April 18, 2025 • 47 mins
This episode of the Bitcoin Infinity Academy covers Sovereignty Through Mathematics Chapter 4: Proof of Work
The discussion covers the intrinsic value of proof of work, its evolutionary metaphor, and why Bitcoin's finite supply and difficulty adjustment algorithm make it superior to other assets like gold and fiat currencies. The hosts also explore some thought experiments, including Bitcoin's role in a simulated reality.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Bitcoin InfinityAcademy, brought to you by the
Plan B Network and Bit Box.
This is, uh, chapter five,I believe, of, uh, Bitcoin
Sovereignty through mathematics.
My first book on Bitcoin, I'm Kwan andI'm here as always with Luke De Wolf.
How are we today, Luke?
Oh, we are fantastic.
Thank you for asking.
(00:21):
Good.
Good morning, and I'm excited to be here.
How are you?
All good.
Uh, it's a lovely morning here.
Oh, no, it's not a lovely morning.
It's a shitty morning, but it's lovely.
Anyway, because we're doing this.
Absolutely agree with that.
Yeah.
It's a bit cloudy outside for me also.
Alright, uh, shall we, uh, firstjust remind our, all of our
listeners, how you can get involved?
(00:41):
You can go to our Geyer page, GeyerFund slash Project slash Infinity for
all the information about how you canjoin the academy and get involved.
And as a reminder, we're also releasingall of the chapters for free on Noster.
So the links will be in allof the descriptions for this
and you can read along there.
am I forgetting anything?
(01:02):
Knu.
I don't think so.
So we can, uh, we can just jump intothis chapter called Proof of Work
Here and see, see what's in this one.
Absolutely wonderful.
All right, let's do it.
Proof of work.
Zoom out of time for a while andimagine how the antlers of a magnificent
(01:22):
moose buck evolved into being.
The main purpose of big antlers innature is believed to be a way for
the buck to impress potential mates.
They're somewhat akin to thefeathers of a peacock or the shroud
of any male bird, for that matter.
The animal is trying to signal thatit can thrive in its environment.
Despite its enormous appendage.
(01:44):
It's there to tell the potentialmate that this specific specimen will
bring her strong, healthy offspring.
These are all evolutionary metaphors.
Of course, the animal itself isprobably unaware of signaling anything.
For such antlers to evolve into beinga whole lot of moose will have to die
early, or at least not get a chance toreproduce over thousands of generations.
(02:08):
In other words, a lot of resources needto be wasted, all of this for the animal
to prove its value to potential spouses.
Therefore, from the survivingmoose's point of view, the
aforementioned resources weresacrificed rather than wasted.
Good start.
I see where this is going.
And always love a moose metaphor.
(02:30):
Of course you do.
You're a cano.
Uh, so isn't it an elk metaphor?
No, it's a moose in, in Canada.
Right.
And an elk.
So where, where, where are
both.
There's both.
Okay.
It would be reindeer though.
If we were, if we weretalking Scandinavian.
And is the plural of moose Meese.
It's definitely Meese.
Yes.
Alright.
And elk and many elk.
(02:50):
Elk and many elk.
Yes, that's that's correct.
Actually, Eskimos is thecorrect plural of elk.
Uh, I believe that's, uh, Inuit, isn't
That's politically correct.
Okay.
Okay then.
Alright.
Uh.
We'll have some editing todo already here, I think.
I think we can mo leave most of that in.
(03:10):
I'll right then.
anyway, the, this is one exampleof many in nature of, of proof
of work, uh, especially in birds.
I, if I'm, if I'm not mistaken, I mean,I'm not a biologist by, by any stretch of
the imagination, but from what I know ofevolutionary theory, this, this is one of
the things that was hardest to explain,like, uh, traits in animals and plants
(03:34):
that didn't, didn't have an, an obvious.
Survival mechanism thing attachedto them, but they figured out
later that it's used for the, thatit's, uh, actually proof of work.
So the, the feathers of a peacock,for instance, or, or strange
mating rituals in birds, they'reactually there to, to uh, um.
(03:56):
for the animal to signal to theother animal that they are capable
of more than meets the eye.
Uh, uh, and this is, uh, a verygood me metaphor for what's,
what proof of work is in Bitcoin.
I believe like You could, from a certainperspective, you could say that it's
actually proof of results rather thanproof of work because it's only the,
(04:17):
the actual valid block that counts.
so it's more alluding to work thanproving work because you could be super
lucky with your bit X or somethingand just find the correct block after
having tried a handful of times.
But, uh.
Usually, uh, if the, if the, uh,difficulty is high enough, it takes,
(04:39):
trillions of, uh, of guesses per secondfor the network to find the correct block.
So, so this is, yeah, at thevery core of what Bitcoin is.
The maybe also, uh, like make thispoint that, um, everything in Bitcoin
is probabilistic, so reason it takes10 minutes to find the next block on
average is that it's, uh, the probabilityis set, uh, in such a way that, uh, it
(05:04):
takes on average 10 minutes and everytwo weeks It's, uh, recalibrated with
the difficulty adjustment algorithm,so the, the 10 minutes are dependent
on these two weeks, and the two weeksare dependent on the 10 minutes.
So it's a, a loop thingy going on there.
And it's one of, like, I've nevermet a person that can accurately,
accurately describe the difficultyadjustment algorithm and sometimes,
(05:27):
uh, and simultaneously be againstBitcoin or have good arguments
for why Bitcoin doesn't work.
Because that's when it usually, whenit actually clicks, is when you get
the difficulty adjustment algorithm.
so, um, what else to say about that?
Um, no, I think, I think that's it.
That's great.
And I mean, this chapter isa great explanation of the
(05:51):
proof of work mechanism.
And so I think here, well, firstof all, you've, you've gone and
dug into the actual Bitcoin parts.
I think we'll, we'll cover it inthe upcoming I. Or paragraphs.
But yeah, it's great.
I mean, I, I think just firstof all, on this evolutionary
metaphor, it's ingenious.
I hadn't ever thought of it quite thisway myself, that that would be akin
(06:14):
to this whole proof of work thing.
That evolution over time is akin to theproof of work versus proof of results.
Thing like the, the result is that you geta better chance at reproducing something
like that, and it takes a, a long time.
It's not an exact perfect corollary,but it, it does have, elements of what
(06:37):
evolution actually is because there's,there's misconceptions about evolution.
It's not necessarily exactly about this.
You have a better chance of reproducing.
It's also an aggregate.
It's like you say, it'sa, it's probabilistic.
Uh, something that maybe makes,one individual moose, for example,
capable of having an offspring mightmean that they don't have enough food
(06:59):
to go around for the pack of meese.
And that that little particularsubplate of meese dies out.
Uh.
Right, but, but it, so it's the thingsthat actually work over time, not in
single generations either, which Ithink is another point that's along
the lines of what you were saying here.
Yeah, and I think the biggest,most common misconception about
(07:21):
evolution in general is the timescale,because these timescales are huge.
They're enormous.
They take like hundreds of thousands,even millions of years for, for things
to, to, to come into being, and, andthere is so much trial and error.
So like it's not survival of the fittest,it's survival of whoever survives.
For whatever reason they may survive.
(07:43):
Like, uh, and this is true on a cellularlevel as well as on a, a pack level.
Uh, so, so there's a lot of thingsgoing on there, and it's, uh, widely
misunderstood, but I, I think the, uh,proof of work metaphor works really well.
Exactly, and we, we just had a questionin the chat about how is it possible.
For a bid x to find a block, and Imean, the, the answer is that it's
(08:06):
an extremely low probability, right?
It's, it's extremely unlikelythat a Bid X would find a block,
but it is possible technically.
No, e exactly.
Back to, uh, that's agood question, by the way.
And, uh, there's, uh, it's,it's all about probabilistic.
I mean, you could do the hash by handand find the correct block if you were
(08:27):
really, really, really amazingly lucky.
Uh, but the probability is solow, so it's not worth the effort.
And that's at the core of what Bitcoin is.
Like.
The, the, the only reason.
You say that you own the Bitcoin isthat you find it very improbable that
someone else holds the same privatekey, but it's not actual ownership,
(08:47):
it's just knowing a number I.
Yep, exactly.
Um, nothing, nothing else to add here.
Maybe let's get into the, uh, specificsthat you, you wrote about previously.
All right, onto the next one.
The proof of work algorithm inBitcoin does a similar thing.
It enables miners to sacrifice a lotof electricity, a real world resource
(09:11):
to find a certain number, therebyproving that they had to commit a
lot of time and effort to do this.
Time, by the way, is thescarcest of all resources.
Because of all this, a Bitcoinminer is very reluctant to
sell Bitcoin at a net loss.
The electricity has already been usedwhen the Bitcoin pops into existence,
(09:32):
and the miner has no other means ofgetting his money back then by selling
the Bitcoin for more than the cost ofthe electricity it took to produce them.
This is assuming that the mining rigitself has already been paid for.
Proof of work is a way of convertingcomputing power into money in a sense.
Yes, these rigs consume a lot ofenergy, but the energy consumed
(09:54):
correlates directly to the actualvalue of the created token.
Any decrease in the energy expenditurewould also lead to a decrease in the
value of the token, not necessarilyin the price, but the actual value.
This is the main reason miningalgorithms can't be less resource
consuming or more energy efficient.
(10:15):
Wasting energy is the whole point.
No waste.
No proof of commitment.
Interesting.
What are your thoughts?
Yeah.
Um.
If, if you found yourself in a darkcave, uh, and you had a, a, a flashlight
and you, and you found a gold bar, andyou found a piece of paper with a bunch
(10:39):
of zeros followed by strange letters,like what would intrigue you the most?
