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The notes, chapter by chapter

Every number in the book has a source. These are the notes as printed, with retrieval dates. Web addresses in them are links; a page may have moved since the date shown.

Chapter 1. Bitcoin made simple

  1. Circulating supply, calculated from block height 969,192 (Blockstream and BlockCypher block explorers, September 29, 2026): about 20.09 million bitcoin of a maximum of 21 million. Because amounts are rounded to whole satoshis, the true maximum is a hair under 21 million, about 20,999,999.98.
  2. Satoshi Nakamoto, email to developer Mike Hearn, April 23, 2011 (“I’ve moved on to other things. It’s in good hands with Gavin and everyone.”), as shared by Hearn and reported in Vice (Motherboard), August 11, 2017; last public forum post, bitcointalk.org, December 2010, as archived by the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute (retrieved September 2026).
  3. Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” bitcoin.org, 2008. Quotations from Sections 1 and 2; citations to Back and Dai in the paper’s reference list.
  4. Source code, main.h, 2009: “static const int64 COIN = 100000000;” (earliest version in the bitcoin/bitcoin repository, github.com, retrieved September 2026); the version 0.1.0 release of January 9, 2009 is archived at satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/code.
  5. Arithmetic: 21,000,000 × 100,000,000 = 2.1 × 10^15 satoshis; world population from United Nations World Population Prospects, 2024.
  6. World Gold Council, “Above-ground stocks,” gold.org (retrieved September 2026): about 222,600 tonnes as of mid-2026; World Gold Council, Gold Demand Trends, Full Year 2025 (2026): mine production of 3,672 tonnes in 2025, about 1.7% of the above-ground stock.
  7. CoinMarketCap, coinmarketcap.com, site-wide count of cryptocurrencies tracked, 62.26 million (retrieved September 2026); CoinGecko, by comparison, listed about 21,700 coins the same month.
  8. DefiLlama, “Stablecoins,” defillama.com, total stablecoin market cap about $306 billion, of which Tether USDT about $184 billion and Circle USDC about $75 billion (retrieved September 29, 2026).
  9. rwa.xyz, “Tokenized Treasuries,” app.rwa.xyz, about $14.7 billion across 25 products, including funds from BlackRock (BUIDL), Franklin Templeton (BENJI), WisdomTree, Invesco and JPMorgan (retrieved September 29, 2026).
  10. SEC v. W.J. Howey Co., 328 U.S. 293 (1946).
  11. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, In re Coinflip, Inc., d/b/a Derivabit, order and press release, September 17, 2015, cftc.gov (retrieved September 2026), finding for the first time that bitcoin and other virtual currencies are commodities; SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, testimony before the House Appropriations Committee, April 26, 2018 (as reported by Coin Center); SEC Chair Gary Gensler, CNBC interview, June 27, 2022 (as reported by Decrypt). No court and no SEC rule has ever held bitcoin to be a security; the CFTC’s commodity finding came in an enforcement order, not a rule; and the market-structure bill that would write the commodity classification into statute, the CLARITY Act, passed the House on July 17, 2025, then stalled in the Senate in September 2026 (Orrick, “The CLARITY Act Stalls in the Senate,” October 2, 2026, orrick.com, retrieved October 2026).
  12. Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper,” posting to the Cryptography Mailing List (metzdowd.com), October 31, 2008 (retrieved September 2026); “block chain” as two words in Satoshi’s later bitcointalk.org posts, e.g. “Checking the block chain on load,” August 16, 2010, as archived by the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute; neither “blockchain” nor “block chain” appears in the whitepaper.
  13. Bitcoin block 0, January 3, 2009, containing the text “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”; software release announced January 9, 2009 on the same mailing list.
  14. Bitcoin block 170, January 12, 2009, first transaction to Hal Finney; Finney, “Bitcoin and me,” bitcointalk.org, 2013.
  15. Sergio Demian Lerner, “The Well Deserved Fortune of Satoshi Nakamoto,” bitslog.com, April 17, 2013 (about 1 million bitcoin mined by a single early entity and never spent); Lerner’s later “Patoshi” analyses put the figure near 1.1 million, as he confirmed in a Cointelegraph Magazine interview (retrieved September 2026).
  16. Eric Hughes, “A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto,” 1993; Adam Back, “Hashcash,” 1997 (paper 2002); Wei Dai, “b-money,” 1998; Nick Szabo, “Bit Gold,” 1998 (published 2005); Hal Finney, “RPOW,” 2004.
  17. Crypto Open Patent Alliance v. Wright, High Court of England and Wales, ruling announced from the bench March 14, 2024 (CoinDesk, March 14, 2024); written judgment [2024] EWHC 1198 (Ch), Mellor J, May 20, 2024, judiciary.uk (retrieved September 2026).
  18. Satoshi Nakamoto, “Re: Bitcoin v0.1 released,” reply to Dustin D. Trammell on the Cryptography Mailing List (metzdowd.com), January 16, 2009 (retrieved September 2026).
  19. bitcointalk.org, ribuck, post in “More divisibility required - move the decimal point,” February 10, 2011, proposing “austrian” or “satoshi” for the smallest unit (retrieved September 2026); the earlier proposal, calling 0.01 bitcoin a “satoshi,” was ribuck’s post of November 15, 2010 in “Official Bitcoin Unicode Character?,” bitcointalk.org topic 369, as dated by the Bitcoin Wiki entry “Satoshi (unit),” en.bitcoin.it, retrieved October 2026.
  20. Cullen Hoback, director, Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery, HBO, October 8, 2024, and Peter Todd’s denial the same week, as reported by CoinDesk; Kurt Robson, “Was Bitcoin Discovered in a 1991 Video Game? Inside the Viral Theory Gripping Crypto,” CCN, April 13, 2026 (the buckazoid coin in Space Quest IV, Sierra On-Line, 1991; the game’s designers were Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy; no documented link to Bitcoin). Leah McGrath Goodman, “The Face Behind Bitcoin,” Newsweek, March 6, 2014, and Dorian Nakamoto’s denial the same week (Associated Press); Finding Satoshi, directed by Tucker Tooley and Matthew Miele, released April 22, 2026 (The Block, April 2026).
  21. Satoshi Nakamoto, email to Mike Hearn, April 12, 2009, published by Hearn and reported in Vice (Motherboard), August 11, 2017; full text archived at gwern.net (retrieved October 2026).

