Satoshi Nakamoto
Daily Ramble
As Bitcoin’s network flirts with becoming worth $1T today, I wanted to take a moment to pay homage to its anonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Satoshi anonymously and quietly posted the Bitcoin whitepaper in August 2008 then launched the Bitcoin network in January 2009. He remained online for another year and a half, helping to get his creation off the ground, only to disappear mid-2010, never to be heard from again. During the early stages of the Bitcoin network, he helped secure the network mining a tremendous amount of bitcoin in the process. To this day, the bitcoin he mined has never moved and Satoshi has never been heard from again.
Speculation has run rampant on who the actual identity of Satoshi was/is, but it’s all just that — speculation. Whoever was behind the identity labeled as Satoshi was a humble genius synthesizing a deep understanding of money, cryptography, security, networking, game theory, and economics. No easy feat. While he has reached mythological proportions today, I don’t doubt that he could be elevated to second-coming comparisons if the predictions of the future play out as many Bitcoiners, even from the earliest of days, have predicted.
The second coming? Really, Kent, you went there?! I’ll let history tell me if I’m crazy or not, but since money and religion are both belief systems, the overlap between the two is uncanny. Ever tried to tell the difference between a religious zealot and a Bitcoiner? Really, no punchline there, but the foaming at the mouth is similar. Just as Jesus’ sacrifice for humanity transformed the course of human history, in another hundred years, we may see the sacrifice Satoshi made by divorcing himself from the Bitcoin network as the digital version of Jesus’ sacrifice. And if not, his efforts will go down in the history books as a singular step forward in understanding that the rest of us mortals will be learning from for decades to come.
Here’s to you, Mr. Satoshi, and the dream you set in motion 12 years ago.
Favorite Thing on the Interwebs Today
It boggles the mind how we like to buy things on sale, except Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Price Prediction
Yesterday: $48.7k - $54k
Today: $50.8k - $54k
Tomorrow: $48.8k - $54k
To repeat yesterday’s beginning: Number Go Up technology continues to do its thing. Until we see price experience a sharp reaction, the only thing that seems to be slowing the price appreciation here is profit-taking. I continue to suspect we will see a reaction at $53.6k where Bitcoin’s market cap will cross $1T. But, like any suspicion, it’s just that and does not mean it will occur. It looks like we will find out soon enough though as the price continues to grind higher today from a low of $50.8k up to just shy of $53.3k at the moment. Until we do see a sharp sell-off there is little risk to the price declining. A sharp sell-off is likely to shake out a few of the weaker hands and I would not be surprised if we see the price come back as far as $44k to find some support when it does. Beyond grinding up higher until there’s a sharp reaction, my confidence in short-term price predictions is fairly low here.
Bitcoin Ed Bite
Q: Are PayPal and Revolut selling bitcoin?
A: No. PayPal and Revolut are selling IOUs that represent bitcoin.
This distinction is subtle but extremely important. The bitcoin in your PayPal and Revolut account, at present, cannot be withdrawn. Since they cannot be withdrawn, there is no way to know if they are actually being backed by bitcoin. They likely are, but only partially. While this may not seem like a big deal, it puts systemic risk into their systems. How would they manage a situation if everyone rushes to sell their bitcoin but the bitcoin behind it doesn’t exist? I don’t know, but this is the type of counter-party risk worth avoiding. Not your keys, not your coins.
Thanks for reading,
Kent
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