1/ The Price of Bitcoin

- Why price is entirely what matters
- How the price helps build Bitcoin

A thread👇

2/ Marketing viral loop

“A viral loop is a mechanism that drives continuous referrals for continuous growth.

It’s how you drive your existing customers to refer others to your brand, and in turn, get those new customers to tell even more people about you." - @ReferralRock
3/ Most of us heard about Bitcoin in 2013, 2017, when friends and family were talking about the rapid price increase. It’s through this viral loop that Bitcoin grows in adoption.
4/ The price is that signal to folks that Bitcoin is interesting, solves a problem, and that others are recognizing it as a new money. If Bitcoin’s price had stayed at $100 none of us would be here. While there is volatility, we keep seeing higher lows = long term trend upwards.
5/ Satoshi built a viral loop into Bitcoin.

“As the number of users grows, the value per coin increases. It has the potential for a positive feedback loop; as users increase, the value goes up, which could attract more users to take advantage of the increasing value.” - Satoshi
6/ Satoshi wrote this before Bitcoin was even worth $0.01. In the chart below, we have Bitcoin’s price, inflation rate (aka issuance of new coins), and halvings which are the dotted lines. As we can see, a bull run has occurred after each halving.
7/ It is hypothesized that halvings induce these cycles (a reduction in new supply). The idea being a reduction in supply + increase in demand = number go up.
8/ What is unique to Bitcoin vs gold or oil is that there is no supply response to increases in demand.

This means that no more Bitcoin are produced as demand for it increases. With gold or oil, they can be sourced from increasingly more expensive/difficult places when demand ⬆️
9/ User Adoption

In bull runs, user adoption increases. For Bitcoin, as SoV, adoption = buying and HODLing. As we can see with the below chart of Coinbase users, 2017 and late 2020 had enormous increases in users as Bitcoin price started to climb.

https://t.co/6P3WIDxGBU
10/ Funding

With the price increase, more funding is thrown at the space to support a variety of existing and new businesses: exchanges, wallets, data providers, etc. This ensures that there are easy ways for people to buy Bitcoin, store it, and run full nodes.
11/ As we can see in the below chart, in 2018 there was an enormous surge in fundraising activity (Late 2017/early 2018 was the bull run).
12/ Liquidity

As the price rises, so does trading volume. When Bitcoin becomes more liquid, that enables larger and larger participants (ex: Institutional traders/Telsa) to buy substantial amounts of Bitcoin without too much slippage.
13/ This leads to a flywheel effect: as Bitcoin’s liquidity increases, the number of potential new traders does as well (more can get in and out of the position).
14/ Bitcoin core development

The below chart represents code commits for Bitcoin over time. As Bitcoin’s price has increased, so has developer activity and review of Bitcoin core code.
15/ Patron/corporate funding of Bitcoin developers has dramatically increased over the years as well. On the corporate side here is the breakdown of funding as of a year ago:
16/ And Bitcoindevlist is a more grassroots approach to core developer funding where you can fund different Bitcoin developers directly to their personal wallets. With the price appreciating, more of them receive funding!
17/ Security Model

As the price of BTC increases, the value of the block reward increases as well, which incentivizes miners to bring more hashrate online to mine. The higher the hash rate of a cryptocurrency network, the more expensive to 51% attack.
18/ In the early stages of the network, Bitcoin miners are rewarded more heavily by the block subsidy (newly minted coins) than transaction fees. With Bitcoin’s disinflationary monetary policy, approximately every 4 years the block subsidy drops by 50%.
19/ This creates both volatility and a price increase: if demand remains constant (or increases), the reduction in supply means demand is chasing less freshly minted Bitcoins hitting the market. Reduction in supply + increase in demand = price go up.
20/ While the two represent the same security budget, the block subsidy and transaction fees are very different. For the block subsidy, its value is both as a rational way to issue new Bitcoins and as a viral FOMO loop built into the protocol....
21/... which increases the number and network effect of believers in Bitcoin. It further stretches out the need for transaction fees to solely provide security. Hence why it’s called a “subsidy."
22/ Over the long term, a tradeoff occurs: as network effect becomes larger, demand for block space increases, thus decreasing the need for a block subsidy.

