citizens <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jul/05/greek-referendum-no-vote-signals-huge-challenge-to-eurozone-leaders">voted</a> against the deal (61.3%), plunging the Eurozone into another two weeks of deliberations, which almost resulted in Greece leaving the eurozone altogether, as shown above. The government eventually approved austerity measures later in July. The situation would continue to play out for the rest of the year.



When we talk of Bitcoin’s true value proposition — the one underneath the price talk and financial tinkering — it’s hard to find one better than this precise example: Banks and the stock market have effectively locked you out of your value, and even when they can access it, you can only ever get less than $100 cash at a time.



Bitcoin obviously fixes this. If Satoshi had launched Bitcoin in 2015 instead of 2009, perhaps they would’ve buried a headline about the Greek debt crisis in the genesis block instead of one about the UK.



And certainly, people in Greece did turn to Bitcoin. One exchange <a href="https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/198934/fearing-return-to-drachma-some-greeks-use-bitcoin-to-dodge-capital-controls/#:~:text=New%20customers%20depositing%20at%20least,quadrupled%20to%20around%20700%20euros">reported</a> thousands of new users and locals shared tips on how to buy bitcoin on Reddit and the Greek-language <a href="https://bravenewcoin.com/insights/bitcoin-in-greece#:~:text=Nevertheless%2C%20signs%20of%20Bitcoin%20adoption,lately%2C%20coinciding%20with%20recent%20events">version</a> of Bitcointalk.&nbsp;



Their efforts were frustratingly hamstrung by capital controls — banks blocked most transfers, including potential deposits to crypto exchanges for buying bitcoin.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Nothing like capital controls to focus the mind! First Bitcoin Meetup in Greece <a href="https://t.co/fFiYKxpFtR">https://t.co/fFiYKxpFtR</a> v/<a href="https://twitter.com/RedditBTC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RedditBTC</a> <a href="http://t.co/ly3aRQJfnX">pic.twitter.com/ly3aRQJfnX</a>&mdash; Jon Matonis (@jonmatonis) <a href="https://twitter.com/jonmatonis/status/621346504280829952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2015</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“If Greeks already have cash in hand, bitcoin is unnecessary. If they don’t, then bitcoin is unattainable. It’s a bank liquidity crisis,” Andreas Antonopoulos <a href="https://x.com/aantonop/status/615571506630905856">tweeted</a> as local banks were closing.



Still, the price of bitcoin did rise somewhat during the ordeal, but it would only really start to take off toward the end of the year, when the worst of it was over.



The Greek debt crisis showed the world what happens when the fiat system fails a population. But when push comes to shove, it’s clear that Bitcoin as a safety net works best when you’ve planned ahead.



After all, it’s tough to build a doomsday bunker on the day after doomsday.



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Euro

What the Greek debt crisis taught us about Bitcoin, 10 years on

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Fifteen years ago exactly, Satoshi released Bitcoin v0.3. Well, it was really yesterday, but it was in the evening, so it counts.



The version was Satoshi’s sixth going by <a href="https://www.bitcoin.com/satoshi-archive/emails/bitcoin-list/">this archive</a> of the official bitcoin mailing list. It was bundled with a Mac OS X version built by <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/3-piping-hot-pizza-day-facts-for-bitcoin-connoisseurs">Laszlo Hanycez</a> and extra features including control of the nodes via the command line and a “hashmeter” performance display for mining, which was still being done with CPUs across the board.



The update notably came with 20% faster hashing. But whatever competitive edge was quickly dulled by the arrival of the first GPU miners on the network less than two weeks later.&nbsp;



GPUs were capable of much more than 20% — but that’s for another time.



In any case, you could tell Satoshi was excited. Their announcement <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=238.0">post</a> had two exclamation points, and there was even an extra one in the title: “Bitcoin 0.3 released!” It also featured arguably the most appealing tagline in Bitcoin history:



“Escape the arbitrary inflation risk of centrally managed currencies!”



