In Nazi Germany in the 30s, all the Jews had their money locked up in Germany. Bankers allowed people to launder their money out, but would take a haircut of 10%, 20%, 30% which progressively grew to 90%. At that point, nobody wanted to leave! -- an excerpt from the Saylor Series Episode 2 - the Rise of Man through the Dark and Steel Ages, its 2-minute version can be found here

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The Saylor Series Episode 2 - The Rise of Man through the Dark and Steel Ages (Robert Breedlove's What Is Money Show) — 2 minute bitcoin

The Saylor Series Episode 2 condensed from 13,546 words into just 476. This 2-minute bitcoin read follows Michael Saylor

Gold is expensive to store securely. Bitcoin is not. Gold is very expensive and risky to transport securely in significant amounts. Bitcoin is not. Gold can be detected and confiscated. Bitcoin cannot. (so long as the seed phrase is properly secured). Gold's supply is flexible. It increases when prices increase, as more miners mine. Bitcoin's is not. Gold's supply is theoretically infinite. Asteroids contain gold. Bitcoin's is not. Gold is subject to counterfeiting. There is a lot of gold-coated tungsten in circulation; it requires special equipment and knowledge to be able to detect it. Bitcoin is not. Bitcoin can be sent over the Internet. Gold cannot.

“We’re not even thinking about thinking about raising rates.” – Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve June 10, 2020

We have forgotten what immutability is. Back in the day, people would construct huge factories - essentially computer programs made of steel. You give them one input - milk/eggs - and they give you an output - 50,000 boxes of chocolate bars an hour! Perfectly uniform and without bacteria. Back then, there was no version 2 coming. You had to design it really well from the start before constructing it, as changes were either impossible or prohibitively costly. -- an excerpt from the Saylor Series Episode 2 - the Rise of Man through the Dark and Steel Ages, its 2-minute version can be found here

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The Saylor Series Episode 2 - The Rise of Man through the Dark and Steel Ages (Robert Breedlove's What Is Money Show) — 2 minute bitcoin

The Saylor Series Episode 2 condensed from 13,546 words into just 476. This 2-minute bitcoin read follows Michael Saylor

***Money becomes more useful the more people use it**.* As more people begin to hold money, the rational response of everyone else is to try to hold more than they already have as they see its value increasing and usage increasing. Everyone, therefore, will try to increase his cash balance at the same time, and they will do this by bidding larger amounts of other goods in exchange for it. In other words, the money becomes more valuable, leading to all prices tending to go down priced in that money. Effectively, everyone with an existing balance ends up with more money, except that they end up with **more valuable units** of money rather than higher sums of it. -- an excerpt from It's Not About The Technology, It's About The Money (2016), its 2-minute version can be found here:

2 minute bitcoin

It's Not About The Technology, It's About The Money — 2 minute bitcoin

Learn why Bitcoin has no top in price until everybody adopts it. Money has a positive network effect - it becomes more valuable the more people use...

Human psychology is herd-like and has proven to exhibit periods of euphoria and fear. A new monetary asset that regularly grows in both popularity and usefulness will always be volatile - that's just human nature. The establishment will fight to suppress it and instill fear, uncertainty and doubt in all participants. Even without intervention, volatility is part of the course as Bitcoin's price goes too high during bull runs. Gold was similarly volatile during the Weimar hyperinflation:

Railroads are very instrumental to logistics and the movement of armies. They therefore drove economic and political power. The British war in Sudan was critically about taking Khartoum. The entire outcome depended on that - whether they could build a railroad to Khartoum. If they can’t build it, they can’t provision the army with all the heavy equipment. As soon as the railroad arrived, a bunch of heavily-armed guys with explosives and Gatling guns showed up and decimated the enemy. It wasn’t a fair fight. Similarly, in the American Civil War, the Union Pacific Railroad sealed the U.S’ control over the land. -- an excerpt from the Saylor Series Episode 2 - the Rise of Man through the Dark and Steel Ages, its 2-minute version can be found here

2 minute bitcoin

The Saylor Series Episode 2 - The Rise of Man through the Dark and Steel Ages (Robert Breedlove's What Is Money Show) — 2 minute bitcoin

The Saylor Series Episode 2 condensed from 13,546 words into just 476. This 2-minute bitcoin read follows Michael Saylor

