The profound insight of Bitcoin’s mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, continues to resonate a decade and a half after Bitcoin’s inception.
In a tweet, Bitcoin historian Pete Rizzo revisited a pivotal statement made by Bitcoin’s enigmatic creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, exactly 14 years ago. The statement, which explained the promise of Bitcoin when it was valued at just $0.07, has resurfaced, shedding light on the visionary thinking underpinning the creation of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
Rizzo shared a quote that was believed to have been made by the Bitcoin founder, explaining Bitcoin’s unique value proposition with a powerful analogy.
Satoshi’s message was: “Imagine there was a base metal as scarce as gold but with the following properties: 1. boring grey in color. 2. not a good conductor of electricity. 3. not particularly strong but not ductile or easily malleable either. 4. not useful for any practical or ornamental purpose and one special magical property: it can be transported over a communications channel.”
According to the quote, Satoshi highlighted one “special magical property” of this metal: “it could be transported over a communications channel.” This unique characteristic encapsulated the revolutionary potential of Bitcoin, distinguishing it from traditional assets and currencies.
At the time of writing, BTC was trading at $63,705.
94% of total Bitcoin supply now issued
A significant milestone in Bitcoin’s supply schedule has been reached: about 94% of the total Bitcoin supply has been issued via mining. More than 19.74 million BTC have been mined so far, out of a hard cap of 21 million.
This leaves only approximately 1.26 million BTC to be issued. With the current block reward of 6.25 BTC, the remaining supply might take over 100 years to mint fully, according to estimations. Experts predict that 99.9% of all Bitcoin will have been mined by 2140, with miners receiving fees rather than subsidies.
This controlled supply schedule is an important part of Bitcoin’s value proposition. As issuance slows and demand soars, Bitcoin is designed to become scarcer over time, an appealing quality against unlimited fiat money printing and currency debasement.
