David Canellis

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We live in a world of billionaire Bitcoiners — where mega corporations and sovereign governments stack sats, and hyper-capitalized prop trading firms split the difference.



It’s easy, then, to feel small in the Bitcoin space. But for every story about Gigachads like Michael Saylor, there are countless untold stories about regular people who’ve reached out and touched the world through Bitcoin.



Today’s Legend, Isaac Miller, is the embodiment of the Bitcoin Everyman. A living reminder that Bitcoin is first and foremost for the individual; it all comes down to how you harness it.



<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"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BITCOIN?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BITCOIN</a> LEGEND: ISAAC MILLER Watched BTC hit $100 Watched BTC hit $100,000 HODLed all the way A thread 🔥 <a href="https://t.co/sYGJlGRrlU">pic.twitter.com/sYGJlGRrlU</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1908897635932516554?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bitcoin Legends – Isaac Miller</h2>



You probably best know Isaac from his famous video: Me reacting to Bitcoin breaking $100 in 2013.



“Right here, watching history be made. Bitcoin is now up to $111. It’s an all-time high, and it’s continuing to rise,” Miller said in April of that year, speaking directly to the camera in his hand.



“I&#8217;ve seen it break three times today, it went up to $110, and this is the highest that it’s been.” Miller spun around in his chair to fit his PC screen into the shot.&nbsp;



“It’s ridiculous. Last trade: 189 bitcoin for $111 apiece. That’s amazing to me. Just look at this graph, you see this graph, that’s the last three hours.”&nbsp;



Miller’s <a href="https://headsaflame.com/about/">road</a> to tech and Bitcoin started years earlier. He’d grown up on a small farm in Northern Michigan built by his great grandfather, where he learned to help out, even milking the goats.&nbsp;



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vOu6n44ldJU?si=Ko4vIKmNLFI-J6j4" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>







Miller was homeschooled and channelled his extracurricular energy into entrepreneurship. At eight years old, he pulled a cart — “Isaac’s Lunch Wagon” — around town, selling lunches to local businesses, each one backed by mom’s cooking.&nbsp;



That drive morphed into learning to code as a teenager, leading Miller to launch digital media projects out of his bedroom.&nbsp;



His growing portfolio of web experience landed him a role as County Coordinator for Ron Paul’s presidential campaign in 2008 — “building websites and designing graphics, organizing debates and directing television commercials, to live streaming from the campaign bus to having conversations on private jets!”



Suddenly, Miller had found himself deeply entrenched in libertarian circles and had formed connections in international tech. It was around then that a friend introduced him to Bitcoin, sometime before early 2011, when BTC had not yet reached dollar parity for the first time.



Miller apparently didn’t buy any bitcoin at that point. He showed up on <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=154802.msg1640941#msg1640941">Bitcointalk</a>, two years later, ready to make a splash with a thread: “$20,000 in the bank, should I invest?”



“I have over $20,000 just sitting in an account. Would it be a good idea to invest some or all of it in bitcoin? I&#8217;m looking for any way I can to stick it to the central banking system, and if I can make a few bucks by doing it, all the better.”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdLgZz1a3n7WcHHw_ksWhAy-AEWkU8U9JE_JPQubB1tefpQ4pBovbMxPbFpFlsLnJEXi9DvhaioCylvGJJ-IIktloBIPbeZojiYxu-BYYAfV8PowdT_IwUuZ2Gi9t0rovjmo_PX?key=zTFis2eXovKmE0syY-ZtRg" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">In other threads, Miller expressed a desire to contribute to the Bitcoin ecosystem as best he could.</figcaption></figure>



One user asked the sensible questions: How much would losing $20,000 affect you right now, and how much BTC do you own to begin with?



Miller replied: “I currently have no bitcoins, I just really started looking into bitcoin a few days ago. I&#8217;m not thinking $20,000 to start, but I&#8217;m willing to invest a chunk of it to see how it works out.”



“It looks to me like I&#8217;m already a tad too late if I was in it for the most profit, but I&#8217;m still optimistic about where bitcoin&#8217;s going. I&#8217;m only 21 so $20,0000 is quite a bit in my mind, I&#8217;m working on changing that though lol.”



Miller ended up opting to start with just $2,000 and made an account with Mt. Gox in March 2013 — about 10 months before it would collapse — when bitcoin changed hands for about $90.



He may have never spoken publicly about whether he was stung by the Mt. Gox debacle. But $2,000 worth of bitcoin bought around the time of that thread would’ve converted to 22.22 BTC — currently valued at nearly $2.5 million.&nbsp;



And that was just 10% of the fiat that Miller wanted to deploy as a central bank protest.



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ROsk12bogVU?si=Sz25KRLKN4CEWBHd" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>







Last year, Miller recreated his famous 2013 video for an advertising campaign with Coinbase. Here they are side by side.



Over the following nine years, Miller wouldn’t post about Bitcoin. His YouTube feed mostly showcased his music — until February 2021, when bitcoin was in the midst of a monster rally to $60,000 for the first time.



In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEbhRKVH8bo&amp;t=29s">video</a> titled: “Did I HODL? The question on everyone&#8217;s minds,” Miller set the record straight:



“What kind of question is that? Of course I did. Of course I did. I HODL’d. I bought more and I HODL’d again. I’ve HODL’d everything. I HODL’d Bitcoin’s children: Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision. I’ve HODL’d every single thing. And that so far has been the best decision I’ve ever made financially in my life.”



“And I keep buying more. I buy bitcoin every single week. I buy uniswap every single week. I bought uniswap at $2 and it’s at $20 in like three months. This is the new financial system and it’s so incredibly simple — you literally just buy and you HODL. So HODL away, gentlemen. Keep those diamond hands. Keep ‘em shiny.”



For that and more, Miller will forever be a Bitcoin Legend. Stay tuned to see Isaac on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@SupplyShockBW">Supply Shock podcast</a> sometime soon!



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Bitcoin

How Isaac Miller fought the central banks with Bitcoin and $20K

Pete Rizzo

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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Bitcoin Pizza season is back.



This Sunday will mark 15 years since early adopter Laszlo Hanyecz first posted his historic, cheesy request to Bitcointalk: <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.msg1141#msg1141">Pizza for bitcoins</a>?



Hanyecz boldly offered to pay 10,000 BTC to anyone who could deliver two large pizzas — two, “so I have some left over for the next day. I like having leftover pizza to nibble on later.”&nbsp;



Those coins were worth about $42 at the time and more than $2 billion today, enough to make your stomach grumble!&nbsp;



In many ways it was the most important transaction in Bitcoin’s history, even to this day. As Laszlo put it best: “Somebody had to start it off.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bitcoin Legends — Laszlo Hanyecz</h2>



Long-time subscribers to Supply Shock, from when it was called Bitcoin History, might remember our feature profile on Hanyecz from last year.&nbsp;



It does a fantastic job of plotting Hanyecz’s legacy, from early miner, to Satoshi collaborator, to Bitcoin Pizza Guy and beyond. Be sure to <a href="https://bitcoinhistorynl.beehiiv.com/p/laszlo-hanyecz-bitcoin-legend?utm_source=bitcoinhistorynl.beehiiv.com&amp;utm_medium=newsletter&amp;utm_campaign=laszlo-hanyecz-is-a-bitcoin-legend">check it out in our archives</a>.



