            THE
            SIMPLEST

            BOOK
            EVER
            WRITTEN

Keysa Luna

2nd Edition

            
              * to orange-pill:

              (verb) / tu’ ȯr-inj-‘pil/
            
              : the act of explaining bitcoin in such a way that a
            
            a pre-coiner becomes a bitcoiner!

1 bitcoin = 100.000.000 satoshi

Includes a section on

Nostr

i →

The Simplest Bitcoin Book Ever Written

2nd Edition, July 2024, Keysa Luna

1st Edition, March 2022, Keysa Luna

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike): 4.0 International License.

This work is licensed under a

Share: Copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

Remix: Remix the material

Under the following conditions:

Attribution - You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

NonCommercial - You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

ShareAlike - If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

Cover and interior design by Keysa Luna Cover photo by Vallota from Pixabay.com Title graphics by @Asanoha_gold :: sovereignremnant.com Nostr logo by sovereignmatt@nostrplebs.com Published Independently Printed in the USA

← ii →

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Why We Need

1

                2.

                Fixes This

32

                3. What Is

                ?

36

                4. How Does

                Work?

73

5. A Word On The Lightning Network

88

6. How To

92

7. On Privacy

104

                8. Dispelling

                FUD

108

                9. Why

                Only?

123

10. Satoshi's Numbers

127

                
                  11. Resources for the
                
                Rabbit Hole

133

                12.

                Community Projects

138

                13.

                Induced Ponderings

139

14. A Cypherpunk's Manifesto

145

                15. The

                White Paper

149

← iii →

TABLE OF CONTENTS cont.

16. What is

Nostr?

160

17. Why We Need

Nostr

161

18. How Does

Nostr Work?

162

19. How To

Nostr

165

20. Key Management

166

21.

Nostr Resources

167

22.

Nostr Clients/Apps

168

23. Join Us!

169

← iv →

for all our children,

with thanks to Satoshi and the cypherpunks

            I love the simple life,

            I love being barefoot,

              I love profound conversation that sparks creativity,
            
            connection and inspiration.

            I love freedom.

And, I love bitcoin.

Love is a big word, bitcoin is worthy of big love.

It’s existence is a point of bright light in this most challenged time in human existence.

I wrote this book in the hopes of making bitcoin, and the reasons we need it, more accessible to more seekers.

            
              This book is a starting point, into what I, and many others,
            
              have discovered is a phenomenally endless, life-changing
            
            and beautiful rabbit hole!

May you be orange-pilled, may you be free, and may you be well enriched by the journey!

738922

← v →

              As I submit this 2nd Edition for print,

                I reflect on the process of writing, editing, updating,
              
              fact-checking and, most importantly,

              adding the new section on Nostr,

              and I am in awe.

              
                In awe of all of you, orange-pilled, purple-pilled
              
              and yet-to-be,

              all on this journey with me,

              as we march forward,

                resolute in our mission to continue the work
              
              of the cypherpunks,

              the freedom lovers, the visionaries,

              those who looked ahead,

                who understood both the power and the danger
              
              of the digital world left unchecked,

              and who sought, and still seek, to

              write the code we all need,

              to live into a future of freedom.

It is up to us to use it.

Let us proceed together apace.

Onward.

851522

← vi →

Note: Everything presented in this little book is up for debate, discussion, updates and corrections!

As with all things in life, there are numerous view-points on bitcoin, nostr, their future, and every other aspect of them both.

Lively commentary is streamed 24/7 on nostr and twitter that bounces between confusing and clarifying!

This entire ecosystem is an emergent, grassroots, messy, fascinating unfolding! It is by far the largest global experiment ever undertaken, with people of every race, religion, class and persuasion engaging permissionlessly together, to discover a new way forward.

If you are inspired by such a movement, you will very likely find yourself falling down the rabbit hole with the rest of us!

Here’s to open minds and open hearts along the way…

Remember: Don't Trust, Verify

And always DYOR: Do Your Own Research!

← vii →

I've developed a new open source P2P e-cash system called Bitcoin. It's completely decentralized, with no central server or trusted parties, because everything is based on crypto proof instead of trust. Give it a try, or take a look at the screenshots and design paper: Download Bitcoin v0.1 at
http://www.bitcoin.org

~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-02-11 22:27:00 UTC Posted on metzdowd.com, an early cryptography mailing list

← viii →

WHY WE NEED

WE NEED

BECAUSE MONEY IS BROKEN

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts.

~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-02-11

The fiat money system is broken (always has been).

It is not sustainable (never has been).

There is no way to fix it (never will be)

← 1 →

THE (NOT) GOLD STANDARD

Many people still believe that money is backed by gold.

It is not.

It has not been backed by gold since 1971, when President Nixon unilaterally took the world off the gold standard (the Nixon Shock).

See wtfhappenedin1971.com to get a clear picture of the damage this did.

Chart showing Consumer Price Index inflation (red line) vs the purchasing power of the US dollar (black line) since 1971. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIAUCSL , June 9, 2024.

Fun Fact: The World Economic Forum was formed in 1971.

← 2 →

FIAT: (noun) /ˈfiː.æt/
: an authoritative or arbitrary order : DECREE
: an authoritative determination : DICTATE
: a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort

~ merriam-webster.com/dictionary

FIAT: from Latin fieri «to be made, come into being»

Fiat is money that has value only because the government says (decrees) that it does.

Therefore people (have to) believe it does.

Even if they don't believe fiat has value, by law they are forced to use it and to accept it as payment for goods and services.

Fiat money is printed/created out of thin air.

These days about 5% of all dollars are printed as cash.

The other 95% is digitally created by banks entering numbers into a computer when they issue loans.

It costs only a few cents for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to produce a $100 bill…

~ American Economist, Barry Eichengreen

← 3 →

Scott Pelley of NBC '60 Minutes': Fair to say you simply flooded the system with money?
Fed Chair Jerome Powell: Yes. We did. That's another way to think about it. We did.
Pelley: Where does it come from? Do you just print it?
Powell: We print it digitally. So as a central bank, we have the ability to create money digitally. And we do that by buying Treasury Bills or bonds for other government guaranteed securities. And that actually increases the money supply. We also print actual currency and we distribute that through the Federal Reserve banks.

~ CNBC '60 Minutes' Interview, May 17, 2020, Two months after the onset of the C*vid-19 lockdown

There's really no limit to what we can do with these lending programs that we have.

~ Fed Chair Jerome Powell March 18, 2020 on CBS News

Yes, there is an infinite amount of cash in the Federal Reserve. We will do whatever we need to do to make sure there's enough cash in the banking system.

~ Neel Kashkari, President of the Minneapolis Fed March 23, 2020, CBS '60 Minutes'

The 'we' here is five people voting on changes to monetary policy within the Federal Reserve system during FOMC meetings. 5 out of 330,000,000.

~ @MartyBent , Founder of TFTC.io Forbes Article, March 18, 2020

← 4 →

FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH OF OLDE

The bank hath benefit of interest on all monies that it creates out of nothing.

~ William Paterson,
1694 Founder of the Bank of England

All of the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arises, not from the defects of the Constitution or Confederation, not from the want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.

~ John Adams
Second President of the United States, 1797-1801

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks, and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.

~ Thomas Jefferson
Third President of the United States, 1801-1809

While boasting of our noble deeds were careful to conceal the ugly fact that by an iniquitous money system we have nationalized a system of oppression which, though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery.

~ Horace Greeley
Member of the United States House of Representatives, 1848-49
Founder of The New York Tribune

← 5 →

Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce… when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.

~ James A. Garfield
20th President of the United States, Mar-Sept.1881
Assassinated in 1881

There today exists uncontrolled in the hands of a set of men a power to make dollars from nothing.

~ Thomas W. Lawson, Author 'Frenzied Finance', 1905

I was as secretive - indeed, as furtive - as any conspirator. Discovery, we knew, simply must not happen, or else all our time and effort would be wasted. If it were to be exposed that our particular group had got together and written a banking bill, that bill would have no chance whatever of passage by Congress.

~ Frank A. Vanderlip
President of New York City Bank
(Formerly Citibank)
~ 1913'te Federal Reserve Act olarak geçen tasarıyı hazırlamak için 1910'da Jekyll Adası'nda gerçekleşen gizli toplantı hakkında 1935'te yazmıştır.

This (Federal Reserve) Act, is the most powerful single piece of legislation ever enacted in the history of the world. When President Woodrow Wilson signed it, the invisible hand of the Federal Reserve System was born.
The most heinous crime of all time, committed by the banking and monetary systems, is being perpetrated on the American people.

~ Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr.
Member of the U.S. Congress, 1907-1917

← 6 →

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.

~ Woodrow Wilson
28th President of the United States, 1913-1921
6 years after passing the Federal Reserve Act of 1913

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
32nd President of the United States
in a letter written on Nov. 21, 1933 to Colonel E. Mandell House

It [the depression] was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence…. The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as the rulers of us all.

~ Congressman Louis T. McFadden,
Assassinated in 1936
Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee

Each and every time a bank makes a loan, new bank credit is created - new deposits - brand new money.

~ Graham F. Towers
Gov of the Central Bank of Canada, 1934-55

← 7 →

If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn't be any money

~ Marriner Eccles,
1941, Gov. of the Fed

I have never yet had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason, justify the Federal government borrowing the use of its own money… I believe the time will come when people will demand that this be changed. I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and everyone else connected with the Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue.

~ Wright Patman
US Congressman 1928-1976
Chairman, Committee on Banking and Currency 1963-1975

When you or I write a check, there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover the check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money.

~ Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
'Putting It Simply', 1984

← 8 →

THE FEDERAL RESERVE

The Fed is the 'independent' central bank of the US. It was created in 1913 with the passing of the Federal Reserve Act.

It has a unique structure, part private and part government.

The Fed is an independent, non-political institution.

While the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, does not need approval from anyone to make decisions.

It consists of:

Federal Reserve Board of Governors

12 Federal Reserve Banks

Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), this is the monetary policy-making body.

The Fed's responsibilities are:

The Fed controls the US monetary policy, promotes employment, and maintains price stability.

The Fed regulates banks and other financial institutions.

The Fed provides payment services to financial institutions.

The Fed promotes consumer protection and economic growth.

← 9 →

A NOTE ON THE FED CHAIR

The Chair of the Federal Reserve is also:

Chairs the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which decides on the direction of US monetary policy (for eg: QE, interest rate hikes)

A member of the International Monetary Fund, the IMF

A member of the Bank for International Settlements, the BIS (the bank of central banks)

The US finance minister of the G-7

The US finance minister of the G-20

A whole lot of power for one person.

← 10 →

FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING,
INTEREST & LOANS

Fractional Reserve banking: Until March 2020, banks were required to hold a reserve of 10%, and could loan out 90%.

Since March 2020, there is no reserve required, allowing banks to issue unlimited loans.

A loan is debt-based money, and you are required to pay interest on the loan.

Fun Fact 1: The money to pay the interest on the loan is NOT created by the banks

Fun Fact 2: It is NEVER created.

Fun Fact 3: There is NOT ENOUGH money in the world to pay back all the loans + the interest due on those loans.

Fun Fact 4: There never will be!

← 11 →

A NOTE ON THE PETRO DOLLAR

One could say that until 1971 the dollar was backed by gold, and since 1974 it has been backed by oil, and thus by default, the US Military.

In 1974 the US and Saudi Arabia entered into bilateral agreements to price the sale of oil in US dollars.

Since then, most global oil sales have been settled in US dollars.

This has contributed greatly to the dollar becoming the strongest currency in the world.

It has thus been artificially propped up, even during times when it would normally have struggled.

Since late in 2022, a number of countries have begun to trade in currencies other than the US dollar.

It is very possible that this could be the beginning of the end of the petro dollar. What happens next remains to be seen…

← 12 →

ON QE (QUANTITATIVE EASING)

Quantitative Easing is considered an 'unconventional monetary policy' used by Central Banks to 'stimulate the economy', whereby the Fed buys government bonds and other government securities.

It was first used by Japan between 2001-2006. Following that, the US, UK, and the Eurozone used QE during the 2008 financial crisis

Since then, the only time the US has not had a QE program was between 2014-2019.