So this might soundlike a strange question.
What, what I'm alluding to is thatanyone who understands how extremely
hard it is to find the hash of aBitcoin block and a hash beginning
without many zeros, can instantly, uh,see how much energy must have been,
(11:03):
uh, sacrificed to find the block.
So, so that thing in itself islike, should trigger the question
in your mind, why, why on earth wasthis person willing to sacrifice
so much effort to find this number?
It's weird, isn't it?
And that should trigger all theother questions and intrigue you
(11:24):
enough to figure out what Bitcoinis and, and come to the, holy shit,
this is super valuable Conclusion.
But, uh, yeah, there, there's a lot here.
Um, some of the terms I wouldn't haveused, maybe if I wrote this now with
the value on the price in the, in theend here, I think the, the, there's
(11:44):
a lot of bad metaphors, uh, aroundfor Bitcoin's scarcity or finiteness
on how to, how to like convert.
electricity into, you know, what,digital energy and all of this stuff.
I don't really like those termsbecause that's not actually what it is.
All it is is like onespecific part of a finite pie.
(12:07):
Uh, and, uh, that finite pie,it's, it's valuable because
people think it's valuable.
Like everything else, it's,uh, value is subjective.
So the value part is, uh, iffy.
But, um, I'd say.
What it can do is convert energy into avery specific part of a very specific pie.
(12:29):
you know, I think themetaphors are still helpful.
We've, we've been over this a little bit,that it's, it's still often helpful for,
I. newer Bitcoiners or pre Bitcoinerseven to understand what's going on.
But yeah, it's not.
Literally, for example, a battery, ornot literally energy being converted
(12:49):
into money, but it, it is a way forenergy that would otherwise not be used
to be consumed in a productive way.
And in, in that sense, it's asclose to a battery or energy being
converted into money as possible.
Uh, and the, the uses for this are,are, they are, they're bountiful now.
(13:11):
Uh.
No, I, I'd say energy being converted intomoney is a correct metaphor, uh, uh, but
calling it digital energy is not, uh, sothe, I I tweeted a thing yesterday, uh,
along these lines by the way, uh, whichis how I'm thinking about this nowadays,
and that is when orange peeling avoidmetaphors that attract mid widths, but
(13:31):
repel edges of the bell curve people.
So, so that's my advice because it'smore important to get the edges of the
bell curve people into Bitcoin than itis to get the middle of the bell curve
people into Bitcoin, in my opinion.
Uh, because what you want isthe rednecks with pickup trucks
and don't tread on me shotguns.
(13:52):
Uh, and you want the really, reallyclever people and everyone else will
follow eventually if you just get those.
So, so like this is what to thinkabout when getting, when, when.
When figuring out metaphorsfor the different functions
of the Bitcoin network.
Uh, in my opinion.
Very good.
(14:12):
I think there are some people whoare making the arguments for the mid
widths and are just trying to get asmany people into Bitcoin as possible.
But I think we need bothapproaches, basically.
Yeah.
Uh, and, uh, but I prefer theother approach, like the mid
widths will eventually come anywayand, uh, that's good to remember.
I.
Point.
(14:34):
Let's, let's move on to the next one here.
Sorry.
If anyone go for, um, like,I, I don't really mean width.
I mean middle of the bell curveperson, uh, that's much less offensive.
Somehow.
All right.
Onto the next one.
The fundamental principles ofBitcoin were set in stone in
(14:55):
2008 and block number zero.
The so-called Genesis blockwas mined in January, 2009.
In Bitcoin, a block of transactionsis created every 10 minutes in
its first four years of existence.
These blocks included a 50Bitcoin block reward given to
the miner who found the block.
(15:16):
four years, this reward is halved sothat the maximum amount of Bitcoin
that can ever be claimed can neverexceed just short of 21 million.
2016th block, or roughly every two weeks,the difficulty of finding a new block
is recalibrated so that a block willbe found every 10 minutes on average.
(15:36):
The value of this featureand the impact it has on coin
issuance is often understated.
It is one of the features of Bitcointhat separates it from gold and
other assets in one of the mostsubtle, yet most powerful ways.
the price of gold or silver or oilor any other asset goes up, producing
that asset becomes more profitableand more resources are allocated
(15:59):
to produce more of it faster.
This in turn, evens out the price.
As the total supply ofsaid asset increases.
Gold has been able to maintain orincrease its value long-term over time
because of its high stock to flow ratio.
Stock refers to the supply of anasset currently available on the
market Flow refers to the amountadded to the stock per time unit.
(16:21):
The bigger the stock in relationto the flow, the less of an impact
on the total supply and increasein the price of a specific asset.
Has.
In Bitcoin, a price increase hasvirtually no impact at all on
the coin issuance rate the flow.
since the difficulty of finding the nextblock in the chain is constantly being
optimized for a strict issuance schedule.
(16:43):
No other asset has ever behaved like this,and we are yet to find out what impact its
existence will have on the world economy.
Yeah, so a bunch of the specificsabout how the proof of work algorithm
and difficulty adjustment works.
Yes, uh, this is the term stock toflow is, uh, uh, something you should
(17:04):
know about if you're in Bitcoin.
And, uh, because it's veryimportant to understand the,
the value proposition here.
Uh, and this is also pointing out whyBitcoin is not digital gold, uh, and why
it's so much better than gold because.
It has a finite supply.
Gold does not.
the reason that a cow priced in goldis, uh, costs about the same now as
(17:27):
5,000 years ago, is that the ability forhumans to find new gold, uh, increased,
uh, in parallel with the increase ofproductivity of everything else, uh,
meaning that Gold's, Gold's stockto flow is diminishing, but not, um.
(17:48):
Not at the same rate as as Bitcoin,because Bitcoin will, we will
eventually run out of bitcoins.
We won't eventually run out of gold.
Uh, so it's, so it'ssuper different there.
And therefore also to everyone awareof this issu issue and schedule,
you could say that all the bitcoinsalready exist and that they've always
existed even, and that it's just thatthe hash rate was zero up until 2009.
(18:13):
And, uh, when this thing.
Materialized.
Uh, and, and this is so fascinating tome, um, like the way I see it, the, the,
the miners do not produce the Bitcoins.
They produce blocks and we, the networkpay them in Bitcoins to, to secure
the network for us and produce blockswhich we can fill with transactions.
(18:37):
the, the way they get paidis through the block subsidy,
which is block reward plus fees.
Uh, and the, the block reward partof it, the thing that Hals every four
years is how many bitcoins we allow themto, print out thin air for themselves
per 10 min, uh, every 10 minutes.
but, but it's, um.
(19:00):
Set in stone already, and it, it won'tbe ever be, there won't ever be more
than 21 million bitcoins, which is whyeverything divided by 21 million makes
sense, uh, from some, some angles.
so if you know about this, you'vealready priced that in and, and
you know that this is the mostprecious thing you can ever own.
(19:20):
Uh, I think we've already somewhattalked about these specific features.
I think the contrast to gold is one ofthe interesting things here, the more
interesting things to grasp, basically.
Uh.
The, the line, no other asset hasever behaved like this, and we're yet
to find out what the impact it, itsexistence will have on the world economy.
(19:44):
Yeah.
That, that's basically it.
What's what's happening, what we'reseeing as miners pretty much constantly
pour more resources into Bitcoin mining.
We're at, I, I think we changed tohaving a, it's an XA hash now, like
there was something about that we're onanother, another zero in hashes recently,
Or another three zeros,so it's another prefix.
(20:06):
Well, yeah, yeah.
Right, right, right.
It's another prefix.
And, and it didn't just, it didn't justlike, barely hit the XA hash number.
It, it, like burst through it even.
Um, so yeah, it's, it's, um,despite that the more production
doesn't actually lead to an increasein the production of the good.
more miners or more individualsare choosing to start up miners and
(20:29):
attempt to, to find the bitcoin.
Basically, and I, I think that'sthe, that's the natural effect here,
that it's a totally scarce resource.
Therefore, if you get some of it, you havea, a fixed amount of the fixed supply.
That's it.
And that's never going to, to change,that's never going to be inflated away,
(20:49):
at least while those of us who understandBitcoin have anything to say about it.
Maybe make a point here aboutprobabilistic again, like the
probability that it ever will change.
It's, it's so low that we can, Treatit as if it will never change, but
it could theoretically change ifeveryone in the met, uh, in the network
agrees that that's a good decision.
(21:12):
Uh, so, so that's, that'sthe beauty of this thing.
Like, uh, it's, it's robust becauseit's, uh, what's the word, anti-fragile,
Because we all have to agree that,uh, to agree that it needs to
change in order for it to change.
So it's not like a democracy at all.
It's you need a, an, anabsolute super majority.
(21:32):
And another way to look at that is thatyou need, you need it to be a good idea
for the good idea to be implemented.
I. Because everyone agrees it's a goodidea, then it's, it is a good idea.
Objectively, everyone thinks so.
So yeah, there's, uh, that,that, that's about that.
Uh, I may, may, uh, maybe Ishould say a couple of more things
(21:53):
about the stock to flow thing.
So the, the, because it's, it'sonly skimmed on the surface here.
So the thing that happens whenGold's Price goes up is that
gold miners buy more, Spades.
They buy mining equipment in spades.
Uh, so, so, so that they canfind more gold per time unit.
(22:13):
Uh, uh, but at the same time, the,the total gold supply of gold in
the Earth's crossed is running out.
So it becomes.
Like the, the bigger the stock ofgold that is already there, the
less of an impact This change inprice has to the flow of new gold
coming into the market because theyallocate more resources to finding it.
(22:35):
and here, bitcoin's completely different.
