BTCFAQ.org

What is this website?

By now you've probably heard about Bitcoin (BTC), but you may not understand it. Bitcoin has been one of the best investments of the last decade and may be one of the best investments of the coming decade too. But, as investment wisdom tells us, one shouldn't invest in something they don't understand. This site offers content, in the form of "frequently asked questions", to kick-start your knowledge and understanding of Bitcoin, particularly as an investment. Note, however, that this is not investment advice, and you should continue to do your own research.

Why does this site exist and who wrote it?

I believe that Bitcoin is already a powerful force for good in the world and the stronger it becomes, both technologically and economically, the more good I believe it can do. Its positive influences have included: providing an economic "escape hatch" for people in repressive or unstable economic environments, simplifying and reducing the cost of cross-border payments/remittances, allowing people all over the world to invest in something that cannot have its value reduced via politically motivated inflation, and incentivizing saving rather than spending which reduces the destructive global effects of consumerism...among others. I am a proud Bitcoin investor myself and hope to increase the value and strength of Bitcoin by educating more people about it. My educational background is in computer science and programming, and politically, like many other Bitcoin enthusiasts, I have a strong focus on individual liberties and freedoms. Beyond that background information, I choose to remain anonymous. I've been hesitant in the past to outright recommend Bitcoin to anyone for fear that its failure could damage personal relationships. However, its strength and stability have improved to the point that I wanted to try my hand at making an explicit case for why and how Bitcoin is a worthwhile investment. This exercise was initially undertaken to share with family and friends, though I hope it will be shared more widely over time. This site, which is a distillation of years of learning and involvement in various Bitcoin communities, is my attempt to make that case.

What can I expect as I read through this website?

All of the below content comes from a position of informed humility. A common approach by many "Bitcoiners", which I share, is to take a philosophical perspective about the issues involved. Although "money" is a profoundly commonplace object in all of our lives, Bitcoin and its underlying concepts beg one to look more closely at the commonplace. Combine this with an "engineer's" mindset which encourages a conservative approach to the trade-offs inherent in any system, and you can get to a rather abstract and sometimes even wishy-washy sounding place. Sadly, a reasoned, conservative, careful discussion that tries to avoid over-promising is often less convincing and more challenging than the clear, simple, straightforward marketing material that is on offer from anyone looking to scam others. The content below is sometimes challenging, dense, abstract, and philosophical. It represents my current best efforts (with the help of some great editor-friends!) to communicate complex and subtle material as clearly as possible...in some cases my best effort may not be up to the challenge of conveying these ideas sufficiently. If any particular point I make leaves you unconvinced, I simply recommend that you continue your own research using the links at the bottom.

#1. What makes Bitcoin special?

Bitcoin is not controlled by anyone. No person, group, or government can change it unilaterally. Rather, an inclusive, global network of voluntary participants (including programmers, scientists, investors, business owners, and maybe, someday, you!) decides together how they want it to function. The open inclusion of so many disparate participants, with different motives and incentives, builds a natural checks-and-balances system that makes Bitcoin very resistant to the short-sighted whims of any particular sub-group (think "politicians" in most other human systems). Bitcoin, as an investment, is also very special because it is the only truly scarce digital asset. Scarcity is what gives things value and the fundamental breakthrough at the heart of Bitcoin represents the first ever (and only) digital scarcity.

#2. To invest in Bitcoin, do I need to understand how it works, technically?

No. Due to the deeply technical nature of Bitcoin, a thorough technical understanding of the system is quite rare - often requiring a computer science or cryptography degree and a great deal of reading and studying. Luckily, even without a technical understanding you can invest in and benefit from it. By comparison, consider how little you know about the inner workings of the US Federal Reserve system, or the World Bank, or the business details of the companies whose stock you might own. You might also consider how little you understand about how email or websites work, despite them being integral to your life. It's important to understand the concepts behind Bitcoin, but less so to understand how the system functions.

#3. Why is Bitcoin valuable?

This is a question that the Bitcoin community is still working to properly answer. However, a growing concensus is emerging that indicates two fundamental, interrelated attributes that contribute to Bitcoin's value: Bitcoin's monetary policy and the credibility of the system to uphold the monetary policy. The monetary policy refers to the rate of production of new Bitcoin units and the limit on the total number of Bitcoin units that will ever exist (remember the important concept of scarcity). As Bitcoin has grown and matured, it has resisted many attempts by various sub-groups to alter its properties (thanks to the intrinsic checks-and-balances described above). Over time, resisting changes in this way has increased investors' confidence in the predictability and resilience of the system and thereby attracted more investment from those who see Bitcoin as a potential "Store of Value" or safe-haven investment. As Bitcoin continues to resist changes to its monetary policy over time, it is expected that more and more investors will choose to store wealth in Bitcoin as a stable and predictable asset.