Chapter 2. How people find Bitcoin

  1. Price milestones: about $100 in April 2013 and $1,000 on November 27, 2013 (CoinMarketCap Academy, “Bitcoin Price History and Events Timeline,” and davemanuel.com, “Bitcoin Price History,” retrieved September 2026); $5,000 in October 2017 and $10,000 in late November 2017 (same sources); $30,000 on January 2, 2021 (CNBC, January 2, 2021); $50,000 on February 12, 2024 (CNBC and CoinDesk, February 12, 2024).
  2. River Financial, Bitcoin Adoption Report 2025 (March 2025), which puts the share of the world’s population holding bitcoin at about 4% as of early 2025; river.com, retrieved September 2026.
  3. Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, Free Press, 1962.
  4. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, statement on approval of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products, January 10, 2024.
  5. Executive Order 14233, “Establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile,” March 6, 2025, Federal Register, March 11, 2025. As of September 2026 the order remained in effect, the reserve held roughly 198,000 bitcoin, all from federal forfeitures, and a bill to write the reserve into law (H.R. 8957) was pending in the House (24/7 Wall St. via Yahoo Finance, September 15, 2026; retrieved September 2026).
  6. International Telecommunication Union, world internet users as a share of population, as compiled by Internet World Stats (1995: 0.4%; 1999: 4.1%) and Areppim (1995: 0.7%; 1999: 4.6%); retrieved September 2026.
  7. Mackinac Center for Public Policy, “The Overton Window.”
  8. Nicholas Klein, address to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America convention, Baltimore, 1918, proceedings. Commonly misattributed to Gandhi.
  9. Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, May 2018, as reported by CNBC.
  10. Gallup, “Cryptocurrency Still Has Limited Main Street Appeal,” survey of June 2 to 15, 2025: 14% of U.S. adults own bitcoin or other cryptocurrency; 8% of women aged 18 to 49 and 9% of women 50 and older, against 25% of men aged 18 to 49 and 12% of men 50 and older; news.gallup.com, retrieved September 2026.
  11. FDIC, 2023 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, published November 2024: 4.2% of households (5.6 million) unbanked and 14.2% (about 19 million) underbanked; fdic.gov, retrieved September 2026. The 2023 survey was the latest published as of September 2026.
  12. Bob Metcalfe, “From the Ether: Predicting the Internet’s catastrophic collapse and ghost sites galore in 1996,” InfoWorld, December 4, 1995; blender episode, Sixth International World Wide Web Conference, Santa Clara, April 1997, per Wired; column date and wording per Quote Investigator, “I Predict the Internet Will Soon Go Spectacularly Supernova” (March 2020), retrieved September 2026.
  13. Markku Kaustia and Samuli Knüpfer, “Peer Performance and Stock Market Entry,” Journal of Financial Economics 104, no. 2 (2012): 321-338; Harrison Hong, Jeffrey Kubik and Jeremy Stein, “Social Interaction and Stock-Market Participation,” Journal of Finance 59, no. 1 (2004).
  14. Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, new and expanded edition, Harper Business, 2021, chapter on social proof.
  15. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica 47, no. 2 (1979).
  16. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, “Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases,” Science 185 (1974), on availability and anchoring.
  17. Jamie Dimon, remarks at the CNBC Delivering Alpha conference, New York, September 12, 2017 (bitcoin “a fraud” and “worse than tulip bulbs”), as reported by CNBC.
  18. Paul Krugman, “Bubble, Bubble, Fraud and Trouble,” The New York Times, January 29, 2018.
  19. Jamie Dimon, interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box from the World Economic Forum, Davos, January 19, 2023 (“Bitcoin itself is a hyped-up fraud. It’s a pet rock.”).
  20. Michael Saylor, interview with Raoul Pal, Real Vision, December 2020 (“melting ice cube”), and MicroStrategy press release, August 11, 2020, announcing the first $250 million bitcoin purchase.
  21. Orit Tykocinski and Thane Pittman, “The Consequences of Doing Nothing: Inaction Inertia as Avoidance of Anticipated Counterfactual Regret,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75, no. 3 (1998); on anchoring, Tversky and Kahneman, 1974, cited above.
  22. Rachel Croson and Uri Gneezy, “Gender Differences in Preferences,” Journal of Economic Literature 47, no. 2 (2009): 448–474, a review of experiments finding that women on average choose less financial risk than men, with wide overlap between individuals.
  23. Bankrate, “Financial Infidelity Survey 2025,” bankrate.com, YouGov online survey of 2,217 U.S. adults, December 9–11, 2024; 40% of the 1,089 respondents who were married or living with a partner had kept a financial secret from that partner (retrieved October 2026).

