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- We wanted internet-native money; we got banks with websites.
We wanted internet-native money; we got banks with websites.
Until bitcoin...
BITCOIN BOX SCORE
Exchange Rate: $26,743.43
Market Capitalization: $521.8B
Hash Rate (90 days): 398.5 EH/s
Transactions (30 days): 11,272,994
Network Fees (day): 10 sat/vB
Bitcoin Dominance: 50.95%
Bitcoiners,
In the 1990s, visionaries imagined a digital frontier where value flowed as effortlessly as data across the nascent World Wide Web. This wasn't just about e-commerce but about a currency as integral to the internet as emails or chat rooms.
For years, that vision languished because the puzzle of how to create digital cash remained unsolved, and banks picked up the slack by designing cumbersome web interfaces for inefficient conventional banking technology
Eight years after the close of the 1990s, the invention of bitcoin made the original vision of the internet possible.
Although bitcoin represents a breakthrough, we have yet to realize the true potential of internet-native money.
The journey towards this goal has already begun, but the destination, where bitcoin rightfully takes its place as the foundation of the next economy, is still to come.
In other words, we are still so early.
With that, let's dive into the news.
NEWS
In uncertain times, Paul Tudor Jones likes gold and bitcoin đź”’
"It's a really challenging time to want to be an equity investor and in U.S. stocks right now… the United States is probably in its weakest fiscal position since certainly World War II with debt-to-GDP at 122%." stated investor Paul Tudor Jones.
Jones recommends gold and bitcoin, warning of a "vicious circle" of rising interest rates exacerbating the U.S.'s fiscal challenges.
Tradfi is waking up
Tudor Jones accurately predicted the 1987 Wall Street crash and is known for his blunt assessments of the economy. Countless investors like him now acknowledge bitcoin is a store of value. It's a matter of time until they realize that bitcoin is the future of money and finance.
U.S. adds half a trillion in debt in 20 days đź’°
In just 20 days, the Biden administration added half a trillion dollars to the national debt, pushing it past $33.5 trillion, which is larger than the combined economies of China, Japan, Germany, and the U.K. This surge in debt accompanies growing federal expenses like interest payments, which will soon outpace other significant federal outlays.
What's the end game?
The debt spiral has begun. It is uncertain whether the U.S. can "grow" its way out of this situation. Regardless, Americans should find ways to protect themselves from a debt burden that amounts to over $250,000 per taxpayer.
A conspiracy to suppress the price of BTC? 🤨
Information emerged during the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried indicating that FTX sold its customers' bitcoin without their permission. This selling pressure was allegedly aimed at keeping the price of bitcoin below $20,000 during the 2021 bull market.
Bitcoin is built different
Readers can take solace in bitcoin's ability to resist such selling pressure. Lyn Alden stated: "Companies that make paper bitcoin have a faster time to bankruptcy than those that make paper bold claims (because it's both faster and scarcer, it shakes off paper faster)." Anyone planning on copying FTX's strategy, beware.
Fidelity releases bullish bitcoin report 🚀
In a new report, researchers at Fidelity Investments deem bitcoin a "superior form of money" due to its status as a "monetary good," setting it apart from other digital assets. The researchers argue that bitcoin's long-standing resilience makes it less risky than other digital assets.
Fidelity keeps winning
Fidelity has long been ahead of other traditional managers regarding bitcoin, and this report further solidifies their standing.
BITCOIN ADOPTION CONTINUES
On its 10th anniversary, Trezor launched three self-custody products: the Trezor Safe 3 wallet, the physical private key storage Trezor Keep Metal resistant to elemental damage, and a limited-edition bitcoin-only hardware wallet, with part of its sales funding a bitcoin education initiative.
“The real fascinating crypto is Bitcoin. To me, that’s the one that I think has the most likely possibility of becoming a universal viable currency." Joe Rogan told Sam Altman during an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast.
Blockstream released Greenlight, a "Lightning-as-a-Service" offering that provides developers with a solution to seamlessly integrate Lightning payments, ensuring user fund security and convenience without compromising functionality.
THNDR introduced Clinch, a Bitcoin Lightning Network API, to offer instant, global, low-fee P2P wagering, potentially revolutionizing the $95 billion online gambling sector by enabling micro-wagers and faster payouts.
Digital Shovel unveils the S300 MiniPOD, a cutting-edge modular mining datacenter boasting a 60% reduction in shipping costs, quicker setup, enhanced airflow for heat mitigation, and improved air filtration, all while offering cost-effective remote power management.
HOW BITCOIN WORKS
Learn one key idea about bitcoin each week. This week:
Bitcoin is physical.
Sound money is money that is not prone to sudden debasement. This concept evolved in the 19th century and became associated with physical commodity money like gold. Today, many people who understand the importance of sound money look past bitcoin because, they assume, it’s not physical like gold — you can’t hold it in your hand, so how can it possibly be sound money?
Bitcoiners often respond that bitcoin is not physical but “backed by mathematics.” But this misses the mark, too. In fact, bitcoin is physical, just in a different way.
The bitcoin ledger is duplicated all over the planet on every single bitcoin node. Each of these nodes are computers that hold the bitcoin ledger in flash memory chips. At the nanoscale, the flash memory chips are made up of tiny transistors that stay on or off regardless of whether the computer has power. The physical states of the transistors themselves change when they are on and off – they are like switches. With a powerful microscope, you could even take a look and see the states of those switches with your own eyes.
So the bitcoin ledger is very much physical, and there resides a physical copy of the ledger in every single node.
Your private key is physical too. If you store it as a seed phrase on metal plates, as many do, then its physicality is obvious. But if you store it in flash memory, such as inside a secure element in a hardware wallet, or in a hot wallet on a phone, it’s just as physical, albeit on a much smaller scale.
Could you implement the bitcoin network at a human scale, for example, using giant banks of light switches? Theoretically, yes, although other constraints (like the size of planet Earth being too small) make it practically impossible.
Do you even need computers to mine bitcoin? Not really, but again, in practice it would not be possible to compute hashing functions on paper fast enough to be effective.
Getting better at explaining how bitcoin is physical can help us enlighten our friends who understand the concept and importance of sound money but believe that bitcoin could never serve a purpose similar to gold.
Ready to get started with bitcoin? Coinbits is the best option. It's fast, safe, and free to create your account.
COIN CHECK
What is one distinctive trait of the UTXO model compared to the traditional financial system account model?
UTXOs come in standardized denominations, unlike the flexible balance in traditional accounts.
Bitcoin’s UTXO model allows for the auditing of Bitcoin’s total supply, ensuring adherence to its monetary policy.
UTXOs can only be created through coinbase transactions and not through user transactions.
UTXOs directly reveal which address Bitcoin came from on the blockchain.
Check your answer at the end of the page.
FROM THE MEME POOL
ANSWER
2. Bitcoin’s UTXO model allows for the auditing of Bitcoin’s total supply, ensuring adherence to its monetary policy.
That’s all for this week, folks! When you signed up for this newsletter, we promised to act as your personal guide and help you understand what’s happening in the world of bitcoin. What did you think of today’s newsletter? Reply to this email and let us know what you’d like to see more of.
Until next week!
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