As seen below, critics contend that QE overwhelmingly benefits the already-wealthy.

Credit: @RudyHavenstein on Twitter

← 13 →

CYCLES

In all of nature, there are cycles, natural ebbs and flows, expansions and contractions.

This contributes to an overall, over-time, balance and sustainability of the whole interconnected system, of all life on earth.

The debt-based, fiat currency system ignores the wisdom of natural cycles, and instead is based on, and 100% reliant for its survival upon, unparalleled and unmitigated growth, in order to continue servicing its debts.

In nature, this is cancer.

In 'the economy', this unnatural trajectory is further supported by the government bailing out failing banks and large companies, rather than allowing them to fold, and be recycled into something new, something healthier.

The short-sightedness of bailing out failing companies is putting the whole economy at risk. In essence, it is just kicking the can down the road, and the inevitable turmoil that lies ahead is likely to be far, far more intense than if natural cycles were allowed to play out.

We are indebted to Satoshi Nakamoto, and to the cypherpunks before and after him, for having the vision, foresight, determination and skill to provide a lifeboat to carry us to new shores.

← 14 →

Once we realize the gift that this is, it is up to us to jump on board, with full hearts and clear minds, to take the trip and build a new world with the Money of Peace.

Bitcoin fixes the money, it is up to us to fix the rest. And, to be clear, by having the money fixed, a LOT of other things will be fixed, by default

The main one being that large-scale, government-initiated, kinetic war will no longer be profitable, or possible, without the support of the people.

Additionally, there will naturally be less consumption, along with a switch over to real-value goods and services, free markets, real savings, & demonetization of housing and real estate, that was never meant to be monetized in the first place.

SEE: Bitcoin Fixes This, page 32

← 15 →

WE NEED

BECAUSE INFLATION IS THEFT

2024 FRED chart showing the declining purchasing power of the dollar since the formation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. The cumulative rate of inflation since 1913 is around 3.067%. All central bank fiat currencies around the world are following a similar rate of decline.

The more money that is created out of thin air, the more all money loses value/purchasing power.

This is called inflation.

Inflation is time-theft, literally. The value of your time is stolen when you save it in a currency that is inflated, debased and manipulated.

Inflation is also a hidden tax.

← 16 →

This time-theft and tax has affected all other countries' fiat currencies as well, since they have all been pegged to the US dollar, as it has been the world reserve currency since the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944.

In the USA, a 2% annual inflation rate is written into the Federal Reserve mandate.

This means that you are GUARANTEED to be able to buy 2% LESS with the same $20 bill each year.

In March 2024, the annual inflation rate was 3.5%, a lot more than 2%, which means you lost 3.5% of your purchasing power between March 2023 and March 2024.

Put another way, this means that on average, things went up in price by 3.5%.

If inflation was measured accurately, like it was done until the early 1980's, it would actually be closer to 10% in 2024.

When looked at by category, one sees that inflation is a whole lot worse than 3.5% in many categories over the past year.

When one looks at one's rent, grocery bills, gas prices, almost anything one buys, it is quite clear that inflation is rampant in every sector.

← 17 →

Average Inflation over the past 50 years in the US:

Average Cost	1971	2024	% Increase
Salary	$9,400	$59,400	532%
House	$23,400	$513,000	2,092%
Gasoline	$0.36	$4.17	1,058%
New Car	$3,400	$47,000	1,282%
College Diploma	$1,400	$26,000	1,757%
Shopping Cart	$20	$210	950%
Electricity/kWh	$0.02	$0.15	650%

              
                True Story:
              
                ~ A house was bought in 1976 for $58,000.
              
                ~ When accounting for 'official' inflation, this would be
                $279,000 in 2022 dollars.
              
                ~ In 2022 the same house was valued at $2.09 million.
              
              ~ Ponder on that…

Fiat currency is disinformation.
What information does a $10 bill convey?
The 10 is a numerator of a fraction with the denominator missing.
10 out of what?
The 10 says nothing without a known and stable denominator.

~ @bitlany

← 18 →

As inflation increases, your savings (if you are lucky enough to have savings), lose value.

Over time, they lose A LOT of value.

If you started saving $100/month today, with the best available interest rate of 0.05%:

In 30 years you would have saved $84,019.

When adjusted for the FED's mandated 2% inflation:

In 30 years your savings would have an effective purchasing power of just $46,384.

Adjusting for today's inflation of 3.5%:

Your $84,019 worth of savings would have the purchasing power of just $11,037 in 30 years!

In effect this means that approximately six out of seven hours of your work have been stolen = Time Theft.

← 19 →

Another way to look at it is the following:

In 1971 , the cost of a house = 2.5 times an average annual salary.

In 2024 , the cost of a house = 8.6 times an average annual salary.

In 1971 , a new car cost about 1/3 of an average salary.

In 2024 , a new car cost over 3/4 of an average salary.

            I trust that it is now clear that

            inflation

              does
              not
            
            work in your favor

Note: All of these numbers are averages, and variable based on many factors. The point remains, inflation is a hidden tax and is time-theft on our real labor and production.

Hard money fixes this.

Bitcoin is hard money.

← 20 →

WE NEED

TO REPLACE THE CENTRALLY CONTROLLED, MANIPULATED, DEBT-BASED ECONOMY

I don't believe we shall ever have a good money again, before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can't take them violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something they can't stop.

~ Friedrich Hayek, 1984
Austrian Economist, Philosopher and Author, 1899-1992

Graph showing exponential M1 Money Supply increase from $4 trillion in March 2020 to over $18 trillion in June 2024.

Blow your mind here: https://usdebtclock.org/

← 21 →

45% of all the US dollars in existence were printed between April 2020-Jan 2022!

Printed out of thin air that is, remember?

Fiat money is centrally controlled by the state, and the supply is easily manipulated.

It took 205 years for the US National Debt to reach $1 trillion. (1776 > 1981)

It took just 33 more years for the US National Debt to reach $34 trillion! (1981 > 2024)

FRED Graph showing Total Public Debt 1970-2024 in the US.

Global debt, measured by the Institute of International Finance, now totals $303 TRILLION. This is our planet on debt-based fiat. By the way, global GDP is only $84 trillion.

~ Nik Bhatia, Author of 'Layered Money', 2021

← 22 →

For reference:

If you have	You can spend $1/second
$1 Million	for 11 days	= 11 days
$1 Billion	for 11,680 days	= 32 years
$1 Trillion	for 11,680,000 days	= 32,000 years!

We are all at the mercy of those who have the power to decide when to print more, and what interest rates to charge.

If the Fed raises the interest rates, then getting a loan for a house or a car becomes suddenly more expensive, which slows down spending, leading to stagflation

If they keep the rates artificially low, we enter a period of depression

Allowing the central bank to create the financial 'weather', takes away our freedom to let the market decide what is of value, and what is not.

In addition, when they bail out banks and corporations, they artificially prop up the economy. It is only a matter of time before the house of cards falls.

The original argument for having a central bank was that there needed to be a Lender of Last Resort when the economy wobbled.

← 23 →

This has turned into the central bank being a Ruler of First Resort, with unparalleled, unelected, ultimately authoritarian power.

All money is political, except for Bitcoin. Fiat currencies, banking instruments, fintech credits, other cryptocurrencies, and even gold are all controlled by governments, corporations, or small groups. Having an exception will prove very useful as we head into the future.

~ Alex Gladstein @gladstein
Chief Strategy Officer for the Human Rights Foundation

Bitcoin links together 8 billion people, links together a hundred million companies, it synchronizes the world across political jurisdictions, and it returns rationality to the entire financial system, and it returns freedom and property rights to the entire human race.

~ Michael Saylor
CEO Microstrategy

← 24 →

WE NEED

TO BANK THE UNBANKED

For 953 million people in 20 countries with weakening currencies, Bitcoin represents something greater than a treasury asset. For them, it's more like an ark of encrypted energy to escape the flood.

~ Michael Saylor
CEO of Microstrategy

As of 2024, approximately 25% of the adults in the world are unbanked, about 1.4 billion people!

This means they have no access to banking services and cannot use ATM's, debit cards, credit cards or checks.

In addition, they are not able to get loans to start a business, to buy a car or a house etc.

Sending and receiving money, or cashing checks, is expensive.

They have to use money-transfer and check cashing services like Western Union, that charge high rates and take time to process.

It is especially expensive for people sending money home to their families in other countries (remittances), which can cost up to 10%, or 12% via a bank.

← 25 →

It is expensive and time-consuming for those receiving remittances , as they need to pay for transport and go to the money-transfer office, often far from where they live, to get the money their family member sent.

Oftentimes it is not safe for them to travel to these offices.

Bitcoin, over the Lightning Network, provides an instant solution to these problems now!

#bitcoin fixes this

When has a technology that empowers people ever been stopped?

~ Jeff Booth
Author: The Price of Tomorrow

← 26 →

WE NEED

TO HELP PEOPLE ESCAPE TYRANNY AND CURRENCY COLLAPSE

As we have seen, over the past couple of years, governments can and do freeze the bank accounts of those they disagree with.

This shows that, in essence, your money in the bank is nothing more than an IOU that can be stolen from you at any time.

In addition, when inflation runs rampant, as we are currently seeing in 2024 in Venezuela (283%), Sudan (63%), Lebanon (212%), Syria (79%), Argentina (161%), Zimbabwe (47%), Turkey (64%) and more, people's life-savings are vaporized, sometimes overnight, and there is nothing they can do about it.

For people experiencing any of the above, bitcoin becomes a real, immediate solution to an otherwise untenable problem.

Considering that both tyranny and inflation is on the rise in many places, one would be wise to hedge against them by acquiring bitcoin now.

← 27 →

WE NEED

TO AVOID CBDCS

You may have heard that central banks are starting to create CBDC's, Central Bank Digital Currencies.

In May 2020, 35 countries were exploring this option.

By March 2022, 87 countries were actively researching or piloting CBDCs.

By the time this article was written in June 2024, 134 countries were researching, developing, piloting, or launching CBDCs. www.atlanticcouncil.org/cbdctracker/

CBDCs are similar to the electronic money you see in your online bank account, but they are digital and programmable, and 100% controlled by central banks.

A key difference with CBDCs is central banks would have absolute control...

~ Agustin Carstens
General Mgr, BIS - Bank for International
Settlements (The bank of all banks)

This means the government can program an expiration date on your money, forcing you to spend it before it expires.

← 28 →

They can also program other things into it, like only allowing it to be spent at certain shops, websites or jurisdictions, and not at others.

They could link it to: your credit score, your health pass, digital ID and other social scores.

They can program any restrictions they see fit, based on your specific score in one area, or on your 'overall score', or on what they deem the 'economy' needs.

In addition, they will be able to surveil every single thing you do with your money

We don't know who's using a $100 bill today and we don't know who's using a 1,000 peso bill today. The key difference with the CBDC is the central bank will have absolute control on the rules and regulations that will determine the use of that expression of central bank liability, and also we will have the technology to enforce that.

~Agustin Carstens
GM, BIS - Bank for International Settlements

Note: Saying "that expression of central bank liability" implies that your value, your life force, stored as money, is actually 'owned' by the central bank.

← 29 →

WE NEED

TO SAVE THE GARDEN

Bitcoin plucks out, at the root, THE biggest issue we face, the Fiat Lie.

This is the lie of corrupted fiat currency, usury and all that comes with it to steal your time, while greatly enriching those closest to the money printer.

The Fiat Lie is like a giant monster weed in your garden, sucking all the nutrients from the soil, killing all the mycelium, and blocking the sunlight so that the other plants cannot thrive, and are struggling to survive.

Suddenly when this noxious, monster Fiat Lie weed is gone, Truth enters!

All the plants (the people) can begin to recover.

The soil (being peoples' creativity, real goods and services) can regenerate.

The mycelium (being authentic connection between people) will regrow.

And the sunlight (unmediated life force) will shine down once again upon us all!

← 30 →

WE NEED

TO FIX THE WORLD

This is not a joke. #bitcoinfixesthis is a running meme for good reason.

While this might sound somewhat 'grandiose', let me explain. When one considers the 'way things are', one can see that 'something is very wrong'.