Still, there wasn’t much initial fanfare. The Bitcointalk thread only received four replies, the same amount seen on the Bitcoin.org <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110522084201/http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?board=1.1800">forum</a> (that version of the thread gathered about 500 views in total).&nbsp;



We can infer from the post below that Satoshi intended v0.3 to be Bitcoin’s first official version, under v1.0. Early adopter <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/happy-bitcoin-mmo-day-tale-in-the-desert">Andrew “teppy” Tepper</a> had crowdsourced feedback on his proposed <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=234">submission</a> to Slashdot in the days leading up to the version’s release, but Satoshi walked back Bitcoin’s graduation from beta status in a reply:



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdJfcVL13YUn_nnIb7GdKDpaJI7FxMWC2WklBqSN-aP0lwQm1q8jOck8sqgQnAQwB81uxEKn7fvXcGUTBhHjAd8Wv88O12Ha8fHtIByqd7qg1q9KUbQ52J4PsKi79eZqzexKUsH?key=qEqpfBJAQzbDA0OyTOO60w" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Satoshi wasn’t a big fan of teppy’s first draft</figcaption></figure>



It worked. Slashdot featured teppy’s submission on its front page on July 11, 2010 — widely regarded as the first instance of a major media platform publicizing Bitcoin (it’s even in Slashdot’s Wiki entry). Bitcoins were trading for about $0.05 at the time.



&#8220;How&#8217;s this for a disruptive technology? <a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">Bitcoin</a> is a peer-to-peer, network-based digital currency with no central bank, and no transaction fees. Using a proof-of-work concept, nodes burn CPU cycles searching for bundles of coins, broadcasting their findings to the network.”&nbsp;



“Analysis of energy usage indicates that the market value of Bitcoins is already above the value of the energy needed to generate them, indicating healthy demand. The community is hopeful the currency will remain outside the reach of any government.&#8221;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdcY7HE43F1qGY7_nX7Ga_UCZrBke2l0Ns5-WEWCNi73wK-nJnThxAlt__noPF1zrafqGXzSNDxo0HlMbKiaLQDmZaKnyoQloknLIqnp-1m9Q-aUVkB29YV4dnw236qGJ8Km-9cPA?key=qEqpfBJAQzbDA0OyTOO60w" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">This was Bitcoin’s equivalent of Nirvana releasing Nevermind in 1991, feat. Smells Like Teen Spirit. It would quickly make the band a household name.</figcaption></figure>



Bitcoin’s price began its first major bull run about three months following the Slashdot post, in October 2010, and would reach dollar parity by February 2011. 



Slashdot also celebrated that milestone with another front-page <a href="https://news.slashdot.org/story/11/02/10/189246/online-only-currency-bitcoin-reaches-dollar-parity">feature</a>, which when played back-to-back showed just how important Bitcoin’s first few fans really were.



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Bitcoin’s journey to the mainstream started 15 years ago

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You might know that the US dollar has been pummeled this year.&nbsp;



The DXY index — which prices the greenback against a basket of currencies — is down 12% since mid-January, practically erasing all of its gains over the past five years.



Granted, DXY has its <a href="https://www.euromoney.com/article/27bjsstsqxhkmh0p48qj1/foreign-exchange/dxy-index-is-flawed-measure-of-us-dollar-strength-research-shows/">problems</a>. It’s heavily skewed toward the dollar’s exchange rate in Europe, with more than half of its weight assigned to the euro, as well as 20% or so spread unevenly across the British pound, Swedish krona and Swiss franc.&nbsp;



The Japanese yen is the only featured currency from Asia, with about 14%. The renminbi is excluded altogether, and the US dollar is down only about 2.5% against the yuan since mid-January.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcGbG1DfoYf_-pSf-gayNuis61QqeDEraXqIHEPcjQMSw-pdHqIVG5DrL057f7u5pQxcwrVOba5y2B7tWiDSPJ9hI-bHYP5n5voeP-ytKEGW9E1U-iwvrdDS1MKQVWC29pPWPIb4Q?key=387mJDC11feaOriI2otZEg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The orange line is BTC/USD, the purple line is BTC/USD adjusted for DXY’s volatility starting one year ago, and the blue line is DXY.</figcaption></figure>



As you can see, this quickly gets messy. Bitcoin is up almost 12% in the past six months, while the DXY is down by almost the same percentage. Does that mean bitcoin is about even?