We’re seeing the miner % of revenue from fees start to climb up in the 2017 and 2020/2021 bull runs. Bitcoin is fine.
23/ Conclusion

Bitcoin’s price is the singular function that enables Bitcoin to grow in user adoption, liquidity, funding, security, and core development.

It is the most important aspect of Bitcoin. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
24/ Enjoy this tweet storm?

Subscribe to my newsletter to get it first on Thursdays!

https://t.co/TYJDErcY6C

More from Dan Held

1/ [December Bitcoin yield update]

Over the last year and a half, I’ve earned ~1.2BTC with various yield generating services to earn an average of 5% on 30 BTC.

Here’s my journey and how to guide👇

2/ Here are the ways you can earn yield:

Lending (Easiest/most popular)
Yield: 3-6%
- Ledn:
https://t.co/4x0YATuQ0v
- BlockFi: https://t.co/90Xtg2cNka

Covered calls (Harder)
Yield: 1-80%
- Deribit: https://t.co/2iQVkXlylP
- LedgerX:

3/ Earning a yield enables you to stack more sats (what I’m doing), or reduce the temptation to sell your coin through earning an income.

The yield you earn comes with RISK!

Below is my current allocation for Dec (will update MoM)

(yellow = changes)

https://t.co/PZwVYs8lFT


4a/ [Nov > Dec Changelog]

- Covered calls: approx. 4 BTC was in $40k 12/28/20 contracts. Those closed without them being exercised (a good outcome for me). However, I was nervous about my January 1/28 $50k contract so I decided to close out my position at a small loss.

4b/ [Nov > Dec Changelog]

- In process of reallocating the 5 BTC (probably will be a lending platform).
- I incorrectly had my Ledn rate at 6.5%, it's 6.25%

More from Bitcoin

$BTC: Two Bitcoin FUDs to address this Thanksgiving weekend:

1. China PlusToken FUD: Old news. Please see linked thread.

2. U.S. Treasury FUD: Read thread below...


1/ These news are much more relevant, as they imply severe trade-offs for people who want to keep their bitcoins undoxxed, with the cost and risks of doing so. I would not disqualify the tweet as mere FUD in the sense that what he posted is false. It should be taken seriously.

2/ For all we know, his decision of making it public before TG weekend may come out of the urgency of informing CT of a poignant anti-Bitcoin move by a Trump administration trying to cut lose ends before leaving office—not just "price manipulation" as I've seen suggested around.

3/ It implies the acceleration of a process already planned for for months in advance, not something he just came up with to "crash the market."

4/ In practicality, assuming this passes, it will have two major consencuences:

a. Armstrong's analysis is correct. And I would go further in saying, this regulation would leave the U.S. severely handicapped to continue to be the leader in the cryptocurrency industry worldwide.
I have a different take on bitcoin, tether, and dollars

Can also speak with authority on nation state violence

"Nothing makes you feel more free than taking another person's freedom"


and @profplum99 concerns with tether, bitcoin, and decentralization make sense yet I remain long BTC

They are correct on force, I worked in decentralized societies, they are dangerous because the state does not have a monopoly on violence

For those in the first world who have never seen a milita ride out of the desert, kill and enslave farmers, and the government cannot stop it because the 21st century slave trade pays better than the UN, the reality of decentralization is might equals right

I know, that isn't the decentralized future Buterin talks about while wearing a t-shirt with a cat fighting space invaders on it (love those shirts)

But we need to be real, disrupting the global centralized economy won't be like Uber putting taxis out of work

It will be war and faminine level disruption as old empires come alive again

For decentralization to rise the centralized global power of the last 70 years (US Hegemony) has to weaken

Yes we will be rich, but as the Big Short says,

"you can be happy, just don't fucking dance"

You May Also Like