Rampant destruction, environmental degradation, splintered families and communities, loss of cultures, languages, traditions, poverty increasing, massive wealth concentrating in the hands of the (very) few, over-consumption, infinite money backing politicians, lack of food and clean water for millions, ever-increasing obesity and auto-immune disorders, seemingly endless wars…

One would think that with the exponential growth in NGOs, non-profit organizations, charitable foundations and so-called government-backed institutions, these issues would be getting less severe.

Instead, they are largely becoming more severe.

← 31 →

FIXES THIS

FINANCIAL INCLUSIVITY

With bitcoin, everyone has access to the same financial system, with the same rules for everyone.

No loopholes or back doors or special deals for anyone.

Everyone has the potential to be compensated for the value they provide with the same real money, created and maintained with the same rules.

Bitcoin is accessible to anyone, anywhere with an internet connection.

ADDING VALUE TO THE WORLD

Bitcoin incentivizes people to add real value to the community and the marketplace, as this is the only way to make more money.

If one is satisfied with less, one still benefits by working for a fair wage, and when one saves, those savings maintain their value over time.

← 32 →

FIXES THIS

ENVIRONMENT

Sound money with a hard-capped supply creates a very different dynamic to the one created by the debt-based, unlimited money-printing which we see taking place today.

Instead of an unstoppable drive to consume ever more, in a race to the bottom to pay compounding interest rates on loans and debt that will ultimately never get paid off, bitcoin provides an off-ramp to a world where a low-time preference is sought after.

Rampant environmental destruction is replaced with less consumption, less waste, and a considered approach to production, where the market decides what holds true value, and things are therefore built to last.

This is a net benefit to people, plants and animals!

← 33 →

FIXES THIS

WAR

The unlimited printing of the fiat monetary system is what makes 'forever-wars' possible and profitable.

Since the people are mostly in the dark about how war spending works, or where the money for war comes from, there is little to no accountability on the part of government. Wars can drag on for years in remote places, with no real oversight.

Starting with Vietnam, wars have become 'credit card wars' (h/t @AlexGladstein), since the government borrows money to fund the wars, and then borrows more money to pay the interest on the initial loans... rinse and repeat.

On a bitcoin standard, it would require the people of a country to be willing to help pay for a war. They would likely only do so if it was absolutely and clearly necessary, to defend their families and country, with an end-goal in site.

Since there would be no undue profits to be made, government officials and corporations would not be incentivized to promote or engage in war as a viable option.

Efforts would greatly increase to find ways to come to peaceful, low-cost resolutions instead.

← 34 →

FIXES THIS

TIME PREFERENCE

High Time Preference: Instant gratification, Impatience, Short-term planning

Low Time Preference: Delayed gratification, Patience, Long-term planning

High-time preference leads to personal, societal and environmental destruction. When our money is losing value each day, we are 'forced' to be impatient and to spend it as quickly as possible, before it loses more value.

When our time is devalued by an ever-inflating fiat currency, we lose connection to the value of our time.

This leads to disconnection, and an undercurrent of stress.

Attempts to alleviate the stress, and find meaning, are distorted and become distractions such as over-consumption of drugs, alcohol, shopping, porn, fast food, short attention spans, addiction to screens/social media, impulsive decisions etc.

Sound money on the other hand, which holds its value over time and properly measures our contributions through our work, leads to a low-time preference, thoughtful quality of life, with meaningful relationships, less consumption, deeper connection, more profound conversation, long-term goals and increased creativity.

← 35 →

WHAT IS

"Writing a description for this thing for general audiences is bloody hard. There's nothing to relate it to."

~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2010-07-05

Total circulation will be 21,000,000 coins. It'll be distributed to network nodes (miners) when they make blocks, with the amount cut in half every 4 years. first 4 years: 10,500,000 coins next 4 years: 5,250,000 coins next 4 years: 2,625,000 coins next 4 years: 1,312,500 coins etc... When that runs out, the system can support transaction fees if needed. It's based on open market competition, and there will probably always be nodes willing to process transactions for free.

~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-01-09

Bitcoin is freedom money… in the sense that it has the potential to free us all from the overarching manipulation by, and control of, the central banking system.

In bitcoin, the monetary rules are the same for EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE.

Bitcoin is inclusive , in the sense that anyone with an internet connection can participate in the network, and has to play by the same rules.

← 36 →

IS:

DECENTRALIZED

TRULY SCARCE

CENSORSHIP RESISTANT

A DISTRIBUTED LEDGER

INCORRUPTIBLE

}

This group of five properties distinguish bitcoin from every other cryptocurrency!

PERMISSIONLESS

AUDITABLE

TRANSPARENT

IMMUTABLE

BORDERLESS

HARD TO COUNTERFEIT

PSUEDONYMOUS

FRICTIONLESS

TRUSTLESS

PEER-TO-PEER

← 37 →

Bitcoin is decentralized.

It is run on thousands of nodes worldwide, by thousands of people who don't know each other.

No one person, government or company can ever control it.

You can run a node too, it's easy ;)

By running your own node, you increase your privacy and help to secure the network when you verify your own transactions.

Don't trust. Verify.

← 38 →

Bitcoin (upper case 'B') is a monetary network.

bitcoin (lower case 'b') is the currency, or monetary asset, that is issued on, and runs on the Bitcoin network.

← 39 →

Bitcoin is the great incentivizer.

The genius of Satoshi was such that in bitcoin, for the first time, both good and bad actors are incentivized to play by the rules.

"The incentive may help encourage nodes to stay honest. If a greedy attacker is able to assemble more CPU proof-of-worker than all the honest nodes, he would have to choose between using it to defraud people by stealing back his payments, or using it to generate new coins. He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules, such rules that favour him with more new coins than everyone else combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own wealth."

~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2008-10-31

← 40 →

Bitcoin is the first digitally native money, un like your online checking account, which is just a digital form of central bank fiat.

Bitcoin is decentralized digital currency.

Bitcoin has no central authority.

Bitcoin is stateless.

Consider the implications ...

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority: transaction management and money issuance are carried out collectively by the network.

~ Bitcoin Wiki
en.bitcoin.it

← 41 →

Bitcoin is magic internet money.

No seriously, Bitcoin is the way we are going to fix the world.

Seriously? Yes.

← 42 →

Bitcoin is a way to transfer value

of any amount

securely

instantly (on the Lightning Network)

between any two parties

anytime

24/7

anywhere

yes, anywhere

without any intermediaries

Think about that.

With e-currency based on cryptographic proof, without the need to trust a third party middleman, money can be secure and transactions effortless.

~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-02-11

← 43 →

Bitcoin is (almost) costless to move with certainty. I know with 100% certainty what I am receiving.

~ Michael Saylor CEO of Microstrategy

You can send $1.13, or 46c or 359 sats or 500,000,000 sats or $1 million to anyone, anywhere, anytime via the Bitcoin Network, or the Lightning Network built on Bitcoin.

And no one can stop you.

Can you do that with gold, silver, USD/GBP/EUR/YEN/ CYK/ZAR or any other central bank fiat currency?

← 44 →

Bitcoin is historical. This is the first time in history that a truly decentralized, censorship-resistant, immutable, borderless, permissionless, and incorruptible monetary system with an absolute hard cap (21 million coins) has ever been created.

Bitcoin is as significant to decentralizing power and increasing financial inclusion, as the invention of the printing press, and later the World Wide Web, was to decentralizing control of, and increasing access to, information.

A lot of people automatically dismiss e-currency as a lost cause because of all the companies that failed since the 1990's. I hope it's obvious it was only the centrally controlled nature of those systems that doomed them. I think this is the first time we're trying a decentralized, non-trust-based system.

~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-02-15

← 45 →

Bitcoin is a distributed, decentralized, transparent and immutable LEDGER OF ACCOUNT.

Anyone in the world can see who owns what, at any given moment, and it cannot be changed.

Except the 'who' isn't a name, it is an address made up of numbers and letters.

An example of a bitcoin address: bc1qar0srrr7xfkvy5l643lydnw9re59gtzzwf5mdq

Bitcoin is therefore pseudonymous.

← 46 →

Bitcoin is

an impartial issuer of assets

a store of value

a medium of exchange

and soon to be a unit of account

as well as

the means of exchange

It is the issuer, the gold, the cash, the debit card AND paypal, the bank, venmo, cashapp, western union

ALL ROLLED INTO ONE!

← 47 →

Bitcoin is a record keeper that uses mathematics and computer science, instead of bankers, bookkeepers and accountants.

It eliminates the middlemen, banks, govts, overdraft fees, checking account fees, limited hours of service, potential for censorship, frozen accounts, manipulation of the money supply, interest rates, the IMF, the WEF, the BIS, brick-and-mortar buildings, ATMs, checks, chargebacks, the petro dollar, the euro dollar, bank seigniorage, the cantillon effect, fractional reserve banking, visa, mastercard, amex, western union, days of waiting for your wire transfer to go through ...

Instead of having someone between you and the person whose hand you want to shake, you can just shake their hand directly.

No need to ask permission to send your own money!

← 48 →

Put Simply...

Bitcoin is digital property that no one can take from you.

Owning bitcoin means owning the right to send value from a specific address that you control with your private key to ANY other address you choose.

Bitcoin is a property right that is independent of the monopoly on violence.

~ Robert Breedlove @breedlove22

← 49 →

Bitcoin is a once-in-a-species event.

Bitcoin is choice.

Bitcoin engenders sovereignty.

The discovery of Bitcoin 15 years ago, is to human financial freedom and sovereignty, as the discovery of fire was to human flourishing over 500,000 years ago, and the printing press was to decentralizing access to human knowledge nearly 900 years ago.

← 50 →

Bitcoin is a true store of value.

It stores your most precious resource, your time, in such a way that you can access it again later.

Bitcoin is like a high bandwidth conduit of energy to your future self ... you can work today and Bitcoin will deep freeze your energy for later use.

~ Robert Breedlove @breedlove22

The root of money is time And the root of time is value

~ Guy Swann @TheGuySwann

← 51 →

Bitcoin is a timechain, literally.

Satoshi referred to the timechain many times in his emails with the early devs.

You can measure time in blocks, since one block is mined every ~10 minutes.

Our time is our most scarce and precious resource.

It is our literal life force.

True Money allows us to store our time.

It is the way we can acknowledge the time we 'spent'.

We trade our time for money, which is simply a record of our time and effort.

Bitcoin makes it possible to preserve our time such that we have 'access' to it later in life, when we are no longer able to work as we once did.

← 52 →

Bitcoin is a store of value.

Bitcoin is a medium of exchange.

Bitcoin will one day be a unit of account.

Bitcoin will one day be THE unit of account.

← 53 →

Bitcoin is scarce.

It has a hard cap of 21,000,000.

There will never be more.

Code is law here.*

* While it is 'technically' possible to change the code, Satoshi's genius prevents that, since increasing (inflating) the supply would only serve to decrease the value of all bitcoin in circulation. This therefore incentivizes everyone to implicitly agree to maintain the 21,000,000 hard cap supply.

Check out timechaincalendar.com by @TC to check the current block height, the available supply, and numerous other metrics with regard to the bitcoin timechain.

← 54 →

Bitcoin is infinitely divisible, without debasing the supply.

One pizza is one pizza, regardless of how small the slices are.

It is currently divisible to the eighth decimal: 1.00000000

There are 100,000,000 satoshis in 1 bitcoin.

1 satoshi = 0.00000001

You can buy sats (satoshis) in any amount.

← 55 →

Bitcoin is the hardest, soundest money we have ever known.

It is even sounder than gold, since gold is not easily divisible or portable, has low velocity (moves slowly) and is not easily verifiable

Bitcoin has the most superior monetary properties of any asset ever known.

SOUND MONEY PROPERTIES COMPARISON CHART

@SimplestBTCBook NOTE: This is a general overview, there are nuances not addressable in a chart.

← 56 →

Bitcoin is the antidote.

Attempting to 'stabilize' the economy with bailouts, money printing, QE and interest rate manipulation is like having it on artificial life support

This 'machine' can only go on so long, before becoming more and more expensive to maintain, and less and less sustainable, leading to a serious breakdown.

Bitcoin fixes this

Bitcoin is better money.

← 57 →

Bitcoin is anti-fragile.

And it gets more so with every attempted attack, with every government ban, with every piece of mainstream media FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt).

Bitcoin has never been hacked.*

Though many have tried.

* Although you may have heard of hacks, it is the exchanges that have been hacked, not the bitcoin protocol.

Remember:

Not your keys, not your coins.

Always withdraw your sats to your own wallet.

Best to buy peer-to-peer.

← 58 →

Bitcoin is a combination of:

computer science

network protocols

electrical systems

game theory

conviction

mimetics

thermodynamics

network effects

cryptography

energy

true scarcity

economic incentives

software engineering

time value of money

tech adoption curves

emergent phenomena

power of decentralization

low time preference

alignment of incentives

monetary neutrality

financial activism

immutability

... all working together to create trust in a trustless, decentralized environment,

neutral

secure

censorship-resistant

permissionless

global

digital money and monetary network.

← 59 →

Bitcoin is a deep rabbit hole, causing you to question most everything you thought you knew ;)

Bitcoin is self-contained.

Bitcoin simply is.

Bitcoin is. And that is enough.

~ @Beautyon

← 60 →

Bitcoin is a symbiotic relationship between:

Humans and A perfect solution to transfer and store time/value

Humans need bitcoin, bitcoin needs humans.

← 61 →

Bitcoin is the solution to the Byzantine General's problem.

This was once thought to be an unsolvable problem in computer science.

This problem arises in decentralized systems, where it was thought impossible to prove that message sent = message received, since the 'man-in-the-middle' could be a bad actor and falsify the message.

In other words, it seemed impossible to form consensus amongst a network of distributed and independent computers.

By using a timestamp along with a cryptographically secured distributed ledger, Satoshi solved this problem.

His solution is known as Nakamoto's consensus.

← 62 →

Bitcoin is the solution to the double-spend problem.

This means that when you send bitcoin, the receiver can be sure that you actually owned the bitcoin you sent, and, that once you sent it to them you cannot spend those coins again by sending them to someone else (double-spending).

Just like me giving you an orange. Once it leaves my hands and is in your hands, I no longer have the orange to give to someone else.

..double-spends are never accepted into the transaction pool, so every node bears witness to which transaction it saw first by working to put it into a block.

~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2010-12-09

← 63 →

Bitcoin is a bearer asset, like cash or gold, held by the bearer (owner) directly.

This means that, once sent (given), it goes directly to the new bearer (owner), with no middleman (bank) needed to process the transaction.

← 64 →

Bitcoin is P2P (peer-to-peer).

Bitcoin is censorship-resistant.

This means that no one has the power to hold up or to prevent a transaction from going through to the new bearer.

Bitcoin flows freely.

There can be no gatekeepers.

← 65 →

Bitcoin is trustless.

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.

~ Satoshi Nakamoto on the importance of Bitcoin's trustless nature.

← 66 →

Bitcoin is code.

Code is speech.

Check out github.com/bitcoin

This is currently the main bitcoin repository.

Click around to view the code, the pull requests, the reviews, the commits, the bips (bitcoin improvement proposals) and the developers who are working on, maintaining and improving the creation that is bitcoin.

← 67 →

Bitcoin is the internet of money.

When one stops to consider that everything else is going/has gone digital, including:

music

books

banking

movies

education

photographs

phone calls

radio

maps

games

meetings

and the list goes on (for better or for worse)

… then one sees how it is really a logical step for money to follow.

BUT, we need BITCOIN, NOT CBDCs!

← 68 →

SATOSHI'S GENIUS

Bitcoin is ALL of the following:

A decentralized, distributed ledger

A payment system

And the value itself being transferred

Outside of Bitcoin, creating money (issuance) and accounting (tracking received/spent money) is centralized and includes the following layers:

Various central bank money issuance

Either digital or written, account books

Trusted parties entering values into the account books

Trusted parties physically securing account books or managing computer databases

Trusted parties working to prevent hacks on databases

All of these layers are now integrated together!

This may seem centralized, but Satoshi's genius reversed this.

100% decentralized!

← 69 →

Bitcoin has NO central point of failure.

* Single point of failure

The only way it could all be rolled into one, and be decentralized, is that the distributed ledger is maintained by a voluntary, world-wide, ad hoc group of people voluntarily mining and/or running full nodes.

And, the incentives of the network encourage everyone to play by the rules.

You can join us!

← 70 →

Bitcoin is A Peaceful Revolution

← 71 →

Bitcoin is Hope

← 72 →

HOW DOES

WORK?

Rules not Rulers

tik-tok/
/next block

Bitcoin uses proof-of-work , public-key cryptography and peer-to-peer networking , to process and verify payments in a global, distributed, online ledger.

Cryptography (noun) /krɪpˈtɑːɡrəfi
: the enciphering and deciphering of messages
in secret code or cipher
: the computerized encoding and
decoding of information

~ Merriam Webster Dictionary

Hashing (verb) /ˈhæʃɪŋ/
: a method of encryption
: the process of using a mathematical algorithm against
data to produce a numeric value (a hash digest)
that is representative of that data.

~ crsc.nist.gov

              
                Remember:
              
                The bitcoin ecosystem includes >>
              
                bitcoin:

                the digital monetary asset
              
                Bitcoin:

                the
                payment network

                of miners and nodes

1 bitcoin = 100,000,000 satoshi (sat) (Bir bitcoin'in kesri olan sat'ları satın alabilirsiniz)

← 73 →

We define an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures. Each owner transfers the coin to the next by digitally signing a hash of the previous transaction and the public key of the next owner and adding these to the end of the coin. A payee can verify the signatures to verify the chain of ownership.

~ Satoshi Nakamoto
Bitcoin White Paper, Pt.2, 2008
Describing how a bitcoin transaction works in the distributed ledger

← 74 →

THE BITCOIN ECOSYSTEM..

              
                consists of Miners, Nodes, Users, Developers
              
              all working independently,

                and simultaneously
                inter

                dependently,
              
                to enliven that which is BITCOIN!

← 75 →

MINERS

Specialized nodes (computers called ASICS) that 'mine' the blocks that become part of the bitcoin blockchain.

In so doing, they verify the validated transactions made by users, mint new bitcoins and secure the entire network.

USERS

You and me. All of us. The people.

Acknowledging and appreciating the value of goods and services provided, we transact: give and receive bitcoin, or we store it for use later, as needed.

NODES

Nodes are computers that run the bitcoin software.

There are thousands of nodes making up the decentralized, global, voluntary network that validates transactions (thereby preventing double-spending, and helping to secure the system).

DEVELOPERS (DEVS)

Coders, programmers & digital authors who work to maintain and scale the network, improve security, privacy and user interface, and translate code into language and visuals that the rest of us can comprehend and utilize.

← 76 →

A BITCOIN TRANSACTION:

Ali wants to send Benji some bitcoin:

Ali opens the bitcoin wallet app on her phone and clicks 'Send'.
Benji opens his wallet app and clicks 'Receive'.
If they are together: Ali scans the QR code on the wallet app on Benji's phone.
If they are not together: Ali copies and pastes the address Benji texts her, into the address field in her wallet.
Ali enters the amount to send, and hits 'Send'.
A few seconds later, Benji will see the amount pending in his wallet.
If it was sent through Lightning it will be confirmed almost instantly, and is almost free.
If it was sent 'onchain' (on the Bitcoin mainchain), it includes a small fee, and usually takes around 10 minutes to be confirmed. It can take longer, depending on network traffic.

← 77 →

A BITCOIN TRANSACTION UNDER THE HOOD:

(Definitions of the terms that are *in bold* follow)

When Ali sends those sats to Benji, the payment transaction is broadcast to the network.
The transaction gets validated by nodes that make sure Ali really has the bitcoin to send, and that it has not previously been spent (to prevent double-spending).
Once validated by a node, it waits in the mempool with other peoples' transactions.
The transactions in the mempool get added in a block to the blockchain when a miner finds a nonce that satisfies the difficulty algorithm.
Each block has a timestamp.
This creates immutability , and helps protect the difficulty algorithm adjustment from being manipulated.
Each block represents one confirmation for the transactions included in it.
As blocks are added, on average every ten mins, the immutability of the blockchain increases.

← 78 →

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

TRANSACTION ~ Sending/receiving bitcoin

A transfer of value in the form of satoshis, from one bitcoin holder to another.

NODE ~ A 'branch' of the decentralized bitcoin 'bank'. Anyone can run a node.

Nodes are computers that run the bitcoin software.

Nodes, along with miners, users and developers, form the peer-to-peer Bitcoin network.

Imagine each full node as a ledger containing the balances of every private key.

They interact, and reach consensus (agree) with one another by accepting and validating transactions from other nodes, along with blocks from miners, and then relaying these onward to other nodes.

Nodes are run by an ad-hoc group of thousands of volunteers around the world.

A full node is one that has independently validated the entire Bitcoin blockchain, since the Genesis Block mined by Satoshi in 2009.

Full nodes have been running since 2009, when Bitcoin was created.

The more active nodes there are, the more distributed, and therefore resilient, the whole network becomes.

There are currently over 19,000 reachable full nodes worldwide, & far more unreachable ones.

All participating nodes are equal.

← 79 →

BROADCAST ~ Letting the network know you are sending bitcoin to someone.

When you click 'Send', your wallet signs the transaction with your private key and broadcasts it, letting all the other nodes know of your intention to transfer value so that they can validate the transaction.

MEMPOOL ~ A transaction waiting room

This is the 'waiting room' where validated transactions are sent to be picked up by a miner and added to a block.

BLOCK ~ A 'page' in the bitcoin ledger

The Bitcoin distributed ledger is made up of digital 'blocks'.

Each block contains verified bitcoin transactions that keep the global ledger accurate and current. They also contain the nonce, a time-stamp and a hash of the previous block, all of which contribute to the immutability of the bitcoin blockchain.

BLOCKCHAIN ~ The whole bitcoin ledger

The bitcoin blockchain, also known as the timechain, is the distributed ledger that contains every block, and every bitcoin transaction ever made since the Genesis block was mined by Satoshi in 2009.

← 80 →

MINER ~ A specialized node that both confirms transactions and issues new bitcoins.

Bitcoin miners are specialized computers. They direct lots of computing power (hashrate) in a digital lottery to guess a number that will satisfy the current difficulty algorithm, thereby 'mining' a 'block' (a piece of the ledger).

The mined block is timestamped and added to the blockchain (also known as the time chain).

DIFFICULTY ALGORITHM ~ A special, adaptive design that helps keep new bitcoin issuance predictable.

This was one of Satoshi's innovations to prevent the issuance of new bitcoins from becoming uncontrollable as more powerful computers were developed.

As more miners join the network, the target number (nonce) in the lottery decreases, making it harder to find a winning number.

If fewer miners join the network, the lottery becomes easier.

The algorithm adjusts the difficulty every 2016 blocks (approximately every two weeks) to ensure that new bitcoins are issued at a steady rate.

NONCE ~ A 32-bit random number

Miners try to find a nonce that, when combined with the block's header, produces a hash below the target difficulty.

If a miner finds a nonce that produces a hash below the target difficulty, they have successfully mined a block and are rewarded with bitcoins.

← 81 →

TIMESTAMP ~ Stamps the time

Every block mined has a timestamp added to it.

This is for added security, immutability and to help establish the difficulty adjustment

IMMUTABILITY ~ Cannot be changed.

This means the blockchain is 'set in digital stone'.

PROOF-OF-WORK (PoW) ~ Cryptographic proof that difficult work was done to satisfy an algorithm.

Miners use the PoW algorithm to prove they have used a lot of computational power via electricity (work), in order to achieve consensus in a decentralized manner, and to prevent corrupt actors from spamming the network.

PUBLIC KEY CRYPTOGRAPHY ~ A process that creates the digital keys to access your bitcoins.

This is a system whereby two keys are created through a cryptographic algorithm.

One key is public - Like your bank account number, that you can give people to send bitcoin to you for goods, gifts or services.

The other key is private - Only you have a copy, and you use it to unlock access to your bitcoin, just as a password unlocks your online bank account.

You must secure your private key very well, since anyone who has access to it has access to your bitcoin.

