co-founder & CTO @swan. Author Inventing Bitcoin. Shadowy Super Coder. @Swan is compensated by $SQNS for strategy and promotion
Dec 2, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Welcome new class of Bitcoiners 2023-2024! Welcome to the deniers and skeptics who haven’t followed the space and think you’ve come up with the one genius reason for why it won’t work that hasn’t been debunked for over a decade! Welcome to the technocrats and blockchain enthusiasts! Welcome to the journalists who wish to regain credibility after publishing disinformation campaigns without checking sources!
Let’s get started. 👇🧵
Don’t fall for blockchain. It’s a buzzword made to sell corporate POCs. Databases don’t need tokens to function.
I asked GPT4 to think through the geopolitical ramifications of national Bitcoin mining on trade and infrastructure. H/t @gladstein
Thread👇
🌱Shift in Energy Infrastructure: Countries with abundant, cheap energy sources would invest in greener tech to maximize #Bitcoin mining potential, driving innovations in energy storage & distribution.
Apr 12, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Statements about Bitcoin mining that sound like data but are actually unscientific emotional manipulation. A guide for journalists. 🧵👇
> “Bitcoin mine uses as much energy as the nearby 65,000 households”
Ants eat the equivalent of 60,000 hotdogs per day, so should we eradicate them so we can have more hotdogs for humans? Miners, like ants picking up crumbs, soak up *low demand* energy at rock bottom prices.
Feb 27, 2023 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
What are inscriptions/ordinals/Bitcoin NFTs? A primer thread including Bitcoin basics. 🧵👇
Bitcoin is the revolutionary invention of a trustless, permissionless, borderless, immutable monetary system that challenges central banks and authoritarian governments.
Bitcoin’s implementation includes an immutable distributed database (“the blockchain”). The primary purpose of this database is to record transfers of bitcoin between participants.
Nov 16, 2022 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
DeFi proponents are trying to fool you in claiming that FTX disaster was because of CeFi (centralized finance). A thread on DeFi risks with examples. 🧵👇
Contract bug leading to freeze of funds. This bug came from inventor of the eth solidity language and cost $150M of user funds.
An thread attempt to English language explain the most mind blowing exploit I’ve heard of in a long time: the NSO zero click. Your mind will be blown. 🧵👇
It all starts with sending a gif to your phone. It turns out the software tries to copy the gif to render it in a loop. But instead of copying it, it “renders” it in memory outside of its normal sandbox.
Jun 16, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Today I want to highlight 3 of my favorite historical #Bitcoin articles for those who joined 2017 and later. I consider these critical reads for understanding Bitcoin’s foundations and its path forward. Let’s begin 👇
From 2011, this monumental piece by @gwern explains some of Bitcoin’s tradeoffs, origins, and more. gwern.net/Bitcoin-is-Wor…
Jun 14, 2021 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Ten thousand Bitcoin competitors have failed to dethrone the king. The closest copy (bch) has 1.5% of Bitcoin’s value today.
It’s never too late to connect to the worldwide communications network known as the internet. There is no limit to its growth.
It’s never too late to connect to the worldwide monetary network known as Bitcoin. There is no limit to its growth.
Did the people who connected to the internet earlier get an “unfair” advantage? Debatable. I got internet in 93, learned to code, got into startups. But people connecting today can build wealth much quicker due to the advanced infra in place that we didn’t have.
Dec 6, 2020 • 18 tweets • 5 min read
“Bitcoin has no use except for speculation by tech bros”. A debunk thread.👇
Bitcoin is used in this village in El Salvador because “majority of residents are unbanked and the local businesses don’t meet the requirements that would enable them to accept credit cards.” google.com/amp/s/www.forb…
Oct 9, 2020 • 19 tweets • 5 min read
1/THREAD: WHEN WAS IT CLEAR?
Oct. 8, 2020: The purpose of this thread is to document and timestamp when it first became clear that #Bitcoin was likely to become a major reserve asset for public corporations, and eventually states, with Square's purchase of $50M in BTC.
The purpose is to give something to cite when ppl later claim "But there was NO WAY OF KNOWING..."
h/t @ErikSTownsend who used the same format to call out the impact of Covid on Feb 8 and made me personally aware of the looming shutdown of the country
1/ Bitcoin block production happens by a random lottery process. Sometimes two blocks can be found at roughly the same time in different parts of the world (say America and China).
2/ In this case some nodes will see the American block first and some the Chinese block first. Assuming both are valid, we now have a consensus split. It’s unclear which is the “true” chain. Bitcoin consensus solves this by trusting the chain with the most total Proof of Work.
Mar 15, 2019 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
Bitcoin Mining Explained. There is lots not covered here, but shooting for an intro rather than deep dive.
1/ Bitcoin is a ledger of accounts where thousands of people have a copy. In order to ensure consistency of the ledger, only one person can write to the ledger at a time.
2/ To ensure only one write, we implement a lottery system. The lottery will allow the winner to write to the ledger. It will also reward the winner with newly created Bitcoin. This is how we make Bitcoin distribution "fair"