Chapter 3. Where money comes from

  1. David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Melville House, 2011.
  2. St. Louis Fed, “Gresham’s Law,” glossary.
  3. Coinage Act of 1965.
  4. Federal Reserve History, “The Panic of 1907.”
  5. Federal Reserve History, “The Meeting at Jekyll Island”; G. Edward Griffin, The Creature from Jekyll Island, 1994 (a popular account).
  6. Federal Reserve History, “Federal Reserve Act Signed into Law.”
  7. Federal Reserve Act of 1913, Section 16.
  8. Executive Order 6102, April 5, 1933.
  9. Gold Reserve Act of 1934.
  10. Public Law 93-373, 1974.
  11. Federal Reserve History, “Creation of the Bretton Woods System.”
  12. Richard Nixon, address to the nation, August 15, 1971, American Presidency Project.
  13. BLS, CPI Inflation Calculator, and BLS, CPI-U All Items index (1982-84=100): January 1913, 9.8; August 1971, 40.8; August 2026, 334.980 (Consumer Price Index news release for August 2026). One January 1913 dollar equals about $34 in August 2026 dollars, one August 1971 dollar about $8.20. bls.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  14. U.S. Department of Labor, federal minimum wage history.
  15. McLeay, Radia and Thomas, “Money creation in the modern economy,” Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, 2014 Q1.
  16. Standard textbook money-multiplier illustration; note 15 explains the simplification.
  17. Board of Governors, “Reserve Requirements,” March 26, 2020.
  18. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, H.6 Money Stock Measures, via FRED series MBCURRCIR (currency in circulation, $2,475.6 billion) and M2SL (M2, $23,342.8 billion), both for August 2026, about 10.6%. fred.stlouisfed.org, retrieved September 2026. (The older FRED series CURRCIR is discontinued.)
  19. Board of Governors, H.4.1 Factors Affecting Reserve Balances, via FRED series WALCL: $905.3 billion on September 3, 2008; peak of $8,965.5 billion on April 13, 2022; $6,747.7 billion on September 23, 2026. fred.stlouisfed.org, retrieved September 2026.
  20. Board of Governors, H.6, via FRED series M2SL: $15,492.8 billion in February 2020, $21,725.6 billion in February 2022 (40.2% growth), $21,788.1 billion in March 2022 (40.6%). fred.stlouisfed.org, retrieved September 2026.
  21. BLS, CPI release for June 2022.
  22. Richard Cantillon, Essai sur la nature du commerce en général, 1755.
  23. U.S. Postal Service, “U.S. Postal Service Recommends New Prices for July,” news release, April 9, 2026; First-Class Mail Forever stamp raised from 78 to 82 cents effective July 12, 2026, as approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission. about.usps.com, retrieved September 2026.
  24. Federal Reserve History, “The Financial Crisis of 2008.”
  25. Federal Reserve History, “Support for Specific Institutions: AIG.”
  26. Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008; U.S. Department of the Treasury, “About TARP,” Office of Financial Stability: $700 billion authorized, $443.5 billion disbursed. home.treasury.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  27. BLS, Employment Situation, October 2009.
  28. CoreLogic, “United States Residential Foreclosure Crisis: Ten Years Later,” March 2017: about 7.8 million completed foreclosures nationally from January 2007 through 2016, peaking at about 1.2 million in 2010.
  29. Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” October 31, 2008.
  30. Bitcoin block 0, coinbase transaction; The Times (London), January 3, 2009.
  31. Ben S. Bernanke, Essays on the Great Depression, 2000; Barry Eichengreen, Golden Fetters, 1992.
  32. Jack Mallers, chief executive of Strike, speaking at Bitcoin Amsterdam, October 2025, as quoted by The Bitcoin Conference and Bitcoin Amsterdam on X; the line was already circulating under his name in December 2024. His own post on X, April 29, 2025; Times Square billboard, December 9, 2025, as posted by Bitcoin Magazine on X that day and reported by TechStory, “Times Square Goes Orange,” December 11, 2025. The first occasion he said the line is not documented.
  33. Economic Policy Institute, “The Productivity-Pay Gap,” updated 2025, epi.org: net productivity up about 80% from 1979 to 2024, hourly compensation of production and nonsupervisory workers up about 29%, both after inflation. For the smaller gap found with one deflator and total compensation, see Robert Z. Lawrence, “Does Productivity Still Determine Worker Compensation?,” Peterson Institute for International Economics, 2016. For the causes economists cite, see Josh Bivens and Lawrence Mishel, “Understanding the Historic Divergence Between Productivity and a Typical Worker’s Pay,” Economic Policy Institute, 2015. Larry Fink, in “A Conversation with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Brookfield Corporation CEO Bruce Flatt,” moderated by Michael Milken, Milken Institute Global Conference, Los Angeles, May 2026, video on the Milken Institute YouTube channel, retrieved October 2026.
  34. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, “About the Fed” and “Federal Reserve Act” (Section 2A, monetary policy objectives; Section 10, 14-year terms for governors), federalreserve.gov; Trump v. Cook, U.S. Supreme Court, June 2026, as reported by Al Jazeera, June 29, 2026, and NPR (retrieved October 2026). Kevin Warsh succeeded Jerome Powell as chair on May 22, 2026.
  35. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, “Consumer Price Index, 1800–,” minneapolisfed.org (estimates before 1913): index of 51 in 1800, 36 in 1873, 25 in 1896 and 1900, and 29.7 in 1913 (1967 = 100), retrieved October 2026.
  36. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2024,” BLS Reports, bls.gov: women working full time earned 82.7% of men’s median weekly earnings in 2024, and 88.3% at ages 25 to 34 (retrieved October 2026).
  37. TreasuryDirect, “I bonds interest rates,” treasurydirect.gov: 9.62% annualized for I bonds issued May through October 2022; money market fund yields from the Investment Company Institute and Crane Data, 2023 to 2025 (retrieved October 2026).

