Bitcoin Is Not Digital Scarcity

This blog was originally published on highlighter.com.

"Cypherpunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to defend privacy, and since we can't get privacy unless we all do, we're going to write it. We publish our code so that our fellow Cypherpunks may practice and play with it. Our code is free for all to use, worldwide. We don't much care if you don't approve of the software we write. We know that software can't be destroyed and that a widely dispersed system can't be shut down."

-Eric Hughes, The Cypherpunk Manifesto, March 9th , 1993

Bitcoin is software. Software can be copied ad infinitum. **Information on the Internet is not scarce**. Jpegs on the Internet are not scarce. **The bitcoin timechain is not scarce because thousands of people have copied it**. Many of these copies are on computers not much bigger than a credit card.

**To say bitcoin is "digital scarcity" is a misnomer**. There is no such thing as digital scarcity. Bitcoin is part of the Internet, an abundance of information. The Internet is the exact opposite of scarcity. **The Internet is abundance**. What **Satoshi discovered** was **absolute mathematical scarcity embedded in the infinite abundance of information the Internet** made possible.

What politicians call an "unhosted wallet," is just one very large number. The amount of possible "unhosted wallets" is about the same number as there are atoms in the universe.

This quote from Eric Hughes explains why **bitcoin cannot be shut down by any government**.

**"We know that software can't be destroyed and that a widely dispersed system can't be shut down."**

**Bitcoin is a widely dispersed peer-to-peer electronic cash system**, the discovery of absolute asthmatically scarcity hidden in the abundance of information of the Internet.

[Onward](https://highlighter.com/e/note1368g8mqek46tg5qnfdsgyu59narx4w4t3zu59z8zzfxzea7nlt8s9qrufh) indeed.

[₿logging₿itcoin

824,495

US Debt Clock

This blog does not use paywalls because information wants to be free. It is available free of charge. You have my permission to use it however you like as it is written using the value for value model.

🧡Support my work by: