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?

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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 views

Price needs to let volatility wear off before its next big move. Thinking 30K-40K range for the next 1-2 weeks. Then either 50K straight or after piercing 30K and bouncing back above 30K within 1-2 days.


$27500-$27000 is the key area. If price heads back down to 30K, expect 30K to be breached, fall to that area, and bounce back. FAST. All very fast.


What do I do with this information?

Simple.

I'm trading the range against a core position. Buying when price pushes lower, selling when higher. It's like playing the achordeon. There's always air left inside.

Where exactly?

Nowhere.

I don't use limits for that. $BTC is liquid enough to trade at market without issues.

I'm watching PA, volume and rates for buying and euphoria as reflected in rates for reducing.

Decision making is dynamic. Nothing is set in stone. But most likely if price heads back down to 30K 'll be holding off next time. The gameplan is to have ammo to buy the dip (to redeploy). If 30K breaks absolutely no buying until down to 27Ks or back above 30K.
The is no Devcoin Gold yet. But then again, we've never been one to "peg" to anything. I came across an interesting article about 'recreating' addresses with Bgold that @bitcoincoreorg cut out since 0.13.0 - perhaps one day we can do a similar thing in future Devcoin software :)


https://t.co/cv4UqsaVAK

That being said I hold some Doge @blockio in an "A-" address myself after 0. 1. "9-" versions :). Don't believe Bitcoin Core the Coin (Utility) is the only visible value on Core chain. Color me crazy. I believe in script. And FOSS that is used to export📜


And that's just a guy @MeniRosenfeld who put his identity and ideas out in the public to build a Web of Trust back when the web was much less of a safe place. His identity at stake and the implementation of a branch in source code by another unsung hero @killerstorm reveals value

Some of those who set up our bright future quietly implemented it in a branch on the main source code before it was officially the Bitcoin Core main repository, before a "Bitcoin Core" entity existed

Just because Bitcoin Core nodes dominate and do not read "smart" colored satoshis or display them, doesn't mean they do not exist on chain. The example of recreating P2WSH-over-P2SH address from BTC https://t.co/ZWSP2MO5bY wallets in Bitcoin Core Gold I shared proves -rescan's $
The defi matrix

As each asset class goes on-chain, it can be stored in a digital wallet. And it can be traded against other such assets. Not just cryptocurrencies, but national digital currencies, personal tokens, etc.

We’re about to enter an age of global monetary competition.

The defi matrix is the table of all pair wise trades. It’s the fiat/stablecoin pairs, the fiat/crypto pairs, the crypto/crypto pairs, and much more besides.

Uniswap-style automatic market making for everything. Every possession you have, constantly marked to market by ~2040.

More liquidity, less currency?

This is an interesting point. Cash doesn’t make you money. In fact, it can lose you money in an inflating environment.

Reliable, 24/7 mark-to-market on everything is hard — but if achieved, means less % of assets in cash.


AMMs boost BTC. Here's why.

- All assets trade against all assets in the defi matrix
- Automated market makers give liquidity for rare pairs
- Everything is marked-to-market 24/7
- Value of cash drops, as you can liquidate instantly
- The new no-op is to keep your assets in BTC

Basically, automated market makers like @Uniswap boost BTC in the long term, because they allow *everything* to be priced in BTC terms, and *anyone* to switch out of BTC into their asset of choice.

Though in practice this may mean WBTC/RenBTC [or ETH!] rather than BTC itself.

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