"Why is it that two people can't generate the same #bitcoin private key?"

"How can a wallet generate a private key offline, and be sure that nobody else has picked that private key before?"

"How do I know that nobody else is using the same seed as me?"

"How do I know that nobody else can figure out or guess which private keys I'm using?"

- A #bitcoin private key is a 256-bit number, or 2^256

that's the number 2 multiplied by two 256 times

- Exponents are hard for humans to wrap their brains around them; half of 2^256 is 2^255, not 2^128

- 2^256 expressed as a decimal number is 10^77

- That's the number 1 and seventy-seven 0's after it;

10X10, 77 times

How big is 10^77?

- There are between 10^16 and 10^20 grains of sand (in all of the deserts and all of the beaches and on all of the ocean floor) on Earth

- There are 10^20 molecules of silica in a single grain of sand

- Multiplying the number of molecules in one grain of sand (10^20) by the number of grains of sand on Earth (10^20) is 10^40

- If you assume there's ten planets in the solar system, and assume they're all made of sand; 10^40 molecules of silica on all the grains of sand multiplied by ten is 10^41

- There are a hundred billion stars in the milky way galaxy, or 10^11

- 10^11 stars in the milky way multiplied by all of the molecules of silica in all the beaches on all of the planets in all of the milky way is 10^52

- There are perhaps a hundred billion *galaxies* in the observable universe, or 10^11

- 10^11 galaxies multiplied by all of the molecules of silica in all the beaches/oceans in all of the planets across the solar system in all of the stars in all of the galaxies is...10^63

- In astrophysics, the "Eddington number" (or NEdd) is the number of atoms in the "observable universe"

- The observable universe is just the part of the universe that has light that will ever reach us, or the matter that is all within the observation cone of space time that we occupy as humans; 13.8 billion light years across

- *ALL* matter - every atom of hydrogen in the entire observable universe - is approximately 10^77

- Current estimates put the NEdd at 10^80

- 10^77 happens to be the center of the range of estimates of the NEdd, and is the maximum number of possible #bitcoin private keys

That means that every atom of matter, in the entire observable universe of over a hundred billion galaxies, could have its own #bitcoin private key

tl;dr:

Pick an atom; any atom

See if someone else picks the same one

#gm

Argentina will likely go through a hyperinflationary event soon. Our pontiff is an Argentinean. Although he has not even visited his home in the ten years of his reign, I am hoping that this event at a minimum catches his attention.

I believe the Church should condemned fiat currency as a lie and theft of the highest degree. Fiat is a tool for mass slavery of a citizenry by their government.

Nicole Oresme, 1325-1382AD, wrote a treatise on money called 'De Moneta' or 'The Mint'. In it he condemns altering money and profiting from said changes, which is identical to printing fiat. Just read the titles of chapters XV-XVIII.

Can we not say that removing the backing of the USD by gold is exactly what Oresme condemns in chapters VII-XIV?

"""

VIII On Alterations in Coinage in general

IX Change of Form

X Change of Ratio

XI Change of Name

XII Change of Weight

XIII Change of Material

"""

Money, at its essence, is information, a record or account of good done to one another. Gold was a really good money, as it does not decay, is difficult to fake, is measurable and somewhat divisible, but it does not transport well. To represent gold paper money was used, but gold was the actual money, not the paper. Paper was the currency of the money, the form in which it is exchanged*.

By removing the backing of the dollar, the information of good one does for others ceased to be represented in gold and became instead a fiat, a dictation of the government which only says "I'm worth a dollar". This was and still is a theft of the largest magnitude, an entire nations earnings and savings in the currency robbed of them.

This grave sin was orders of magnitude worse than what only might have been committed by the inspiration of Oresme's treatise, a French king who inquired with Oresme about the ethical nature of modifying the money of his subjects. He might have stolen a small portion of the money from his people, but our governments today have stolen much more.

In addition to this, the governments now allow local banks to commit similar theft worse than usury in the form of fractional reserve lending. This further multiplies the available currency another order of magnitude, and possibly more than one after it compounds, and further robs the citizens of their former wealth.

We ought to implore the Church to condemn fiat currencies and fractional reserve lending as fraudulent, a grave sin committed upon a people.

In the meantime, a solution must be pursued, which I believe to be Bitcoin. It is not a fiat currency, because it relies not on an authority to lend value to it, but derives it's value directly from a society's desire for it. It is very difficult to create, highly liquid and divisible, has no decay, and will maintain its value.

The De Moneta of Nicholas Oresme and English Mint Documents, PDF and epub here: