Thread by @SamuelPatt

The claim “Bitcoin was purpose-built to first be a Store of Value” is false.

In this article I've posting every single instance I could find across everything Satoshi ever wrote related to store of value or payments.

It wasn't even close. Payments win.

sampatt.com/blog/2019/06/0…

The evidence is all there in the post, but I've also put together a video summary if you don't want to read through all 38+ sources.

Satoshi built Bitcoin for payments.

After categorizing all relevant references to SoV or payments across all of Satoshi's writings, here's the finally tally.

Store of value references are infrequent, and often only indirectly supportive. Payment references are abundant and often directly supportive.

To help visualize this, I put together a timeline which shows each source from each category.

This timeline actually understates the number of times Satoshi mentions payments, since there are multiple cases where he does so on the same day, hence they don't show individually.

It's worth mentioning that the results from the tally and timeline above are all from non-whitepaper sources.

I intentionally didn't include the whitepaper when doing the tally because I got tired of SoV proponents dismissing all criticism by mocking people who quote it.

Caveat #1

I'm not making normative claims here. This isn't about my opinion on what Bitcoin should or shouldn't be. My goal is to challenge a blatant attempt to re-write history, because that's intellectually dishonest.

Caveat #2

I don’t think Satoshi’s opinion matters that much today. Over a decade out, Bitcoin can be whatever we want it to be. That doesn't mean we should let people get away with historical revisionism to support their current narrative.

What about the few times when Satoshi seems to support BTC as SoV?

In most cases he also mentioned payments in the same source. People like @danheld just conveniently ignore the payments quotes.

See sources #4 and #5, or watch this part of the video.

For a visual example of his cherry-picking, consider this Satoshi quote.

The red text is the @danheld quote he made in support of Bitcoin as a SoV. The green quotes are supportive of payments.

Seems like there's some context missing, no?

Let's look at another cherry-picking example. The @danheld quotes are in red, both top and bottom.

The green quote smack in the middle makes it obvious that Satoshi is talking about Bitcoin as a medium of exchange as well here.

Context changes things, doesn't it?

In an impressive act of mental gymnastics, @danheld tries to claim that the reason Satoshi mentions payments and commerce so frequently is that he was trying to deceive the cypherpunks into helping him build it.

That's nonsense.

sampatt.com/blog/2019/06/0…

Let's look at some of the evidence against the claim that Bitcoin was primarily built to act as a SoV.

Micropayments could be considered the opposite of SoV. Yet Satoshi enthusiastically supported them. On six separate occasions he mentioned them. (Sources 1, 5, 13, 14, 15, 17)

Satoshi frequently interacted with other BitcoinTalk users on threads that were specifically about using Bitcoin for commerce, and getting merchant adoption.

(Sources 20, 25, 27, 35)

Satoshi was building some sort of distributed marketplace inside the original code. In the commit where he eventually removed it, you can see references to markets, reviews, advertisements, etc. (Source #38)

github.com/bitcoin/bitcoi…

Satoshi does compare Bitcoin to gold, but not in the way you might think.

Source #9 shows that he consider's the primary utility of gold as a medium of exchange, not a store of value.

There are lots of other examples but I won't tweet them all, feel free to dive into the post.

Note that, once again, all of these sources are outside the whitepaper.

If you add the whitepaper in the case becomes overwhelmingly in favor of payments.

sampatt.com/blog/2019/06/0…

I end the post with ten questions for SoV proponents. I will seriously listen to any genuine attempts to answer these questions.

Also, feel free to contact me if I've missed something Satoshi said on either side. I will update the post.

Question #1 for those who claim Satoshi built BTC as a SoV:

Why did Satoshi only reference Bitcoin as a store of value a handful of times in all his writings, but mentioned payments and using Bitcoin for commerce dozens of times?

Question #2:

If Satoshi’s focus on payments and commerce was only a marketing ploy to get the cypherpunks’ attention, why did Satoshi continue focusing on payments and commerce long afterwards and never shift focus to store of value?

Question #3:

In the few cases where Satoshi referenced Bitcoin as a store of value, why are the majority of them only in response to other people questioning him? If store of value was his main focus, why did he never promote this idea directly and proactively?

Question #4:

Why did Satoshi participate in various BitcoinTalk threads focused on merchant adoption and using Bitcoin for commerce and openly indicated his support for the idea? (Sources 20, 25, 27, 35)

Question #5:

Why did Satoshi mention on-chain micropayments on six separate occasions over multiple years if store of value was his primary focus? (Sources 1, 5, 13, 14, 15, 17)

Question #6:

Why do you believe Satoshi intended Bitcoin to act as digital gold when he stated that gold’s primary utility was as a medium of exchange? (Source #9 above)

Question #7:

Why did Satoshi state that it “might make sense just to get some” only a single time in all his writings if he was trying to make Bitcoin into a store of value? (Source #5 above)

Question #8:

Why did Satoshi focus completely on payments and commerce in his whitepaper but not mention store of value once?

Question #9:

Why don’t the anecdotes of numerous early adopters claiming that there was near universal agreement that Bitcoin was intended for payments convince you?

Finally, question #10:

If this post isn’t sufficient evidence for you, then is there any evidence that would convince you that Satoshi didn’t build Bitcoin primarily as a store of value?

This was a fairly substantial time investment. If you think I’ve done something useful here, and you’d like me to keep doing this type of thing, you can follow me on Twitter and / or send me a BTC tip at this address:

3Qk7nDbRLKow97vZQ8p4qf6vBLCoYJSFsd

In all honesty though, your tips aren’t nearly as valuable as knowing people are using Bitcoin as p2p digital cash.

Download @openbazaar and starting using that digital cash without asking for permission from anyone. No fees, no censorship.

openbazaar.org/download/

Yes, you should have a stash, but you shouldn’t feel guilty spending either.

After having read everything he wrote publicly, I’m confident that Satoshi would agree.

End thread.