Uh, the, the supply is not dependenton how much you try to find them.
That's it.
You don't get more than, uh,one block per every 10 minutes.
Like that's, that's how itworks and it's beautiful.
so you're not, you're not gettingmore bitcoins, but you're getting more
(22:55):
value for your, for your hashing power.
And, and that's sort of the point.
Very good point.
It is, uh, and I think the detailsabout this just continue on here
now in the, the following paragraph.
So I think let's continue.
So how does one mine a blockin the Bitcoin blockchain?
(23:16):
In short, the mining processgoes something like this.
Every active node in the Bitcoin networkstores a copy of the MEM pool, which
contains all Bitcoin transactionsthat haven't been confirmed yet.
The miner puts as many transactionsas the block size allows into
the block Usually selectingthose with the highest fee first.
(23:37):
He then adds a random number called anceand produces a hash of the entire thing.
Using the SHA 2 56 hashingalgorithm, a hashing algorithm
turns data into a string of numbers.
If the resulting hash begins with aspecific number of zeros, decided by
the current difficulty of the network,the minor wins, the block reward,
(23:58):
collects all the fees, and gets toput the block on the blockchain.
I think I could continue here, buthonestly, there's a couple of points to
discuss just directly from this paragraph.
I.
Yes, here.
Uh, the, the thing I'd like to point outis that there's no such thing as the Mele.
Uh, every node decides whattheir mele consists of.
(24:21):
You don't have to put transactions in yourmele if you don't like the transactions.
Like we, we come to a consensus ofwhat, what constitutes, uh, a valid
transaction, and that's what happens.
That that's what, Decides what, whattransactions you put in your maple.
Of course, if you don't allow, or, orif you censor and if you, if your PLE
(24:43):
is very much different from everyoneelse's, the the chances of them actually
being okayed by all the other I.Participants in the block is, is lower.
But yeah, maybe I'm, I'm, uh,not explaining that really well
here, but, uh, point is thatthere's no such thing as thele.
The, there's, uh, thereare plenty of differents.
(25:05):
And of course that's an importantdistinction here, the collective mepo,
such as it is, as in the, uh, averagemepo based on that, those transactions
which are mostly circulating.
Okay.
That's, that's sort of afine concept that does exist.
Again, we're in the, we're inthe territory of things that
(25:27):
are really useful to know.
Uh, if you really want tounderstand everything as it.
Is down to the base of it, but notnecessarily, uh, you, you can think
of the abstraction, uh, a littlebit in the general sense, like, I'm
broadcasting my, I'm broadcastingmy transaction to the me pool.
I think that's fine to think that,but yeah, you're, you're right.
(25:49):
It's, you're, you're broadcast, you'rebroadcasting a transaction to, uh, from
your node or from someone else's nodeto a bunch of other nodes, and they keep
broadcasting it, et cetera, et cetera.
And that's, that's how it actually.
Up and they can be different becauseyou can set different policies or choose
to have only transactions you can.
(26:10):
You can choose not to broadcasttransactions, but put them in your
mem pool and if you're a minor, that'show you could mine transactions that
are outta band and not broadcast itto the whole rest of the network.
There's a lot that goes into this.
Uh, without getting too technical,Bitcoin is dependent on, users being
active and running their nodes and,and actually taking care about like
(26:33):
what their node does and what kind oftransactions it lets through or not.
And, uh, it's people doingthat, that's what becomes the
average, uh, after a while.
Right?
That's, that's what eventually, eventuallyall of it is about coming to an agreement.
That's what we call consensus.
(26:54):
Yes.
Consensus.
That's a. Important word.
Uh, and as you say, maybe this isn'tthe, uh, time to go too technical or
too deep into some of these features.
I think we'll, we'll dig moredeeply into concepts of the types
of transactions that are permittedand, and other mechanisms like that.
But I think maybe it's, it's perhaps, foranother time or, or what do you think?
(27:18):
Did you want to get into the whole
Yeah.
No, no.
We, we, we, uh, we get into the weedsof this in the, um, clown World book,
and we'll see what has happened then.
And it's, it is interesting becausewe we're not starting that whole
serious, uh, like we're starting thatlike a year from now or something.
So it's gonna be very interestingto see how, how well that aged.
I, I guess, and by the way, consensusis spelled with a C and not a K.
(27:44):
let's, let's move on The beauty of thesystem is that it is trivial for the nodes
in the network to verify the block so thatno double spending can occur, but it's
near impossible to forge a fake hash sincethe probability of finding one that begins
with as many zeros as the difficulty ofthe Bitcoin network demands extremely low.
(28:05):
To a layman's eye, a hash beginningwith a bunch of zeros just looks
like a random number, but a personwho understands the mathematics
behind it sees a different thing.
The zeros act as proof of anenormous commitment to trying
out different nonsense andtrying to find a perfect match.
If you're able to understand thesehuge numbers, you quickly realize that
(28:26):
this number must have been created bydevoting computing power to doing just
that on an absolutely massive scale.
The proof is in those zeros.
If you compare just the hash rate of thetop five, so-called cryptocurrencies,
it is obvious that Bitcoin is on adifferent level security wise, from
a hash rate to security perspective.
(28:47):
The Ethereum blockchain is aboutfive times as ineffective, and
the Litecoin blockchain about 10times as ineffective as the Bitcoin
blockchain at the time of writing.
This in addition to the obviously morecentralized nature of these alternatives.
Yeah, I think I'll pause there.
Uh, I'm not, I'm not sure exactly how muchwe haven't covered out of, out of these.
(29:10):
Of course, the little bit about the,um, shit coins is, uh, is in addition.
But, uh, I don't know howlong you wanna linger on that.
No, but it's an important paragraphand, and maybe I, I, uh, uh, jumped
to conclusions too early here in thischapter because it's explained here.
but it's crucial to understand whya number beginning with zeroes is,
(29:33):
Hinting at something very valuable.
Uh, but the, the, the interestingthing about the, what I say about the
so-called cryptocurrencies or shitcoins in the end here is that, uh,
this was written in 2019, early 2019.
I. I believe in, it must havebeen in February or something.
(29:54):
So, and since then, uh, this is, thishas just been more and more true.
Like today, it's, uh, it'snot even comparable anymore.
Like, Ethereum is, is sucha shit show at this point.
And unlike Coin two, like it's, uh,there's not even a comparison to be made.
And Ethereum isn't evenusing proof of work anymore.
(30:16):
No.
So it has absolutely no sec security.
Like proof of stake isprovably not working.
It, it is.
This, the system we're living in, likecentral banking is proof of stake.
So one guy gets to decide like it's,it's uh, it is by definition centralized.
(30:37):
If you have more resources, you win.
Like Bitcoin is.
Bitcoin is only decentralized becauseit needs to be like decentralization
is an unfortunate means to a greaterend, and that end is an absolutely
finite, uh, supply of the monetarytoken or resistance to replicability,
(31:00):
something you cannot copy.
That is the end goal,the decentralization.
It's unfortunate that it, it's neededbecause we only need it because,
uh, people cannot be trusted.
If every, if every human being wastrustworthy, we wouldn't need Bitcoin.
We could just decide that theseare the number of coins available
(31:22):
and it wouldn't be inflated.
The reason we need the, the centralizationis to secure the network so that we can,
everyone keeps everyone else in check.
So that it's not profitableanymore to try to break the rules.
That's the sad, the sadtruth about this thing.
but it's also what makes it sobeautiful because in the end that
(31:44):
don't trust, verify mentality.
I. Leads to a society that is moretrusting, like we, we humans, uh, we
unlock something within ourselves whenwe become bitcoiners and it becomes
easier to trust your fellow man, notharder because you know, that fellow man
has no incentive to cheat you anymore.
So, yeah, it's, it's such abeautiful system and that, that's
(32:06):
why I started writing about it.
It just mind blown by, by the whole,the whole thing and what it implies.
Just great.
And honestly, these, these pointsabout why the other so-called
cryptocurrencies just don't fit the bill.
it's important to discuss this stuff.
Absolutely.
Because otherwise people are trying toget into Bitcoin, trying to figure it out,
(32:32):
get led astray constantly and think thatsome of these things are, are legitimate
and I have a lot of empathy for.
People who have had their shitcoin phase or who, who get into
crypto, uh, because many of themare not there for the gambling.
They think it's, they think it's the wayout of a, of a system that is broken.
(32:56):
And just think crypto is the the thing.
It's the thing that's gonna go up andwhatever it is, it's all ignorance.
It's all from not getting directed to theright thing, which of course is Bitcoin.
So this is why I like explaining thisstuff because it, it actually is relevant.
Um, if, if you've gotten, if you're,if you're here with us, you probably
(33:17):
already have this figured out, butstill it's, it bears repeating.
I.
I mean, still there.
Bitcoiners shouldn't like try to forbid,shift coins or forbid Bitcoin forks.
That's, that's.
Very counterproductive.
Bitcoin is what it is becausewe agree that it is this thing.
(33:38):
Uh, but that also implies that we needalternatives to, uh, to, to, to exist,
to figure out what the real thing is.
But at the end of the day,it's very, very simple.
Fiat currencies.
one guy gets to decide, uh, uh, ifwe're going to print more money or not.
So one guy can print money orone institution can print money.
(34:00):
Uh, shit coins or cryptocurrencies.
Everyone gets to print more money.
So it's, it's up to you.
Bitcoin, no one gets to print money.
That's, that's thedifference between the three.
Very good point.
I, I think that's a goodsummary there onto the next one.
Some of the futurists and doomsdayprophets mentioned in chapter four as
(34:24):
the people most likely to warn us aboutthe dangers of the impending artificial
intelligence singularity, believe thatwe already live in a simulated reality.