Chapter 4. How it stays honest without a boss

  1. Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” bitcoin.org, 2008, sections 2, 3, 4 and 6. Schnorr signatures: BIP 340, activated November 2021.
  2. SHA-256 outputs for “Hello” and “hello,” reproducible with any standard SHA-256 tool.
  3. Reachable nodes: Bitnodes (btcnodes.io), reachable node snapshot of September 28, 2026 (25,799 nodes), retrieved September 2026; Coin Dance, coin.dance/nodes, retrieved September 2026 (25,620 nodes). Ledger size: Blockchain.com blockchain size chart, via YCharts, 771.7 gigabytes on September 28, 2026, retrieved September 2026.
  4. Network hash rate: Blockchain.com hash rate chart, via YCharts, 963.5 exahashes per second on September 27, 2026, with daily readings between about 800 and 1,045 exahashes per second in August and September 2026; CoinWarz Bitcoin hashrate chart, retrieved September 2026.
  5. Lucas Nuzzi, Kyle Waters and Matias Andrade, “Breaking BFT: Quantifying the Cost to Attack Bitcoin and Ethereum,” Coin Metrics, February 15, 2024 (SSRN 4727999): about 7 million ASIC machines, at a cost of more than $20 billion, as of early 2024.
  6. Block subsidy: Bitcoin Core source, GetBlockSubsidy in src/validation.cpp and nSubsidyHalvingInterval (210,000) in src/kernel/chainparams.cpp, github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin, retrieved September 2026. Daily block count: six blocks an hour times 24 hours; block 945,000 (note 8) shows the 3.125 subsidy in 2026.
  7. Bitcoin Gold, “Double Spend Attack on Exchanges,” forum.bitcoingold.org, May 2018 (attacks began May 18, 2018). Ethereum Classic: three attacks in August 2020, on August 1, in the first week of August, and on August 29; CoinDesk, “Ethereum Classic Hit by Third 51% Attack in a Month,” August 29, 2020, with the ETC Cooperative’s statement.
  8. Block 945,000: mempool.space/block/945000, retrieved September 2026. Mined April 14, 2026, 07:35 UTC; 3,994 transactions; 1.867 megabytes; Foundry USA; subsidy 3.125 bitcoin plus 0.01672 bitcoin in fees.
  9. Halving dates and heights: blocks 210,000 (November 28, 2012), 420,000 (July 9, 2016), 630,000 (May 11, 2020) and 840,000 (April 19, 2024, US time), from any block explorer; see also Blockstream Help Center, “What is the Bitcoin halving?”, retrieved September 2026. Share mined: the twenty-millionth bitcoin was created at block 939,999 on March 9, 2026 (The Block, March 9, 2026, citing on-chain data); by the subsidy schedule, about 20.09 million bitcoin, 95.7% of the cap, existed at block 969,000 in late September 2026.
  10. Contributor count: Bitcoin Core 30.0 release notes, bitcoin.org/en/releases/30.0, October 10, 2025, credit 197 contributors to that release. Funders: Brink, “Brink’s 2025 Annual Report,” brink.dev, May 26, 2026 (eight engineers funded in 2025); Spiral, Chaincode Labs, OpenSats and the Human Rights Foundation Bitcoin Development Fund, from each organization’s own site; 1A1z, “Funding Bitcoin,” October 23, 2024 (OpenSats and Spiral gave 62% of 2023 grant funding), as reported by Bitcoin Magazine, October 24, 2024.
  11. BIP 141 (Segregated Witness, 2017); BIP 341 (Taproot, 2021).
  12. Miner and company support: Digital Currency Group, “Bitcoin Scaling Agreement at Consensus 2017,” dcgco.medium.com, May 2017 (58 companies in 22 countries, 83.28% of hashing power). Suspension: Mike Belshe, Wences Casares, Jihan Wu, Jeff Garzik, Peter Smith and Erik Voorhees, “Segwit2x Final Steps,” email to the bitcoin-segwit2x mailing list, lists.linuxfoundation.org, November 8, 2017.
  13. Riot Platforms, “Riot Announces August 2023 Production and Operations Updates,” Form 8-K exhibit 99.1, sec.gov, September 6, 2023: $31.7 million in power and demand response credits for curtailing more than 95% of its load during ERCOT’s August 2023 heat wave. Conversion to AI hosting: CoinShares, “Bitcoin Mining Report Q2 2026,” coinshares.com, September 15, 2026 (IREN, TeraWulf, Cipher, Core Scientific and Keel; about $1.5 million a year per megawatt for AI hosting against about $0.5 million for mining). Larry Fink, Milken Institute Global Conference, May 2026 (see Chapter 4, note 33). IREN and Microsoft, about $9.7 billion over five years, and Cipher Mining and Amazon Web Services, about $5.5 billion over 15 years, both announced November 3, 2025: Decrypt, “Bitcoin Miners IREN, Cipher Rise After Multi-Billion-Dollar Microsoft, Amazon Deals,” November 3, 2025, decrypt.co, retrieved October 2026.
  14. Mining pool shares: mempool.space mining pool statistics, 1-year view, retrieved September 2026 (Foundry USA 28.3% and AntPool 18.0% of 52,225 blocks). GHash.io: CoinDesk, “The Bitcoin Mining Arms Race: GHash.io and the 51% Issue,” July 17, 2014 (about 55% of hash rate on June 12 and 13, 2014; 34.6% by July 13, 2014; pledge to stay below 40%).
  15. Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, mining map and hashrate data, 2021; the difficulty adjustment of July 3, 2021 lowered difficulty by about 28%, the largest downward adjustment on record, per public block data at mempool.space.