#4. But seriously...Is it really worth anything?

Another way to ask this question is "Does Bitcoin have any objective or intrinsic value?" The question of Bitcoin's objective or intrinsic value is a very tricky one from a theoretical or philosophical perspective. Doubt in Bitcoin's intrinsic value is also one of the most common critiques of Bitcoin, so it is important to address. However, a fair addressing of the question necessarily gets rather abstract, so buckle up... On one hand, nothing has any true, objective value - rather we humans assign subjective values to things. If enough of us assign value to something, the rest of us generally perceive that thing to be valuable (an "intersubjective reality"). On the other hand, various things in our world have objective properties that we humans subjectively value; for example, food that humans can digest for energy has objective properties that makes it subjectively valuable to us. Bitcoin, by virtue of merely existing, has objective properties, some of which are found to be subjectively valuable to people who buy and hold Bitcoin. Some of the top examples of Bitcoin's subjectively valued properties are: predictable monetary policy with a fixed supply of Bitcoins (see #3), censorship resistance (unfettered ability to transfer value to anyone, anywhere), semi-anonymous/private operation, peer-to-peer operation (lack of intermediaries), decentralization (inherent checks-and-balances), history of stability and security, and history of continuous improvements to the system.

#5. Could its value drop to zero?

Yes, it can. The truth is, Bitcoin is a high risk asset. Accordingly, most investment advisors would recommend that a smaller portion of your money/wealth be invested in it, in accordance with your risk appetite. Generally speaking, the younger you are the more risk is often recommended. Alternatively, having a higher ratio of low risk assets (like cash and bonds) in your portfolio, can often warrant the inclusion of a small amount of high risk assets, like Bitcoin. As a conceptual proof of the potential of such a strategy, a "Bitcoiner" recently discovered an interesting data point: a portfolio holding 5% Bitcoin and 95% cash would have outperformed the stock market for each of the last 6 years.^[1]

#6. Doesn't Bitcoin use tons of energy and harm the environment?

Yes, and no. Bitcoin's energy use is integral to its security, and the fact is, as it gains in popularity and value its energy use has grown and it will continue to grow. However, studies have shown that a large majority of the energy consumed by the network is from renewable sources ^[2], and many people believe it actually incentivizes the expansion of renewable energy.^[3] Additionally, Bitcoin is designed as a possible alternative to traditional money systems. It's very likely that the environmental impact of traditional money systems is far higher than that of Bitcoin; consider, for example the following non-exhaustive list of traditional money system activities that have very high energy costs and environmental impacts: mining metals and stamping coins, printing bills, driving money around in armored cars, building banks and vaults to hold money, funding governmental structures to limit counterfeiting, running banking and investment software on millions of servers around the world, etc.

#7. I've heard about some other cryptocurrencies...What about those?

Bitcoin is special because it represents a fundamental breakthrough - in particular, a novel solution to an old computer science problem called the Byzantine Generals Problem^[4]. By solving this problem in a new way, it offers a completely new concept of money. All other cryptocurrencies are descendants of Bitcoin by virtue of copying Bitcoin's novel solution to that problem. By being the first, Bitcoin has attracted most of the best computer scientists, programmers, cryptographers, and principled users/investors. It may be exciting to imagine that X, Y, or Z is the "next Bitcoin" and will guarantee that you become rich, but there have been many attempts to usurp or overshadow Bitcoin over its 10+ year history, and they have all failed. Bitcoin continues to tower above all of its children and continues to evolve and improve itself - sometimes even by copying new ideas from descendant projects (that's one of the great powers of open-source software, which Bitcoin is). If Bitcoin itself is a high-risk investment, all other cryptocurrencies should be considered extreme-risk.

#8. Didn't Bitcoin already die?

No. Bitcoin, by virtue of being technical in nature and very different than the mainstream, conventional wisdom in economics and investment circles, is often used as a punching bag in mainstream media outlets. It's common human behavior to poke fun at things we don't understand or that cause us to question our beliefs, both of which are very true about Bitcoin. Despite literally hundreds of Bitcoin "obituaries" over the last decade from newspapers, websites, economists, pundits, and even high profile, celebrity investors, Bitcoin is an amazingly reliable and robust system that has been running nonstop for 10+ years and has never been hacked (Note: Bitcoin itself has never been hacked, but individual Bitcoin users/investors/companies who, knowingly or unknowingly, failed to follow best practices for managing their funds have been hacked).

#9. Isn't it too late? It's so expensive - I can't even afford to buy 1 BTC!

No, it's not too late. And it's no problem that you can't buy a whole Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is designed to be bought in small amounts. In fact, because of Bitcoin's design, which limits the system to only ever producing 21 million Bitcoins, it's actually impossible for every millionaire in the world today to own a full Bitcoin since there are more than 21 million global millionaires. So, buying Bitcoin in smaller amounts is not only normal and expected, it is essentially unavoidable. It can be a little unsettling to purchase 0.001 of something, but rest assured you would not be alone in doing so. Bitcoin is currently divisible into 100,000,000 units (sometimes referred to as "satoshis", in homage to Bitcoin's unknown creator), just as dollars are divisible into 100 units (called "cents"). It's also possible for Bitcoin, in the future, to be divided into even smaller units, if necessary.

#10. Which "Bitcoin" is the right one?!

Bitcoin, the real Bitcoin, is just called "Bitcoin", and it's ticker is almost universally "BTC". The real Bitcoin is also the one that is more valuable/expensive to buy (you get what you pay for!). Unfortunately, throughout Bitcoin's history, various factions have broken off from the larger Bitcoin community and they believed that if they could steal the name "Bitcoin" for their own project, they could steal all of Bitcoin's value. Despite coordinated, long term attempts via misleading marketing and PR to steal the name and mantle of Bitcoin, the original Bitcoin (BTC) has continually maintained the largest development community, the strongest investor backing, and the widest acceptance by merchants and exchanges. Do not fall victim to one of Bitcoin's counterfeit impostors - be particularly wary of so-called "Bitcoin Cash" which is pushed on the domain bitcoin(dot)com - this is NOT Bitcoin and members of that impostor coin's community have hoodwinked many investors using misleading marketing.

#11. Alright. I'm convinced there's something to it. What's next?

Bitcoin represents the cutting edge of money, economics, and distributed computing. As such, the entire community is continually learning what Bitcoin really is. Learning can take many forms, depending on your goals and personality. See if any of the below subsections fit how you're feeling now...

• I have more questions concerning Bitcoin as an investment.
  See Part 2 of this FAQ: Investment-related FAQs
• I'm ready to buy/invest now. Where should I start?
  See Part 3 of this FAQ: Buying-related FAQs
• I want to learn more about Bitcoin from a conceptual point of view.
  Andreas Antonopolous is one of Bitcoin's preeminent educators and advocates. He combines deep technical knowledge, wide-ranging knowledge of philosophy, economics, and other fields, with world-class communication skills to help countless others make sense of Bitcoin. He has a YouTube playlist titled "Bitcoin for Beginners" containing 33 videos and covering a wide range of Bitcoin-related concepts. See Bitcoin for Beginners.
• I'm skeptical about Bitcoin's long term value.
  Vijay Boyapati, former Google engineer, student of the Austrian school of economics, and long time Bitcoin thought leader, wrote a heavily referenced article titled "The Bullish Case for Bitcoin". Many in the space now use it as a go-to reference for a view of how and why Bitcoin is valuable and will grow in value. See The Bullish Case for Bitcoin.
• Show me how deep this rabbit hole goes...
  Jameson Lopp, a long time Bitcoiner and current CTO of Bitcoin-focused company Casa, maintains a community-edited Bitcoin "wiki". This page serves as a springboard into many different aspects of the Bitcoin space. If you're ready to "drink from the firehose", see the wiki at https://bitcoin.page
• I've read everything here but I still want more. How do I take it to the next level?
  • The Bitcoin Standard (book), by Saifedean Ammous - A very opinionated and passionate economist lays out the case for a "Bitcoin Standard" to replace the now-defunct "Gold Standard" that helped humanity prosper through some of its most productive and creative eras.
  • Mastering Bitcoin (book), by Andreas Antonopolous - One of Bitcoin's first great books. In this technical deep-dive Andreas explores and explains Bitcoin's inner workings for proficient, technical readers.
  • What Bitcoin Did (podcast), by Peter McCormack - A non-technical host interviews people from around the Bitcoin space in intelligent, accessible dialogues.

#11. This site helped me greatly. How can I show my appreciation?

I'm thrilled that this has been a helpful resource, and I'm happy to accept donations for this work if it's been of use. My donation address is:

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