Global search

With the price of a bitcoin surging to new highs in 2017, the bullish case for investors might seem so obvious it does not need stating. Alternatively, it may seem foolish to invest in a digital asset that isn't backed by any commodity or government and whose price rise has prompted some to compare it to the tulip mania or the dot-com bubble. Neither is true; the bullish case for Bitcoin is compelling but far from obvious. There are significant risks to investing in Bitcoin, but, as I will ar...

Explore Bitcoin in this seminal article by Vijay Boyapati. Many of the key value propositions and ideas of Bitcoin are discussed in this article. Why does Bitcoin not need "backing"? What are the origins of money? What are the attributes of a good store of value? What are the stages of evolution in a money?

Contrary to popular belief, bitcoin is in fact backed by something. It is backed by the only thing that backs any form of money: the credibility of its monetary properties. Money is not a collective hallucination nor merely a belief system. Over the course of history, various mediums have emerged as money, and each time, it has not just been by coincidence. Goods that emerge as money possess unique properties that differentiate them from other market goods. While The Bitcoin Standard provides...

A common line of reasoning will be that money must be "backed by" something, whether that is another asset, government force, or something else. This article by Parker Lewis is an excellent answer to this challenge. Building on some of the ideas from Unit 1, read this article and see that ultimately it comes down to the credibility of monetary properties. What properties of a money are most important? How does Bitcoin compare against other potential monies? Why is it that government force alo...

STEPHAN LIVERA PODCAST:SLP121 YAN PRITZKER – INTRO TO BITCOIN MINING (BEGINNER EPISODE) October 31, 2019 Yan Pritzker, Bitcoin Author and previously CTO of Reverb (Now CTO Swan Bitcoin) joins me in this episode to talk about Bitcoin Mining, his book Inventing Bitcoin, and give Bitcoin beginners an intro to Bitcoin Mining. * We talk about: * Whether a beginner should do Bitcoin Mining or use cloud mining * How bitcoin mining works * How the network stops cheaters * Bitcoin mining attacks * Com...

Listen to this podcast interview with Yan Pritzker for an introduction to Bitcoin mining. As you listen, consider the following questions. What does mining do, and how does it secure the Bitcoin network? Should you mine Bitcoin as a retail individual? How are Bitcoin miners compensated? What is the block reward, and what is the block subsidy?

Forty-six days after the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and directly amidst the world's collective realization of the dollar system's precarious position, a presciently timed white paper was sent to a very small online community called the Cryptography Mailing List. The paper was written for members of the cryptography discipline, not the monetary one, and therefore it didn't even register as relevant to money back then. Looking back, however, we must with authority insert this day, October ...

_By Aaron Van Virdum, August 25, 2017_ Segregated Witness (SegWit) has activated on Bitcoin. As of today, all SegWit-ready nodes on the Bitcoin network are enforcing the new rules, marking Bitcoin's biggest protocol upgrade to date. But activation did not come easy, and it did not come fast. This is a look back at the long road to SegWit. THE PROBLEM Bitcoin transactions consist of two main parts. One part is "base transaction data". That covers which bitcoins are being moved and where they a...

The idea that somehow bitcoin can be banned by governments is the final stage of grief, right before acceptance. The consequence of the statement is an admission that bitcoin "works". In fact, it posits that bitcoin works so well that it will threaten the incumbent government-run monopolies on money in which case governments will regulate it out of existence to eliminate the threat. Think about the claim that governments will ban bitcoin as conditional logic. Is bitcoin functional as money? I...

Read this article. What are the stages of grief in relation to Bitcoin as money? As Bitcoin grows in popularity and use, how feasible will it be for governments to ban or stop Bitcoin? Would it be feasible to shut it down globally?

When it comes to bitcoin adoption, there are generally two rules that never seem to fail. Everyone always feels late, and everyone always wishes they had bought more bitcoin. There are exceptions to every rule, but bitcoin has an uncanny ability to screw with the human psyche. It turns out that 21 million is a scarily small number, and it actually becomes smaller as more individuals come to understand that the fixed supply of bitcoin is credibly enforced and that monetary networks converge on...

Read this article. Why do economic systems converge towards a single monetary medium? Why are there large gains to the economy under such a system?

STEPHAN LIVERA PODCAST: SLP124 JON ATACK – BITCOIN CORE CONTRIBUTION November 13, 2019 Jon Atack joins me to talk about his experience with open source software development, and to talk about the process of Bitcoin Core development and code review. We talk: * Becoming a Bitcoin Core contributor * How to best contribute * Communication channels for development * Priorities in Bitcoin development * Funding for development @@PLUGINFILE@@/Jon-Atack-bitcoin-core-contribution.mp3 JON ATACK LINKS: *...

In this interview with Jon Atack, you will learn about the process behind open source contribution to Bitcoin Core. As you listen, think about the discussions around the following topics. What is being worked on in Bitcoin right now? How do contributors to Bitcoin discuss and make decisions? What is the process of peer review for Bitcoin like? For more technical information about contributing to Bitcoin Core, review this document from the Bitcoin Core code repository: https://github.com/Bitco...

A NEW DENOMINATION In the digital realm, Bitcoin's software facilitates and clears all transactions within its denomination. It functions like a central bank from the settlement perspective, only instead of central, the software is anywhere that Bitcoin nodes exist. Bitcoin's innovation created an entirely new denomination and payments infrastructure, controlled by nobody. Digital payments were already ubiquitous by 2009 with the widespread use of online credit card payments, PayPal, and othe...

Read this section about Bitcoin's legal precedent and standing in the US.

_It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on. If enough people think the same way, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. _ _- Satoshi Nakamoto, January 16, 2009 _ Bitcoin has become its own monetary pyramid due to its properties as a first-layer money. The pyramid is reminiscent of gold-anchored pyramids of the past, but BTC doesn't derive its first-layer status solely from comparisons and metaphors; Satoshi designed a digital asset that specifically mimicked precious metals...