Chapter 5. When money fails people

  1. Argentine Decree 1570/2001, December 1, 2001 (250 pesos a week); Decree 214/2002, February 3, 2002 (dollar deposits converted at 1.4 pesos per dollar); International Monetary Fund, “Lessons from the Crisis in Argentina,” 2003; American Enterprise Institute, “Resolution of Argentina’s Financial Crisis,” retrieved September 2026.
  2. INDEC, consumer price index, December 2023 release, January 11, 2024: 211.4% for calendar 2023.
  3. Chainalysis, “The 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index,” chainalysis.com, September 2, 2025 (Argentina ranked 20th), retrieved September 2026.
  4. Banco Central de Venezuela, inflation and GDP statistics released May 28, 2019: 130,060% for 2018.
  5. Eurogroup statements, March 16 and 25, 2013; Bank of Cyprus, completion of recapitalisation, July 30, 2013 (47.5% of uninsured deposits converted to equity); Schaefer-Brown, “Cyprus: Laiki Bank and Bank of Cyprus Restructuring, 2013,” Journal of Financial Crises, Yale, 2024; European Stability Mechanism, “Crisis in Cyprus,” esm.europa.eu (all external capital controls lifted April 6, 2015), retrieved September 2026.
  6. European Union, Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (2014/59/EU), 2014.
  7. StatMuse Money, bitcoin daily closes, March 1, 2013 ($34.06), retrieved September 2026; Cointelegraph, “Will Grexit Force Bitcoin Price to Spike like the 2013 Cyprus Collapse,” 2015 (bitcoin in the $230 range on April 9, 2013); Bitcoin Magazine, “The Bitcoin Crash: An Examination,” April 14, 2013; StatMuse Money, daily closes, April 9 to 11, 2013 ($189.91, $228.20 and $151.04), retrieved October 2026.
  8. The National, “Lebanese banks to reopen as withdrawal limits made official,” November 2019; Al Jazeera, “‘Not legal’ but necessary: Lebanon’s banks tighten restrictions,” February 3, 2020; Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, “Lebanon Central Bank Governor’s Son Moved Millions Abroad While Lebanese Watched Blocked Savings Dwindle,” May 13, 2022 (estimate of up to $6 billion moved abroad), retrieved September 2026.
  9. World Bank, Lebanon Economic Monitor, Spring 2021, “Lebanon Sinking (to the Top 3),” press release June 1, 2021; World Bank, “Lebanon: Normalization of Crisis is No Road to Stabilization,” press release May 16, 2023 (lira lost more than 98% of its pre-crisis value by February 2023).
  10. Associated Press, via CBS News, “Woman with toy gun breaks into Beirut bank to take $13,000 in locked savings,” September 14, 2022; Washington Post, “Armed woman stages heist at Blom Bank in Beirut to recover savings,” September 14, 2022.
  11. National Bank of Ukraine, Resolution No. 18, “On the Operation of the Banking System under Martial Law,” February 24, 2022, bank.gov.ua, retrieved September 2026.
  12. CNBC, “Ukrainian refugee flees to Poland with $2,000 in bitcoin on a USB drive,” March 23, 2022.
  13. CoinDesk, “Ukraine Has Received Close to $100M in Crypto Donations,” March 9, 2022, citing Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation Alex Bornyakov; Elliptic, “Crypto donations to Ukraine and Russia: breaking down the numbers,” May 9, 2023 (about $30 million in the first four days).
  14. Government of Canada, Emergency Economic Measures Order, SOR/2022-22, February 15, 2022; testimony of Isabelle Jacques, Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Finance, to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, February 22, 2022 (about 210 accounts, about $7.8 million), as reported by CBC News, February 22, 2022; Department of Finance Canada, remarks by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, June 14, 2022 (about 280 financial products, about 8 million Canadian dollars, the final count).
  15. Globe and Mail, “RCMP, banks and Ottawa say convoy protest donors won’t have accounts frozen,” February 2022 (claim by MP Mark Strahl; RCMP said no donor list was given to banks).
  16. Public Order Emergency Commission, Final Report, February 17, 2023; Canadian Frontline Nurses v. Canada (Attorney General), 2024 FC 42, January 23, 2024; Canada (Attorney General) v. Canadian Frontline Nurses, 2026 FCA 6, January 16, 2026; CTV News and CP24, “Federal government appeals to Supreme Court on ruling over use of Emergencies Act,” March 17, 2026. Status as of September 2026: leave to appeal sought, not yet decided.
  17. CoinDesk, “‘Frozen’ Bitcoin Tied to Canadian Protests Lands at Coinbase, Crypto.com,” February 22, 2022 (about 20 BTC raised; 14.6 BTC distributed); Vice, “The ‘Freedom Convoy’ Bitcoin Donations Have Been Frozen and Seized,” March 15, 2022 (Ontario Superior Court Mareva order, February 17, 2022); Bitcoin Magazine, “Honk, Honk, HODL,” June 30, 2022.
  18. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “CFPB Takes Steps to Improve Checking Account Access,” press release, February 3, 2016; CFPB, “Helping consumers who have been denied checking accounts,” February 2016.
  19. Bryan and Collins, “Locked out of banking: The limits of financial inclusion for formerly incarcerated individuals,” Social Science Research, vol. 122, 2024.
  20. FDIC, 2023 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, released November 12, 2024 (4.2% unbanked, 5.6 million households; 14.2% underbanked, 19.0 million households); the most recent survey published as of September 2026.
  21. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U, all items, 1982-84=100: 1971 annual average 40.5; 2025 annual average 322.2 (a 1971 dollar equals about 12.6 cents as of 2025); December 2020 to December 2023, 12-month changes of 7.0, 6.5 and 3.4%, compounding to about 18%. BLS, “Consumer Price Index: 2023 in review,” January 2024, retrieved September 2026.
  22. White House, Executive Order 14331, “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans,” August 7, 2025, 90 Fed. Reg. (August 12, 2025).
  23. Foley v. Hill (1848) 2 HLC 28, House of Lords.
  24. Atlantic Council, Central Bank Digital Currency Tracker, atlanticcouncil.org, updated May 2026 (146 countries and currency unions; three launched), retrieved September 2026; White House, Executive Order 14178, “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology,” January 23, 2025, section 5(a); Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, “Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) FAQs,” federalreserve.gov (the Fed would only proceed with a CBDC with authorizing legislation), retrieved September 2026.
  25. South China Morning Post, “China’s Shenzhen giving away millions in sovereign digital yuan,” October 2020 (200-yuan packets spendable October 12 to 18); The Paypers, “China tests its CBDC in Shenzhen,” October 20, 2020 (unused amounts to be taken back).
  26. Ree, “Nigeria’s eNaira, One Year After,” IMF Working Paper WP/23/104, May 16, 2023; Central Bank of Nigeria, circular lifting the restriction on banks serving virtual asset service providers, December 22, 2023.
  27. Iowa Attorney General, “Attorney General Bird Sues Crypto ATM Companies for Costing Iowans More Than $20 Million,” February 26, 2025 (Bitcoin Depot 23%, CoinFlip 21%); CNN, investigation of crypto ATM markups, October 14, 2025.
  28. World Bank, Remittance Prices Worldwide, Issue 54, third quarter 2025 (global average 6.36% for $200), remittanceprices.worldbank.org, retrieved September 2026; UN Sustainable Development Goal target 10.c.
  29. FDIC, “Understanding Deposit Insurance,” fdic.gov (no depositor has lost a penny of insured funds since the FDIC’s founding; insurance took effect January 1, 1934), retrieved September 2026; Joint statement by the Treasury, Federal Reserve and FDIC on the systemic risk exception for Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, March 12, 2023. Silicon Valley Bank: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, “Review of the Federal Reserve’s Supervision and Regulation of Silicon Valley Bank,” April 28, 2023, federalreserve.gov.
  30. World Bank, Global Findex Database 2021: women are more likely than men to lack an account worldwide, and the gap is widest in low-income economies; International Organization for Migration, World Migration Report 2024, on women as the majority of remittance recipients.