Well, whether it’s over five years, three or one, BTC/USD is vastly outperforming major assets and benchmarks.&nbsp;



Bitcoin (priced in US dollars) is beating crude oil, gold, the S&amp;P 500 and the Nasdaq 100.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcUc88vgBJcOm8KhEnTEX_HaLvKce5SKk0Ieu-nT9-ZkRBFo0qRqcDm2GUlJH4CGNGwRgBvKnZzXh4q1td5dI5fz-KYQpP0dpXpuXOBCkcG9JctNDcISDoPD3uFUrJBPjgcQUjapA?key=387mJDC11feaOriI2otZEg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Not shown: bitcoin trailing Nvidia stock over the three-year and five-year horizons.</figcaption></figure>



Let’s instead see the price of bitcoin, denominated in each of those majors. It’s similar to how we’d measure the price of ETH in BTC terms with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sol-speedrunning-eth-btc-ratio">ETH/BTC ratio</a>.



Bitcoin’s ratio with the S&amp;P 500, Nasdaq 100 and crude oil topped out in late May, and we’re still just shy of all three.



That’s in line with bitcoin’s current standing against the US dollar (in raw dollar terms, not DXY), only 2% short of a new price record.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe1WoFSy6MY1kuWe5jKDU-7ELXNCtHvUQQTyoHO_hwvVHgjSLyHoazo7UiFNKDE8T_QgaeXqEzrMUEMmadQGtEsv8nnN1MDd1B55SYG4KF1uP6iwV89zhzAqSAyUR0pbscnIGeXJQ?key=387mJDC11feaOriI2otZEg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Luckily, there are many different kinds of all-time highs.</figcaption></figure>



The gold/bitcoin ratio, however, is almost 20% below its all-time high from a week before Christmas 2024.



But what would this newsletter be without something to celebrate?



When bitcoin hit $110,500 earlier this morning, on Coinbase, that was actually an all-time high against DXY — 1139.58 — around 2% higher than the previous peak in late May.&nbsp;



A minor victory, considering the DXY’s flaws. But a win is a win.



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Bitcoin already sets all-time high against the US dollar index

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Satoshi stood on the shoulders of giants when they built Bitcoin.



Bitcoin could’ve only arrived in 2009 after the World Wide Web came along in 1989, which was only so accessible due to the advent of the microprocessor in the early 1970s.&nbsp;



All three innovations are echoes of the telegraph.



I’m here to tell you that Sony’s Walkman may have been just as important.



The release of the first Sony Walkman wasn’t exactly on this day. It was yesterday, in 1979, that Sony began selling the <a href="https://www.walkman-archive.com/gadgets/walkman_sony_01_tps-l2_eng_v3.htm">TPS-L2</a> in Japan — a blue, pocket-sized portable cassette player that became a worldwide cultural phenomenon within just two years.



Legend has it that Sony co-founder Masaru Ibuka had tasked Sony’s tape-recorder department with designing a device for listening to the opera on a long-haul flight.



A skunkworks team of crack engineers got to work. They pulled apart the Sony <a href="https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/design/gallery/TCM-100B/">TCM-100B</a>, or the Pressman, a portable cassette recorder that could be used with one hand, released only a year earlier.&nbsp;



The Pressman was already popular with journalists and businesspeople for taking voice memos and could playback recordings from an in-built speaker at 1.5x speed.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXehImt5pmONL6NF2gde9qosPYaD7LpfOy-bxUCRY92rCSQA0d0PKlnvTGsOdKi4u9N78M3J5FTa1zJZa-ZbXHrvAui0iqxwKpVGLlm3fm0TdL5Pa7Ci3AJtF-4VRZa6meza_vND?key=vFmYwKltMbW3vTYoNHfUyw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Bank of America’s innovation chart pinpoints where certain inventions are located on the history of human population. The chart puts Bitcoin on par with the polio vaccine and DVDs, but the Walkman isn&#8217;t on it.</figcaption></figure>



Within four months and led by engineer Kozo Ohsone, Sony’s team replaced the Pressman’s speaker and record circuits with a stereo amp, producing a prototype in the same chassis. A portable, stereo cassette player, paired with a lightweight set of headphones.&nbsp;



Despite internal protests from non-believers at Sony, it took only eight weeks for the first batch of 30,000 Walkmans to sell out in Japan, and by the end of 1980, two million units had been shipped worldwide.