The main argument for this worldviewis that since simulations and
computer graphics seem to be gettingbetter at an ever accelerating
rate, we can't really know if wealready live in a simulation or not.
(34:45):
To put it another way, we simply have noway of knowing if we live in the matrix
or if our perceived reality is all.
There is really mind blowingcounterargument to this theory is that
Bitcoin's proof of work algorithm wouldeventually slow down the simulation
since proof of work is verifiable andcan't be simulated itself, computing
(35:05):
power would have to be sacrificedby some entity somewhere regardless.
One question remains though.
Can the inhabitants of a simulated realityactually feel or measure a slowdown
of the very simulation they live in?
Interesting thoughtexperiment and the chapter.
Yes, it has nothing to do withthe rest of the chapter, does it?
(35:26):
I discussed this with Dr. Bansal and GiamoSoko on stage, on at Bitcoin Atlantis.
I believe in Madera.
Uh, I love this thought.
Uh, it's, it's a very, like, uh, and thisis one of those, it is just provoking.
Thought in every way possible.
And then, uh, I don't leave anything else.
I don't explore the ideas with the reader.
(35:48):
I just, uh, mention them.
Uh, so I don't know why I didthat in this book, really.
But, but, uh, but the, the thoughtstill intrigues me when, when thinking
about this, Simulation theory thing,it's important to remember that
simulation theory is not a new idea.
It's been around for like 500years, this matrixy dream, within
(36:09):
a dream, within a dream concept.
Philosophers have been battling thatsince forever, and, uh, It, it's sort of
like the free will debate at, at the endof the day, it doesn't matter because
we're in the reality we are in andwe're not in the other other realities.
Same thing with free will.
If you have it, thenthere's no discussion.
(36:30):
If you don't, you can't do anythingabout anything anyway, so, so you
might as well like act as if you do.
it's one of those, uh,weird, weird things.
But, but it is interesting that a. Asimulation of Earth would have to include
a simulation of the proof of work in,in Bitcoin mining, which in itself is
(36:54):
costly in terms of computing power.
I, I just, uh, I just like that,uh, that fact, if you want, I.
it is an interesting thoughtexperiment, definitely.
And well, so much as there are smartpeople who really think we are, in fact,
in a simulation and all of the computingpower being used for this and that, yeah,
it's hard to square these two things.
(37:15):
I guess that the, the probabilitythat we're in a simulation to some
people's estimation is extremely high.
But there's all of thiscomputing going on.
And by the way, all of the AI stuff alsois in that category, honestly, because
they're using computing power also.
Maybe that's less verifiable becauseit's not about mathematical cryptography.
(37:38):
But it's still a lot of computing power.
Maybe the AI stuff is actuallymore of an ev more of evidence for
the simulation because maybe thatstuff can be more easily faked.
I don't know.
No, but That's where the theory comesfrom, like the, that AI is getting so good
and computer graphics are getting so good.
Of course, these things are runon computers, so, so if they would
(37:59):
require a lot of computing power,this is just saying that the computer
on top, creating that reality withthat thing in it would also have to
do the proof of work algorithm, whichis more computing power than anything
else in, uh, uh, on Earth right now.
It's still the, the, the biggestcomputer network there is, is
the, the, uh, bitcoin network.
So, no, it's, uh, it's an intriguingthought anyway, uh, by the way,
(38:23):
uh, I, I looked up how manycomps.com and that site is still up.
Uh, what, what did I say inthe last paragraph there?
That, uh, Litecoin took, like,had like a fifth of the security
of Bitcoin or something,
You said a 10th.
a 10th.
Today it's the second biggest becauseEthereum isn't even there anymore
(38:44):
since they moved to Proof of Stake.
And Litecoin is, uh,11 times slower today.
Like so for six confirmations in, inBitcoin is equivalent to 268 Con, uh,
uh, confirmations in on Litecoin toget to the same level of security.
And then there's Dogecoin, andthen there's Ethereum Classic.
(39:05):
But yeah, the point, point stance thatit's, uh, it's getting worse over time
and not better for the share coins.
Yeah, very good point.
And I think the summation of thischapter, since we're done now, is
basically that, uh, proof of work isthis fundamental thing at the base
of Bitcoin, proof of work algorithm,plus the difficulty adjustment.
(39:27):
And these things are essential andexplaining why they're essential I
think is the point of this chapter.
Do you have anything elseyou'd like to say in summation?
No.
Uh, yeah, uh, that's a goodsummation and uh, proof of work.
Is very misunderstood, uh, that like.
The, um, environmentalists whomisunderstand it think that it's, uh,
(39:51):
it is wasting energy, but that's thecomplete wrong way to, to look at it.
It's not wasting energy.
It's sacrificing energyfor something much better.
And what they also forget about is the.
Consensus mechanism of fiat currencies,we've alluded to this before because the
consensus mechanism of fiat currenciesand whoever gets to decide what money a,
(40:13):
a nation runs on or what gets to be theglobal reserve currency is world wars.
That's the consensus mechanism.
If that's not wasteful, Idon't know what wasteful is.
So, so they're, they're not taking intoaccount how costly in terms of energy.
The, the current monetary system is this.
(40:33):
Uh, doing proof of work, uh, I wouldargue is actually the most efficient
way of getting to a consensus ofwhat, what is money and what is not.
Uh, every other way that has been triedhas been more costly in terms of not
only you need world wars to come to aconsensus, but of the vast number of,
uh, first and foremost, the vast numberof misallocated resources in society.
(40:58):
It's like this, Example from, fromprevious chapters that you, you never
get to exponential growth if you, if you,if you shoot yourself in the foot all
the time and, and put up roadblocks toprosperity, uh, which is what monetary
interventionists do all the time.
Not only by taxing people, butby inflating the money supply,
(41:19):
it gets harder for people to, uh,to accumulate wealth and prosper.
And, and, and.
Progress humanity into the future.
Uh, everything gets, uh, is handicapped byinterventionism, and that is what Bitcoin,
that is the problem that Bitcoin solves.
It solves the inflation problem.
(41:40):
It's, it solves the abundance of moneyand scarcity in anything, everything else.
So it's the other way around.
This is Jeff Booth point, like whenyou have scarcity and money, you
have abundance everywhere else.
Uh, and People need to understand that ona deep level to to, to understand Bitcoin.
Like I, I don't believe you canunderstand Bitcoin if you don't
(42:01):
first, uh, understand the problem itsolves and that problem is inflation.
Absolutely love it.
Fantastic summation.
So I think with that, this hasbeen the proof of work chapter from
sovereignty through mathematics.
And now, uh, I'll just say, hey, ifyou, if you've enjoyed listening to this
episode, watching or listening, Like.
(42:23):
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Let us know what youthink about the episode.
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(42:44):
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(43:05):
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Absolutely.
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thank you to Plan B Network forsponsoring this Academy initiative.
We're thrilled to be partnering,partnering with them.
(43:27):
They're a fantastic educational resource.
Plan b.network.
You can go there to check out allof the courses they have available
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From newbie friendly stuff to, tomore deep dives into various facets of
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(43:50):
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(44:11):
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And speaking of, uh, the, this Year'sBS school is, uh, uh, uh, has started
and, and also last year's BS school,which is a, a. Full course about
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(44:34):
Uh.
Is, uh, the, the last year's courseis now open sourced and available
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So either, uh, take the, this year'scourse or, uh, enroll for that thing
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(44:59):
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So go ahead and do that.
Absolutely perfect.
Tradition there?
Yes.
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(45:22):
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Or, or at any of the other conferences.
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Definitely, and you'll see us in, uh uh,you'll see Ktin Ireland, both of us in
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Uh, and then.
Of course, Helsinki.
So, uh, Calgary.
Yeah, I forgot about that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, we'll be, we'll be in, uh, tons,tons of places this, uh, this summer.
(46:32):
So, so come see us somewhere.
Uh, but if you come see usanywhere and you're, you know,
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Come to Helsinki.
Yeah, just do that.
Yeah.
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(46:52):
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Exciting things happeningin in Finland, in Helsinki.
Yeah.
Super cool.
I think with that, uh, thankyou very much for listening.
This has been theBitcoin Infinity Academy.
Anything else to add?
(47:13):
Knut.
As usual.
Yeah.
Thanks for listening.
Bye.
Welcome to the Bitcoin InfinityAcademy, brought to you by the
Plan B Network and Bit Box.
This is, uh, chapter five,I believe, of, uh, Bitcoin
Sovereignty through mathematics.
My first book on Bitcoin, I'm Kwan andI'm here as always with Luke De Wolf.
How are we today, Luke?
Oh, we are fantastic.
Thank you for asking.
(00:21):
Good.
Good morning, and I'm excited to be here.
How are you?
All good.
Uh, it's a lovely morning here.
Oh, no, it's not a lovely morning.
It's a shitty morning, but it's lovely.
Anyway, because we're doing this.
Absolutely agree with that.
Yeah.
It's a bit cloudy outside for me also.
Alright, uh, shall we, uh, firstjust remind our, all of our
listeners, how you can get involved?
(00:41):
You can go to our Geyer page, GeyerFund slash Project slash Infinity for
all the information about how you canjoin the academy and get involved.
And as a reminder, we're also releasingall of the chapters for free on Noster.
So the links will be in allof the descriptions for this
and you can read along there.
am I forgetting anything?
(01:02):
Knu.
I don't think so.
So we can, uh, we can just jump intothis chapter called Proof of Work
Here and see, see what's in this one.
Absolutely wonderful.
All right, let's do it.
Proof of work.
