Figures


0.1. Central Bank Balance Sheets 2009 vs. 2019

0.2. Emerging Market Currencies vs. USD 2009–2019

1.1. Decision Tree: Bitcoin’s Path to Global Reserve Currency

1.2. Factors Determining Price & Relative Price under a Constant Money Supply

1.3. Value Creation and Communication through a Single Monetary Medium

1.4. Creating Order through Measurement

1.5. Network Adoption and Possible Network Connections

1.6. Dollar, Euro, Yen, and Gold Indexed to Bitcoin, 2014–2019

1.7. Uncapped Demand vs. Fixed Supply

1.8. Average Bitcoin per User

1.9. Global Bitcoin Reachable Nodes Map, November 2019

1.10. Annual Rate of Currency Supply Change: Bitcoin, USD, Yen, and Euros, 2011–2019

1.11. Bitcoin Volatility: Present vs. Expected Future

1.12. Network Value Size and Implications for Participants

2.1. Selection of Books on Bitcoin

2.2. Independent Verification of Blocks by Nodes

2.3. Valid Block Construction (selected elements)

2.4. Proof-­of-­Work Function (simplified)

2.5. Bitcoin Supply Curve with Halving Epochs

2.6. Acceptance and Rejection of Proposed Blocks at Halving

2.7. Blockchain Decision Tree (sourced from The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous, 2018)

2.8. Bitcoin Adoption Flywheel

2.9. Technology/Globalization Plane (adapted from Zero to One by Peter Thiel, 2014, p. 8)

3.1. Purchasing Power of Bitcoin in US Dollar Terms, May 2019–September 2019

3.2. US Debt (systemwide) (Fed Z.1 report) and Nominal GDP (FRED website), 1987–2018

3.3. US Debt (systemwide), Nominal GDP, and Federal Tax Receipts indexed to 1987 levels

3.4. Debt Securities and Loans and Monetary Base, 1986–2018

3.5. US Monetary Base (annotated with quantitative easing rounds), 1959–2019

3.6. Contrasting Monetary Systems: Centralized vs. Decentralized

3.7. Bitcoin Supply Curve with Halving Epochs

3.8. Bitcoin Hashrate, 30-­Day Moving Average, 2018–2019

3.9. Acceptance and Rejection of Proposed Blocks at Halving

3.10. Mining Decision Tree: Valid vs. Invalid Work

3.11. Address Derivation for Private Key: Public Keys, Address, Signature

3.12. Economic Incentives of Bitcoin: Checks and Balances

4.1. Monetary Systems: Centralized vs. Decentralized

4.2. Bitcoin vs. Fiat across Cost, Benefit, and Volatility

4.3. Tweet by Ted Rogers, 6 September 2017 and 23 April 2018

4.4. Bloomberg News Coverage of India’s Cryptocurrency Ban, 3 July 2018 and 4 March 2020

4.5. Bitcoin Market Dominance, 22 August 2019

4.6. Tweet by Pirate Beachbum, 25 May 2020

4.7. Bitcoin/USD Price, January 2020–April 2020

4.8. Tweet by Hal Finney, 10 January 2009

4.9. Tweet by Nicolas Dorier, 17 August 2017

5.1. Consumer Price Index: Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar, 1980–2020

5.2. The Dollar Hamster Wheel

5.3. Tweets by Nic Carter and Pierre Rochard, 30 November 2020

5.4. Sources of Global Debt, 1999–2017

5.5. Net Assets of Mutual Funds in US (2002–2019)

5.6. Net Assets of ETFs in US (2002–2019)

5.7. US Finance & Insurance Sector as Share of GDP (1970–2020)

5.8. Tweet by Dave Portnoy, 4 June 2020

5.9. Distribution of US Wealth, 1989–2020

5.10. US Savings Accounts by Size, November 2019

5.11. Uncapped Demand vs. Fixed Supply

5.12. Market Value of Negative-­Yielding Bonds, Bloomberg Barclays Global-­Aggregate Index

5.13. Global Government 10Y Bond Yields, 20 December 2020

5.14. Cycle of the Great Definancialization

5.15. Tweet by Michael Saylor, 9 November 2020

6.1. US Monetary Base (Total) January 1959–July 2019

6.2. Attempts to Copy Bitcoin

6.3. Emergent Properties of Bitcoin

6.4. Bitcoin’s Value Function Reinforces Credibility of Supply Schedule

6.5. Blockchain Decision Tree (sourced from The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous, 2018)

6.6. The Minority Rule by Nassim N. Taleb

7.1. Consumer Price Index: Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar, 1980–2020

7.2. Tweets by European Central Bank, 12 March 2019 and 9 July 2019

7.3. BTC/USD Price Chart Log Scale, 2011–2019

7.4. Bitcoin’s Value Function Reinforces Credibility of Supply Schedule

7.5. Fixed Supply vs. Expanding Demand

7.6. Stages of Technology Adoption (S-­Curve)

7.7. Bitcoin Adoption Waves (Simplified)

7.8. Changes in Bitcoin Demand, Supply, and Value, 2016–2019

7.9. Aggregate Wealth Stored in Bitcoin vs. Assets of US Households

