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  • Good morning John.

  • So around the time when a single Bitcoin started to be worth, like, thousands of dollars

  • You started emailing me every once in a while saying you're pretty sure that sometime in the distant past

  • Somebody sent us a Bitcoin.

  • And I told you that that was ridiculous and impossible and to stop having weird dreams.

  • And then the price of a Bitcoin jumped up to ten thousand dollars

  • And you email me again, and you're like

  • "Hank, I'm pretty sure somebody gave us a Bitcoin."

  • And I told you that you were wrong and, if anything, somebody sent us a Dogecoin

  • Which isn't worth a lot.

  • And then a single Bitcoin became worth fifteen thousand dollars,

  • And you stopped bothering with me

  • And instead did a systematic search of every email we had received since the beginning of Bitcoin.

  • And then, John, you found that a nice person named Sean had in 2014 sent us a Bitcoin,

  • Almost an entire Bitcoin. We had to recreate an old email address to get access to that Bitcoin.

  • It was a bit of a to-do, but at the end of the process I logged into Coinbase

  • And there was $15,000 that we didn't know we had.

  • And then we sold it immediately and then donated the proceeds to Partners in Health.

  • So thank you Sean.

  • This is very strange and there's a lot to cover when it comes to Bitcoin,

  • And while the technology of Bitcoin is super amazing,

  • And we made a Scishow video about it and you can watch it,

  • I want to talk about one of the more boring mundane aspects of Bitcoin,

  • Which is how something that cost Sean a hundred dollars

  • Became worth fifteen thousand dollars.

  • Where did that value - that actual literal money - come from?

  • All the times in our minds when we talk about financial markets

  • We imagine them as being like either

  • Magic or like invisible hand-ish things are happening.

  • Like our Bitcoin became worth fifteen thousand dollars because the value of Bitcoin increased.

  • But of course that's gibberish.

  • Basically like saying it rained more because more water came out of the sky.

  • My Bitcoin became worth fifteen thousand dollars the moment

  • Someone else bought another Bitcoin on the open market for fifteen thousand dollars.

  • And not only mine - everyone's.

  • And when I sold my Bitcoin

  • I sold it to someone who bought it with money.

  • A lot of money!

  • When they paid for it, they set the price for every Bitcoin in that moment.

  • And of course the same thing goes on the way down.

  • If suddenly there are more people selling Bitcoin than buying Bitcoin

  • People start selling their Bitcoin at lower prices and suddenly

  • Every Bitcoin that exists is worth less money.

  • This is the way that financial markets work, and it's pretty weird.

  • The only thing that decides how much a share in Google is worth is the most recent purchase of Google stock.

  • If suddenly no one in the world would buy a share in Google for more than a dollar,

  • Google shares would be worth a dollar.

  • It's just humans deciding whether to buy or sell to other humans.

  • But the value of Google stock is based on Google's ability to make money, which has some consistency to it.

  • To some extent it's additionally based on people's belief

  • That it will be able to make more money in the future.

  • A Bitcoin's value on the other hand is

  • Mostly based on an uncertain prediction that at some point in the future

  • Lots of people will use Bitcoins as currency.

  • And that's a bet on a future that no one can accurately predict,

  • And also that I can't really even advocate for.

  • But Partners in Health I know is adding value to the world

  • So I'd rather them have my Bitcoin because Partners in Health

  • Does amazing work with passion and intelligence.

  • And if you want a wonderful way to spend a half an hour or so

  • I've linked to an amazing article about Partners in Health in the description.

  • John, thank you for sharing that article with me.

  • It's changed the way I think about a lot of stuff

  • And thank you for finding our Bitcoin.

  • I still cannot believe that you were right.

  • I'll see you on Tuesday.

  • Hey everybody two things.

  • First - I did the Nerdfighteria census analysis,

  • It's over on Hanks Channel.

  • It's quite long and very interesting.

  • And number two - until the end of January you can join DFTBA's new pin subscription, The DFTBA Pin Pals.

  • This is the first pin. Shipping is free everywhere in the world.

  • The second one hasn't been printed yet

  • But it looks like this and the third one I've been working on - it's Mars Pathfinder,

  • Which the first rover on Mars - an extremely important object in my life.

  • There's a limited number of openings in the subscription club

  • So that we don't make too many or too few pins, so go sign up!

  • Links in the description.

Good morning John.

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