*CAN there be another BTC? Yes. Will there? Probably not! Think of Bitcoin as a PROTOCOL, not the “thing” (“bitcoins”/“satoshis”) itself. It’s not that there CAN’T be another one. Something else may have worked, had history gone differently. But here we are. History is what it is. We are ***early*** in terms of raw numbers - most people have heard of Bitcoin, but a very small subset holds some, and a smaller subset of THAT group are hardcore Bitcoin-only But a strong foundation is being built. Bitcoin may not be “perfect” - but it’s good enough! It performs the function of separating money from state. People are opting in. Standards are being developed, infrastructure is being built, best practices are emerging. Every new user and use case increases the value proposition of adopting a Bitcoin standard, which attracts new users, who create demand for continued improvements. A virtuous cycle. A positive-sum game. Anchored in the unforgeable truth of physics and mathematics. The only losing move is not to play. Much like driving on the right side of the road, the specifications for electrical outlets, or “righty-tighty-lefty-loosy” in the human-engineered world, or the genetic code and Krebs cycle in biology, the protocol has “going to fixation”. Bitcoin wasn’t the first effort at “digital cash”. But it was the first one that WORKED. It has the properties that are needed to create a fair system that separates money from state. The META-trick was the invention of “digital scarcity”. Proof-of-work + digital signatures + difficulty adjustment + ongoing hashed timechain was Satoshi’s particular implementation. And of course, two features #Bitcoin maybe didn’t “need” as a minimum tech spec for a viable digital cash, but have certainly enhanced it’s memetic fitness: *21 million HARD-CAP *the immaculate conception Technically, another “sound” and “viable in principle” digital cash system could be invented. But the real world, full of real humans, is NOISY! Satoshi effectively threw a basketball from across the ocean, and the trajectory was 99% spot on. As as been said many times elsewhere, not only did Satoshi have a good idea, TECHNICALLY. By appearing from nowhere, and then disappearing the way he did, he gave his seed of an idea some fertilizer and some protection. Like so many great discoveries, the creation and early nurturing of Bitcoin would not have happened the way it did without hard work, incredible foresight, and plenty of dumb luck. Can there be “another Bitcoin”? Maybe. But for those of us who can see the writing on the wall, we are CERTAIN there is ‘t a shorter way to get “there” from “here”, when we define “there” as “separation of money and state”. Bitcoin may not be perfect, but holy shit IT IS GOOD ENOUGH. IT WORKS. IT’S WORKING. Satoshi tossed the ball from 21 million miles away, we just have to tip it in! We just have to not fuck it up.