While there had been earlier iterations of portable music players, Sony’s Walkman quickly became a must-have across all walks of life. The New Yorker, in September 1981, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1981/09/21/the-walkman">described</a> seeing “seeing diplomats in Washington, stewardesses in Chicago, a cable-car conductor in San Francisco, and a toddler in Seattle, all of whom were wearing Walkman recorders or facsimiles thereof.”&nbsp;



Common Cog <a href="https://commoncog.com/c/cases/sony-walkman/?from_concept=technological-windows">writes</a> about the Walkman: “To put things into context: the possibility of having a personal soundscape that one could walk around with did not exist in the 1970s. Building a device capable of this was not a hugely complicated technical challenge…but there was simply no proven market for it.”



Sound familiar? Before the Walkman, it was simply not feasible to be your own DJ, at least outside of the home and away from a stereo. The Walkman changed social behavior, with people isolating themselves with headphones in public spaces, on trains, buses and planes, for the first time ever.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXe6QAa7hiV71KqSpBT3HJTfZ-GJbayRvwP5b97pId4wZLJ2RWoCo-aAmiG15DBbjHav5q23efUgHZtLckFKRVourkDwwkwCvG5yJaAZVKSO2P-EgVsVOvRLy-wxFPV3lDCkw0SH?key=vFmYwKltMbW3vTYoNHfUyw" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The real questions, via Reddit.</figcaption></figure>



It’s an older <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoins-brexit-hedge-against-instability">slogan</a>, but Bitcoin similarly made it possible to be your own bank, at least outside of hoarding cash under mattresses or in walls. Bitcoin has changed how people behave economically, having provided an alternative to a financial system that has never worked for everyone.&nbsp;



Both the Walkman and Bitcoin faced pushback from society, with critics <a href="https://books.google.nl/books/about/Personal_Stereo.html?id=3dUsDwAAQBAJ&amp;redir_esc=y">labeling</a> the personal stereo as self-indulgent and anti-social, an accessory for the “me” generation. Bitcoin has otherwise only barely shaken its cultural connotations with criminals and fraudsters, however unwarranted.



Through a certain lens, the Walkman may have primed the culture for the arrival of Bitcoin, 30 years later, having warmed us up to the idea that we can be our own anything, no matter where we are.



But here’s how Bitcoin beat the Walkman: It took nine whole years for the Oxford English dictionary to include “Walkman” as a mainstream English term. Bitcoin made it in half that time, alongside “twerk” and “emoji.”



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What the Sony Walkman and Bitcoin have in common

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The Mount Rushmore of Bitcoin. Who’s on it?



Definitely Hal Finney. Jack Dorsey, probably. Adam Back? Maybe Tim Draper, or Ross Ulbricht.



Whoever you choose, there had better be room for Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss.



For the real Mount Rushmore, each of the four presidential heads is meant to represent one of the following: the founding of the US, its expansion, its development, and its preservation.



The Winklevoss twins would best fit into the second slot of the Bitcoin version. Expansion.



Whereas Thomas Jefferson <a href="https://americanexperience.si.edu/historical-eras/expansion/">brokered</a> the Westward Expansion — buying the Louisiana Territory from France for a cool $15 million, instantly doubling the size of the country — the Winklevoss twins sought to rapidly broaden Bitcoin’s influence with its first ETF.



Exactly 12 years ago today, the brothers <a href="https://www.wired.com/2013/07/winkelvoss-bitcoin/">filed</a> for what they called the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust — a first-of-its-kind exchange-traded fund sponsored by the twins’ firm, Math-Based Asset Services, to the tune of $20 million in bitcoin (200,000 BTC).



One percent of BTC was about $11 million in July 2013, when each coin was worth $120, putting the Winklevoss’ unit count at around 100,000 BTC ($10.65 billion today).



The brothers had, three months earlier, <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/first-name-in-the-first-fund-for-bitcoins-winklevoss/">disclosed</a> that they’d quietly accumulated 1% of bitcoin’s circulating supply via their family office, Winklevoss Capital.&nbsp;



“We have elected to put our money and faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error,” Tyler told the New York Times. Initially, each share would be worth 0.20 BTC, worth about $24 at the time and $21,000 currently.



