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Trump Is Not Bitcoin's Savior

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The election is over, and Trump is now going to be President again. He pulled off something that hasn’t been done since Grover Cleveland in the 1800s, a successful re-election following a loss after his first term. People all of this space are celebrating this as some kind of victory for Bitcoin, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Ross will likely be freed, Trump is too full of himself to back out of such a trivial to deliver on campaign promise, so he will probably do it. It’s too easy, and something he can parade around and take credit for, so it will happen.

That is where anything substantial will end. A strategic reserve is not happening without the approval of Congress, even seized assets are by law required to be disposed of on the open market. Trump cannot from any reading of his authority I am aware of unilaterally push the federal government to begin accumulating bitcoin. Even if by some miracle that Congress did act to pass such legislation, what good does it do Bitcoin? A government accumulating bitcoin isn’t going to help make it more scalable, it isn’t going to make it more private, it isn’t going to protect it from government overreach and interference. It won’t even help us pay off our debt, the price appreciation necessary for such an outcome is frankly delusional.

Instead the most likely outcome is more of the same. More attacks on Bitcoin privacy. More encroaching regulation in the form of KYC and AML. Miners will likely come under scrutiny as Bitcoin’s elevation onto the global political stage continues. The question of their liability and involvement in confirming sanctioned or otherwise undesirable transactions has already been floating around Washington D.C. for a few years now, the tone of those questions will likely get more serious.

Exchanges and other on/off ramps will likely be pressured to engage in ever more invasive surveillance of their users in pursuit of stamping out terrorism, criminal use, child trafficking, etc. All of the traditional boogiemen of the digital world will be trotted out, and the regulatory noose will be tightened. Sure, Trump might push for enshrining self custody as a right, but does that on its own really provide any serious degree of freedom without privacy? Without censorship resistance?

Trump even spoke in Nashville about regulations, and the expansion and endorsement of stablecoins. “People who see Bitcoin as a threat to the dollar have it exactly backwards.” He wants to push dollar backed stablecoins all over the world, taking advantage of a new route for us to export our inflation without the need for diplomacy. People in other countries can just use them, they don’t need their government to choose to dollarize, or hold dollar reserves. Just download an app and start using them. The approach he wants to take to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies will breath new life into the dollar, and push Bitcoin down a path to stagnation and capture.

People are cheering this on as a victory for Bitcoin, the reality is it is us entering the gauntlet. It is still an open question whether we can successfully run it and come out the other side without having to make serious and potentially fatal compromises. 



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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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