You can’t afford 100-story buildings in Manhattan unless you’re the center of a financial empire! The skyscrapers in New York are constructed from the value extracted by financial intermediaries. As they say in Vegas - those hotels aren’t built by winning gamblers. There are a lot of securities where there are only two market makers - bank A and bank B - which simply trade with each other. Two bond traders working in opposite buildings, going together for lunch/dinner/etc. If you’re buying the security, you’re buying at the top of the spread. If you’re selling, you’re selling at the bottom of the spread. The spread is 2%. So if you turn over $1B of bonds, you’re paying $20 Million in commissions to the banks. Life is full of gatekeepers. It’s ultimately a competition for power - to be the ultimate gatekeeper - to gain the most claims on taxing an ever-greater network. -- an excerpt from the Saylor Series Episode 2 - the Rise of Man through the Dark and Steel Ages, its 2-minute version can be found here

2 minute bitcoin

The Saylor Series Episode 2 - The Rise of Man through the Dark and Steel Ages (Robert Breedlove's What Is Money Show) — 2 minute bitcoin

The Saylor Series Episode 2 condensed from 13,546 words into just 476. This 2-minute bitcoin read follows Michael Saylor

Rockefeller originated the cartel model. Through Standard Oil he created a monopoly on the energy network. He got to be the incipient of the path dependence of the network he’s creating. They bought the refineries - they refined the oil, stored it, owned all the tanker cars, tanker ships and had an energy network. They even had retail distribution, and even give away furnaces in order to sell the energy -a freemium model! They monopolized everything to get rid of the volatility in the industry and drive efficiency through standardization. This was the world’s first serious energy network - so powerful that even 100 years after his death, those companies are still worth $1 Trillion

Bitcoin’s utility as a unit of account **today** depends on what you already believe about Bitcoin. There is **no objective unit of value** that is measured with a unit of account. It is all a matter of perspective, and relative value - how valuable is **this unit** relative to the unit of account. Someone still lost in the dollar world looks at Bitcoin and sees wild and extreme volatility, whereas someone in Bitcoin looking back at the dollar sees a crash and subsequent bleed/stagnation. -- an excerpt from the 1-minute version of Bitcoin is the Best Unit of Account (2014)

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Bitcoin is the Best Unit of Account (2014) — 2 minute bitcoin

A core function of money, unit of account denotes the ability to use Bitcoin to account for the price of things. See why it was obvious in 2014 tha...

“There are two ways to enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.” – John Adams (1826)

When the Fed creates $3 trillion in a matter of weeks by pushing a button, it consolidates the power to price and value human time. In the U.S., humans are not supposed to have that kind of power over other humans. -- an excerpt from the Stone Ridge 2020 Shareholder Letter, its 2-minute version can be found here

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Stone Ridge 2020 Shareholder Letter by Ross Stevens — 2 minute bitcoin

The shareholder letter of 2020, where Ross Stevens, the author and CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, presents a concise overview of the first pr...

The benefit we get from money is the **optionality** it gives us. The **ability to defer our decisions** on what to get in exchange for our work/goods. Someone who does not want to use money must by definition have a very good idea about what he wants to get in exchange for his value. When one has money, then one is not committed. This benefit explains why we would want something that is good for keeping in storage - like gold. -- an excerpt from It's Not About The Technology, It's About The Money (2016), its 2-minute version can be found here:

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It's Not About The Technology, It's About The Money — 2 minute bitcoin

Learn why Bitcoin has no top in price until everybody adopts it. Money has a positive network effect - it becomes more valuable the more people use...

As we moved beyond traveling by foot and horse, beyond the development of affordable commercial air travel, and then, especially, beyond the internet’s Cambrian-like explosion of network power, gold’s **low spatial salability** became an acute flaw even the most ardent “goldbugs” miss. **Gold is simply hard to transport**. This is where the Fiat Standard shines. Though fiat’s periodic, human-nature-induced hyperinflations made it a huge step backward in terms of salability across time (storing value), it was a substantial leap forward in terms of salability across space. However, contrary to common misconception, **Bitcoin moves much faster across space** than fiat, increasing our capacity for long-distance international settlement by about **96 times**. It completes settlement in about an hour, rather than the current state-of-the-art 3-5 days, or longer, for final international fiat settlement. Do not confuse the speed of your Visa payment with its final settlement. No settlement occurs when you buy your coffee at Starbucks. Rather, your bank and Starbucks’ bank generally settle 2-3 days later, with each bank taking credit risk to the other along the way, with rare, but occasionally disastrous results. Bitcoin not only safely settles about every hour, but more importantly as a bearer instrument it has **no credit risk**. Bitcoin’s protocol and network topology renders national borders irrelevant, which is especially empowering to the world’s most vulnerable and unprepared for fiat hyperinflations (e.g. Venezuela, Turkey, Lebanon). From this perspective, Bitcoin is better at being fiat than fiat – it’s **even more salable across space** and, because it’s not debt like fiat, **has no credit risk**. -- an excerpt from the Stone Ridge 2020 Shareholder Letter, its 2-minute version can be found here

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Stone Ridge 2020 Shareholder Letter by Ross Stevens — 2 minute bitcoin

The shareholder letter of 2020, where Ross Stevens, the author and CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, presents a concise overview of the first pr...

Due to **group psychology**, newcomers arrive in waves. Bitcoin's current adoption trend is to increase in value on an exponential trend line with said waves. The waves have a destabilizing effect on the Bitcoin exchange rate: - speculators are unsure of the amplitude or wavelength of adoption - amateurish punters let their excitement as well as subsequent fear overwhelm them. Regardless, once the tide has pulled back and the weak hands have folded, the price is a few multiples higher than before the wave. -- an excerpt from Speculative Attack (2014), its 2-minute version can be found here:

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Speculative Attack Through Bitcoin — 2 minute bitcoin

Good money drives out the bad. Through game theory, Bitcoin adoption, appreciation and weak currency crisis’ will be caused by greedy investors t...

Another massively underappreciated reason for why Bitcoin is volatile - it's decentralized! Centralized sectors have low volatility because it takes just a handful of actors to suppress it. This was literally one of the reasons Rockefeller established the oil cartel he had - the volatility would otherwise hurt the sector too much. Of course the stock market won't have volatility when there is a centralized exchange that stops trading for 15 minutes if the S&P drops 7% in a day (this is real, google it). Of course the bond market won't have volatility when there are only a handful of big institutional players trading it. Under Communism we also had no price volatility... until it collapsed. We have been diluted to believe that lack of volatility is natural and a mark of health. It's the opposite.

Back in the day, new tech was dangerous. You mishandle nitroglycerin and everything blows up for half a mile in every direction. You mishandle nuclear and the whole country gets contaminated. Today, we are spoiled by thinking technology is easy and has little repercussions if you get it wrong. Bitcoin should be treated like old technology. Once you get it wrong, the cost to fix it, along with the reputational damage, is either impossible or prohibitively costly. -- an excerpt from the Saylor Series Episode 2 - the Rise of Man through the Dark and Steel Ages, its 2-minute version can be found here

2 minute bitcoin

The Saylor Series Episode 2 - The Rise of Man through the Dark and Steel Ages (Robert Breedlove's What Is Money Show) — 2 minute bitcoin

The Saylor Series Episode 2 condensed from 13,546 words into just 476. This 2-minute bitcoin read follows Michael Saylor

Bitcoiners are driven by a collective interest in exploring how to evolve money for a better society and make the global financial system more stable and distributed. They can’t fix the holes in the current system because of powerful incumbents who have a strong interest in preserving the status quo, so they compete. But not in a hostile takeover attempt. Bitcoin’s purpose is not to destroy but rather to offer us ***freedom and choice***, and in doing so - spark a conversation about the nature of money and its crucial role in our society. - an excerpt from the 2-minute version here

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An Honest Account of Fiat Money (2018) — 2 minute bitcoin

An honest 2 minute overview of the good and bad of the fiat money system compared to Bitcoin

As you go mine fiat today, remember that there is a greater mission out there - the adoption of sound money (Bitcoin) and the elimination of the crime against humanity - the profoundly unfair fiat money system. Thank you for contributing to this cause.

The State always grows. Participating in the democratic process only empowers it as devotees reward it through votes in exchange for entitlements. Bitcoin challenges the State’s most treasured privilege: **the ability to finance itself through inflation and seignorage**, as well as other repressive tools a large fraction of the world lives under - **capital controls** and **local exchange rate manipulation**. This predictably enraged the State-dependents. It is no coincidence that Bitcoin’s most hysterical critics overwhelmingly benefit from the state: - academics, beneficiaries of the rampant government-guaranteed student loan bubble - (ex-) politicians, who always turn their political clout into personal wealth - journalists who were disrupted by the internet and reduced to simply peddle State messaging - economists, forced to peddle Keynesian narratives for grant and tenure - an excerpt from the 2-minute version of A Most Peaceful revolution, originally posted at

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Bitcoin - A Most Peaceful Revolution (2 minute summary) — 2 minute bitcoin

Bitcoin is a peaceful revolution - an alternative system going against the state