Zoom out of time for a while andimagine how the antlers of a magnificent
(01:22):
moose buck evolved into being.
The main purpose of big antlers innature is believed to be a way for
the buck to impress potential mates.
They're somewhat akin to thefeathers of a peacock or the shroud
of any male bird, for that matter.
The animal is trying to signal thatit can thrive in its environment.
Despite its enormous appendage.
(01:44):
It's there to tell the potentialmate that this specific specimen will
bring her strong, healthy offspring.
These are all evolutionary metaphors.
Of course, the animal itself isprobably unaware of signaling anything.
For such antlers to evolve into beinga whole lot of moose will have to die
early, or at least not get a chance toreproduce over thousands of generations.
(02:08):
In other words, a lot of resources needto be wasted, all of this for the animal
to prove its value to potential spouses.
Therefore, from the survivingmoose's point of view, the
aforementioned resources weresacrificed rather than wasted.
Good start.
I see where this is going.
And always love a moose metaphor.
(02:30):
Of course you do.
You're a cano.
Uh, so isn't it an elk metaphor?
No, it's a moose in, in Canada.
Right.
And an elk.
So where, where, where are
both.
There's both.
Okay.
It would be reindeer though.
If we were, if we weretalking Scandinavian.
And is the plural of moose Meese.
It's definitely Meese.
Yes.
Alright.
And elk and many elk.
(02:50):
Elk and many elk.
Yes, that's that's correct.
Actually, Eskimos is thecorrect plural of elk.
Uh, I believe that's, uh, Inuit, isn't
That's politically correct.
Okay.
Okay then.
Alright.
Uh.
We'll have some editing todo already here, I think.
I think we can mo leave most of that in.
(03:10):
I'll right then.
anyway, the, this is one exampleof many in nature of, of proof
of work, uh, especially in birds.
I, if I'm, if I'm not mistaken, I mean,I'm not a biologist by, by any stretch of
the imagination, but from what I know ofevolutionary theory, this, this is one of
the things that was hardest to explain,like, uh, traits in animals and plants
(03:34):
that didn't, didn't have an, an obvious.
Survival mechanism thing attachedto them, but they figured out
later that it's used for the, thatit's, uh, actually proof of work.
So the, the feathers of a peacock,for instance, or, or strange
mating rituals in birds, they'reactually there to, to uh, um.
(03:56):
for the animal to signal to theother animal that they are capable
of more than meets the eye.
Uh, uh, and this is, uh, a verygood me metaphor for what's,
what proof of work is in Bitcoin.
I believe like You could, from a certainperspective, you could say that it's
actually proof of results rather thanproof of work because it's only the,
(04:17):
the actual valid block that counts.
so it's more alluding to work thanproving work because you could be super
lucky with your bit X or somethingand just find the correct block after
having tried a handful of times.
But, uh.
Usually, uh, if the, if the, uh,difficulty is high enough, it takes,
(04:39):
trillions of, uh, of guesses per secondfor the network to find the correct block.
So, so this is, yeah, at thevery core of what Bitcoin is.
The maybe also, uh, like make thispoint that, um, everything in Bitcoin
is probabilistic, so reason it takes10 minutes to find the next block on
average is that it's, uh, the probabilityis set, uh, in such a way that, uh, it
(05:04):
takes on average 10 minutes and everytwo weeks It's, uh, recalibrated with
the difficulty adjustment algorithm,so the, the 10 minutes are dependent
on these two weeks, and the two weeksare dependent on the 10 minutes.
So it's a, a loop thingy going on there.
And it's one of, like, I've nevermet a person that can accurately,
accurately describe the difficultyadjustment algorithm and sometimes,
(05:27):
uh, and simultaneously be againstBitcoin or have good arguments
for why Bitcoin doesn't work.
Because that's when it usually, whenit actually clicks, is when you get
the difficulty adjustment algorithm.
so, um, what else to say about that?
Um, no, I think, I think that's it.
That's great.
And I mean, this chapter isa great explanation of the
(05:51):
proof of work mechanism.
And so I think here, well, firstof all, you've, you've gone and
dug into the actual Bitcoin parts.
I think we'll, we'll cover it inthe upcoming I. Or paragraphs.
But yeah, it's great.
I mean, I, I think just firstof all, on this evolutionary
metaphor, it's ingenious.
I hadn't ever thought of it quite thisway myself, that that would be akin
(06:14):
to this whole proof of work thing.
That evolution over time is akin to theproof of work versus proof of results.
Thing like the, the result is that you geta better chance at reproducing something
like that, and it takes a, a long time.
It's not an exact perfect corollary,but it, it does have, elements of what
(06:37):
evolution actually is because there's,there's misconceptions about evolution.
It's not necessarily exactly about this.
You have a better chance of reproducing.
It's also an aggregate.
It's like you say, it'sa, it's probabilistic.
Uh, something that maybe makes,one individual moose, for example,
capable of having an offspring mightmean that they don't have enough food
(06:59):
to go around for the pack of meese.
And that that little particularsubplate of meese dies out.
Uh.
Right, but, but it, so it's the thingsthat actually work over time, not in
single generations either, which Ithink is another point that's along
the lines of what you were saying here.
Yeah, and I think the biggest,most common misconception about
(07:21):
evolution in general is the timescale,because these timescales are huge.
They're enormous.
They take like hundreds of thousands,even millions of years for, for things
to, to, to come into being, and, andthere is so much trial and error.
So like it's not survival of the fittest,it's survival of whoever survives.
For whatever reason they may survive.
(07:43):
Like, uh, and this is true on a cellularlevel as well as on a, a pack level.
Uh, so, so there's a lot of thingsgoing on there, and it's, uh, widely
misunderstood, but I, I think the, uh,proof of work metaphor works really well.
Exactly, and we, we just had a questionin the chat about how is it possible.
For a bid x to find a block, and Imean, the, the answer is that it's
(08:06):
an extremely low probability, right?
It's, it's extremely unlikelythat a Bid X would find a block,
but it is possible technically.
No, e exactly.
Back to, uh, that's agood question, by the way.
And, uh, there's, uh, it's,it's all about probabilistic.
I mean, you could do the hash by handand find the correct block if you were
(08:27):
really, really, really amazingly lucky.
Uh, but the probability is solow, so it's not worth the effort.
And that's at the core of what Bitcoin is.
Like.
The, the, the only reason.
You say that you own the Bitcoin isthat you find it very improbable that
someone else holds the same privatekey, but it's not actual ownership,
(08:47):
it's just knowing a number I.
Yep, exactly.
Um, nothing, nothing else to add here.
Maybe let's get into the, uh, specificsthat you, you wrote about previously.
All right, onto the next one.
The proof of work algorithm inBitcoin does a similar thing.
It enables miners to sacrifice a lotof electricity, a real world resource
(09:11):
to find a certain number, therebyproving that they had to commit a
lot of time and effort to do this.
Time, by the way, is thescarcest of all resources.
Because of all this, a Bitcoinminer is very reluctant to
sell Bitcoin at a net loss.
The electricity has already been usedwhen the Bitcoin pops into existence,
(09:32):
and the miner has no other means ofgetting his money back then by selling
the Bitcoin for more than the cost ofthe electricity it took to produce them.
This is assuming that the mining rigitself has already been paid for.
Proof of work is a way of convertingcomputing power into money in a sense.
Yes, these rigs consume a lot ofenergy, but the energy consumed
(09:54):
correlates directly to the actualvalue of the created token.
Any decrease in the energy expenditurewould also lead to a decrease in the
value of the token, not necessarilyin the price, but the actual value.
This is the main reason miningalgorithms can't be less resource
consuming or more energy efficient.
(10:15):
Wasting energy is the whole point.
No waste.
No proof of commitment.
Interesting.
What are your thoughts?
Yeah.
Um.
If, if you found yourself in a darkcave, uh, and you had a, a, a flashlight
and you, and you found a gold bar, andyou found a piece of paper with a bunch
(10:39):
of zeros followed by strange letters,like what would intrigue you the most?
So this might soundlike a strange question.
What, what I'm alluding to is thatanyone who understands how extremely
hard it is to find the hash of aBitcoin block and a hash beginning
without many zeros, can instantly, uh,see how much energy must have been,
(11:03):
uh, sacrificed to find the block.
So, so that thing in itself islike, should trigger the question
in your mind, why, why on earth wasthis person willing to sacrifice
so much effort to find this number?
It's weird, isn't it?
And that should trigger all theother questions and intrigue you
(11:24):
enough to figure out what Bitcoinis and, and come to the, holy shit,
this is super valuable Conclusion.
But, uh, yeah, there, there's a lot here.
Um, some of the terms I wouldn't haveused, maybe if I wrote this now with
the value on the price in the, in theend here, I think the, the, there's
(11:44):
a lot of bad metaphors, uh, aroundfor Bitcoin's scarcity or finiteness
on how to, how to like convert.
electricity into, you know, what,digital energy and all of this stuff.
I don't really like those termsbecause that's not actually what it is.
All it is is like onespecific part of a finite pie.
(12:07):
Uh, and, uh, that finite pie,it's, it's valuable because
people think it's valuable.
Like everything else, it's,uh, value is subjective.
So the value part is, uh, iffy.
But, um, I'd say.
What it can do is convert energy into avery specific part of a very specific pie.
(12:29):
you know, I think themetaphors are still helpful.
We've, we've been over this a little bit,that it's, it's still often helpful for,
I. newer Bitcoiners or pre Bitcoinerseven to understand what's going on.
But yeah, it's not.
Literally, for example, a battery, ornot literally energy being converted
(12:49):
into money, but it, it is a way forenergy that would otherwise not be used
to be consumed in a productive way.