7.10. Bitcoin Volatility: Present vs. Expected Future

7.11. ALT 60/40 Portfolio Return Profile vs. 1%, 3% Bitcoin Allocations, VanEck, 2019

7.12. Bitcoin’s Path to Full Monetization

8.1. Bitcoin Hashrate, 30-­Day Simple Moving Average

8.2. Venezuela Monthly Crude Oil Production, 2000–2019

8.3. US Monetary Base (Total) with QE, January 1959–July 2019

9.1. Jacob Leupold, “Steam Engine,” Theatri Machinarum Hydraulicarum II,
1720.

9.2. Innovation vs. Scaling

9.3. Technology/Globalization Plane (adapted from Zero to One by Peter Thiel, 2014, p. 8)

9.4. Bitcoin White Paper, p. 1 (cropped)

9.5. Selected Block Data for Blocks 591,272–591,274

9.6. Bitcoin Blockchain Size, August 2017–August 2019

9.7. Bitcoin Halving Schedule, Eras 1–5

9.8. Legacy Payments Flow Chart

9.9. Payments Layer as a Bridge for Money

10.1. Pick your Narrative

10.2. Is Bitcoin for Criminals? Decision Tree

10.3. Silk Road Payment System, 2015

10.4. Tweet by Hal Finney, 10 January 2009

10.5. Decentralization Spectrum

11.1. Banning Bitcoin Decision Tree

11.2. Bitcoin FUD! Dice (v2) by Nic Carter, 2019

11.3. Bitcoin vs. Competing Monetary Mediums

11.4. Global Bitcoin Reachable Nodes Map, November 2019

11.5. Monetary Systems: Centralized vs. Decentralized

11.6. Banning Bitcoin: Prisoner’s Dilemma

11.7. Tweet by Michael Goldstein, 14 January 2019

12.1. Comparing Bitcoin and the US Dollar: Supply, Issuance, and Governance

12.2. US Dollar Historical Supply and Bitcoin Supply Schedule

12.3. Total Bitcoin in Existence, September 2019–October 2019

12.4. Verification of Bitcoin Supply and Issuance Rate on a Bitcoin Node, Block Height: 599,114

12.5. Purchasing Power of Bitcoin Relative to Dollars: BTC/USD, November 2011–May 2020

13.1. Tweet by Lawrence H. Summers, 22 August 2019

13.2. The Central Bank Playbook

13.3. Comparing Purchasing Power of the US Dollar with Monetary Base

13.4. Comparing Debt Securities and Loans with the Monetary Base

14.1. Other Factors Supplying Reserve Balances: Total Factors Supplying Reserve Funds

14.2. Cash Assets, All Commercial Banks (US), 2014–2020

14.3. S&P 500 Index, December 2019–April 2020

14.4. Bitcoin Supply Schedule by Year (projected)

14.5. Bitcoin/USD Price Chart: January 2020–April 2020

14.6. The Gonzales Flag, painted by Cynthia Burns and Evaline DeWitt, 1835

15.1. Fed, ECB & BoJ Combined Balance Sheet: Total Assets, January 2008–April 2020

15.2. Tweet by Michael Goldstein (@bitstein), 15 September 2018

15.3. US Labor Force vs. Fed Balance Sheet, 2008–2020

15.4. New US Dollars Added into the Financial System, 26 February 2020–29 April 2020

15.5. US Credit System Leverage Dynamics After New Dollars Added

15.6. Consumer Price Index: Purchasing Power of Consumer Dollar in US City Average

15.7. Total US Debt System-­Wide vs. Fed Balance Sheet Assets, 2005–2019

15.8. US Credit System Expansion and Federal Government Share of US Credit System

15.9. US Total Monetary Base and Bitcoin Supply Schedule (updated)

15.10. Purchasing Power of Bitcoin Relative to Dollars: BTC/USD, November 2011–May 2020

16.1. Distribution of US Wealth, 1989–2020

16.2. US Savings Accounts by Size, November 2019

16.3. US Weekly Jobless Claims vs. S&P Index, January 2020–July 2020

16.4. Portrait of Bitcoin Sign Guy during Janet Yellen’s 2017 HFSC Testimony, by Jim Ferguson

16.5. Value Creation and Communication through a Single Monetary Medium

16.6. Mortgage-­Backed Securities Held by the Federal Reserve: All Maturities, 2007–2018

16.7. US National Home Price Index, Home Ownership, Labor Participation, 2007–2019

16.8. Relative Size of an Economy vs. People Distorting the Economy

16.9. US Credit System Leverage Dynamics After New Dollars Added

16.10. Debt Securities and Loans; Liability, Level, All Sectors, 1945–2020

16.11. Labor Productivity vs. Hourly Compensation, 1948–2014

16.12. US House Price Index vs. Housing Opportunity Index, 2000–2019

16.13. Factors Determining Price & Relative Price under a Constant Money Supply

16.14. Uncapped Demand vs. Fixed Supply

16.15. Average Bitcoin per User

16.16. US Monetary Base, Total, 1960–2020

16.17. Number of Bitcoin Addresses with a Balance ≥ 0.1 BTC, 27 August 2020

16.18. Number of Bitcoin Addresses with a Balance ≥ 100 BTC, 27 August 2020

16.19. Tweet by Vitalik Buterin, 17 August 2018