← 82 →

PEER-TO-PEER (P2P) NETWORK ~ A decentralized network with no middlemen

Full nodes (peers) collaboratively maintain a peer-to-peer network for transaction and block validation and verification.

In this type of network, each node can both provide data and request data from other nodes.

There is no central authority in a P2P network.

LIGHTNING NETWORK ~ A network built on top of Bitcoin that allows for fast and almost free transactions

The Lightning Network is a Layer 2 scaling solution. This means that it provides a way to scale Bitcoin's transaction capacity, allowing for millions of transactions per second (TPS).

WALLET ~ A wallet is used to access your Bitcoins

It can be on a mobile device, a computer, or a small hardware device.

A Bitcoin wallet can be considered a more secure way to sign transactions, as it ensures that your Bitcoins will never be lost or stolen.

When you want to send or spend your Bitcoins, the wallet will sign the transaction and broadcast it to the network, allowing it to be validated and added to the blockchain as a block.

DEVELOPERS ~ Computer programmers

Developers are responsible for maintaining the network, ensuring its security, and controlling bugs and new features.

← 83 →

PUBLIC KEY ~ Like a bank account number for receiving bitcoin.

You can give it to people to send you bitcoin, just like you would give your account number to someone so they can send you fiat.

PRIVATE KEY ~ For securing, accessing and sending bitcoin, like the key to a safety deposit box.

A bitcoin private key is a secret string of numbers and letters that allows you to send/spend your bitcoin.

Only you have a copy. It is very important to keep it very safe and secure, as anyone who obtains a copy can spend your bitcoin.

DISTRIBUTED LEDGER ~ A ledger maintained by everyone who wishes to help maintain it.

Instead of a centrally-controlled ledger that is invisible to the public, like one that a bank maintains, Bitcoin is a transparent, open, decentralized ledger visible to anyone, anytime.

The addresses are strings of letters and numbers, with no names attached.

While pseudonymous, it is possible to track transactions, especially if the bitcoin was bought from a centralized KYC exchange.

The Bitcoin network is trustless and anyone can audit it anytime, unlike a bank where one must trust that the ledgers are being kept honestly.

← 84 →

Bitcoin Ecosystem	Legacy Fiat System
ASIC Miners	BIS (International Settlement Banks)
Nodes	Central Banks
Hardware Wallets	National/Regional Banks
Software Wallets	Military Industrial Complex
	Data Centers
	Physical Currency Printing
	Physical Currency Distribution
	Online Banking Applications
	ATM Network

MORE ON DEBUNKING FUD HERE:

Endthefud.org

Bitcoinmythbusters.org

Casebitcoin.com - Common Criticisms

Safehodl.github.io/failure/

Lopp.net - Bitcoin Info: Misconceptions

Bitcoin is fundamentally different from any other digital asset. No other digital asset is likely to improve upon bitcoin as a monetary good because bitcoin is the most (relative to other digital assets) secure, decentralized, sound digital money and any "improvement" will necessarily face tradeoffs.

~ Fidelity Digital Assets Report, 'Bitcoin First', January 2022
Chris Kuiper, CFA, Research Director
Jack Neureuter, Research Analyst

← 119 →

ON THE PRICE OF BITCOIN

I see hodling (holding) bitcoin like having a long-term savings account.

The daily price doesn't matter, as it is expected to be volatile (go up and down) for some years yet.

As I mentioned previously, this is normal for a new asset undergoing price discovery.

If one zooms out on the BTC/USD price chart, you will see that it has increased by +31,296% since 2009, averaged out to ~200% per year.

The price swings reflect various news articles, regulatory updates, market demand, fear and excitement. It's a roller-coaster!

The longer you hodl, the more you learn and understand the fundamentals, and the more you realize the profound implications of having sound money, the less the price matters.

In the end, 'price' won't matter at all, as bitcoin will be the unit of account.

Disclaimer:

Only put in what you 'can afford to lose', since there are, of course, no guarantees.

Consider the bitcoin you buy as a long-term savings account, and plan to leave it in cold storage for a minimum of five years before spending.

← 120 →

Original bitcointalkforum.org source for one of the most classic bitcoin memes of all time.

← 121 →

IN THE MEANTIME, ON TAXES

Disclaimer: This is not financial or tax advice.

In the US tax code, bitcoin is currently seen as a commodity, so there are potential tax implications if you sell it back into fiat, or even if you buy something with your bitcoin.

If the price went down before you sold/spent it, you can claim a loss.

If the price went up, you are supposed to claim a capital gain, and pay between 10-30% CGT (Capital Gains Tax).

The amount depends upon several factors, such as how long you held it before selling or spending, and in which tax bracket you land.

If you plan to sell or spend bitcoin, especially larger amounts, you may want to consider consulting with a tax professional.

If you simply buy and hold, you currently do not have any taxable events regarding bitcoin.

And if you buy non-KYC...

← 122 →

WHY

ONLY?

Of the over 2.5 million* (!) cryptocurrencies ever created, and 13,000 currently trading, bitcoin is the only one that is:

TRULY decentralized

With a TRULY distributed ledger

A TRULY hard capped supply

TRULY immutable ledger

15 years of construction a network effect

And a monetary policy that cannot be manipulated

Every other cryptocurrency has a small, centralized group who controls the supply, and/or has the power to change the base layer protocol (monetary policy).

This is just like the central fiat banking system we see today.

This type of centralized power invites manipulation and unfairness.

Check out the next page for information on altcoin pump-and-dump scams.

Listen to: Stephan Livera Pod (SLP306) with Guy Swann

Partial list of altcoin/defi rug-pulls since 2020: rekt.news/leaderboard/

← 123 →

ALTCOIN PUMP AND DUMPS

Sadly, these are real, and happen daily with 'cryptos/tokens' other than bitcoin.

There are various iterations, but one of the most common types is the following:

Token Created: A new crypto token gets made. Far easier than it sounds, anyone can do it in minutes.

Website: Usually, a shiny, flashy website is created to make the token seem legitimate.

Paid Phenomena: People pay to advertise on social media, like Telegram.

Paid Inner Groups: Leaders of certain groups are given information, and these groups pay a monthly or yearly fee to access 'content'.

Pre-Launch: Leaders of paid phenomena and paid inner groups buy at the lowest price.

Launch: The token is released by these leaders, and they tell their followers, "Buy now!"

Pumping: Followers rush in early, causing the price to rise quickly.

The rising price encourages normal people to buy in, thinking it's a good investment.

← 124 →

This in turn has the effect of pumping the price even further.

Dump: This sad part usually happens fast. At a certain point, the paid group leaders sell their tokens, 'at the top'. Then they tell their followers to sell.

Price Drop: Because so many people sell at the same time, and liquidity is generally low since it is a new coin, the price drops fast.

Panic: The price drop causes panic amidst the general public, who have no idea of these back-door shenanigans, and they start to panic-sell.

Bag Holders: The end of this sad story is that those left 'holding the bag', will likely be holding their bags forever.

Without any real value or fundamentals, most of these tokens and meme coins never recover a market price.

← 125 →

SECURITY & AVOIDING SCAMS

Stick with bitcoin only.

Be super vigilant about your cyber security!

Do your own research and secure your bitcoin.

Never give your bitcoin seed phrase to anyone!

Do not click on any links in emails asking you to verify your account details. Instead, go directly to the official website and check if there is any transaction pending.

Be aware of scams on social media platforms. If someone randomly messages you, it is likely a scam.

If someone offers you a deal to double your bitcoin, it is likely a scam.

Be aware of scams on YouTube. If you see a video about doubling your bitcoin, it is likely a scam.

BE CERTAIN about the address you are sending your bitcoin to, as transactions are irreversible. Ideally check the whole address, especially if it is a large amount.

← 126 →

SATOSHI'S NUMBERS 369 CLOCK

Bitcoin is designed to mine 6 blocks per hour >> one block on average every ~10 minutes.

24 hours in a day 2+4= 6

That works out to 144 blocks per day 1+4+4= 9

52560 blocks per year 5+2+5+6+0=18 1+8= 9

52704 blocks per leap year 5+2+7+0+4=18 1+8= 9

21 Million coins: 2+1+0+0+0+0+0+0= 3

33 Halvings: 3+3= 6

Difficulty adjusts every 2016 blocks: 2+0+1+6= 9

The block reward halving happens every 210,000th block (approximately every four years) 2+1+0+0+0+0= 3

~ Based on a tweet by @level39

← 127 →

"If you only knew the magnificence of the 3, 6 and 9, then you would have the key to the universe."

~ Nikola Tesla

BLOCK REWARD = % OF SUPPLY

The block subsidy (number of bitcoins rewarded for each newly mined block) represents the percentage of the total supply that will be mined during that epoch.

For example, the current block reward between 2024-2028 is 3.125 bitcoin.

In these same four years, 3.125 % of the 21 million bitcoins will be mined.

Source: @bitcoinfool

← 128 →

REWARD EPOCHS

Every four years, the bitcoin subsidy gets halved for each block mined. A Reward Epoch is that four year period.

Reward Epoch 1: 2009-2012 Block reward: 50 bitcoin = (50 bitcoin * 210.000 blocks) = 10.500.000 bitcoin 1+0+5+0+0+0+0+0 = 6

Reward Epoch 2: 2012-2016 Block reward: 25 bitcoin = (25 * 210.000) = 5.250.000 bitcoin 5+2+5+0+0+0+0 = 12

Reward Epoch 3: 2016-2020 Block reward: 12,5 bitcoin = (12,5 * 210.000) = 2.625.000 bitcoin 2+6+2+5+0+0+0 = 15

Reward Epoch 4: 2020-2024 Block reward: 6,25 bitcoin = (6,25 * 210.000) = 1.312.500 bitcoin 1+3+1+2+5+0+0 = 12

Reward Epoch 5: 2024-2028 Block reward: 3,125 bitcoin = (3,125 * 210.000) = 656.250 bitcoin 6+5+6+2+5+0 = 24

Reward Epoch 6: 2028-2032 Block reward: 1,5625 btc = (1,5625 * 210.000) = 328.125 bitcoin 3+2+8+1+2+5 = 21

Reward Epoch 7: 2032-2036 Block reward: 0,78125 btc = (0,78125*210.000) = 164.062,5 bitcoin 1+6+4+0+6+2+5 = 24 2+4 = 6

... and so on until 2140

← 129 →

SATOSHI'S BIRTHDAY

April 5, 1975 is the date Satoshi claimed as his birthday.

While we cannot know if this was indeed his true birth date, it is very interesting.

April 5th (1933) was the day that Executive Order 6102 was signed by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt "forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States."

1975 was the year the repeal of EO 6102 went into effect, and US citizens were once again allowed to hold more than 5oz of gold.

A NUMERIC PALINDROME 6102-2016

6102 was the number of the above-mentioned Executive Order.

2016 is the number of blocks mined during each difficulty adjustment (approximately 2 weeks).

In both of the above examples, one could postulate that Satoshi was using numbers to indicate a reversal, an unwinding of the damage inflicted by government overreach.

← 130 →

BITCOIN PIZZA DAY

May 22 is known as Bitcoin Pizza Day. This was the day that a guy, named Laszlo Hanyecz, announced on bitcointalk.org that he had successfully traded 10,000 bitcoin for pizza! Back then that was about $40.

In today's prices, that would be ~$610,000,000.

It was a milestone for bitcoin, in that it was the first known incident of someone trading bitcoin for a good or service. What a long way we have come!

← 131 →

BITCOIN CALENDAR OF NOTABLE DAYS

August 18, 2008 ~ The domain name bitcoin.org was registered.

October 31, 2008 ~ Bitcoin Technical Document Day: "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" was published on metzdowd.com by an anonymous cryptographer named Satoshi Nakamoto.

January 3, 2009 ~ Bitcoin's Birthday: Satoshi's Genesis block was mined, launching the Bitcoin network.

January 12, 2009 ~ The First Bitcoin Transaction: Satoshi sent 10 bitcoins to Hal Finney, marking the first transaction on the Bitcoin network.

October 5, 2009 ~ The First Bitcoin Exchange: The New Liberty Standard (NLS) was launched on a Bitcoin exchange with a price of 0.00764 USD per Bitcoin.

October 12, 2009 ~ "I found the first known Bitcoin-USD transaction in my email backups. On October 12, 2009, I sold 5.050 bitcoins for $5.02." - Martti Malmi, the founder of NewLibertyStandard, sold bitcoins on the first Bitcoin exchange.

May 22, 2010 ~ Bitcoin Pizza Day: Bitcoin was used for the first time to purchase a good or service, when Lazslo Hanyecz bought two Papa John's pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins.

December 12, 2010 ~ This is the date Satoshi last posted on the Bitcoin forum.

February 11, 2011 ~ Bitcoin was first traded against the US dollar.

June 14, 2011 ~ Wikileaks began accepting Bitcoin donations.

March 3, 2017 ~ Bitcoin was first traded against gold.

August 21, 2021 ~ First annual Bitcoin Infinity Day suggested by Knut Svanholm's meme: Everything divided by 21 million. page-132

← 132 →

that was just the start...

here are more

RABBIT HOLE

RESOURCES FOR THE

MOVIES

You can find these movies on YouTube or Rumble.

BITCOIN MOVIES

YouTube'ta @MaxDeMarco ve @GetBasedTV

Bitcointv.com

Dirty Coin: A Bitcoin Mining Documentary (2024)

Immutable Democracy (2023) - SimpleProof

The Great Reset and the Rise of Bitcoin (2022)

A Sly Roundabout Way (2022)

Where Did Bitcoin Come From (2021)

This Machine Greens (2021) About Bitcoin & Energy

Bit X Bit: In Bitcoin We Trust (2018)

Bitcoin Big Bang (2018) About the 2014 Mt Gox hack

Magic Money: The Bitcoin Revolution (2017)

Banking on Bitcoin (2016)

Deep Web (2015) About Silk Road & Ross Ulbricht

Bitcoin: The End of Money as We Know It (2015)

The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin (2014)

Bitcoin in Uganda (2014)

FIAT MONEY SYSTEM MOVIES

How is Money Created (2020)

Hidden Secrets of Money - Mike Maloney (2013-18)

Who Controls All of our Money? (2017)

How the Economic Machine Works - Ray Dalio (2013)

Inside Job (2010) - Events leading up to 2008 crash

The Money Masters (1996)

← 133 →

BOOKS: On Bitcoin:

by Nik Batia Layered Money

by DerGigi 21 Lessons

by Vijay Boyapati The Bullish Case for Bitcoin

by Saifedean Ammous The Bitcoin Standard

by Yan Pritzker Inventing Bitcoin

by Alex Gladstein Check Your Financial Privilege

by Andy Edstrom Why Buy Bitcoin

Bitcoin Audible: Guy Swann, reading Bitcoin books

by Ansel Lindner The Bitcoin Dictionary

by Aaron van Wirdum The Genesis Book

by Parker Lewis Gradually, then Suddenly

by Eric Cason Cryptosovereignty

On Fiat, Monetary History and more:

by Jeff Booth The Price of Tomorrow

by Lyn Alden Broken Money

by Saifedean Ammous The Fiat Standard

by Seb Bunney The Hidden Cost of Money

by D Heikkinen and J Marquez Shells to Satoshi

by Davidson & Rees-Mogg The Sovereign Individual

            
              PODCASTS:
            
              Listen on Fountain app to stream sats to hosts!
            
              If not yet on Fountain, find these on Spotify and iTunes.

with Matt Odell Citadel Dispatch

with John Vallis Bitcoin Rapid Fire

with Stephan Livera Stephan Livera Podcast

with Natalie Brunell Coin Stories

with Krista Edmunds Access Tribe's Bitcoin Podcast

with Dr S. Ammous The Bitcoin Standard Podcast

with Daniel Prince Once Bitten

with Matt Odell and Marty Bent Rabbit Hole Recap

with DJ Valerie B Love Bitcoin for Peace

← 134 →

The Bitcoin Matrix with Cedric Youngelman

Bitcoin Fixes This with Jimmy Song

Orange Pill Podcast with Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert

What Bitcoin Did with Peter McCormack

Bitcoin Audible - Guy Swann reads Bitcoin books

FREE COURSES

My First Bitcoin - Bitcoin Curriculum

Saylor Academy - Bitcoin for Everybody

Looking Glass Education - Money & Bitcoin Courses

WEBSITES

Nakamotoinstitute.org

Bitcoin-only.com

Bitcoin Wiki - En.bitcoin.it

WhyBitcoinOnly.com

Wtfhappenedinfeb2023.com

Lopp.net

Casebitcoin.com

Bitcoiner.guide

Bitcoin.tv

Learnmeabitcoin.com - Great simple btc tech explainer!

Hope.com

Bitcoin-resources.com

Myfirstbitcoin.io (Available in Spanish too)

Whatisbitcoin.com

SatoshisJournal.com

github.com/bitcoin

FOR KIDS

PlayShamory.com - Toys, games & books incl.

Satoshi Nakamoto & His Bitcoin Invention

Bitcoin Money By Michael Caras

Bitcoin Trading Cards - btc-tc.com

Bitcoin Kids Comic Book by Nzonda Fotsing Sr

Hodl Up - Bitcoin Mining Board Game

21 Bitcoin Dersi - freemarketkids.com

What is Bitcoin? - @TuttleTwins on YouTube

← 135 →

BT ~ BITCOIN TWITTER

            
              Some cypherpunks, geniuses, goats & wild ones to follow!
            
              Through these accounts, you will find 1000's of plebs
            
              and other deep thinkers,
            
              BT, along with bitcointalk.org and Reddit, has largely been
            
              where this experiment has grown,
            
              and now joined by Nostr,
            
              the decentralized communication protocol,
            
              all unfurling in real time, across time and space,
            
              in the ethers of cyberspace, connected to the physical,
            
            through all of us,

            humans,

              sharing a vision of a decentralized world.
            
              Then there are the quieter ones, developers working
            
            behind the scenes

            without whom

              none of this would be possible.
            
            All of us

            together,

            unleashed,

              as bitcoin was unleashed upon us,
            
              a blessing beyond measure.

TOPICS INCLUDE: Bitcoin, Proof-of-Work, Privacy, Philosophy, Monetary History, Code, Bitcoin Mining, Sociology, Game Theory, Austrian Economics, Bitcoin Education, Lightning Network, Regulatory Environment, Bitcoin's Energy Use, Core Devs, Bitcoin Communities, Bitcoin's Future and more.

Be warned: It helps to have a somewhat thick skin on twitter, and know this, there is a lot of passion in defense of bitcoin. Keeping a clear line between it and all the altcoins takes work. Maintaining the clarity, security and purity of the only truly sound money the world has ever known is critical, if we are to have a chance in these times a'coming.

← 136 →

            
              Adam Back -
              @adam3us
            
              Allen Farrington -
              @allenf32
            
              Anil -
              @anilsaidso
            
              Anita Posch -
              @AnitaPosch
            
              Arman the Parman -
              @parman_the
            
              Beautyon -
              @Beautyon_
            
              Bitcoin Q+A -
              @BitcoinQ_A
            
              BTC Times -
              @btc
            
              Brandon Quittem -
              @Bquittem
            
              D++ -
              
                @D_plus__plus
              
              Daniel Batten -
              @DSBatten
            
              Daniel S Pico -
              @BTCGandalf
            
              Deterministic Optimism -
              @nvk
            
              Efrat Fenigson -
              @efenigson
            
              Erik Cason -
              @Erikcason
            
              Giacomo -
              @giacomozucco
            
              Gigi - on Nostr
              
                @dergigi
              
              Guy Swann -
              
                @TheGuySwann
              
              Jack - on Nostr
              
                @jack
              
              Jameson Lopp -
              @lopp
            
              Jeff Booth -
              @JeffBooth
            
              Jimmy Song -
              @jimmysong
            
              Knut Svanholm -
              
                @knutsvanholm
              
              Luke Dash Jr -
              @LukeDashjr
            
              Lyn Alden -
              
                @LynAldenContact
              
              Marty Bent -
              @MartyBent
            
              Matt Odell - on Nostr
              
                @ODELL
              
              Mechanic -
              
                @GrassFedBitcoin
              
              Michael Saylor -
              @saylor
            
              Natalie Brunell -
              @natbrunell
            
              Natalie Smolenski -
              @NSmolenski
            
              Nick Szabo -
              @NickSzabo4
            
              Nik Bhatia -
              
                @timevalueofbtc
              
              Parker Lewis -
              
                @parkeralewis
              
              Pavlenex -
              @pavlenex
            
              Pleb Lab -
              @PlebLab
            
              Preston Pysh -
              
                @PrestonPysh
              
              Seb Bunney -
              @sebbunney
            
              Tomer Strolight -
              
                @TomerStrolight
              
              Troy Cross -
              @thetrocro
            
              Vijay Boyapati -
              @real_vijay
            
              Thank you all for teaching me every day!

← 137 →

COMMUNITY

PROJECTS

Below are some of the grassroots projects around the world that are working to educate and create a local economy with bitcoin.

Follow them on Nostr or Twitter to learn more or to donate:

Bitcoin Beach El Zonte - El Salvador - @Bitcoinbeach

Bitcoin Ekasi - South Africa - @BitcoinEkasi

Bitcoin Beach Brazil - Brazil - @BitcoinBeachBR

Bitcoin Jungle - Costa Rica - @BitcoinJungleCR

Bitcoin Venezuela - Venezuela - @btcven

Bitcoin Bay - Florida, USA - @bitcoinbaytpa

Bitcoin Lake - Lake Atitlan - @LakeBitcoin

Bitcoin House Bali - Indonesia - @btchousebali

7 Mile Bitcoin - Cayman Islands - 7milebitcoin.org

Bitcoin Kampala - Uganda - @BitcoinKampala

Bitcoin Retreat - Philippines - @BtcRetreat

Bridge2Bitcoin - UK - @Bridge2Bitcoin

Bitcoin Berlin - El Salvador - @BitcoinBerlinSV

Harlem Bitcoin - New York, USA - @HarlemBitcoin

F.R.E.E Madeira - Portugal - @FREEMadeiraOrg

Bitcoin Valley - Rovereto, Italy

← 138 →

INDUCED

PONDERINGS

            Shout out to

            Satoshi

            and all the

            orange-pilled

            dreamers

            seers

            cypher punk wizards

            poets for freedom

            keepers of wisdom

            sovereign individuals

            hodlers of last resort

            fearlessly forging forward

            alone together

            for freedom

            Vires In Numeris!

            Strength in Numbers!

← 139 →

A RABBIT HOLE PONDERING

            
              Bitcoin is really a rather fascinating 'thing'
            
            Except it is not a 'thing'

              In the sense that you cannot touch it
            
            Yet it is touching millions of us

            Around the world

            Soon to be billions..

            It is true that

            It is digital bits and bytes

            Algorithms and code

            0's and 1's

            And that if every single node

              Archival node, pruned node and light node
            
            Were somehow

            Destroyed

            It would no longer exist

            In the way we know it

            Are able to perceive it..

            It would, however, still 'exist'

            In the sense that quantum physics

            Or gravity

            Exists

            Regardless of human perception..

              In the sense that mathematics existed
            
            Before humans codified it

            Chose symbols to represent it..

            Truth

            Does not need us

← 140 →

WHY WILL ALL VALUE ACCRUE TO BITCOIN

There are some interesting game theories that appear to converge when it comes to bitcoin, making the likelihood of it's growth and increased value over time more and more certain.

SCHELLING POINT

Introduced in the 1960s by the American economist, Thomas Schelling, the Schelling point basically asserts that that even if people who cannot communicate with one another, especially when a compelling solution to a problem presents itself, they can still converge on a decision or course of action (-> bitcoin)

As more people are drawn to the Schelling point, it attracts ever more people (-> bitcoin)

LINDY EFFECT

In essence, the Lindy Effect states that the longer an idea, a technology or a business has been around, the longer it is likely to endure.

METCALFE'S LAW

Popularized by Robert Metcalfe, who invented Ethernet, among other things. Metcalfe's law states that a network becomes proportionally more valuable the more users it has. Utility increases exponentially as more and more users join, strengthening the network.