This time around, let’s collect a few slices of the story that are sometimes left out.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1. Hanyecz kept spending bitcoins on pizza.&nbsp;</h2>



In June 2010, about a month on from the original purchase, Laszlo posted: “This is an open offer by the way. I will trade 10,000 BTC for 2 of these pizzas any time as long as I have the funds (I usually have plenty). If anyone is interested please let me know.”



By August of that year, Laszlo cut the experiment short due to demand. The bitcoin hash rate had multiplied by more than 26 times since his initial offer, a monster jump attributed to <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1890763182555197539">pioneering pseudonymous miner ArtForz</a>, who’d built their own GPU mining software and kept it private for a competitive edge.



“Well I didn&#8217;t expect this to be so popular but I can&#8217;t really afford to keep doing it since I can&#8217;t generate thousands of coins a day anymore. Thanks to everyone who bought me pizza already but I&#8217;m kind of holding off on doing any more of these for now.”



<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">5/ Laszlo was one of the first 5 developers to work on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a>. Here’s Satoshi crediting him for his work helping to test and review the 3rd version of the software in history 🏆 <a href="https://t.co/vEjTX2oySB">pic.twitter.com/vEjTX2oySB</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1829158445905301666?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 29, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Laszlo would share in 2014 that he’d spent every coin he mined on pizza. His bitcoin <a href="https://mempool.space/address/1XPTgDRhN8RFnzniWCddobD9iKZatrvH4">address</a> shows him receiving 81,432 BTC, presumably from his mining operations, with the same in outgoing transfers representing his pizza trades.&nbsp;



So, if what Laszlo says is true, that would mean he spent today’s equivalent of $8.45 billion on pizza.&nbsp;



If he’d held until today, Laszlo would only be $1.5 billion short of Michael Saylor on Forbes’ billionaires rich list. But he <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/05/22/10-years-after-laszlo-hanyecz-bought-pizza-with-10k-bitcoin-he-has-no-regrets">doesn’t seem to mind</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">2. The other guy also sold his bitcoins.</h2>



Jeremy “Jercos” Sturdivant was only 18 when he used his credit card to buy pizza for Laszlo from across state lines.



Jercos wasn’t an active poster on Bitcointalk and instead coordinated the deal with Laszlo via IRC, where the two had already crossed paths. It was on IRC that Studivant first learned of Bitcoin, and thought it interesting in light of the failure of e-gold around the same time.



He was even a bitcoin miner in his own right, “probably mining several thousand coins” by remotely running a cpuminer through Linode’s cloud computing service.



Studivant has shown similar grace as Laszlo when asked if they regret the experiment.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdlB3T2YnkceGEIu3vwk_bHSQOkixjqVxA8x_CcLkoc-OmP2RJr7PJKH85dQIqm7wC8OhHYkIG10XAHF8C2OiSTXnpmJh1R_xhqE4cxZMMQOqZWGLy9JBDv0su0Wjcf8VTrYcYilA?key=i5DYGJeOmBGtu_z4AmZ77w" alt=""/></figure>



“Bitcoin as a currency is meant to be spent,” he said in an <a href="https://www.bitcoinwhoswho.com/jercosinterview">interview</a> from 2015. “&#8230; Naturally there will always be people hoarding coins, trying to get rich, and quite a few people did get quite rich, but they wouldn&#8217;t have got that way without economic growth allowing it.”&nbsp;



At the time, Jercos appeared to still be sitting on quite a few coins, and was indeed using them as money.&nbsp;



“To that extent my bitcoin holdings do usually measure in hundreds or thousands of USD, simply because I use them much as I would a checking account, to conduct business both online and offline when I have the opportunity.”



“Notably the ‘humble bundles’ and the attached store accepting bitcoins significantly bolstered my video game library.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">3. Satoshi invented GPU mining before Laszlo.</h2>



The mainstream mostly knows Hanyecz as the Bitcoin Pizza Guy.&nbsp;



Around these parts, across the Rubicon, he’s also well-respected for porting Bitcoin Core to macOS in the space of a week, and being the first person ever to mine bitcoin with a GPU, even before ArtForz.



It could be that Satoshi had beaten Laszlo to the punch. In an <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/satoshi-invented-gpu-mining-to-defend-the-network-says-early-dev">interview</a> from May 2020, Hanyecz said that Satoshi had already invented GPU mining as a sort-of-secret Death Star to protect Bitcoin from 51% attacks.



“And he actually shared with me his version of it,” Hanyecz said, after he’d shown his own GPU mining code to see what Satoshi thought. Satoshi then famously cautioned Hanyecz in private over potentially developing GPU miners too quickly.&nbsp;



“So even though it wasn&#8217;t in Bitcoin, he did have GPU mining code and he said he was just keeping it ready in case he had to defend the network with it.”



In late 2009 on Bitcointalk, Satoshi softly <a href="https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/posts/bitcointalk/20/">pushed</a> for “a gentleman’s agreement to postpone the GPU arms race for as long as we can for the good of the network,” which looking back is quite interesting phrasing, considering they were already sitting on serious firepower.



<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">9/ Rather than quit mining, Laszlo decided to give back to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a>. In fact, he dusted off one of Satoshi’s own ideas – taking an example from the official Bitcoin FAQ. <a href="https://t.co/zfc895dLrV">pic.twitter.com/zfc895dLrV</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1829158545876529509?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 29, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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The legacy of Laszlo and Jercos within the context of Bitcoin Pizza Day is largely ironic. Bitcoin is absolutely money, and anyone who swapped bitcoins for pizza with Laszlo or anyone else was absolutely reasonable to do so.&nbsp;



Money is for spending, just like Jercos said, and the term HODL would only be coined three and a half years after the first Bitcoin Pizza Day.



At the same time, bitcoins became so valuable so quickly that these days, actually spending them is instinctively viewed as tempting fate.&nbsp;



Nobody wants to accidentally spend billions of dollars on pizza. And that’s precisely why Laszlo will forever be a Bitcoin Legend.



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3 piping hot Pizza Day facts for Bitcoin connoisseurs

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Who is Bitcoin for?



That depends on who you ask. A BlackRock analyst would say that Bitcoin is a key portfolio differentiator. The volatility is the use case, best utilized by those who want to capitalize on it.



Someone living in countries suffering from rampant inflation would share a different view. Bitcoin would be a potential route toward capital preservation, shielding them from sudden currency devaluation due to central bank policy, and so on.