Under the surface, the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust would’ve mirrored SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), with in-kind redemption, fees paid in BTC, and private keys to the Trust’s coins held under physical custody in bank vaults.&nbsp;



The bitcoins were to be managed by a unit of Delaware Trust Company before the Winklevoss’ own Gemini was named in later filings.&nbsp;



It was a bold first attempt at bringing bitcoin out of the more obscure financial fringes of the internet and into everyday brokerage accounts, or as the <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579346/000119312513279830/d562329ds1.htm">prospectus</a> dryly put it: “The Shares are designed for investors seeking a cost-effective and convenient means to gain exposure to Bitcoins with minimal credit risk.”



The SEC took four years to formally <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2017/03/10/sec-rejects-winklevoss-bitcoin-etf-sending-price-tumbling/">reject</a> the Winklevoss proposal. Any exchange offering bitcoin ETFs would need “surveillance-sharing agreements with significant markets for trading the underlying commodity or derivatives on that commodity. And second, those markets must be regulated,” the SEC said in March 2017. The move sunk the price of bitcoin by 18% at worst, but it quickly recovered and then some.



Bitcoin-backed ETFs would only <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/blackrock-bitcoin-etf-1b-inflows">arrive</a> on US exchanges seven years later, in January 2024, almost eleven years after the original Winklevoss proposal.



A long time, to be sure, but it’s still three years faster than it took to sculpt Mount Rushmore nearly a century prior.&nbsp;



And while the Winklevoss brothers never ended up launching their own ETF, Gemini is the <a href="https://www.gemini.com/blog/gemini-named-as-custodian-on-vanecks-newly-launched-spot-bitcoin-etf">custodian</a> for VanEck’s bitcoin ETF, HODL, and has <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/gemini-files-confidential-s1-with-sec">recently</a> confidentially filed for an IPO.



All good news for the Winklevosses. Now, all we need is to bring back “Math-Based Asset Services” — easily the coolest name for a Bitcoin company we’ve ever known.



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Why the Winklevoss bros should be on Bitcoin’s Mt. Rushmore

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Today’s topic is a touchy subject for anyone who’s been in Bitcoin for the past decade.



Eight years ago exactly, a key voting threshold was met that would lead to the official adoption of Segregated Witness (<a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segregated_Witness">SegWit</a>), a backwards-compatible scaling upgrade that had been in the pipeline since late 2015.



SegWit would make it technically possible to fit up to 4MB of transaction data within Bitcoin blocks by separating out related witness data into a different construct. A neat workaround to spiritually stretch the block-size limit beyond the Satoshi-imposed 1MB.



Miners had been required to signal their support for SegWit adoption following its original proposal, BIP141, in November 2016. Voting “yes” on the initial proposal meant mining “bit 1” blocks — blocks that had a special variable in their headers.&nbsp;



But after around 18 months, less than 40% of blocks were signaling support. In May 2017, Bitcoin Core contributor James Hilliard submitted a supplementary proposal, BIP91, which added an element of time pressure.&nbsp;



Miners had to signal their support for BIP91 above the threshold by midnight Nov. 15, 2017, or else SegWit would be dropped for good. BIP91 reduced the mark for miner support from 95% to 80% over a period of around 2.33 days (269 blocks out of a 336-block epoch).



On July 21, 2017, enough pro-SegWit blocks had been mined to kickstart the soft fork, to be fully activated by Aug. 24, about a month after the threshold was met.&nbsp;



And this is where things get <a href="https://bitcoincore.org/en/2017/08/18/btc1-misleading-statements/">messy</a>. On a technical level, support for SegWit was cut and dry. Miners either supported it or they didn’t.&nbsp;



It was much muddier at the social layer. The infamous New York Agreement <a href="https://blog.bitmex.com/the-segwit2x-hardfork-part-1-the-supporters-and-opponents/">signatories</a> — which included most mining pools, Coinbase, Circle, ShapeShift and a large portion of Digital Currency Group portfolio companies — pushed for an additional hard fork if BIP91 would activate.&nbsp;



The hard fork, SegWit2x, would effectively double the impact of SegWit, allowing for up to 8MB of transaction data to fit in each block rather than 4MB. SegWit2x was ultimately cancelled months after the launch of Bitcoin Cash which features 8MB blocks.



There have been literal <a href="https://blog.bitmex.com/the-blocksize-war/">books</a> written about the Blocksize War, so I’ll leave it to you to pick those up for more detail about what happened in between the acceptance of BIP91 and the failure of SegWit2x.