Chapter 6. Why the price of bitcoin rises and falls

  1. Historical bitcoin prices, drawdowns and rolling 4-year returns: Yahoo Finance, BTC-USD monthly price history (CoinMarketCap data), January 2015 to May 2026, finance.yahoo.com, retrieved September 2026 (December 2017 high $20,089; December 2018 low $3,191; November 2021 high $68,790; November 2022 low $15,599; October 6, 2025 high $126,198; May 2026 range $72,436 to $82,792). 2011 peak of $31.91 on June 8, 2011, and the 93% fall that followed: Bitcoin Magazine, “Anniversary of the Great Bubble of 2011,” June 2012. 2013 prices and the January 2015 low: Bitcoin.com, “Bitcoin Price History,” retrieved September 2026. The 4-year claim was checked against every 48-month window in the monthly data from January 2015 through May 2026, buying at the monthly high and selling at the monthly low; none was negative.
  2. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, statement on the approval of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products, January 10, 2024; Grayscale Investments v. SEC, 82 F.4th 1239 (D.C. Cir. August 29, 2023), vacating the SEC’s denial of Grayscale’s application as arbitrary and capricious.
  3. Issuance schedule and 2024 halving: Bitcoin whitepaper (Nakamoto, 2008) and bitcoin.org developer documentation; block 840,000, April 2024, reward reduced to 3.125 bitcoin, about 450 new bitcoin a day. Stock-to-flow computed from that issuance (about 164,000 new bitcoin a year against about 20 million in circulation, May 2026), giving a ratio of about 120.
  4. Executive Order, “Establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile,” The White House, March 6, 2025, whitehouse.gov, retrieved September 2026. The order states that bitcoin deposited into the reserve “shall not be sold.”
  5. Gold supply growth and stock-to-flow: World Gold Council, “How much gold has been mined?” (above-ground stock of 219,891 tonnes at the end of 2025) and “Gold Demand Trends: Full Year 2025” (mine production of 3,672 tonnes in 2025), gold.org, retrieved September 2026. Mine production is about 1.7% of the stock, a stock-to-flow ratio of about 60.
  6. M2 money stock, February 2020 to February 2022: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED series M2SL (about $15.4 trillion to about $21.7 trillion, an increase of about 41%), 2026.
  7. Nick Szabo, “Shelling Out: The Origins of Money,” 2002.
  8. Dollar-cost averaging figures: computed from Yahoo Finance monthly BTC-USD prices (each month’s purchase at the average of that month’s opening and closing price), $50 a month from January of the start year through September 2026, valued at $83,000 in October 2026; yourbitcoinbasics.com/​ch6 DCA calculator. Monthly closes compiled by Digrin, digrin.com, from the Yahoo Finance series. Retrieved October 2026.
  9. Nakamoto Portfolio (Swan Research), nakamotoportfolio.com, retrieved September 2026.
  10. Global adoption estimate: River, “Bitcoin Adoption Report 2025,” March 2025 (about 4% of the world’s population owns bitcoin), river.com.
  11. Network uptime and events: two brief chain-split incidents, August 2010 (CVE-2010-5139) and March 2013 (Bitcoin Core BIP 50), together under a day of downtime since January 3, 2009; Mt. Gox bankruptcy filing, February 28, 2014; China mining ban, May to June 2021; FTX bankruptcy filing, November 11, 2022.
  12. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile, Random House, 2012.
  13. Bitcoin obituaries count: 99Bitcoins, “Bitcoin Obituaries” (477 entries), 99bitcoins.com, retrieved September 2026.
  14. U.S. spot bitcoin ETF holdings: River, “Who owns the most bitcoin?” (about 1.5 million bitcoin held by ETFs, about 7% of supply, as of December 2025), river.com, retrieved September 2026. BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust growth: Bloomberg ETF analysis reporting IBIT as the fastest ETF ever to reach $70 billion and $80 billion in assets, June and July 2025, as reported by BeInCrypto, July 2025.
  15. MicroStrategy press release, August 11, 2020, and Michael Saylor’s public statements, 2020.
  16. Corporate holdings: Strategy Inc., Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1, May 5, 2026, sec.gov (818,334 bitcoin as of May 3, 2026); Metaplanet, 40,177 bitcoin as of March 31, 2026, CoinDesk, April 2, 2026; count of public companies: River, “Bitcoin Adoption Report 2026,” February 2026 (194 public companies at the end of 2025), and bitcointreasuries.net (at least 154 as of April 2026); Tesla, Block, Marathon and Riot holdings: bitcointreasuries.net, retrieved September 2026.
  17. Government holdings: bitcointreasuries.net, government holdings page (United States 328,372; United Kingdom 61,245; Ukraine 46,351; total about 645,000), retrieved September 2026; Bhutan: Arkham Intelligence data as reported by CoinDesk, April 11, 2026 (peak of about 13,000 in October 2024, under 4,000 by April 2026); El Salvador: one bitcoin a day since November 2022, about 7,700 held, Bitcoin Magazine, June 9, 2026.
  18. Saxony sale: Medienservice Sachsen, “Notveräußerung von fast 50.000 Bitcoins abgeschlossen,” press release, July 16, 2024 (49,858 bitcoin sold between June 19 and July 12, 2024, for about 2.64 billion euros, an average of about 52,900 euros each), medienservice.sachsen.de, retrieved September 2026.
  19. Market cap: about 20 million coins in circulation at a price near $83,000, October 2026. Gold: World Gold Council above-ground stock of 219,891 tonnes at the end of 2025, at a May 2026 average price of about $4,600 an ounce, about $32 trillion. Household wealth: UBS Global Wealth Report 2025, June 2025 (about $470 trillion across 56 markets covering more than 92% of world wealth, end of 2024). Store-of-value market estimate: Mark Moss, “The Billionaire Who Predicted the Dot-Com Crash Says Bitcoin Goes to Zero,” The Mark Moss Show, YouTube, 2026, and his accompanying calculator (about $994 trillion in 2025 and about $300 trillion in 2010, across real estate, debt securities, other credit, equities, broad money, gold, and art and collectibles), retrieved October 2026.
  20. Terence Michael, Proof of Money: The Big Idea Behind Bitcoin, 2023.
  21. Saifedean Ammous, The Bitcoin Standard, Wiley, 2018.
  22. Carl Menger, Principles of Economics, 1871, chapter 3, on value as a judgment made by people about goods, not a property of the goods themselves (Ludwig von Mises Institute edition, 2007).
  23. Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” October 31, 2008, section 6; the issuance schedule in the Bitcoin Core source code (halving every 210,000 blocks, initial subsidy of 50 bitcoin), github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin, retrieved September 2026.
  24. Chainalysis, “Bitcoin’s Circulating Supply,” June 2020 (about 3.7 million bitcoin estimated lost, based on coins that had not moved in five or more years); River, “How Much Bitcoin Is Gone Forever?,” September 6, 2023, updated July 2026 (3 to 4 million bitcoin; a separate River study puts about 1.6 million lost to self-custody mistakes alone), river.com, retrieved October 2026.
  25. iShares, “Bitcoin Volatility Guide: Trends and Insights for Investors,” 2025 (annualized volatility of about 54% as of January 31, 2025, described as having “notably declined” as the market matured), ishares.com, retrieved September 2026; S&P 500 long-run annualized volatility of roughly 15 to 20%, from the CBOE VIX historical series, cboe.com, retrieved September 2026.
  26. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica 47, no. 2 (1979); Tversky and Kahneman, “Advances in Prospect Theory,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 5 (1992), estimating that losses are weighted about 2.25 times as heavily as equivalent gains.
  27. Shlomo Benartzi and Richard Thaler, “Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 110, no. 1 (1995).
  28. Zeke Faux, Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall, Currency, 2023. Price models: PlanB, “Modeling Bitcoin’s Value with Scarcity,” March 22, 2019, medium.com; FXStreet, “Bitcoin stock-to-flow model invalidated as BTC closes 2021 below $100,000,” January 1, 2022, fxstreet.com; Galaxy Research, four-year cycle report, June 12, 2026, galaxy.com (peak of $124,824 on October 6, 2025; drawdown of 51% as of June 9, 2026); Newhedge, “Bitcoin Power Law,” newhedge.io; Timothy Peterson, “Metcalfe’s Law as a Model for Bitcoin’s Value,” Alternative Investment Analyst Review, 2018; all retrieved October 2026.
  29. René Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure, 1961 (English translation, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965); for a plain-language introduction, Luke Burgis, Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life, St. Martin’s Press, 2021.
  30. Harrison Hong, Jeffrey Kubik and Jeremy Stein, “Social Interaction and Stock-Market Participation,” Journal of Finance 59, no. 1 (2004): 137-163.
  31. Markku Kaustia and Samuli Knüpfer, “Peer Performance and Stock Market Entry,” Journal of Financial Economics 104, no. 2 (2012): 321-338 (entry rose after neighbors’ positive returns; negative returns had no matching effect).
  32. Girard’s distinction between destructive rivalry and imitation of a model who wants good things runs through his later work; see René Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, 1978 (English translation, Stanford University Press, 1987), and the discussion in Burgis, Wanting, part 2.
  33. New issuance: 3.125 bitcoin per block after the April 2024 halving, about 144 blocks a day, about 450 bitcoin a day; annual issuance about 164,000 against about 20.1 million in existence, about 0.8%.
  34. GameKyuubi, “I AM HODLING,” bitcointalk.org, December 18, 2013.
  35. Brad Barber and Terrance Odean, “Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth,” Journal of Finance 55, no. 2 (2000): households that traded most earned the lowest returns.
  36. Barber and Odean, “Boys Will Be Boys,” 2001, cited in Chapter 9; Fidelity Investments, 2021 Women and Investing Study, on women trading less often and holding longer.
  37. Kaiko Research, bitcoin 1% market depth on Binance, as reported December 20, 2025: above $600 million at the October 2025 high and under $400 million in December 2025 (retrieved October 2026).
  38. Vanguard Research, “Dollar-cost averaging just means taking risk later,” July 2012 (lump-sum investing beat a 12-month schedule about two-thirds of the time in U.S., U.K., and Australian markets, 1926 to 2011); bitcoin month-end closing prices, BTC-USD (Yahoo Finance data, via digrin.com): November 2021 $57,005; October 2022 $20,496; January 2023 $23,139; December 2023 $42,265; September 2026 $83,554 (retrieved October 2026).
  39. Ownership shares: River, “Who owns the most bitcoin in 2026?,” river.com (ETFs and funds about 1.5 million; public companies more than 1 million; private companies about 312,000; Satoshi about 968,000; lost about 1.6 million, a low estimate); governments from note 17; coins not yet mined from note 33 (retrieved October 2026). Shares are of the 21 million cap and rounded.