For activists living under totalitarian regimes, like <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1903439181705335253">Farida Nabourema</a>, the robust decentralization and pseudonymity of Bitcoin make it additionally suited to fight back against hostile states.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bitcoin Legends — Farida Nabourema</h2>



Farida Nabourema was born in 1990 and grew up in Togo, a former French colony that gained independence in 1960.



From early childhood, Farida learned to exist and thrive in the face of authoritarians. Togo’s then-president, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, was a military leader who’d taken power in a violent 1967 coup.&nbsp;



Eyadéma was known for human rights <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/afr570131993en.pdf">abuses</a>, economic mismanagement and cult-of-personality stunts, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gO5Ixk8N7yA">reports</a> of entourages of 1,000 dancing women singing his praises.



“Every day…people had to queue from the military camp, where he lived, to the presidential palace to clap for him in the morning, the afternoon, and the evening,” Nabourema <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/13/africa/farida-nabourema-togo-activist">said</a> in 2018.



Standing up to power is in Nabourema’s blood. In 2003, Togo authorities arrested and held her father, Bemba, for three days after he participated in a meeting that opposed Eyadéma’s rule. He’d also been arrested in 1977 and severely <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/farida-nabourema-daughter-of-togo/">tortured</a> in 1985 over his political dissent.



After Eyadéma&#8217;s son, Faure, had assumed leadership in a closely-contested election following his father’s death, Farida protested at just 15 years old. She joined the Union of Force for Change (UFC), the same political party of her own father.&nbsp;



Farida fought even after moving to the US to study in 2008, where she founded a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OAfd9odSSs">movement</a> called “Faure Must Go” and kept up the grassroots pressure.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXc6xmCilVNLF1wUxzwMVKUHHvpWkK1oY5i13nXAkG47qoFygcp1G-FvQnofAINfrrL2jcMbqOUOOlC3CpBkx2AqL884m0LkHgkoCImE6yciwXCEalCqo97Ww0Qbw32wrUmcrBla?key=o8YAJrztsWVz3PKlec-a3A" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Farida <a href="https://youtu.be/1OAfd9odSSs">presented</a> the movement at the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2018.</figcaption></figure>



The need for Bitcoin quickly became apparent once Farida caught the attention of the corrupt government. “In 2014, I published the personal contact numbers for all members of Togo’s Parliament. I asked my compatriots to call the members and ask why they had voted against a bill to reinstate presidential term limits. I called the majority leader, who insulted me, then abruptly hung up the phone,” Farida was <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/13/africa/farida-nabourema-togo-activist">quoted</a> as saying to CNN.



“I shared a recording of that call on social media and it soon went viral. A few days later, Parliament held a session in which they complained about not being able to sleep because they were harassed by hundreds of phone calls.”



Farida struggled with personal attacks and smear campaigns, but her following only grew. However, she now faced exile. Her family was threatened after attempting a return to Togo in 2016, leading Farida to instead base herself in nearby countries. By 2018, she was moving between them every few weeks.



The situation was just as sensitive for other local dissidents. Still, resistance movements need funding. Farida <a href="https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/togolese-activist-farida-nabourema-finds-freedom-in-bitcoin">told</a> Bitcoin Magazine: “When the government started arresting people for donating money to the movement…we needed a safe way to send and receive funds for resistance activities.&#8221;



<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"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> is private money, not anonymous. Cash rather is anonymous as you can’t tell all who held it before you. Corrupt politicians are afraid of Bitcoin because it stores every single transaction on the blockchain for ever and can never be altered. FIAT enables corruption.&mdash; Farida Bemba Nabourema (@Farida_N) <a href="https://twitter.com/Farida_N/status/1607298949236260867?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 26, 2022</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Farida elaborated in a recent Human Rights Foundation <a href="https://www.facebook.com/humanrightsfoundation/videos/is-bitcoin-a-lifeline-for-africa-hrfs-dissidents-dictators/1303208041133352/">interview</a>: “Sending money became difficult because we had to do it without exposing those who were back home. Linking them to us is going to be costly for their lives.



“Without money, without financial resources, it’s difficult to fight any oppressive system in place. And the regime in Togo has managed to maintain itself in power by doing something very simple: suffocating the movement and the opposition.”



Bitcoin is built for many purposes, and this is clearly one of them. As of last year, Farida was “very frequently” sending bitcoin to Togo without any paper trail. The recipient doesn’t need to go to a bank or public institution to withdraw the funds — a huge plus.



Parallel to these efforts, Farida has organized the Africa Bitcoin Conference (ABC) for three years running in both Ghana and Nairobi, attracting the likes of Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark and Block founder Jack Dorsey. 



Farida’s conference even operates a “Bitcoin For Youngsters” program that has trained over 3,000 students in all things Bitcoin, and helped Ghanaian high school students celebrate Bitcoin Pizza Day, complete with pizza.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfSxqoJBFFcUZeyimedcCNyTtoqZKpiICDVIh9X7SFDiv5eGboI76zc1uQpldc5LUJF_uWbvGV5auk5_eLx3o_IUrDMhkO4il6OLzeT_yBgs-ldmifEE73J-KZT7-jjCKsMUq-1?key=o8YAJrztsWVz3PKlec-a3A" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption"><a href="https://x.com/AfroBitcoinOrg/status/1660657649736724483#m">Image source</a></figcaption></figure>



A fourth ABC <a href="https://afrobitcoin.org/">conference</a> in Mauritius is set for December this year, despite a <a href="https://x.com/Farida_N/status/1870367175338324291">series</a> of <a href="https://x.com/Farida_N/status/1870375685082005780">setbacks</a> that led to financial losses and burnout.&nbsp;



Many of us may go our whole lives and never need Bitcoin in quite the same way as Farida and the rest of Togo, a nation of more than nine million, not to mention the wider global population living in analogous circumstances.



Bitcoin is for everyone. At times, uncomfortably so, as there’s nothing technically stopping those in power from taking advantage of its trajectory for their own gain.



Luckily there are those, like Farida, “<a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/farida-nabourema-daughter-of-togo/">Daughter of Togo</a>,” who understand that Bitcoin is first and foremost <a href="https://aier.org/article/bitcoin-is-resistance-money/">resistance money</a>. A critical tool for freedom and self-sovereignty. Farida is a bonafide Bitcoin Legend.



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thedrop">The Drop</a>: Apps, games, memes and more.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supplyshock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
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Why Bitcoin is key for resistance movements in Togo

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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Worshipping at the Church of Satoshi has never been a bulletproof vocation. The sect of Hal Finney is a different story.



Yes, even this Supply Shock has spent sizable energy on what Satoshi said over the four-ish short years that the pseudonym was active… and subjected you to all sorts of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/satoshi-nakamoto-age-birthday-50-clues">hypotheticals</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/satoshi-disappear-day-cia-bitcoin">assumptions</a> about their motivations for leaving.



Satoshi is/was clearly a brilliant individual. But if their decision to “<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-satoshi-patrick-bateman-commonalities">move onto other things</a>” means anything at all, we must treat whatever Satoshi said or signaled publicly as starting points on a larger journey.&nbsp;



All of Satoshi&#8217;s emails and forum posts have only ever set Bitcoin in a certain direction. They rarely cut the actual path.&nbsp;



Hal Finney is someone who did cut the path. 



The legendary Cypherpunk would’ve turned 69 years old today, May 4, a day celebrated across the world even beyond Bitcoin circles.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bitcoin Legend — Hal Finney</h2>



Hal was the second person after Satoshi to ever run the Bitcoin software, only seven days into its lifespan, making him Bitcoin’s first real user.



“When Satoshi announced the first release of the software, I grabbed it right away,” Hal said on <a href="https://archive.fo/JJP9q#selection-1125.0-1076.38">BitcoinTalk</a> in March 2013. “I mined block 70-something, and I was the recipient of the first bitcoin transaction, when Satoshi sent ten coins to me as a test. I carried on an email conversation with Satoshi over the next few days, mostly me reporting bugs and him fixing them.”



We can only ever infer the pre-Bitcoin history of Satoshi. There’s no record of the pseudonym before the white paper. He appeared out of the ether, a manifestation of the radical corpus that contained the Cypherpunk <a href="https://mailing-list-archive.cryptoanarchy.wiki/">mailing list</a>, Tim May’s <a href="https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/crypto/cypherpunks/may-crypto-manifesto.html">Crypto Anarchist Manifesto</a> and David Chaum’s <a href="https://chaum.com/publications/">voluminous</a> academic papers.



Hal’s own history is meanwhile woven into the very texts from which Satoshi sprung. Living in Temple City, California, he spent years closely developing Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) with Phil Zimmermann — <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/cypherpunk-movement-history-wired-1993">another Cypherpunk legend</a> — when it was still unclear whether contributing to the software was an illegal act. Hal worked there until he retired in 2011.



Hal also built and operated two of the first-ever cryptographically-based anonymous remailers in the early ‘90s, which novelly allowed users to send emails without revealing any information about their identities.



<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">Running bitcoin&mdash; halfin (@halfin) <a href="https://twitter.com/halfin/status/1110302988?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2009</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The greatest Bitcoin tweet of all time</figcaption></figure>



These are acts of activism. Hal had pushed persistently, for decades, in defense of our right to privacy in a digital world increasingly surveilled by governments and corporations. He was also a key force in the protracted Cypherpunk war for anonymous digital cash that gave us Bitcoin.



“When Satoshi announced Bitcoin on the cryptography mailing list, he got a skeptical reception at best. Cryptographers have seen too many grand schemes by clueless noobs. They tend to have a knee jerk reaction,” Hal <a href="https://archive.fo/JJP9q">recounted</a>.



“I was more positive. I had long been interested in cryptographic payment schemes. Plus I was lucky enough to meet and extensively correspond with both Wei Dai and Nick Szabo, generally acknowledged to have created ideas that would be realized with Bitcoin. I had made an attempt to create my own proof of work based currency, called RPOW. So I found Bitcoin fascinating.”



Fitting Hal’s legacy into this humble article will never be feasible. Still, I can say this: In 2025, it’s very easy to take our right to encryption — the shared core ingredient for online freedom and Bitcoin — for granted.&nbsp;



End-to-end and other manners of encryption may now be commonplace, but there are still grave concerns over the power that tech companies, financial intermediaries and state forces have over our lives. We are surveilled by default and complacency is too convenient. Normalized.



<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">I am proud to recognize the <a href="https://twitter.com/HRF?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@HRF</a>’s incredible freedom and privacy focused initiative honoring Hal’s legacy through the Finney Freedom Prize. 🙌 Congratulations to the 2nd halving era’s winners—your work truly embodies the spirit Hal believed in. 🌟 <a href="https://t.co/PxvN0T6csr">https://t.co/PxvN0T6csr</a>&mdash; halfin (@halfin) <a href="https://twitter.com/halfin/status/1877759826983522443?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Fran Finney, Hal’s wife, celebrates Hal’s legacy with an annual <a href="https://secure.alsnetwork.org/site/TR?fr_id=1510&amp;pg=entry">Running Bitcoin Challenge</a> to raise money for ALS Research.</figcaption></figure>



Hal built and sharpened tools for mitigating those threats, even right up until the end of his life. We must use those tools and all others like them. Promote them.



“Currently I&#8217;m working on something Mike Hearn suggested, using the security features of modern processors, designed to support ‘Trusted Computing,’ to harden Bitcoin wallets,” Hal posted on BitcoinTalk around 18 months before his passing, even as he was “essentially paralysed” due to ALS.&nbsp;



“It&#8217;s almost ready to release. I just have to do the documentation.” Hal was referring to bcflick, for which he’d earlier released a <a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=154290.0">prototype</a>.



Cypherpunks write code.&nbsp;



Hal Finney wrote code.



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First Bitcoin user: Celebrating legendary Cypherpunk Hal Finney

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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Imagine being in an industry where a yellow piece of paper is one of your most iconic symbols.&nbsp;



Well, that’s Bitcoin, and today’s legend is none other than Christian Langalis, better known as Bitcoin Sign Guy.



Langalis is the young man in a suit who held up a sign that read “Buy ₿itcoin” while Janet Yellen, then-Chair of the Federal Reserve, stood her ground in front of Congress in 2017.



Today’s story is about much more than just his viral moment, however.



Before he became a meme, Christian was just another 25-year-old working at a global macro fund.&nbsp;



But he wasn&#8217;t your typical Wall Street junior analyst. He was the “young Bitcoin kid.” A man that nobody took seriously when he talked about cryptocurrency.&nbsp;



For Langalis, being dismissed had an unexpected effect. Instead of discouraging him, it opened his eyes to something crucial: The markets weren’t what they seemed.&nbsp;



They were, in his view, artificial constructs propped up by central bank policies. So he did what any self-respecting skeptic would do. He started buying bitcoin.



And like many bitcoiners before and after him, Christian didn’t just buy bitcoin; he wanted to understand the system he was rebelling against. What do you do when you realize the world is only serving the interest of the few? You dive into alternative economics.



<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">3/ Christian became a fierce Libertarian He started reading everything he could about Austrian economics He read the classics by Schumpeter and Rothbard 😍 <a href="https://t.co/jnhrFZZvh7">pic.twitter.com/jnhrFZZvh7</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1913986273317957663?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Nowadays, Keynesians rule the world, at the behest of the late John Maynard Keynes.



But others are becoming favorites again, with Schumpeter, Rothbard and Mises staging a comeback. These authors had a deep effect on Langalis, and they pushed him into the Cato Institute, a world-renowned libertarian think tank.



