> Before Bitcoin, all digital scarcity was scarcity by authority—authority that can be circumvented or exploited. It was always simulated scarcity. Virtual, not real.

> Bitcoin is the first money that is digital but not virtual. Before Bitcoin, any link between the digital and the physical was always rooted in trust and human interpretation, not physical reality. Bitcoin’s link to the real world is defined by numbers and their mathematical relationships; relationships so extreme, that they can only be brought about by real events in the real world. Consequently, the processes in Bitcoin are not subject to opinion or interpretation.