And in, in that sense, it's asclose to a battery or energy being
converted into money as possible.
Uh, and the, the uses for this are,are, they are, they're bountiful now.
(13:11):
Uh.
No, I, I'd say energy being converted intomoney is a correct metaphor, uh, uh, but
calling it digital energy is not, uh, sothe, I I tweeted a thing yesterday, uh,
along these lines by the way, uh, whichis how I'm thinking about this nowadays,
and that is when orange peeling avoidmetaphors that attract mid widths, but
(13:31):
repel edges of the bell curve people.
So, so that's my advice because it'smore important to get the edges of the
bell curve people into Bitcoin than itis to get the middle of the bell curve
people into Bitcoin, in my opinion.
Uh, because what you want isthe rednecks with pickup trucks
and don't tread on me shotguns.
(13:52):
Uh, and you want the really, reallyclever people and everyone else will
follow eventually if you just get those.
So, so like this is what to thinkabout when getting, when, when.
When figuring out metaphorsfor the different functions
of the Bitcoin network.
Uh, in my opinion.
Very good.
(14:12):
I think there are some people whoare making the arguments for the mid
widths and are just trying to get asmany people into Bitcoin as possible.
But I think we need bothapproaches, basically.
Yeah.
Uh, and, uh, but I prefer theother approach, like the mid
widths will eventually come anywayand, uh, that's good to remember.
I.
Point.
(14:34):
Let's, let's move on to the next one here.
Sorry.
If anyone go for, um, like,I, I don't really mean width.
I mean middle of the bell curveperson, uh, that's much less offensive.
Somehow.
All right.
Onto the next one.
The fundamental principles ofBitcoin were set in stone in
(14:55):
2008 and block number zero.
The so-called Genesis blockwas mined in January, 2009.
In Bitcoin, a block of transactionsis created every 10 minutes in
its first four years of existence.
These blocks included a 50Bitcoin block reward given to
the miner who found the block.
(15:16):
four years, this reward is halved sothat the maximum amount of Bitcoin
that can ever be claimed can neverexceed just short of 21 million.
2016th block, or roughly every two weeks,the difficulty of finding a new block
is recalibrated so that a block willbe found every 10 minutes on average.
(15:36):
The value of this featureand the impact it has on coin
issuance is often understated.
It is one of the features of Bitcointhat separates it from gold and
other assets in one of the mostsubtle, yet most powerful ways.
the price of gold or silver or oilor any other asset goes up, producing
that asset becomes more profitableand more resources are allocated
(15:59):
to produce more of it faster.
This in turn, evens out the price.
As the total supply ofsaid asset increases.
Gold has been able to maintain orincrease its value long-term over time
because of its high stock to flow ratio.
Stock refers to the supply of anasset currently available on the
market Flow refers to the amountadded to the stock per time unit.
(16:21):
The bigger the stock in relationto the flow, the less of an impact
on the total supply and increasein the price of a specific asset.
Has.
In Bitcoin, a price increase hasvirtually no impact at all on
the coin issuance rate the flow.
since the difficulty of finding the nextblock in the chain is constantly being
optimized for a strict issuance schedule.
(16:43):
No other asset has ever behaved like this,and we are yet to find out what impact its
existence will have on the world economy.
Yeah, so a bunch of the specificsabout how the proof of work algorithm
and difficulty adjustment works.
Yes, uh, this is the term stock toflow is, uh, uh, something you should
(17:04):
know about if you're in Bitcoin.
And, uh, because it's veryimportant to understand the,
the value proposition here.
Uh, and this is also pointing out whyBitcoin is not digital gold, uh, and why
it's so much better than gold because.
It has a finite supply.
Gold does not.
the reason that a cow priced in goldis, uh, costs about the same now as
(17:27):
5,000 years ago, is that the ability forhumans to find new gold, uh, increased,
uh, in parallel with the increase ofproductivity of everything else, uh,
meaning that Gold's, Gold's stockto flow is diminishing, but not, um.
(17:48):
Not at the same rate as as Bitcoin,because Bitcoin will, we will
eventually run out of bitcoins.
We won't eventually run out of gold.
Uh, so it's, so it'ssuper different there.
And therefore also to everyone awareof this issu issue and schedule,
you could say that all the bitcoinsalready exist and that they've always
existed even, and that it's just thatthe hash rate was zero up until 2009.
(18:13):
And, uh, when this thing.
Materialized.
Uh, and, and this is so fascinating tome, um, like the way I see it, the, the,
the miners do not produce the Bitcoins.
They produce blocks and we, the networkpay them in Bitcoins to, to secure
the network for us and produce blockswhich we can fill with transactions.
(18:37):
the, the way they get paidis through the block subsidy,
which is block reward plus fees.
Uh, and the, the block reward partof it, the thing that Hals every four
years is how many bitcoins we allow themto, print out thin air for themselves
per 10 min, uh, every 10 minutes.
but, but it's, um.
(19:00):
Set in stone already, and it, it won'tbe ever be, there won't ever be more
than 21 million bitcoins, which is whyeverything divided by 21 million makes
sense, uh, from some, some angles.
so if you know about this, you'vealready priced that in and, and
you know that this is the mostprecious thing you can ever own.
(19:20):
Uh, I think we've already somewhattalked about these specific features.
I think the contrast to gold is one ofthe interesting things here, the more
interesting things to grasp, basically.
Uh.
The, the line, no other asset hasever behaved like this, and we're yet
to find out what the impact it, itsexistence will have on the world economy.
(19:44):
Yeah.
That, that's basically it.
What's what's happening, what we'reseeing as miners pretty much constantly
pour more resources into Bitcoin mining.
We're at, I, I think we changed tohaving a, it's an XA hash now, like
there was something about that we're onanother, another zero in hashes recently,
Or another three zeros,so it's another prefix.
(20:06):
Well, yeah, yeah.
Right, right, right.
It's another prefix.
And, and it didn't just, it didn't justlike, barely hit the XA hash number.
It, it, like burst through it even.
Um, so yeah, it's, it's, um,despite that the more production
doesn't actually lead to an increasein the production of the good.
more miners or more individualsare choosing to start up miners and
(20:29):
attempt to, to find the bitcoin.
Basically, and I, I think that'sthe, that's the natural effect here,
that it's a totally scarce resource.
Therefore, if you get some of it, you havea, a fixed amount of the fixed supply.
That's it.
And that's never going to, to change,that's never going to be inflated away,
(20:49):
at least while those of us who understandBitcoin have anything to say about it.
Maybe make a point here aboutprobabilistic again, like the
probability that it ever will change.
It's, it's so low that we can, Treatit as if it will never change, but
it could theoretically change ifeveryone in the met, uh, in the network
agrees that that's a good decision.
(21:12):
Uh, so, so that's, that'sthe beauty of this thing.
Like, uh, it's, it's robust becauseit's, uh, what's the word, anti-fragile,
Because we all have to agree that,uh, to agree that it needs to
change in order for it to change.
So it's not like a democracy at all.
It's you need a, an, anabsolute super majority.
(21:32):
And another way to look at that is thatyou need, you need it to be a good idea
for the good idea to be implemented.
I. Because everyone agrees it's a goodidea, then it's, it is a good idea.
Objectively, everyone thinks so.
So yeah, there's, uh, that,that, that's about that.
Uh, I may, may, uh, maybe Ishould say a couple of more things
(21:53):
about the stock to flow thing.
So the, the, because it's, it'sonly skimmed on the surface here.
So the thing that happens whenGold's Price goes up is that
gold miners buy more, Spades.
They buy mining equipment in spades.
Uh, so, so, so that they canfind more gold per time unit.
(22:13):
Uh, uh, but at the same time, the,the total gold supply of gold in
the Earth's crossed is running out.
So it becomes.
Like the, the bigger the stock ofgold that is already there, the
less of an impact This change inprice has to the flow of new gold
coming into the market because theyallocate more resources to finding it.
(22:35):
and here, bitcoin's completely different.
Uh, the, the supply is not dependenton how much you try to find them.
That's it.
You don't get more than, uh,one block per every 10 minutes.
Like that's, that's how itworks and it's beautiful.
so you're not, you're not gettingmore bitcoins, but you're getting more
(22:55):
value for your, for your hashing power.
And, and that's sort of the point.
Very good point.
It is, uh, and I think the detailsabout this just continue on here
now in the, the following paragraph.
So I think let's continue.
So how does one mine a blockin the Bitcoin blockchain?
(23:16):
In short, the mining processgoes something like this.
Every active node in the Bitcoin networkstores a copy of the MEM pool, which
contains all Bitcoin transactionsthat haven't been confirmed yet.
The miner puts as many transactionsas the block size allows into
the block Usually selectingthose with the highest fee first.
(23:37):
He then adds a random number called anceand produces a hash of the entire thing.
Using the SHA 2 56 hashingalgorithm, a hashing algorithm
turns data into a string of numbers.
If the resulting hash begins with aspecific number of zeros, decided by
the current difficulty of the network,the minor wins, the block reward,
(23:58):
collects all the fees, and gets toput the block on the blockchain.
I think I could continue here, buthonestly, there's a couple of points to
discuss just directly from this paragraph.
I.
Yes, here.
Uh, the, the thing I'd like to point outis that there's no such thing as the Mele.
Uh, every node decides whattheir mele consists of.
(24:21):
You don't have to put transactions in yourmele if you don't like the transactions.
Like we, we come to a consensus ofwhat, what constitutes, uh, a valid
transaction, and that's what happens.
That that's what, Decides what, whattransactions you put in your maple.
Of course, if you don't allow, or, orif you censor and if you, if your PLE
(24:43):
is very much different from everyoneelse's, the the chances of them actually
being okayed by all the other I.Participants in the block is, is lower.