Under the guidance of George Selgin, one of the world’s utmost authorities on money, Christian began developing his own economic thesis on Bitcoin. But he wasn’t content just to profit from bitcoin — he wanted to understand its potential to reshape the financial world.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Stage set</h2>



Then came July 2017.&nbsp;



Christian was asked to attend the annual Federal Reserve report to Congress. As Janet Yellen droned on about monetary policy, a bored Christian had an idea. He grabbed his notepad and wrote two simple words: &#8220;Buy ₿itcoin.&#8221;



The price was $2,300 at the time, and bitcoin was in the midst of an epic run that would eventually take it to $20,000. Christian figured he&#8217;d flash the sign and maybe grab a screenshot later. For the LOLs. He had no idea he was about to create a moment that would define Bitcoin culture.



With the price now ~$93,200 per coin, everyone who listened is up almost 4,000%.



<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">5/ There, Christian was asked to attend the Fed report to Congress Bored, Christian decided to write &quot;Buy Bitcoin&quot; on his notepad He figured he&#39;d flash the sign, then collect the screenshot later&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/cynSy9UADg">pic.twitter.com/cynSy9UADg</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1913986424585458041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Within seconds, security descended. Christian was escorted out of the hearing. You can actually see him being removed on the livestream. But by then, it was too late.



We can safely call it the Bitcoin photobomb seen around the world.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Aftermath</h2>



The Bitcoin community’s response was immediate and overwhelming.&nbsp;



Christian received over 7 BTC ($16,100 then, $650,000 now) in donations from supporters who appreciated his bold statement. Overnight, he had become an icon.&nbsp;



Instead of getting drunk with fame, Christian’s conviction only deepened — luckily! He later revealed he was holding 99% of his net worth in bitcoin, and declared he “won’t be converting it back into US dollars.”



Did someone say skin in the game?



In the years following his famous stunt, Christian has used his newfound celebrity for good.&nbsp;



He’s appeared at numerous events, always in his trademark suit and tie, raising money for organizations like Coin Center, a non-profit that helps defend Bitcoin&#8217;s interests in Washington DC. Years later, he called it a &#8220;new financial substrate&#8221; and predicted that one BTC will eventually be worth over $1 million.&nbsp;



<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">10/ In the years to follow, Christian used his celebrity to raise money for charities Here he is with his trademark suit and tie, raising money for Coin Center The non-profit helps defend Bitcoin in D.C. ✊ <a href="https://t.co/IMM9OfFF0S">pic.twitter.com/IMM9OfFF0S</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1913986518202327149?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



But Langalis isn’t like most of you talking heads. He’s also building. Christian has founded a new Lightning startup that&#8217;s currently in stealth mode, working to advance the Bitcoin economy he believes in.



In a fitting twist of fate, Christian recently auctioned off the original “Buy ₿itcoin” sign for over $1 million. The piece of paper that once photobombed the Federal Reserve Chair had become a piece of Bitcoin history.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Legacy</h2>



Christian Langalis&#8217;s story is more than just a tale of a viral moment.&nbsp;



It’s about having the courage to challenge the status quo, even when nobody takes you seriously, in the status quo’s arena. It’s about understanding that sometimes, the simplest actions can have the biggest impact.



All things that made him CoinDesk’s Most Influential person in Bitcoin in 2017.



For those who bought bitcoin when Christian held up his sign, the returns have been spectacular. But perhaps the real value of his gesture wasn’t in the investment advice, but in the message it sent: that Bitcoin represents a peaceful revolution against the traditional financial system.



Have a great weekend, And remember, sometimes the best investment advice comes on a piece of paper held up behind a Fed chair.



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Christian Langalis: From meme to bitcoin millionaire

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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Not many can say their parents got them involved in Bitcoin, but Jack Mallers can. 



His grandfather, <a href="https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/moneymatterspod/episodes/EP-9-WILLIAM-MALLERS-JR-e2g0li9/a-aavuk9s?_bhlid=cd4ca9c0f43302c29cf104a8c9689e1ecb7ee118&amp;utm_campaign=why-jack-mallers-is-a-bitcoin-legend">William Mallers Sr</a>., was a former Chicago Board of Trade chair, and his son William Mallers Jr., Jack’s father, bought his first bitcoin in August 2013, when it was under $100. 



Jack’s mother, Brooke Royce-Mallers, created a series of meet-ups in the Windy City alongside Empowered Law CEO Pamela Morgan, which included one fateful afternoon when <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1787875215696887828">Andreas M. Antonopoulos</a> showed up. According to Jack, the first time he truly understood Bitcoin was when the GOAT of all Bitcoin educators talked to him about the power of the tech.



One of my favorite Mallers moments was on Christmas Day 2013, when Jack and his siblings received gift cards purchased with bitcoin. The price was $1,200 back then, but the move was priceless and timeless.



<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">2/ Here’s Jack and his siblings on Christmas day in 2013. These are gift cards his parents purchased him with <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a>. The price was $1,200 <a href="https://t.co/ZDv8XuTLIm">pic.twitter.com/ZDv8XuTLIm</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1823408001870344421?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 13, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



It’s nearly cliché by now, but Jack didn’t dive into Bitcoin right away.



He had enrolled in St. John&#8217;s University in New York but soon dropped out. Instead, he returned to Chicago to attend coding camps when he realized he was more interested in technology than academics.



At 18, and after coding, he signed up for a school for entrepreneurs and launched his first app: <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1823408094082163178">ChessExplained</a>. It was a unique way for coaches to teach the sport (or is it a discipline?), and help with students trying to advance their skills.



Here’s a demo from nine years ago:



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<iframe loading="lazy" title="jackschess.com account demo" width="1024" height="768" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xeY0sVaif3w?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>



It didn’t work out, but by 2016, Jack was ready to go all in on Bitcoin.



His big idea? Using &#8220;the most revolutionary technology we&#8217;ve seen since the internet&#8221; to <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1823408151388975564">disrupt the gambling industry</a> with an app called Zero House Bets. Jack&#8217;s biggest frustration came from the hefty commissions that websites like Bet Online charged.



He saw Bitcoin as the fix — It was cheaper, faster, and didn’t need a middleman to move money.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Lightning strikes</h2>



Zero House Bets didn’t take off, either. So, Jack built his first Lightning app, Zap, from his bedroom.



Here’s the early website, launched when BTC was around $1,000.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXfwD-zj_T438rjg7Ah2Gu-EYGK1DpmFdAYVuQySol4It6kQJNWCD07aYnTiPsEAdXTMunMTaqVW4g1PKCtKDKC0q6Pazoqjq6mTB1VK7HKaqgh1lNNALBYfjBT9GL1Vf5NcyfomFg?key=2iW9JgqerEsrARfkTKEo84sz" alt=""/></figure>



Jack went all-in on Bitcoin and the Lightning Network. One of his earliest tweets is a manifesto to why the network would never die. “Bitcoin will succeed,” he wrote, “because I won’t let it die. The developers, unbanked, hodlers, and millennials, won’t let it die.”