← 141 →

THE P2P NETWORK

It is a global distributed database, with additions to the database by consent of the majority...

~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-02-18

Global reachable Bitcoin Nodes distribution, June 2024

The result is a distributed system with no single point of failure. Users hold the crypto keys to their own money and transact directly with each other, with the help of the P2P network to check for double-spending.

~ Satoshi Nakamoto 2009-02-11

← 142 →

              BITCOIN,

                NONVIOLENT COMMUNICATION
              
                & PERMACULTURE

I see Bitcoin, brought to us by Satoshi Nakamoto, as being the foundation layer for a healthy society with regards to:

communicating value

transacting and exchanging

in an emergent, organic, honest unfolding, storing our time/life energy

I see Nonviolent Communication, brought to us by Marshall Rosenberg PhD, as being the foundation layer for a healthy society with regards to:

expressing feelings and needs

deep listening, empathy

in an emergent, organic, honest unfolding, finding common ground solutions

I see Organic Farming and Permaculture, brought to us by Masunobu Fukuoka and Bill Mollison, as being the foundation layer for a healthy society with regards to:

communicating with the earth

growing food, improving the soil

in an emergent, organic, honest unfolding, protecting the environment

← 143 →

Each of these technologies, one mathematical, taking us beyond mathematics, one linguistic, taking us beyond language, one biological, taking us beyond biology, are based in Truth. It is up to us to make use of them, to live into them, and to allow them to guide us deeper and deeper into the profound potential we feel tingling at the tip of our perception.

May we find the courage, the strength, the wisdom and the grace to move forth fearlessly on the journey.

← 144 →

A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by Eric Hughes

Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.

If two parties have some sort of dealings, then each has a memory of their interaction. Each party can speak about their own memory of this; how could anyone prevent it? One could pass laws against it, but the freedom of speech, even more than privacy, is fundamental to an open society; we seek not to restrict any speech at all. If many parties speak together in the same forum, each can speak to all the others and aggregate together knowledge about individuals and other parties. The power of electronic communications has enabled such group speech, and it will not go away merely because we might want it to.

Since we desire privacy, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. Since any information can be spoken of, we must ensure that we reveal as little as possible. In most cases personal identity is not salient. When I purchase a magazine at a store and hand cash to the clerk, there is no need to know who I am.

When I ask my electronic mail provider to send and receive messages, my provider need not know to whom I am speaking or what I am saying or what others are saying to me; my provider only need know how to get the message there and how much I owe them in fees. When my identity is revealed by the underlying mechanism of the transaction, I have no privacy. I cannot here selectively reveal myself; I must always reveal myself.

← 145 →

Therefore, privacy in an open society requires anonymous transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. An anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. An anonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of privacy.

Privacy in an open society also requires cryptography. If I say something, I want it heard only by those for whom I intend it. If the content of my speech is available to the world, I have no privacy. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy, and to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Furthermore, to reveal one's identity with assurance when the default is anonymity requires the cryptographic signature. We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence.

It is to their advantage to speak of us, and we should expect that they will speak. To try to prevent their speech is to fight against the realities of information. Information does not just want to be free, it longs to be free. Information expands to fill the available storage space. Information is Rumor's younger, stronger cousin; Information is fleeter of foot, has more eyes, knows more, and understands less than Rumor.

We must defend our own privacy if we expect to have any. We must come together and create systems which allow anonymous transactions to take place. People have been defending their own privacy for centuries with whispers, darkness, envelopes, closed doors, secret handshakes, and couriers. The technologies of the past did not allow for strong privacy, but electronic technologies do.

We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems. We are defending our privacy with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money.

← 146 →

Cypherpunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to defend privacy, and since we can't get privacy unless we all do, we're going to write it. We publish our code so that our fellow Cypherpunks may practice and play with it.

Our code is free for all to use, worldwide. We don't much care if you don't approve of the software we write. We know that software can't be destroyed and that a widely dispersed system can't be shut down.

Cypherpunks deplore regulations on cryptography, for encryption is fundamentally a private act. The act of encryption, in fact, removes information from the public realm. Even laws against cryptography reach only so far as a nation's border and the arm of its violence.

Cryptography will ineluctably spread over the whole globe, and with it the anonymous transactions systems that it makes possible.

For privacy to be widespread it must be part of a social contract. People must come and together deploy these systems for the common good. Privacy only extends so far as the cooperation of one's fellows in society. We the Cypherpunks seek your questions and your concerns and hope we may engage you so that we do not deceive ourselves. We will not, however, be moved out of our course because some may disagree with our goals.

The Cypherpunks are actively engaged in making the networks safer for privacy. Let us proceed together apace.

              Onward.

                Eric Hughes <hughes@soda.berkeley.edu>
              
              9 March 1993

( Emphasis in bold is mine)

← 147 →

SOME OF THE EARLY CYPHERPUNKS we can thank for contributing to the development of digital peer-to-peer cash

Satoshi Nakamoto - Anonymous cypherpunk who introduced bitcoin to the world in 2009.

Nick Szabo - Bit Gold 2005

Hal Finney - 2004 Reusable Proof of Work (RPoW), Author of PGP 2.0. Second person to run the bitcoin client. Received the first bitcoin transaction of 10 bitcoins from Satoshi Nakamoto

Wei Dai - B-money 1998

Dr Adam Back - HashCash 1997 - CEO Blockstream

Douglas Jackson and Barry Downey - E Gold 1996

John Gilmore

Timothy C.May

Eric Hughes

}

Founders of the Cypherpunk movement and mailing list in 1992

Philip Zimmermann - 1991 PGP 1.0, the most widely used email encryption in use.

David Chaum - Ecash 1983 and DigiCash 1989

← 148 →

White Paper

Presented to the world on metzdowd.com 2008-10-31

by Satoshi Nakamoto

A pseudonymous cypherpunk, who last communicated with the cypherpunk community on the bitcointalk.org forum on 2010-12-10.

By leaving, he allowed Bitcoin to be a true experiment in the wild. Everyone who works on it is a volunteer in some sense <-> inspired by the potential of freeing humanity from the shackles of a manipulated, debt-based money system, and instead, participating in a global, trustless, permissionless, censorship-resistant, truly scarce, peer-to peer, decentralized money and monetary payment network, that is inspiring an emergent order to rise out of the fiat ashes

We are all Satoshi

The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks

              
                ~ Text of a headline from The Times of London,
              
                etched into the Bitcoin Genesis block by
              
              Satoshi Nakamoto on 2009-01-03

← 149 →

            
              Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
            
            Satoshi Nakamoto

            satoshin@gmx.com

            www.bitcoin.org

Abstract. A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.

            1. Introduction

            
              Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on
              financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process
              electronic payments. While the system works well enough for most
              transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the
              trust based model. Completely non-reversible transactions are not
              really possible, since financial institutions cannot avoid
              mediating disputes. The cost of mediation increases transaction
              costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting
              off the possibility for small casual transactions, and there is a
              broader cost in the loss of ability to make non-reversible
              payments for non-reversible services. With the possibility of
              reversal, the need for trust spreads. Merchants must be wary of
              their customers, hassling them for more information than they
              would otherwise need. A certain percentage of fraud is accepted as
              unavoidable. These costs and payment uncertainties can be avoided
              in person by using physical currency, but no mechanism exists to
              make payments over a communications channel without a trusted
              party.
            

            
              What is needed is an electronic payment system based on
              cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing
              parties to transact directly with each other without the need for
              a trusted third party. Transactions that are computationally
              impractical to reverse would protect sellers from fraud, and
              routine escrow mechanisms could easily be implemented to protect
              buyers. In this paper, we propose a solution to the
              double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp
              server to generate computational proof of the chronological order
              of transactions. The system is secure as long as honest nodes
              collectively control more CPU power than any cooperating group of
              attacker nodes.
            
          

← 150 →

2. Transactions We define an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures. Each owner transfers the coin to the next by digitally signing a hash of the previous transaction and the public key of the next owner and adding these to the end of the coin. A payee can verify the signatures to verify the chain of ownership.

The problem of course is the payee can't verify that one of the owners did not double-spend the coin. A common solution is to introduce a trusted central authority, or mint, that checks every transaction for double spending. After each transaction, the coin must be returned to the mint to issue a new coin, and only coins issued directly from the mint are trusted not to be double-spent. The problem with this solution is that the fate of the entire money system depends on the company running the mint, with every transaction having to go through them, just like a bank. We need a way for the payee to know that the previous owners did not sign any earlier transactions. For our purposes, the earliest transaction is the one that counts, so we don't care about later attempts to double-spend. The only way to confirm the absence of a transaction is to be aware of all transactions. In the mint based model, the mint was aware of all transactions and decided which arrived first. To accomplish this without a trusted party, transactions must be publicly announced [1], and we need a system for participants to agree on a single history of the order in which they were received. The payee needs proof that at the time of each transaction, the majority of nodes agreed it was the first received.

3. Timestamp Server The solution we propose begins with a timestamp server. A timestamp server works by taking a hash of a block of items to be timestamped and widely publishing the hash, such as in a newspaper or Usenet post [2-5]. The timestamp proves that the data must have existed at the time, obviously, in order to get into the hash. Each timestamp includes the previous timestamp in its hash, forming a chain, with each additional timestamp reinforcing the ones before it.

← 151 →

            4. Proof-of-Work

            
              To implement a distributed timestamp server on a peer-to-peer
              basis, we will need to use a proof-of-work system similar to Adam
              Back's Hashcash [6], rather than newspaper or Usenet posts. The
              proof-of-work involves scanning for a value that when hashed, such
              as with SHA-256, the hash begins with a number of zero bits. The
              average work required is exponential in the number of zero bits
              required and can be verified by executing a single hash.
            

            
              For our timestamp network, we implement the proof-of-work by
              incrementing a nonce in the block until a value is found that
              gives the block's hash the required zero bits. Once the CPU effort
              has been expended to make it satisfy the proof-of-work, the block
              cannot be changed without redoing the work. As later blocks are
              chained after it, the work to change the block would include
              redoing all the blocks after it.
            
          

The proof-of-work also solves the problem of determining representation in majority decision making. If the majority were based on one-IP-address-one-vote, it could be subverted by anyone able to allocate many IPs. Proof-of-work is essentially one-CPU-one-vote. The majority decision is represented by the longest chain, which has the greatest proof-of-work effort invested in it. If a majority of CPU power is controlled by honest nodes, the honest chain will grow the fastest and outpace any competing chains. To modify a past block, an attacker would have to redo the proof-of-work of the block and all blocks after it and then catch up with and surpass the work of the honest nodes. We will show later that the probability of a slower attacker catching up diminishes exponentially as subsequent blocks are added. To compensate for increasing hardware speed and varying interest in running nodes over time, the proof-of-work difficulty is determined by a moving average targeting an average number of blocks per hour. If they're generated too fast, the difficulty increases.

5. Network The steps to run the network are as follows:

1) New transactions are broadcast to all nodes.
2) Each node collects new transactions into a block.
3) Each node works on a proof-of-work for its own block.
4) When a node has solved the proof-of-work, it broadcasts the block to all nodes.
5) Each node updates its copy of the chain on the longest chain it sees.
6) Nodes always consider the longest chain to be the correct one and will keep working on extending it.

Nodes always consider the longest chain to be the correct one and will keep working on extending it. If two nodes broadcast different versions of the next block simultaneously, some nodes may receive one or the other first. In that case, they work on the first one they received, but save the other branch in case it becomes longer. The tie will be broken when the next proof-of-work is found and one branch becomes longer; the nodes that were working on the other branch will then switch to the longer one.

← 152 →

New transaction broadcasts do not necessarily need to reach all nodes. As long as they reach many nodes, they will get into a block before long. Block broadcasts are also tolerant of dropped messages. If a node does not receive a block, it will request it when it receives the next block and realizes it missed one.

            6. Incentive

            
              By convention, the first transaction in a block is a special
              transaction that starts a new coin owned by the creator of the
              block. This adds an incentive for nodes to support the network,
              and provides a way to initially distribute coins into circulation,
              since there is no central authority to issue them. The steady
              addition of a constant of amount of new coins is analogous to gold
              miners expending resources to add gold to circulation. In our
              case, it is CPU time and electricity that is expended.
            