But yeah, maybe I'm, I'm, uh,not explaining that really well
here, but, uh, point is thatthere's no such thing as thele.
The, there's, uh, thereare plenty of differents.
(25:05):
And of course that's an importantdistinction here, the collective mepo,
such as it is, as in the, uh, averagemepo based on that, those transactions
which are mostly circulating.
Okay.
That's, that's sort of afine concept that does exist.
Again, we're in the, we're inthe territory of things that
(25:27):
are really useful to know.
Uh, if you really want tounderstand everything as it.
Is down to the base of it, but notnecessarily, uh, you, you can think
of the abstraction, uh, a littlebit in the general sense, like, I'm
broadcasting my, I'm broadcastingmy transaction to the me pool.
I think that's fine to think that,but yeah, you're, you're right.
(25:49):
It's, you're, you're broadcast, you'rebroadcasting a transaction to, uh, from
your node or from someone else's nodeto a bunch of other nodes, and they keep
broadcasting it, et cetera, et cetera.
And that's, that's how it actually.
Up and they can be different becauseyou can set different policies or choose
to have only transactions you can.
(26:10):
You can choose not to broadcasttransactions, but put them in your
mem pool and if you're a minor, that'show you could mine transactions that
are outta band and not broadcast itto the whole rest of the network.
There's a lot that goes into this.
Uh, without getting too technical,Bitcoin is dependent on, users being
active and running their nodes and,and actually taking care about like
(26:33):
what their node does and what kind oftransactions it lets through or not.
And, uh, it's people doingthat, that's what becomes the
average, uh, after a while.
Right?
That's, that's what eventually, eventuallyall of it is about coming to an agreement.
That's what we call consensus.
(26:54):
Yes.
Consensus.
That's a. Important word.
Uh, and as you say, maybe this isn'tthe, uh, time to go too technical or
too deep into some of these features.
I think we'll, we'll dig moredeeply into concepts of the types
of transactions that are permittedand, and other mechanisms like that.
But I think maybe it's, it's perhaps, foranother time or, or what do you think?
(27:18):
Did you want to get into the whole
Yeah.
No, no.
We, we, we, uh, we get into the weedsof this in the, um, clown World book,
and we'll see what has happened then.
And it's, it is interesting becausewe we're not starting that whole
serious, uh, like we're starting thatlike a year from now or something.
So it's gonna be very interestingto see how, how well that aged.
I, I guess, and by the way, consensusis spelled with a C and not a K.
(27:44):
let's, let's move on The beauty of thesystem is that it is trivial for the nodes
in the network to verify the block so thatno double spending can occur, but it's
near impossible to forge a fake hash sincethe probability of finding one that begins
with as many zeros as the difficulty ofthe Bitcoin network demands extremely low.
(28:05):
To a layman's eye, a hash beginningwith a bunch of zeros just looks
like a random number, but a personwho understands the mathematics
behind it sees a different thing.
The zeros act as proof of anenormous commitment to trying
out different nonsense andtrying to find a perfect match.
If you're able to understand thesehuge numbers, you quickly realize that
(28:26):
this number must have been created bydevoting computing power to doing just
that on an absolutely massive scale.
The proof is in those zeros.
If you compare just the hash rate of thetop five, so-called cryptocurrencies,
it is obvious that Bitcoin is on adifferent level security wise, from
a hash rate to security perspective.
(28:47):
The Ethereum blockchain is aboutfive times as ineffective, and
the Litecoin blockchain about 10times as ineffective as the Bitcoin
blockchain at the time of writing.
This in addition to the obviously morecentralized nature of these alternatives.
Yeah, I think I'll pause there.
Uh, I'm not, I'm not sure exactly how muchwe haven't covered out of, out of these.
(29:10):
Of course, the little bit about the,um, shit coins is, uh, is in addition.
But, uh, I don't know howlong you wanna linger on that.
No, but it's an important paragraphand, and maybe I, I, uh, uh, jumped
to conclusions too early here in thischapter because it's explained here.
but it's crucial to understand whya number beginning with zeroes is,
(29:33):
Hinting at something very valuable.
Uh, but the, the, the interestingthing about the, what I say about the
so-called cryptocurrencies or shitcoins in the end here is that, uh,
this was written in 2019, early 2019.
I. I believe in, it must havebeen in February or something.
(29:54):
So, and since then, uh, this is, thishas just been more and more true.
Like today, it's, uh, it'snot even comparable anymore.
Like, Ethereum is, is sucha shit show at this point.
And unlike Coin two, like it's, uh,there's not even a comparison to be made.
And Ethereum isn't evenusing proof of work anymore.
(30:16):
No.
So it has absolutely no sec security.
Like proof of stake isprovably not working.
It, it is.
This, the system we're living in, likecentral banking is proof of stake.
So one guy gets to decide like it's,it's uh, it is by definition centralized.
(30:37):
If you have more resources, you win.
Like Bitcoin is.
Bitcoin is only decentralized becauseit needs to be like decentralization
is an unfortunate means to a greaterend, and that end is an absolutely
finite, uh, supply of the monetarytoken or resistance to replicability,
(31:00):
something you cannot copy.
That is the end goal,the decentralization.
It's unfortunate that it, it's neededbecause we only need it because,
uh, people cannot be trusted.
If every, if every human being wastrustworthy, we wouldn't need Bitcoin.
We could just decide that theseare the number of coins available
(31:22):
and it wouldn't be inflated.
The reason we need the, the centralizationis to secure the network so that we can,
everyone keeps everyone else in check.
So that it's not profitableanymore to try to break the rules.
That's the sad, the sadtruth about this thing.
but it's also what makes it sobeautiful because in the end that
(31:44):
don't trust, verify mentality.
I. Leads to a society that is moretrusting, like we, we humans, uh, we
unlock something within ourselves whenwe become bitcoiners and it becomes
easier to trust your fellow man, notharder because you know, that fellow man
has no incentive to cheat you anymore.
So, yeah, it's, it's such abeautiful system and that, that's
(32:06):
why I started writing about it.
It just mind blown by, by the whole,the whole thing and what it implies.
Just great.
And honestly, these, these pointsabout why the other so-called
cryptocurrencies just don't fit the bill.
it's important to discuss this stuff.
Absolutely.
Because otherwise people are trying toget into Bitcoin, trying to figure it out,
(32:32):
get led astray constantly and think thatsome of these things are, are legitimate
and I have a lot of empathy for.
People who have had their shitcoin phase or who, who get into
crypto, uh, because many of themare not there for the gambling.
They think it's, they think it's the wayout of a, of a system that is broken.
(32:56):
And just think crypto is the the thing.
It's the thing that's gonna go up andwhatever it is, it's all ignorance.
It's all from not getting directed to theright thing, which of course is Bitcoin.
So this is why I like explaining thisstuff because it, it actually is relevant.
Um, if, if you've gotten, if you're,if you're here with us, you probably
(33:17):
already have this figured out, butstill it's, it bears repeating.
I.
I mean, still there.
Bitcoiners shouldn't like try to forbid,shift coins or forbid Bitcoin forks.
That's, that's.
Very counterproductive.
Bitcoin is what it is becausewe agree that it is this thing.
(33:38):
Uh, but that also implies that we needalternatives to, uh, to, to, to exist,
to figure out what the real thing is.
But at the end of the day,it's very, very simple.
Fiat currencies.
one guy gets to decide, uh, uh, ifwe're going to print more money or not.
So one guy can print money orone institution can print money.
(34:00):
Uh, shit coins or cryptocurrencies.
Everyone gets to print more money.
So it's, it's up to you.
Bitcoin, no one gets to print money.
That's, that's thedifference between the three.
Very good point.
I, I think that's a goodsummary there onto the next one.
Some of the futurists and doomsdayprophets mentioned in chapter four as
(34:24):
the people most likely to warn us aboutthe dangers of the impending artificial
intelligence singularity, believe thatwe already live in a simulated reality.
The main argument for this worldviewis that since simulations and
computer graphics seem to be gettingbetter at an ever accelerating
rate, we can't really know if wealready live in a simulation or not.
(34:45):
To put it another way, we simply have noway of knowing if we live in the matrix
or if our perceived reality is all.
There is really mind blowingcounterargument to this theory is that
Bitcoin's proof of work algorithm wouldeventually slow down the simulation
since proof of work is verifiable andcan't be simulated itself, computing
(35:05):
power would have to be sacrificedby some entity somewhere regardless.
One question remains though.
Can the inhabitants of a simulated realityactually feel or measure a slowdown
of the very simulation they live in?
Interesting thoughtexperiment and the chapter.
Yes, it has nothing to do withthe rest of the chapter, does it?
(35:26):
I discussed this with Dr. Bansal and GiamoSoko on stage, on at Bitcoin Atlantis.
I believe in Madera.
Uh, I love this thought.
Uh, it's, it's a very, like, uh, and thisis one of those, it is just provoking.
Thought in every way possible.
And then, uh, I don't leave anything else.
I don't explore the ideas with the reader.
(35:48):
I just, uh, mention them.
Uh, so I don't know why I didthat in this book, really.
But, but, uh, but the, the thoughtstill intrigues me when, when thinking
about this, Simulation theory thing,it's important to remember that
simulation theory is not a new idea.
It's been around for like 500years, this matrixy dream, within
(36:09):
a dream, within a dream concept.
Philosophers have been battling thatsince forever, and, uh, It, it's sort of
like the free will debate at, at the endof the day, it doesn't matter because
we're in the reality we are in andwe're not in the other other realities.
Same thing with free will.
If you have it, thenthere's no discussion.