He tweeted: “What’s really going parabolic is the number of people willing to fight for Bitcoin and all it stands for. Price has no choice but to follow.”



In 2018, when some still doubted Lightning&#8217;s viability, Jack made one of the world&#8217;s first Lightning purchases.



The Lightning Network wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for people like Jack. For example, here’s a map of the protocol’s first 100 nodes. The one encircled is his company, Zap.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdWOrjKcf0xbBQglVaGMWdBOgwhPmsYR-MQ-QfL_TH6d97PTuq9oMLUpIA2HMWBfRdLbSJmJCdt7PO11eGfbWTuKn3aTuDMHI2hwNUzVAUSE_ndQ4J7WtC2R_X8MkGkYOFrwKth?key=2iW9JgqerEsrARfkTKEo84sz" alt=""/></figure>



But Jack wasn’t playing around — he saw Zap becoming the app to take on giants like Venmo and Visa. Check out this 2019 <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1823408288848920710">sketch</a> for what would become his baby, and one of the biggest companies in Bitcoin: Strike.&nbsp;



By 2020, Jack had raised $3 million for Strike.



What started in his mom&#8217;s basement had grown into a company with developers and users. Strike&#8217;s user base soon exploded, attracting endorsements from Bitcoin fans and celebrities.



In 2020, NFL star Russell Okung announced he would use Strike to become the first NFL player to get paid in BTC.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">El Salvador</h2>



Then came one of the most important speeches in Bitcoin history.



The stage: Miami. The year: 2021. Jack jumps on, sporting a blue soccer team jersey for El Salvador. I remember seeing Jack and Pomp in a corner before the speech. They seemed to be smiling at something, and reviewing slides.



There was a lot of hype, but no one saw this announcement coming.



<iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_59hrgTiRJU?si=5p9FJYWZ43HepKQ3" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>







El Salvador was not only investing in BTC, but making it legal tender. It became the first country in the world to legalize Satoshi’s creation, thanks in part to Jack’s influence on the ground.



Jack&#8217;s app was pivotal in making Bitcoin history. He appeared on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlj-QQgbW90&amp;t=2s">60 Minutes</a>, discussing how he met the president of El Salvador and what it meant for a nation to embrace an open financial network.



With Jack&#8217;s help, El Salvador has since stacked over 6,100 BTC. President Nayib Bukele keeps purchasing 1 BTC <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/president-nayib-bukele-bitcoin-maxi">every single day</a>. The country&#8217;s holdings are worth almost $520 million today.



Who would’ve thought that a Chicago-native coder who built a chess app would go on to help a nation stack bitcoin? It certainly wasn’t on my bingo card for 2021.



Updated April 22, 2025 at 11:15 am: Corrected information about Jack Mallers&#8217; family history.



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The dropout who dared: How Strike is rewiring global money

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The world often feels very big. Billions of humans scattered across hundreds of countries, speaking thousands of languages and eating even more types of food.



But no matter how big it may seem, we can still reach out and touch it. You can just do things.&nbsp;



Today’s Bitcoin Legend, Plato, understood that much earlier than almost anyone else in Bitcoin. Fourteen years ago, he set off on a road trip across North America with a pioneering plan:&nbsp;



Make it from the East Coast to the West Coast without spending any dollars.&nbsp;



Only bitcoin.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Bitcoin Legend — The Real Plato</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeM_r5lgdCOTe1zAASWaH6ZYFGoSw9gCkJToiKa1n4-61jh-eKGH8WdU_RG5aFcDAUJtMUBGKldOLB67P2Vi5gUxiLbVPOPhL7LNxpfPbZ-edSjkCDnlOuDECTRyNloZeegujTM-g?key=RkPfUR_14LpvMCE7dWoA2niK" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: <a href="https://x.com/TheRealPlato/status/1380640014648889357">@TheRealPlato</a></figcaption></figure>



Plato was an early adopter in almost every sense, having first discovered Bitcoin in 2010 and even mined coins when they were worth less than $1.



Inspired by its potential to change the world, Plato was pulled to spread the word. After losing his electrical engineering job in January 2011, by April he’d set off as a Bitcoin pioneer across a land largely unfamiliar with magic internet money.



“I want adventure, and the only other real component is the altruism. I want to help Bitcoin,” Plato said on a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcjy__y3DzI">podcast</a> one week into his 3,000-mile journey.&nbsp;



The goal: prove bitcoin could work in everyday life, even if few people in the real world knew what it was at the time. He was the first known human to attempt travelling across the United States living solely on bitcoin — using it to pay for food, gas and lodging.



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcATxNffdirhpZx2VK5GWYg2KNC7Qx5nJl78K4chkw9y5-xlEimEALkwOtvgjap4Q29frnzhwaaP-NdGfmxpeRF8wfh04V2jah2edMozbql5Znp-LDKUa2AB2FOlWJvp_EWJVvzMA?key=RkPfUR_14LpvMCE7dWoA2niK" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Plato was prepared to educate people about Bitcoin as he went</figcaption></figure>



Bitcoin had the power to reshape our lives in incredible ways, Plato believed, but it would first need to “hit some critical mass” of adoption. He only hoped to “accelerate the process a little bit.”



Friendly strangers from across the US could pin an interactive <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?ie=UTF8&amp;hl=en&amp;t=h&amp;msa=0&amp;ll=37.044066857423076%2C-101.0983746809892&amp;spn=55.922178%2C135.263672&amp;z=6&amp;mid=10uJ-SWxssIaKv2_TUx6OtfPSfOA">map</a> with their locations, so that Plato could drop by to barter bitcoin for supplies or shelter.



Mostly, surviving on Bitcoin alone in 2011 meant Plato had to regularly convince others to buy stuff for him with their own dollars, before paying them back in BTC.



A <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852698169718517906">video</a> from the trip shows Plato trading bitcoin for gasoline outside a 7/11 in Salt Lake City. The pair stepped through, sending BTC to each other using keys generated by <a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/MyBitcoin">MyBitcoin</a>, an early hosted-wallet service that shut down due to a debilitating hack only months later.



