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The Trump Pump: A Road To Capture and Failure

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Well the “Trump Pump” seems to be ripping off spectacularly. Everyone is cheering, euphoric, happy, feeling on top of the world. Knock it off. Yes, the number is going up, everyone’s net worth (on paper) is increasing by the hour, but this is not a matter of celebration.

This is Bitcoin entering the gauntlet. These institutions, this administration, these high net worth individuals, they are not your friends. They are not here for the same reasons as people trying to build a monetary network centered around sovereignty and freedom. They are just here to make a buck, and to maintain this disordinate level of influence and control over the world around them.

These people don’t give a shit about self custody being scalable, or privacy being accessible, or Bitcoin doing anything to bring these tools of freedom to the masses. They care about Number Go Up, that is all. If this run really does turn into what it looks like it could, this presents an existential crisis for Bitcoin. All of these people are buying their seats at the table, and those seats come with much more influence than the aggregate of the average person who has been working hard to accumulate bitcoin the last few years.

Bitcoin consensus is dictated by the economic actors actually using it. If Bitcoin becomes a simple financialized asset dominated by the legacy institutions and actors that it was built to free us from, then proportionally to their level of use they decide consensus. The only choice left to us is to convince them, or deviate by forking off on a much less valuable (and therefore less useful) network.

These people dominating the network this early, before the necessary work is done to make this a viable and scalable network, is sprinting down the road towards ossification. Of people being stuck with no viable option except being wealthy already, or picking their choice of trusted third party to interact with the protocol and network. And none of these people will care.

Why would they support protocol upgrades that improve the scalability or privacy of Bitcoin? They make their living, all they know how to do is insert themselves as middlemen between the average person and the asset they want to interact with, making money by rent seeking as that intermediary. What incentive would they have to unseat themselves from that lucrative position?

Bitcoiners should not get complacent simply because existing holders are watching their net worth increase during this bull market. There is a lot more to do, otherwise Bitcoin will not live up to a fraction of its potential as a tool to spread real freedom.

So what do you value more? Getting rich or helping spread a tool to liberate people who are currently subject to the whims of tyrants and rent seekers?

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine. 



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21 Million

No, BlackRock Can't Change Bitcoin

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Recently, BlackRock released an educational video explaining Bitcoin, which I thought was great—it’s amazing to see Bitcoin being discussed on such a massive platform. But, of course, Bitcoin X (Twitter) had a meltdown over one specific line in the video: “There is no guarantee that Bitcoin’s 21 million supply cap will not be changed.”

HealthRnager from Natural News claimed, “Bitcoin has become far too centralized, and now the wrong people largely control its algorithms. They are TELLING you in advance what they plan to do.”

Now, let me be clear: this is total nonsense. The controversy is overhyped, and the idea that BlackRock would—or even could—change bitcoin’s supply is laughable. The statement in their video is technically true, but it’s just a legal disclaimer. It doesn’t mean BlackRock is plotting to inflate bitcoin’s supply. And even if they were, they don’t have the power to pull it off.

Bitcoin’s 21 million cap is fundamental—it’s not up for debate. The entire Bitcoin ecosystem—miners, developers, and nodes—operates on this core principle. Without it, Bitcoin wouldn’t be Bitcoin. And while BlackRock is a financial giant and holds over 500,000 Bitcoin for its ETF, its influence over Bitcoin is practically nonexistent.

Bitcoin is a proof-of-work (PoW) system, not a proof-of-stake (PoS) system. It doesn’t matter how much bitcoin BlackRock owns; economic nodes hold the real power.

Let’s play devil’s advocate for a second. Say BlackRock tries to propose a protocol change to increase bitcoin’s supply. What happens? The vast network of nodes would simply reject it. Bitcoin’s history proves this. Remember Roger Ver and the Bitcoin Cash fork? He had significant influence and holdings, yet his version of bitcoin became irrelevant because the majority of economic actors didn’t follow him.

If Bitcoin could be controlled by a single entity like BlackRock, it would’ve failed a long time ago. The U.S. government, with its endless money printer, could easily acquire 10% of the supply if that’s all it took to control Bitcoin. But that’s not how Bitcoin works. Its decentralized nature ensures no single entity—no matter how powerful—can dictate its terms.

So, stop worrying about BlackRock “changing” Bitcoin. Their influence has hard limits. Even if they tried to push developers to change the protocol, nodes would reject it. Bitcoin’s decentralization is its greatest strength, and no one—not BlackRock, not Michael Saylor—can change that.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.



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Opinion

It’s Time to Admit It – There Are Only 2.1 Quadrillion Bitcoins

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If the above statement offends you, you might not have read the Bitcoin source code.

Follow Rizzo on X.

https://x.com/pete_rizzo_/

Of course, I’m sure you’ve heard that there are 21 million bitcoin – and this is true, the Bitcoin protocol allows for only “21 million bitcoin” to be created, yet these larger denominations can be subdivided into 100 million sub-units each.

Call them whatever you want, there are only 2.1 quadrillion monetary units in the protocol.

This dollars and cents differential has long been the subject of debate – in the time of Satoshi, Bitcoin’s creator, the dual conventions, Bitcoin having both a bulk denomination, and a smaller unit, was not much of a concern. There were questions about whether the software would work at all, and bitcoin were so worthless, selling them in bulk was the only rational option.

Rehashing this debate is BIP 21Q, a proposal to the Bitcoin users authored by John Carvalho, founder of Synonym, creator of the Pubky social media platform, and a tenured contributor whose work dates back to the days of the influential Bitcoin-assets collective.

In short, the BIP proposes that network actors – the various wallets and exchanges – change how Bitcoin denominations are displayed, with the smallest unit of the protocol renamed “bitcoins,” as opposed to “satoshis,” as they have been commonly called.

Here are the specifics of the BIP:

Redefinition of the Unit:

  • Internally, the smallest indivisible unit remains unchanged.
  • Historically, 1 BTC = 100,000,000 base units. Under this proposal, “1 bitcoin” equals that smallest unit.
  • What was previously referred to as “1 BTC” now corresponds to 100 million bitcoins under the new definition.

Terminology:

  • The informal terms “satoshi” or “sat” are deprecated.
  • All references, interfaces, and documentation SHOULD refer to the base integer unit simply as “bitcoin.”

Display and Formatting:

  • Applications SHOULD present values as whole integers without decimals.
  • Example:
    • Old display: 0.00010000 BTC
    • New display: 10000 BTC (or ₿10000)

Unsurprisingly, the debate around the BIP has been hostile. For one, it’s not a technical BIP, though this is not a requirement of the BIP process. Suffice to say, it’s perhaps the most general BIP that has been proposed under the BIP process to date, as it mainly deals with market conventions and user onboarding logic, not any changes to the software rules.

However, I have to say, I find the proposal compelling. Nik Hoffman, our News Editor, does not, preferring to stick to the market affirmative.

Yet, I think the proposal raises relevant questions: why should new users be forced to compute their Bitcoin balances using only decimals? Surely this has the adverse side effect of making commerce difficult – it’s simply antithetical to how people think and act today.

Also, in terms of savings, at an $100,000 BTC price, it isn’t exactly compelling to think you could be spending a whole year earning 1 BTC, though that may be.

Indeed, there have been various debates for all kinds of units – mBTC, uBTC – that play around with the dollars and cents convention, but Carvalho here is wisely skipping to the end, preferring just to rip the band-aid off. $1 would buy 1,000 bitcoins under his proposal.

What’s to like here, and I argued this during a Lugano debate on the topic in 2023, is that it keeps both the larger BTC denomination and the smaller unit, now bitcoins. They are both important, and serve different functions.

My argument then was that having a larger denomination like BTC (100 million bitcoins) is important. If there was no “BTC unit,” the press and financial media would be faced to reckon that “1 bitcoin” is still worth less than 1 cent. 

How much mainstream coverage and interest do we think there would be? I’d bet not very much.

In this way, BIP 21Q is a best-of-both-worlds approach.

The financial world, press, and media can continue championing the meteoric rise in value of “BTC,” while everyday users can get rid of decimals and complex calculations, trading the only real Bitcoin unit guaranteed to exist in perpetuity. 

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.



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Bitcoin spot ETF

We Need In-Kind Redemptions For The Spot Bitcoin ETFs

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Follow Frank on X.

On a recent episode of the Coinage podcast, guest SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said that she is open to reconsidering in-kind redemptions for spot bitcoin ETFs.

(For those who aren’t familiar with the term “in-kind redemption,” it refers to the ability to withdraw the bitcoin you’ve purchased via an ETF into your own custody. In essence, it turns a bitcoin IOU into the real thing.)

This makes my heart happy, as bitcoin wasn’t designed to exist trapped within the wrappers of the old system. It was built to set us free from that system.

If Peirce can work with the incoming SEC Chair, Paul Atkins, to facilitate the approval of in-kind redemptions then the spot bitcoin ETFs can serve as some of the biggest on-ramps to Bitcoin, as Bitwise co-founder Hong Kim put it, as opposed to simply existing as speculation vehicles.

Bitcoin was born to exist in the wild. It wasn’t born to exist in a Wall Street zoo.

In-kind redemptions would allow the bitcoin currently trapped within the zoo the ability to return to its natural habitat.

This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.





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