            
              The incentive can also be funded with transaction fees. If the
              output value of a transaction is less than its input value, the
              difference is a transaction fee that is added to the incentive
              value of the block containing the transaction. Once a
              predetermined number of coins have entered circulation, the
              incentive can transition entirely to transaction fees and be
              completely inflation free.
            

            
              The incentive may help encourage nodes to stay honest. If a greedy
              attacker is able to assemble more CPU power than all the honest
              nodes, he would have to choose between using it to defraud people
              by stealing back his payments, or using it to generate new coins.
              He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules, such
              rules that favour him with more new coins than everyone else
              combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own
              wealth.
            
          

7. Reclaiming Disk Space Once the latest transaction in a coin is buried under enough blocks, the spent transactions before it can be discarded to save disk space. To facilitate this without breaking the block's hash, transactions are hashed in a Merkle Tree [7][2][5], with only the root included in the block's hash. Old blocks can then be compacted by stubbing off branches of the tree. The interior hashes do not need to be stored.

A block header with no transactions would be about 80 bytes. If we suppose blocks are generated every 10 minutes, 80 bytes * 6 * 24 * 365 = 4.2MB per year. With computer systems typically selling with 2GB of RAM as of 2008, and Moore's Law predicting current growth of 1.2GB per year, storage should not be a problem even if the block headers must be kept in memory

← 153 →

8. Simplified Payment Verification It is possible to verify payments without running a full network node. A user only needs to keep a copy of the block headers of the longest proof-of-work chain, which he can get by querying network nodes until he's convinced he has the longest chain, and obtain the Merkle branch linking the transaction to the block it's timestamped in. He can't check the transaction for himself, but by linking it to a place in the chain, he can see that a network node has accepted it, and blocks added after it further confirm the network has accepted it.

As such, the verification is reliable as long as honest nodes control the network, but is more vulnerable if the network is overpowered by an attacker. While network nodes can verify transactions for themselves, the simplified method can be fooled by an attacker's fabricated transactions for as long as the attacker can continue to overpower the network. One strategy to protect against this would be to accept alerts from network nodes when they detect an invalid block, prompting the user's software to download the full block and alerted transactions to confirm the inconsistency. Businesses that receive frequent payments will probably still want to run their own nodes for more independent security and quicker verification.

9. Combining and Splitting Value Although it would be possible to handle coins individually, it would be unwieldy to make a separate transaction for every cent in a transfer. To allow value to be split and combined, transactions contain multiple inputs and outputs. Normally there will be either a single input from a larger previous transaction or multiple inputs combining smaller amounts, and at most two outputs: one for the payment, and one returning the change, if any, back to the sender.

It should be noted that fan-out, where a transaction depends on several transactions, and those transactions depend on many more, is not a problem here. There is never the need to extract a complete standalone copy of a transaction's history.

← 154 →

10. Privacy The traditional banking model achieves a level of privacy by limiting access to information to the parties involved and the trusted third party. The necessity to announce all transactions publicly precludes this method, but privacy can still be maintained by breaking the flow of information in another place: by keeping public keys anonymous. The public can see that someone is sending an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone. This is similar to the level of information released by stock exchanges, where the time and size of individual trades, the "tape", is made public, but without telling who the parties were.

            
              As an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each
              transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner. Some
              linking is still unavoidable with multi-input transactions, which
              necessarily reveal that their inputs were owned by the same owner.
              The risk is that if the owner of a key is revealed, linking could
              reveal other transactions that belonged to the same owner.
            

            11. Calculations

            
              We consider the scenario of an attacker trying to generate an
              alternate chain faster than the honest chain. Even if this is
              accomplished, it does not throw the system open to arbitrary
              changes, such as creating value out of thin air or taking money
              that never belonged to the attacker. Nodes are not going to accept
              an invalid transaction as payment, and honest nodes will never
              accept a block containing them. An attacker can only try to change
              one of his own transactions to take back money he recently spent.
            

            
              The race between the honest chain and an attacker chain can be
              characterized as a Binomial Random Walk. The success event is the
              honest chain being extended by one block, increasing its lead by
              +1, and the failure event is the attacker's chain being extended
              by one block, reducing the gap by -1.
            

            
              The probability of an attacker catching up from a given deficit is
              analogous to a Gambler's Ruin problem. Suppose a gambler with
              unlimited credit starts at a deficit and plays potentially an
              infinite number of trials to try to reach breakeven. We can
              calculate the probability he ever reaches breakeven, or that an
              attacker ever catches up with the honest chain, as follows [8]:
            
          

p = probability an honest node finds the next block
q = probability the attacker finds the next block
q _z = probability the attacker will ever catch up from z blocks behind

← 155 →

Given our assumption that p > q, the probability drops exponentially as the number of blocks the attacker has to catch up with increases. With the odds against him, if he doesn't make a lucky lunge forward early on, his chances become vanishingly small as he falls further behind.

We now consider how long the recipient of a new transaction needs to wait before being sufficiently certain the sender can't change the transaction. We assume the sender is an attacker who wants to make the recipient believe he paid him for a while, then switch it to pay back to himself after some time has passed. The receiver will be alerted when that happens, but the sender hopes it will be too late.

The receiver generates a new key pair and gives the public key to the sender shortly before signing. This prevents the sender from preparing a chain of blocks ahead of time by working on it continuously until he is lucky enough to get far enough ahead, then executing the transaction at that moment. Once the transaction is sent, the dishonest sender starts working in secret on a parallel chain containing an alternate version of his transaction.

The recipient waits until the transaction has been added to a block and z blocks have been linked after it. He doesn't know the exact amount of progress the attacker has made, but assuming the honest blocks took the average expected time per block, the attacker's potential progress will be a Poisson distribution with expected value:

To get the probability the attacker could still catch up now, we multiply the Poisson density for each amount of progress he could have made by the probability he could catch up from that point:

Rearranging to avoid summing the infinite tail of the distribution...

Converting to C code...

#include <math.h>
double AttackerSuccessProbability(double q, int z)
{
  double p = 1.0 - q;
  double lambda = z * (q / p);
  double sum = 1.0;
  int i, k;
  for (k = 0; k <= z; k++)
  {
    double poisson = exp(-lambda);
    for (i = 1; i <= k; i++)
      poisson *= lambda / i;
    sum -= poisson * (1 - pow(q / p, z - k));
  }
  return sum;
}

← 156 →

q=0.1
z=0 P=1.0000000
z=1 P=0.2045873
z=2 P=0.0509779
z=3 P=0.0131722
z=4 P=0.0034552
z=5 P=0.0009137
z=6 P=0.0002428
z=7 P=0.0000647
z=8 P=0.0000173
z=9 P=0.0000046
z=10 P=0.0000012

q=0.3
z=0 P=1.0000000
z=5 P=0.1773523
z=10 P=0.0416605
z=15 P=0.0101008
z=20 P=0.0024804
z=25 P=0.0006132
z=30 P=0.0001522
z=35 P=0.0000379
z=40 P=0.0000095
z=45 P=0.0000024
z=50 P=0.0000006

Solving for P less than 0.1%...

P < 0.001
q=0.10 z=5
q=0.15 z=8
q=0.20 z=11
q=0.25 z=15
q=0.30 z=24
q=0.35 z=41
q=0.40 z=89
q=0.45 z=340

12. Conclusion

We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust. We started with the usual framework of coins made from digital signatures, which provides strong control of ownership, but is incomplete without a way to prevent double-spending. To solve this, we proposed a peer-to-peer network using proof-of-work to record a public history of transactions that quickly becomes computationally impractical for an attacker to change if honest nodes control a majority of CPU power. The network is robust in its unstructured simplicity. Nodes work all at once with little coordination. They do not need to be identified, since messages are not routed to any particular place and only need to be delivered on a best effort basis. Nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone. They vote with their CPU power, expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them. Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism.

← 157 →

References

[1] W. Dai, "b-money," http://www.weidai.com/bmoney.txt, 1998.
[2] H. Massias, X.S. Avila, and J.-J. Quisquater, "Design of a secure timestamping service with minimal trust requirements," In 20th Symposium on Information Theory in the Benelux, May 1999.
[3] S. Haber, W.S. Stornetta, "How to time-stamp a digital document," In Journal of Cryptology, vol 3, no 2, pages 99-111, 1991.
[4] D. Bayer, S. Haber, W.S. Stornetta, "Improving the efficiency and reliability of digital time-stamping," In Sequences II: Methods in Communication, Security and Computer Science, pages 329-334, 1993.
[5] S. Haber, W.S. Stornetta, "Secure names for bit-strings," In Proceedings of the 4th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pages 28-35, April 1997.
[6] A. Back, "Hashcash - a denial of service counter-measure," http://www.hashcash.org/papers/hashcash.pdf, 2002.
[7] R.C. Merkle, "Protocols for public key cryptosystems," In Proc. 1980 Symposium on Security and Privacy, IEEE Computer Society, pages 122-133, April 1980.
[8] W. Feller, "An introduction to probability theory and its applications," 1957.

← 158 →

Bitcoin Genesis Block ~ Raw Hex Version 2009-01-03

            and so,
            a new era,
            was unleashed
          

← 159 →

NOSTR NOTES & OTHER STUFF TRANSMITTED BY RELAYS

One could pass laws against it, but the freedom of speech, even more than privacy, is fundamental to an open society; we seek not to restrict any speech at all.

~ Eric Hughes, The Cypherpunk's manifesto, 1993

WHAT IS

NOSTR

TL;DR: nostr is a protocol that has the power to replace twitter, Telegram, and other things.

~ @dergigi

nostr is to freedom of communication as bitcoin is to freedom of transaction.

~ Keysa @SimplestBitcoinBook

Nostr is a simple, decentralized protocol for censorship-resistant, global, interoperable networks.

Nostr does not rely on a trusted central server.

It is a free and open source (FOSS) software protocol, like Bitcoin, HTTP or TCP/IP, which allows anyone to build on nostr.

It is how we retain our freedom to communicate with anyone, anywhere with an internet connection.

(it is) a communications protocol with a self-sovereign identity layer... and nostr is also more than that.

~ @dergigi

← 160 →

WHY WE NEED

NOSTR

We need nostr because the current communication systems and social media platforms are centralized. This is problematic because these systems:

Have the power to censor your speech.

Are vulnerable to regulatory attacks by the state.

Can choose, or be told, to suspend or delete your account.

Can be hacked, and thus compromise your data.

Use algorithms to feed you the information they want you to see.

Manipulate every aspect of your experience on them.

Track all your activity.

Harvest and sell your data.

Use your data to litter your feed with advertisements.

Freedom tech is hope.

~ @ODELL

← 161 →

HOW DOES

NOSTR WORK?

Nostr has two parts: Clients and Relays.

A CLIENT is an INTERFACE (app or website) that is run on the nostr protocol.

It is where you see the notes that you and the people you follow post (in the same way that twitter is an interface where you post and read notes by others, except twitter is centralized & it censors posts.)

A RELAY is a SERVER and a DATABASE. Anyone can run a relay, which is what makes nostr decentralized.

It is where your notes are sent, stored and retrieved from by clients.

There are many relays and you can choose which ones to connect to. Some are free and some are paid.

When you post a message, it is broadcast to the relays you are connected to.

The clients query the relays they are connected to, and then they populate the messages being hosted by those relays.

~ @BTCillustrated

← 162 →

Anyone can run a relay. A relay is very simple and dumb. It does nothing besides accepting posts from some people and forwarding to others. Relays don’t have to be trusted. Signatures are verified on the client side.

~ @fiatjaf, 2019-11-02 fiatjaf.com/nostr.html

When you open your nostr client, you will see all the notes posted by you and those you follow in chronological order.

There are no algorithms deciding what to show you, what to withhold from you, or censoring your posts.

Like Bitcoin, nostr uses public/private key pairs.

PUBLIC KEY = npub, like a username

PRIVATE KEY = nsec, like a password

In both of the above examples, one could postulate that Satoshi was using numbers to indicate a reversal, an unwinding of the damage inflicted by government overreach.

← 163