Meanwhile, bitcoin was experiencing one of its first parabolic price rallies, going from $1 in March to $2 as Plato reached Alabama only two weeks into his trip, having <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852697570675490863">driven</a> 55 miles per hour the entire way to save gas.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf1qc8nqMrzpi4MaBGR-s-9j328XvN5JcgvugTF6qMDIoXOapa8L24xhNlMRyfmodYJU5gtn-4RATfQ2twF9pPNJTPlDZv-vVUrok9ym8oAX7c-n-gVzK7vOY2qCOClCWa47j--gw?key=RkPfUR_14LpvMCE7dWoA2niK" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Plato’s map: Red pins were offers for gas, blue pins for food, lodging, etc, and green pins marked interesting things.</figcaption></figure>



In Alabama, he gave one of the first college <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852697657837257120">lectures</a> on Bitcoin, a technical breakdown of mining difficulty and transactions in a UXTO system. Bitcoin had climbed to $8 by the time Plato arrived in Denver toward the end of May, where Plato <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852697945419796621">went</a> skydiving and attended concerts.&nbsp;



At one point, having camped out in the woods for days, Plato was offered a place to stay by a friend, whose kitchen had been converted into an ad-hoc home mining setup.&nbsp;



One of those rigs successfully found a block — netting the 50 BTC reward — which was <a href="https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852698242418368875">donated</a> to fund Plato’s trip. What was $500 back then would be worth more than $4 million today.



<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">8. Soon, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> surged to $10, but Plato was low on money His friend offered him a place to stay – and donated 50 <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24BTC&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$BTC</a> to his journey Here you can see his insane mining rig set-up in his kitchen❗ <a href="https://t.co/z2IcgCMQx3">pic.twitter.com/z2IcgCMQx3</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852698242418368875?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 2, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Bitcoin broke past $14 when Plato arrived in Las Vegas. It quickly doubled again to $30 for the first time ever in June, and Plato made it to the West Coast shortly after and posted up in Portland.



On July 1, three months after he started the first ever Bitcoin road trip, Plato shared an update on Tumblr:



“Well, in a nutshell, I made it! CT to LA without spending a single dollar. Since then I’ve been exploring San Francisco and Portland. Somehow I’ve met fewer Bitcoiners in either of these cities than anywhere else, so I’ve been mostly sleeping in my car.”



“Portland is really sweet. It feels like a big city in a small town, in a big city… which sounds stupid but w/e. There’s cool people everywhere, and more culture than <s>a tub of yogurt</s> an art museum.”



<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">12. These days, we don’t hear from Plato often… Here he is on X, when <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> hit $10,000 The value of his <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24BTC&amp;src=ctag&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$BTC</a> was up 1 million % 📈 <a href="https://t.co/S6ztSBWTlK">pic.twitter.com/S6ztSBWTlK</a>&mdash; The Bitcoin Historian (@pete_rizzo_) <a href="https://twitter.com/pete_rizzo_/status/1852698585021776009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 2, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Plato introduced hundreds of people to Bitcoin on his journey and <a href="https://therealplato.tumblr.com/post/7100067988/what-happened-to-plato">continued</a> to use bitcoin <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/therealplato/7852020802/paying-btc-for-sysadmin-support">wherever</a> he could.&nbsp;



More critically, he proved that Bitcoin could reimagine money by going all-in himself, at a time when Bitcoin was, at best, an esoteric quirk to most people.



For that, Plato will forever be a Bitcoin Legend.



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First Bitcoin road trip proved it could be money, even in 2011

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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Bitcoin has multiple personalities, equal parts money, freedom, resistance and hope.



MicroStrategy chairman Michael Saylor sits below all of them as bitcoin’s id — its rawest instincts, personified.



Thursday marked the 25th anniversary of Saylor <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2000/03/michael-saylor.html">losing $6 billion in one day</a> ($11 billion adjusted for inflation) as the dot-com bubble burst. That event was among the biggest single-day personal losses in human history until that point.&nbsp;



This is his comeback story.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Premium domains</h2>



Saylor was not always the apex Bitcoin bull. He did, however, understand digital scarcity long before the first block was ever mined: in domain names.



After founding MicroStrategy in 1989 and spending years building it up as a data mining and business intelligence operation, Saylor in the ‘90s had the bright idea to start buying up “premium” domain names: simple, single-word domains with potentially universal appeal and, preferably, over 500 million hits on Google Search.



Angel.com. Alarm.com. Wisdom.com. Emma.com. Speaker.com. Alert.com. Voice.com. Hope.com. Only one person could ever own each one at a time, and MicroStrategy spent $2 million overall acquiring those types of premium domains — at an average of around $100,000 each — alongside thousands of less valuable secondary domains.



“I bought all these domains because I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to own a part of the English language?’” Saylor said on the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8TwxyhkTIQ">My First Million podcast</a>. He personally owns Michael.com and one for his nickname, Mike.com.



“I mean, [as to] owning ‘hope’ or owning ‘voice’ — eventually, there’ll be a Google Voice, or some telecom company will want to launch a service. And what a great domain to launch on — a word like ‘Voice.com.’”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdBwge8WT2RV6gJncFpPEi-krFuB9PTnaSkXBQiitsn-Z4b6Eg-Xgb6PPt2lHRk7wkWobOqhyLabP8p1PZmRQvM6TQMzhssSd_-_piU2vT13r_qokycmL99jc_WsLrEdp-eBLFH1g?key=y2TEMfTsQ9h7Ei8GaCPtYnlE" alt=""/></figure>



Alarm.com and Angel.com were later commercialized with real companies, respectively spun up by Saylor and MicroStrategy’s research and development division.&nbsp;



MicroStrategy eventually <a href="https://www.pehub.com/abs-capital-buys-alarmcom/">sold</a> Alarm.com and its associated business for $27.7 million in 2009 to venture capital firm ABS Capital Partners. In 2013, software company Genesys <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/microstrategy-announces-sale-of-angel-subsidiary-193265481.html">acquired</a> Angel.com with its business for $110 million cash, and quickly rebranded it under its own corporate umbrella.



Saylor, meanwhile, was adamant that Voice.com was worth $1 billion to the right buyer.



It was around this time, in December 2013, that Saylor first publicly commented on Bitcoin: “Lacking a credible sponsor, Bitcoin is in imminent danger of being regulated out of existence,” Saylor <a href="https://x.com/saylor/status/409356401375739905">tweeted</a>.&nbsp;



He posted again another week later, after bitcoin had fallen by up to two-thirds from an all-time high of $1,242:



<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"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> days are numbered. It seems like just a matter of time before it suffers the same fate as online gambling.&mdash; Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) <a href="https://twitter.com/saylor/status/413478389329428480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 19, 2013</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Sunk cost</h2>



Saylor wouldn’t really return to Bitcoin until mid-2020, at least publicly, and going by the timeline of events, a premium domain sale to a crypto startup might’ve been his lightbulb moment, with a capital ₿.



In May 2019 — one year before MicroStrategy first showed intent to buy bitcoin — the company behind upstart blockchain EOS, Block.one, had <a href="https://b1.com/press/block-one-introduces-social-media-application-voice/">announced</a> a new social media app in the form of Voice, which promised to pay token payouts to users for posting and sharing content.



Block.one was previously calculated to have <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/31/a-blockchain-start-up-just-raised-4-billion-without-a-live-product.html">raised</a> $4.1 billion in ETH during a year-long initial coin offering that started in mid-2017 and ended around a year before Voice was revealed.



“They [Block.one] contacted us, one of their domain brokers, and they asked, ‘Do you want to sell it? We’ll give you $150,000.’ I said no. I thought nothing of it, because I just couldn’t see the point,” Saylor recounted.



“They come back and say, ‘They doubled it to $300,000.’ I said, ‘Tell them no.’ So a couple days later they [Saylor’s colleagues] go, ‘Well the broker’s really insistent; they went to $600,000.’ I said no. So they said, ‘Well, what should we say?’ I said, ‘Don’t tell them anything. Tell them we’re not interested. It’s got to be something serious.’”



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img decoding="async" src="https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcjSGsnDrPLsMidWxNatJd63lj6msqkd5SCVr58-dxIUVaRdcEHtV-gv4gGLb9GB8TJnSxDi87L0lCZm-uYY_6yIB3OSPucXHUkLqxWeAM6sTAIlUp1CniPQkbq9GY6GNMi-NbgMg?key=y2TEMfTsQ9h7Ei8GaCPtYnlE" alt=""/><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">MSTR returned to all-time highs last November after more than two decades — thanks to its Bitcoin plan. EOS is down 75% in the past five years. Source: TradingView.</figcaption></figure>



Block.one then offered $1.2 million, which Saylor rejected. Then $2.5 million. Then $5 million. Then around $10 million.



“When it got to $12 million, I said I’d get on the phone for half an hour. That call started with someone saying, ‘Well, how about $22 million?’ And I said, “Let me explain. This is like my daughter. I’m willing to marry her off, but only to a man that values her more than I value her.”



MicroStrategy <a href="https://domainnamewire.com/2019/06/18/record-breaker-voice-com-domain-name-sells-for-staggering-30-million/">closed</a> the deal in June 2019 for $30 million — 200 times above Block.one’s initial offer. It’s still the largest known pure domain name sale in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_domain_names">history</a>, nearly doubling the previous record of $17 million, which <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougyoung/2015/02/06/qihoo-eyes-360-brand-with-record-domain-buy/">Qihoo paid for 360.com</a> in 2015.



Block.one went on to <a href="https://protos.com/block-one-social-media-voice-offline-unfinished-nft-platform/">sink another $150 million</a> into Voice.com’s development over the next two years before shutting it down in late 2023. Voice <a href="https://x.com/VoiceHQ/status/1702041043980492946">stated</a> that “the ongoing uncertainty in the crypto and NFT market will continue for more time than we have.”



Conversely, Saylor and MicroStrategy began buying bitcoin, positioning themselves to capitalize immensely on an impending bitcoin rally fueled by anticipation of ETFs from BlackRock, Fidelity and others.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How it started</h2>



One year after the domain sale closed, in July 2020, Saylor said in a quarterly earnings <a href="https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2020/07/28/microstrategy-mstr-q2-2020-earnings-call-transcrip.aspx">call</a> that MicroStrategy may start buying bitcoin over the next year as part of a new capital allocation strategy.



The plan was to invest $250 million over the next 12 months in alternative assets — “which may include stocks, bonds, commodities such as gold, digital assets such as bitcoin, or other asset types,” while buying back $250 million in company stock from shareholders.



Except it didn’t take a year. MicroStrategy bought 21,454 BTC for $250 million in less than two weeks, and in August 2020 <a href="https://x.com/saylor/status/1293141856700768257">declared</a> bitcoin its primary treasury reserve asset.



<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"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Bitcoin?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Bitcoin</a> is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy.&mdash; Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) <a href="https://twitter.com/saylor/status/1307029562321231873?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 18, 2020</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Bitcoin was then trading for under $12,000, and within four months had broken its $20,000 price record, which had previously held for almost three years.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Corner the market</h2>



By December 2020, MicroStrategy had <a href="https://www.strategy.com/press/microstrategy-announces-proposed-private-offering-of-400-million-of-convertible-senior-notes">opened</a> its first debt sale since opting into bitcoin — $400 million with 0.75% interest — which it pledged to spend on buying more coins. Then a second raise two months later, and a third four months after the second.



So by the time Block.one wound down Voice in September 2023, MicroStrategy was sitting on $4.2 billion in BTC at the very early stages of a monster bull run.



Since then, MicroStrategy has spent almost $27.8 billion to acquire an additional 340,860 BTC ($28.7 billion). Bitcoin has more than tripled in price in that time, while MicroStrategy has dropped the “Micro” from its name and only <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/strategy-rebrand-and-2025-targets">goes by Strategy</a> these days.



Strategy now holds a total of 499,096 BTC — 2.5% of the circulating supply — and is valuable enough to be included in the benchmark Nasdaq 100 stock market index. Saylor has relentlessly bull-posted the entire time, picking up where former evangelists such as Roger Ver left off.



<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">21 Rules of ₿itcoin 1. Those who understand buy Bitcoin. 2. Those who don’t, criticize Bitcoin. 3. Everyone is against Bitcoin before they are for it. 4. You will never be done learning about Bitcoin. 5. Bitcoin is powered by chaos. 6. Bitcoin is the only game in the casino…&mdash; Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) <a href="https://twitter.com/saylor/status/1891492169409593715?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Of course, Strategy has raised billions of dollars across nine completed debt sales to help fund the bitcoin acquisition plan.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How it’s going&nbsp;</h2>



Right now, the firm has <a href="https://www.mstr-tracker.com/">$9.3 billion</a> in convertible debt against $41.8 billion in BTC, and is this year <a href="https://x.com/Strategy/status/1897353660696551901">responsible</a> for 30% of the US convertible market, all “powered by Bitcoin.”&nbsp;



Strategy has spent $33.2 billion on bitcoin in total, and the napkin math puts Strategy effectively ahead by $700 million at time of writing. Saylor’s personal net worth is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/">estimated</a> at $6.6 billion, and in January, the firm openly promised to raise $42 billion over the next three years to buy a whole lot more.



Whether it’s conviction that Voice.com is really worth $1 billion, or that bitcoin is “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTPoRDrtc0s">going up forever</a>,” Saylor’s career has been marked by the same base instinct to corner the market on long-lasting digital assets, particularly ones that serve as foundational structures for internet economies.&nbsp;



Saylor simply expanded from one highly-illiquid digital asset class in domain names — a niche space where he’s also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izpxH4XNmk8">considered a legend</a> — to one deeply liquid digital asset in bitcoin.&nbsp;



Amazingly, what followed the Voice.com deal doubles as a near-perfect allegory for crypto investing. Block.one sunk nine figures into a token project that pivoted to NFTs, only to go zero before it even started, defeated by a bear market.



Strategy has otherwise <a href="https://www.ledger.com/academy/glossary/stack-the-sats">stacked sats</a> throughout, driving its market value from under $4 billion to more than $80 billion. 



Saylor is thus living proof that there’s “bitcoin,” and then there’s “crypto.” 



He’s just planned accordingly.



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