(36:30):
If you don't, you can't do anythingabout anything anyway, so, so you
might as well like act as if you do.
it's one of those, uh,weird, weird things.
But, but it is interesting that a. Asimulation of Earth would have to include
a simulation of the proof of work in,in Bitcoin mining, which in itself is
(36:54):
costly in terms of computing power.
I, I just, uh, I just like that,uh, that fact, if you want, I.
it is an interesting thoughtexperiment, definitely.
And well, so much as there are smartpeople who really think we are, in fact,
in a simulation and all of the computingpower being used for this and that, yeah,
it's hard to square these two things.
(37:15):
I guess that the, the probabilitythat we're in a simulation to some
people's estimation is extremely high.
But there's all of thiscomputing going on.
And by the way, all of the AI stuff alsois in that category, honestly, because
they're using computing power also.
Maybe that's less verifiable becauseit's not about mathematical cryptography.
(37:38):
But it's still a lot of computing power.
Maybe the AI stuff is actuallymore of an ev more of evidence for
the simulation because maybe thatstuff can be more easily faked.
I don't know.
No, but That's where the theory comesfrom, like the, that AI is getting so good
and computer graphics are getting so good.
Of course, these things are runon computers, so, so if they would
(37:59):
require a lot of computing power,this is just saying that the computer
on top, creating that reality withthat thing in it would also have to
do the proof of work algorithm, whichis more computing power than anything
else in, uh, uh, on Earth right now.
It's still the, the, the biggestcomputer network there is, is
the, the, uh, bitcoin network.
So, no, it's, uh, it's an intriguingthought anyway, uh, by the way,
(38:23):
uh, I, I looked up how manycomps.com and that site is still up.
Uh, what, what did I say inthe last paragraph there?
That, uh, Litecoin took, like,had like a fifth of the security
of Bitcoin or something,
You said a 10th.
a 10th.
Today it's the second biggest becauseEthereum isn't even there anymore
(38:44):
since they moved to Proof of Stake.
And Litecoin is, uh,11 times slower today.
Like so for six confirmations in, inBitcoin is equivalent to 268 Con, uh,
uh, confirmations in on Litecoin toget to the same level of security.
And then there's Dogecoin, andthen there's Ethereum Classic.
(39:05):
But yeah, the point, point stance thatit's, uh, it's getting worse over time
and not better for the share coins.
Yeah, very good point.
And I think the summation of thischapter, since we're done now, is
basically that, uh, proof of work isthis fundamental thing at the base
of Bitcoin, proof of work algorithm,plus the difficulty adjustment.
(39:27):
And these things are essential andexplaining why they're essential I
think is the point of this chapter.
Do you have anything elseyou'd like to say in summation?
No.
Uh, yeah, uh, that's a goodsummation and uh, proof of work.
Is very misunderstood, uh, that like.
The, um, environmentalists whomisunderstand it think that it's, uh,
(39:51):
it is wasting energy, but that's thecomplete wrong way to, to look at it.
It's not wasting energy.
It's sacrificing energyfor something much better.
And what they also forget about is the.
Consensus mechanism of fiat currencies,we've alluded to this before because the
consensus mechanism of fiat currenciesand whoever gets to decide what money a,
(40:13):
a nation runs on or what gets to be theglobal reserve currency is world wars.
That's the consensus mechanism.
If that's not wasteful, Idon't know what wasteful is.
So, so they're, they're not taking intoaccount how costly in terms of energy.
The, the current monetary system is this.
(40:33):
Uh, doing proof of work, uh, I wouldargue is actually the most efficient
way of getting to a consensus ofwhat, what is money and what is not.
Uh, every other way that has been triedhas been more costly in terms of not
only you need world wars to come to aconsensus, but of the vast number of,
uh, first and foremost, the vast numberof misallocated resources in society.
(40:58):
It's like this, Example from, fromprevious chapters that you, you never
get to exponential growth if you, if you,if you shoot yourself in the foot all
the time and, and put up roadblocks toprosperity, uh, which is what monetary
interventionists do all the time.
Not only by taxing people, butby inflating the money supply,
(41:19):
it gets harder for people to, uh,to accumulate wealth and prosper.
And, and, and.
Progress humanity into the future.
Uh, everything gets, uh, is handicapped byinterventionism, and that is what Bitcoin,
that is the problem that Bitcoin solves.
It solves the inflation problem.
(41:40):
It's, it solves the abundance of moneyand scarcity in anything, everything else.
So it's the other way around.
This is Jeff Booth point, like whenyou have scarcity and money, you
have abundance everywhere else.
Uh, and People need to understand that ona deep level to to, to understand Bitcoin.
Like I, I don't believe you canunderstand Bitcoin if you don't
(42:01):
first, uh, understand the problem itsolves and that problem is inflation.
Absolutely love it.
Fantastic summation.
So I think with that, this hasbeen the proof of work chapter from
sovereignty through mathematics.
And now, uh, I'll just say, hey, ifyou, if you've enjoyed listening to this
episode, watching or listening, Like.
(42:23):
On YouTube or on Rumble, uh,subscribe to the channel.
It, it always helps leave a commentthat really, really helps both of
the algorithms really like that.
Uh, leave a comment on Nosteror on Twitter or something
also when we post them there.
Uh, and, uh, yeah, join the discussion.
Let us know what youthink about the episode.
We, we really appreciate it.
(42:44):
And of course you cango to our Geyser page.
Slash Project slash Infiniti for fullinformation about how you can join
the Academy and get involved yourself.
Yes, and you can get.
Get all the books from, uh, bitcoininfinity.com, uh, our store where
we have reedited all the books andmade these beautiful hardcovers.
and um, yeah.
(43:05):
Um, if you buy anything off the store,you, you automatically get, uh, access to
the base telegram group for the academy.
So, so there's another reason to do that.
Absolutely.
And I think we'll, we'll also, um,uh, round this off with a, a big
thank you to Plan B Network forsponsoring this Academy initiative.
We're thrilled to be partnering,partnering with them.
(43:27):
They're a fantastic educational resource.
Plan b.network.
You can go there to check out allof the courses they have available
that are, uh, everything from.
From newbie friendly stuff to, tomore deep dives into various facets of
Bitcoin, written by tons of differentauthors, and they're, they're translating
them into tons of different languages.
And so this, this show is really agreat fit for, for them and, and we're
(43:50):
thrilled to be working with them.
We, we were Lisa, slightlycondensed version of, of this, um.
Have this show on their channel aswell, which is just a little more
directly on the educational side.
Slightly less tangents, but checkout everything they're doing and,
uh, if you wanna support them, youcan also come to the Plan B forum
conferences in Luo or El Salvador.
(44:11):
And, uh, uh, you also seeus there generally, I think.
So that's another, yet another reasonto, to check out Plan B Network.
And speaking of, uh, the, this Year'sBS school is, uh, uh, uh, has started
and, and also last year's BS school,which is a, a. Full course about
Bitcoin and how you can implementit in business, in your business.
(44:34):
Uh.
Is, uh, the, the last year's courseis now open sourced and available
for free from the Plan B website.
So either, uh, take the, this year'scourse or, uh, enroll for that thing
or, or take less or, or listen tothe lectures from last year's course.
I highly recommended, uh, they havethe, the best teacher in the world, in
my opinion, Giamo Soka is the head chefthere, so he is always entertaining
(44:59):
and interesting to listen to.
So go ahead and do that.
Absolutely perfect.
Tradition there?
Yes.
And, and also thank you to Bit Box.
They're our favorite hardware walletand they're a supporter of both our
regular show and of the academy.
So thank you to them for that.
And they don't compromise on security,but they are really user friendly.
So it's the, the hardware wallet thatnot only for you as a coiner, but your
(45:22):
friends, your family, all the pre coinsthat we definitely recommend for that.
So go check out Bit Box Swiss slashInfinity and get the bit box zero to
Bitcoin only edition for a discount.
Plus everything else on their store.
Got some other cool stuff.
And come to.
The, the Bitcoin conference inHelsinki that we're co-organizing,
(45:47):
uh, it's gonna be lots of fun.
We have lots of great speakersand, uh, yeah, looking forward
to seeing you all there.
Or, or at any of the other conferences.
Like if you're going to a Bitcoinconference or if you're buying
Bitcoin paraphernalia, you shouldtry to use code Infinity everywhere
because we have that code with, uh.
Most of our friends, uh, we havea lot of friends, so, uh, yes, uh,
(46:11):
that's a good way to get a discount
Definitely, and you'll see us in, uh uh,you'll see Ktin Ireland, both of us in
Prague, both of us in Riga now, I think.
Uh, and then.
Of course, Helsinki.
So, uh, Calgary.
Yeah, I forgot about that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, we'll be, we'll be in, uh, tons,tons of places this, uh, this summer.
(46:32):
So, so come see us somewhere.
Uh, but if you come see usanywhere and you're, you know,
traveling or whatever it is.
Come to Helsinki.
Yeah, just do that.
Yeah.
Um, we're, we're really excited about it.
We're just, uh, we're just aboutto open a, a physical pop-up shop
actually in, uh, in Helsinki.
So we're, we're really excited about that.
You'll be able to come, come see us there.
(46:52):
You'll even be able to get finishedTranslations of, uh, of Knut's
first two books pretty soon here.
Uh, we're working on the thirdand fourth one, so, uh, uh, yeah.
Exciting things happeningin in Finland, in Helsinki.
Yeah.
Super cool.
I think with that, uh, thankyou very much for listening.
This has been theBitcoin Infinity Academy.
Anything else to add?
(47:13):
Knut.
As usual.
Yeah.
Thanks for listening.
Bye.
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