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National News See other National News Articles Title: Why a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Is a Bailout of the Big Boys By Catherine Austin Fitts Table of Contents 1. What Is Bitcoin? 2. How Many Americans Own Bitcoin? 3. How Many Bitcoin Can Be Created? 4. Who Maintains the Bitcoin Blockchain? 5. Who Owns Bitcoin? 6. How Has Bitcoin Been Marketed? 7. Who Is Proposing the Creation of Bitcoin Strategic Reserves? 8. Cui Bono? The Bailout of the Big Boys 9. How Can I Learn More? 1. What Is Bitcoin? Key Points: Bitcoin is a private digital currency. There are 19.8MM Bitcoin outstanding. The Bitcoin market capitalization is $1.9 trillion. The price is extremely volatile. Summary: Bitcoin (BTC) is a cryptocurrency—a private digital currency that does not depend on a central bank, commercial bank, or government to manage or take responsibility for it. The Bitcoin design was published in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, presumed to be a pseudonym for an unknown or group of unknown software developers. Bitcoin use began in 2009 on an open source basis. Bitcoin transactions are recorded on a public distributed ledger called a blockchain. As of December 24, 2024, the total number of Bitcoins in circulation was reported to be 19,800,734, and the total market capitalization of Bitcoin was $1.9 trillion, making Bitcoin the most popular form of cryptocurrency. Bitcoin’s price and market capitalization are highly volatile—the price of a Bitcoin has ranged during 2024 from a low of approximately $38,000 to a high of $108,000. Sources: Bitcoin (Wikipedia) Cryptocurrency Prices and Market Capitalization (Coinbase) 2. How Many Americans Own Bitcoin? Key Points: As of 2023, approximately 14.6% of Americans owned crypto. Approximately six in 10 Americans (63%) say they have little to no confidence that current ways to invest in, trade, or use cryptocurrencies are reliable and safe. Summary: As of 2023, approximately 14.6% of American adults are estimated to own cryptocurrency, with three times more men owning crypto than women. According to a Pew Research Center study published in October 2024: “Roughly six-in-ten Americans (63%) say they have little to no confidence that current ways to invest in, trade or use cryptocurrencies are reliable and safe. This includes three-in-ten adults who say they are not at all confident, and a third who say they are not very confident. Just 5% of adults are extremely or very confident in cryptocurrencies, and 18% are somewhat confident. These findings are largely similar to what the Center found in March 2023.”1 Sources: How Many Americans Own Crypto? (Coinweb, 2024 statistics) Majority of Americans Aren’t Confident in the Safety and Reliability of Cryptocurrency (Pew Research Center) 3. How Many Bitcoin Can Be Created? Key Points: Although Bitcoin is promoted as a currency that cannot be inflated, there is no firm limit on the creation of more than the alleged 21MM Bitcoin limit. Summary: Bitcoins are created by Bitcoin mining. This is described by Investopedia as follows: “Bitcoin mining is a network-wide competition to generate a cryptographic solution that matches specific criteria. When a correct solution is reached, a reward in the form of bitcoin and fees for the work done is given to the miner(s) who reached the solution first.”2 The initial Bitcoin design was set up to create 21MM Bitcoin, of which 19.8MM are officially reported to have been created as of December 2024. However that limit can be changed—it is by no means firm. There is no law, regulation, or enforcement mechanism that limits the number of Bitcoins that can be mined, and those in control of the stated limit are software programmers, in a system that operates solely on trust. There is no way to audit or confirm the existence of the total number of Bitcoins that holders believe they own. BlackRock is the sponsor of the largest Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF)—the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT). An ETF is a securities vehicle formed as a trust designed to be purchased by investors through the brokerage system and stock and bond markets. The idea behind a Bitcoin ETF is that the investor buys shares in the ETF and the trust uses the proceeds to buy and hold Bitcoin through a custodial arrangement. Launched in January 2024, BlackRock’s IBIT ETF has grown to a market capitalization of $48 billion. It is described on Yahoo! Finance as follows: “The shares are intended to constitute a simple means of making an investment similar to an investment in bitcoin rather than by acquiring, holding and trading bitcoin directly on a peer-to-peer or other basis or via a digital asset exchange.”3 BlackRock describes the investment objective as, “The iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF seeks to reflect generally the performance of the price of bitcoin.” BlackRock Fund Advisors, as the trustee of the IBIT trust, is subject to U.S. securities laws governing disclosure to investors because shares in IBIT are securities. Rule 10b-5 under the Securities Exchange Act requires that any information material to an investment decision be disclosed to investors in considering whether to purchase or sell shares. Blackrock recently published a video4 on Bitcoin that included a disclaimer that “There is no guarantee that Bitcoin’s 21 million supply cap will not be changed.” Interestingly, the IBIT prospectus5 includes a reference to a legal opinion on certain tax matters, but there is no legal opinion about the alleged share limit and no disclosure as to the risks of the investment in IBIT shares as there would be in, for example, a prospectus for an investment in common stock or bonds. BlackRock’s disclosure echos statements6 by investor Charlie Munger in 2017 warning of the “flexibility” of the Bitcoin issuance limit, as well as a recent statement7 by entrepreneur Peter Thiel, who implied that he did not see where the investors would come from to keep the speculation in Bitcoin going. Poster Comment: This continues on at source. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 4.
#1. To: Horse, Pinguinite, 4um (#0)
(Edited)
You better chill out on talkin' bad about BitCoin, Horse. Pin is marshalling hit teams in Ecuador and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador that is running his country on BitCoin is combining his forces with Neil's. Now that Pinguinite has assumed control of Ecuador and that The El Presidente of Columbia has relinquished to him a corridor to Panama, that will give the iron-fisted digit bender control of Panama and the Panama Canal on his relentless march northward. Bukele's forces are moving south and should meet up with Neil's near the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Never underestimate the power of BitCoin. Prez Pedo (in a simpering voice): Oooooh, you better stop. Pinguinite: Who do you think holds your $36 trillion in debt, faggot pedo man?
The article is correct that the current cap of 21 million bitcoin (or whatever) could be removed at a future date. But the article's implication that a privileged few BTC programmers could decide that on their is NOT correct. It is one thing to modify a copy of the bitcoin software to remove or extend that cap, but it is quite another to expect the world's network of bitcoin miners to agree to accept those changes. They do not have to. They could choose to continue using the version of BTC software that keeps the cap in place. And in free market fashion, every miner is free to choose which version of the BTC software to continue with. If all agree to the change, fine, then the cap is lifted. If no miners accept it, then the changes are dead in the water. If some miners go each way, then what occurs is called a "fork" of the BTC blockchain. It divides like a bacteria cell and there are then 2 versions of BTC in existence, one with a production cap, and the other newer version without a cap. Everyone that had BTC on the original blockchain now has the same amount of BTC on both blockchains (twice the wealth and fun). From that point forward, the free market decides how much value each has. If the free market sends the price of one to zero, that version dies and the other wins. Sounds pretty capitalistic to me. But the current version of BTC won't actually even run out of BTC to mine until about 2140. AD. So I don't expect we'll have this issue in our current lifetimes. After that, BTC mining will pay rewards in transaction fees only.
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