Whatever your view of the matter, it’s clear that the definition of Bitcoin for many operators shifted around this time. A notable contingency sought to explore Bitcoin’s “money” properties on a separate chain in Bitcoin Cash, which never really took off.



Did that make Bitcoin — the one with persistent consensus — less “money” as a result?&nbsp;



Obviously not, but considering how the ever-rising price has put a dampener on that particular use case, it’s sometimes hard to tell.



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Bitcoin is still money, 8 years on from the Blocksize War

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Six years is certainly a long time in crypto. But Libra (later Diem) might’ve felt right at home in the current agreeable atmosphere in the US.



Back then, Meta (still Facebook) had its own blockchain subsidiary, Calibra, that was pushing to launch a new type of cryptocurrency pegged to a basket of various fiat with a floating value.



The Calibra wallet was meant to be <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/20/18693521/facebook-libra-cryptocurrency-calibra-explainer-how-does-work-features">integrated</a> with WhatsApp and Messenger and promised to let users send money to each other with practically zero fees. Libra, the token, was also intended to be used for e-commerce on Facebook.



Libra was mostly styled as a crypto-powered competitor to PayPal — former PayPal President David Marcus was leading the effort — but rhetoric would often sneak in.



Bitcoin was supposedly “not a good medium of exchange … because [fiat] currency is actually very stable and bitcoin is volatile,” Marcus <a href="https://www.computerworld.com/article/1669080/facebook-is-going-into-the-banking-business-with-blockchain.html">told</a> Fox Business, which, to be fair, maps to what <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/peter-todd-permissionless-bitcoin-tether">Peter Todd told Pete Rizzo</a> at Permissionless IV last month.



Trustlessness still stands for something. While the so-called Libra Association intended to diversify responsibility away from Facebook and onto corporate backers including Mastercard, Visa, PayPal and Uber, the Senate Bank Committee had deep concerns.



Granted, longtime antagonist Sherrod Brown led the grilling on this day in 2019, and he’s no fan of Bitcoin, either. But the notion was that Facebook couldn’t be trusted to handle user bank accounts — their finances — in any capacity at all, particularly in light of the Cambridge Analytica scandal which had broken the previous year.



It took then-North Carolina Rep. Patrick McHenry to make it explicitly clear why Bitcoin was so innovative in the first place.



McHenry was averse to the way in which Facebook was railroaded into defending libra while it was still in a conceptual phase. But when asked about whether the US government may or may not allow alternative currencies — be it bitcoin, libra or stablecoins — to flourish without strict guardrails, McHenry had this to say on CNBC Squawk Box:



“Well, I think there is no capacity to kill Bitcoin. Even the Chinese with their firewall and their extreme intervention in their society could not kill Bitcoin…but the new iterations of this that are trying to mimic it, that are not fully distributed, that are not fully open, there are different mechanisms to kill it.”



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Rep. Patrick McHenry: &#039;There&#039;s no capacity to kill Bitcoin&#039;" width="1024" height="576" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xolYGw2wU6Y?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></figure>



Six years (and a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/donald-trump-nft-royalties-memecoin-taxes">few NFT drops</a>) later, Trump would change his tune about bitcoin and start accepting it for <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/donald-trump-accepts-crypto-donations-2024-election">campaign donations</a>, culminating in the executive ordering of an official US <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/us-crypto-reserve-management">strategic bitcoin reserve</a> in March.



Jamie Dimon <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2024/07/17/hes-changed-his-tune-trump-reveals-jpmorgan-ceos-sudden-bitcoin-and-crypto-flip-amid-huge-price-surge/">softening his anti-bitcoin stance</a> around the same time might’ve had something to do with it. So too a realization that Bitcoiners were drastically underserved by the Biden administration. 



But maybe, McHenry’s comments set the tone — an “a-ha” moment for outsiders to finally understand why Bitcoin.



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Bitcoin political winds shifted as Facebook’s crypto crumbled

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Bitcoin at $120,000 is a win for everyone on the left and right sides of the infamous bell curve meme.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="828" height="608" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image-2.png" alt="" class="wp-image-105141" style="width:700px;height:auto" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image-2.png?w=828 828w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image-2.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image-2.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image-2.png?w=350 350w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image-2.png?w=355 355w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image-2.png?w=298 298w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image-2.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 828px) 100vw, 828px" /></figure>



Mid-curving is almost never the optimal strategy. Except for, perhaps, very specific points in a cycle — particularly in deep bear markets, when vibes and narratives are less powerful.



Right now, the extreme ends of the bell curve are both screaming one thing: There’s not enough bitcoin for everyone.



For example, the left-curve take on bitcoin scarcity goes something like this:



Bitcoin is currently only programmed to release 21 million BTC. Most of it has already been mined.



In fact, mining proceeds are now a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the trading activity across Binance and Coinbase, equivalent to less than 1% of their combined daily volume.



Now subtract the coins that are believed to have been lost — up to an <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2017/11/25/lost-bitcoins/">estimated</a> 4 million coins, or almost 20% of the entire intended supply.&nbsp;



We’re left with 15.9 million BTC in circulation right now. At the same time, there are more than 58 million USD <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/27/where-are-the-worlds-millionaires-and-how-is-wealth-divided-globally">millionaires</a> around the world. That puts the millionaire-to-bitcoin ratio at 3.6-to-1.



If you think the smart money (millionaires) will increasingly want to buy bitcoin over time — at size — then there’s only one way the price can go. Up. It’s simple supply and demand.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcrNs6HoHcp9wGlUtv4WST9OaWZy3R-lqpOz-3x4smL9FjoYaY8g2nowymvQ4qcAaDV0igmGwUPCxqLGjvke5Ake4OdHvyNXsp-HI_NQvKXieyvW0WWc_4A-C5rdFsX4wVU-MfQag?key=0Q_GFmsl9vtW1sltV96VdA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The orange line (BTC/USD) has never been higher, unlike the gold line (bitcoin’s gold ratio).</figcaption></figure>



Mid-curvers would point out that bitcoin is divisible by eight decimal places. So while whole bitcoin is scarce, individual satoshis are obviously anything but.&nbsp;



For neatness’ sake, we’ll say the current circulating supply of sats, minus the ones supposedly lost forever, is 1,590,000,000,000,000. That’s one quadrillion, five hundred ninety trillion sats — 190,000x larger than the total human population.&nbsp;



So, an even distribution of the current sat supply to every person on Earth would equate to 190,000 sats.&nbsp;



A common rebuttal to this logic has historically been, fittingly, about pizza. Imagine you have a delicious cheese pizza, and you need to feed a village with it. Except it’s nowhere near big enough.&nbsp;



Does cutting it into infinitely smaller slices help? Of course not, you’re left with the same amount of pizza. 1 pizza = 1 pizza; 1 BTC = 1 BTC.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfprQRJpHYTU4bKk8c42uRNfgejuYpQpyeU7tWegJe5oZQanzlybb0DYKlkpe_qPKU_tFX642RoMnUaR5FDcNHGXyIhgJb5P8cA1vtU0-T1qky0MqFdfwgxdSdL7RmWPmnG4-7rEQ?key=0Q_GFmsl9vtW1sltV96VdA" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A rare occurrence: BTC dominance is going up alongside its market cap. Usually they’re inversely correlated.</figcaption></figure>



Clearly, the pizza rebuttal has a flaw: Imagine that each one of those tiny slices can grow into a giant pizza, like adding water to one of those toys that rapidly expand when wet. Suddenly, the whole village can be easily fed, and perhaps even the neighbouring villages, too.



Along the same lines, consensus is forming that bitcoin is destined to reach $1 million per coin. Bloomberg Terminal just began <a href="https://x.com/jacqmelinek/status/1943373069063786953?s=46">denominating</a> BTC in millions (current price: $0.122 million).&nbsp;



Now let’s take it to the extreme.&nbsp;



If hyperbitcoinization really happens and bitcoin becomes worth, say, $500 million apiece, then each satoshi would be equal to about $5. At that point, perhaps we would be marveling at the price of individual sats instead of whole bitcoins.&nbsp;&nbsp;



And besides, it’s technically possible to add even more decimal points to bitcoin, somewhere down the line, where whole coins are impossibly expensive. Lightning even tracks so-called “millisatoshis,” miniscule units that are 1/1000 of a sat.



But remember, this is no time for mid-curving. If you fancy yourself on the right-hand side of the curve, then the sentiment is exactly the same as the left: there’s not enough BTC for everyone, as proven by its recent repeated all-time highs.



It’s simple supply and demand.



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