Pedantic, yet amusing fun fact.
The last Satoshi will never be fully mined and so it will never reach 21M BTC
Discussion
But it will reach $21M
Maybe 🤔
I wrote an article about that:
nostr:naddr1qqxnzdenxgerjdeexqmrzdfkqgswswmx4rkj6d7q05dtafhpkqq2z42fc62s37jvtp642m2jkpfxc2crqsqqqa28tpmx5h
https://habla.news/u/mhardcastle@nostrplebs.com/1732297906156
If Bitcoin only backs assets, then it can't exceed, or even approach the total value of world wealth, currently $454T
At $21M for 21M coins, this approaches world wealth.
If Bitcoin is used to back debt, then you can add a further $315T of value, so if we assume $100T of asset value + $300T of debt value, then we approach $21M
However, I'm not certain Bitcoin can survive being used to back debt.
Gold never did that.
What do you mean? Gold is fine, the people that got stuck with fiat is who didn’t survive. Unlike with gold, people can take final settlement of bitcoin and use it without the need of paper to make it go faster.
I don't understand your statement?
Which part?
I assumed you meant gold didn’t survive backing debt because of IOUs and centralization. Is this not what you meant?
No, not even close.
What did you mean?
Gold was never used to back debt.
The gold standard, which existed until 1971 was used to back assets.
Bitcoin is just starting to be used to back debt, if you read the article in full it should explain everything clearly to you.
I don’t agree with the statement that gold was not used to back debt (either directly or indirectly). But that aside, bitcoin is not gold so trying to predict what will happen to bitcoin based on what will happen to gold is unproductive.
Bitcoin is not digital gold.
Thank you for your feedback.
If you are still interested, can I suggest you read this part of the thread:
Otherwise, I am happy to agree to disagree.
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I read that part. I did not understand the need to state that gold did not back debt which did not promise to be backed by gold.
At the end of the day companies and countries held and still hold gold as a reserve asset. They can use gold any other treasury asset to male good on their promises (debt). They are unlikely to do so if they can print what they borrowed.
Make*
You’re still not correctly stating my position or any statement I’ve made.
Nor do I understand any statement you are attempting to make.
I think we have gone as far as we can in this discussion.
We appear to have a communication problem, I apologise for not being able to explain myself to you correctly.
I wish you a nice day.
No worries.
Saylor’s framework is most useful imo: Bitcoin aims to demonetize global assets (worth $450 trillion) used as stores of value. What happens with debt in this scenario is anyone’s guess.
Gold did indeed back debt (or at least serve as it's only real alternative) for thousands of years.
The real question is: Can 21st century civilization survive a commodity-constrained economy?
If you read the full article, it'll clarifying the full meaning.
If you lend me $10 worth of gold, then I can pay you back $10 of money if it's backed with gold - the gold standard.
If you lend me $10 worth of gold, and I pay you back with unbacked fiat, the repayment is arbitrary.
Like for like you can back any backed money with any asset.
Without a backed money, you can only repay an asset with an asset, otherwise paying with fiat, the global books don't balance.
When I say gold was never used to back debt, this is the debt I am referring to.
Without that context, your statement is true.
Nostr growing pains.. didn't see the post you were replying to! 😅🙂
Pedantry means going one step further than necessary, so let me end with this:
It won't even reach 20M because of Satoshi and others who lost their keys.
„Effectively“
More fun facts, even if Satoshi comes back with his keys, he will never be able to spend the 50 BTC from the genesis block as the public key was manually created to bootstrap the process and therefore has no corresponding private key!