Chapter 7. Fair questions, honest answers

  1. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
  2. William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser, “Status Quo Bias in Decision Making,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1988.
  3. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica, 1979.
  4. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), all items, 1971 annual average (40.5) to August 2026 (334.980, 1982 to 1984 = 100), bls.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  5. CoinMarketCap, “A Look Back in Time: Bitcoin Price History and Events Timeline,” coinmarketcap.com, retrieved September 2026 (crossed $100 on April 1, 2013 and $1,000 in November 2013; 2011 peak of $31; December 2017 peak of $19,834; November 2021 peak of $68,742); iShares, “Bitcoin Volatility Guide: Trends and Insights for Investors,” 2025 (declines of 80% from January 2014, 83% from December 2017 and 77% from November 2021), ishares.com, retrieved September 2026; forex.com, “Bitcoin Price History,” 2011 decline from $29.38 in June to $2.14 in November, 93%, retrieved September 2026.
  6. 99Bitcoins, “Bitcoin Obituaries,” 99bitcoins.com, 477 entries as of September 2026, earliest 2010; Tim Worstall, “So, That’s the End of Bitcoin Then,” Forbes, June 20, 2011, listed at a price of $15.15. Jeremy Grantham on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” June 26, 2026, as reported by Decrypt, “Billionaire Jeremy Grantham Dismisses Bitcoin, Says Crypto Will Fade ‘With a Whimper,’” June 27, 2026, decrypt.co; Bloomberg, “Bitcoin Based on Faith Has Nil Value, Grantham Says,” January 22, 2021, bloomberg.com; both retrieved October 2026.
  7. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “Money Laundering” overview, unodc.org, retrieved September 2026 (“2 - 5% of global GDP, or $800 billion - $2 trillion in current US dollars”), drawing on UNODC, “Estimating Illicit Financial Flows Resulting from Drug Trafficking and Other Transnational Organized Crimes,” 2011.
  8. U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2024 National Money Laundering Risk Assessment, February 2024 (“bulk cash smuggling and the use of cash-intensive businesses are historically favored laundering methods for many DTOs”), home.treasury.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  9. Chainalysis, The 2025 Crypto Crime Report, January 2025 (illicit addresses received 0.14% of on-chain volume in 2024; $40.9 billion identified, estimated to rise to about $51 billion; stablecoins 63% of illicit volume), chainalysis.com, retrieved September 2026.
  10. U.S. Department of Justice, “Two Arrested for Alleged Conspiracy to Launder $4.5 Billion in Stolen Cryptocurrency,” press release, February 8, 2022.
  11. U.S. Department of Justice, “Department of Justice Seizes $2.3 Million in Cryptocurrency Paid to the Ransomware Extortionists Darkside,” press release, June 7, 2021.
  12. River, Bitcoin Adoption Report 2025, March 2025 (about 4% of the world’s population holds bitcoin), river.com.
  13. Bitnodes reachable node count, as reported by Newhedge, “Bitcoin Reachable Node Distribution,” newhedge.io, about 25,800 reachable nodes, retrieved September 2026; Bitnodes, “Global Bitcoin Nodes by Country,” bitnodes.io, 141 countries in its April 2024 snapshot.
  14. Blockstream, “Blockstream Satellite,” blockstream.com/satellite, retrieved September 2026; Lightning payment over high-frequency amateur radio by Rodolfo Novak and Elaine Ou, March 2 and 3, 2019, as reported by CoinDesk, March 4, 2019; Samourai Wallet’s TxTenna relay of signed transactions over goTenna mesh radios, 2018.
  15. Executive Order 6102, April 5, 1933; Public Law 93-373, 1974, restoring private gold ownership.
  16. Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Cambridge Bitcoin Mining Map, methodology notes (Mainland China’s reported hash rate “effectively plummeted to zero” in July and August 2021), ccaf.io, retrieved September 2026; Blockchain.com, hash rate chart, 7-day average of about 186 EH/s in mid-May 2021 to about 88 EH/s in early July 2021, a fall of about 53%, with the prior peak regained later in 2021, blockchain.com, retrieved September 2026.
  17. Supreme Court of India, Internet and Mobile Association of India v. Reserve Bank of India, March 4, 2020.
  18. Central Bank of Nigeria, circular of February 5, 2021 (barring banks from serving cryptocurrency exchanges) and circular of December 22, 2023 (guidelines for banks dealing with virtual asset service providers), both widely reported at the time; see also the Chapter 5 note on the eNaira.
  19. Internal Revenue Service, Notice 2014-21.
  20. Executive Order 14233, “Establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile,” March 6, 2025, whitehouse.gov, retrieved September 2026; as of October 2026 the order remained in effect, no purchases had been confirmed, and the reserve held only forfeited bitcoin (see the Chapter 2 note).
  21. iShares, “Bitcoin Volatility Guide: Trends and Insights for Investors,” 2025 (annualized volatility of about 54% as of January 31, 2025, described as having “notably declined” as the market matured), ishares.com, retrieved September 2026. Inflation: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI-U, annual averages of 258.8 for 2020 and 322.2 for 2025, and a 9.1% rise over the 12 months ending June 2022, bls.gov; Kitco, “JPMorgan states the obvious: demand for gold and Bitcoin is the ‘debasement trade,’” October 2, 2025, kitco.com; both retrieved October 2026.
  22. Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Cambridge Digital Mining Industry Report, April 28, 2025 (138 TWh a year, about 0.5% of global electricity consumption; 52.4% of mining power from sustainable sources), jbs.cam.ac.uk, retrieved September 2026; Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, ccaf.io. Data centers: International Energy Agency, “Key Questions on Energy and AI,” World Energy Outlook Special Report, iea.org, 2026: data center electricity consumption “roughly doubling from 485 TWh in 2025 to 950 TWh in 2030,” with consumption by AI-focused data centers up 50% in 2025. Texas curtailment and AI hosting: Riot Platforms, “Riot Announces August 2023 Production and Operations Updates,” Form 8-K exhibit 99.1, sec.gov, September 6, 2023: $31.7 million in power and demand response credits for curtailing more than 95% of its load during ERCOT’s August 2023 heat wave. Conversion to AI hosting: CoinShares, “Bitcoin Mining Report Q2 2026,” coinshares.com, September 15, 2026 (IREN, TeraWulf, Cipher, Core Scientific and Keel; about $1.5 million a year per megawatt for AI hosting against about $0.5 million for mining). Larry Fink, Milken Institute Global Conference, May 2026 (see the notes to Chapter 3). IREN and Microsoft, about $9.7 billion over five years, and Cipher Mining and Amazon Web Services, about $5.5 billion over 15 years, both announced November 3, 2025: Decrypt, “Bitcoin Miners IREN, Cipher Rise After Multi-Billion-Dollar Microsoft, Amazon Deals,” November 3, 2025, decrypt.co, retrieved October 2026. Proof of stake: Ethereum Foundation, “The Merge,” ethereum.org, September 2022.
  23. Alex de Vries, Digiconomist, Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, and “Bitcoin’s Growing Energy Problem,” Joule, 2018.
  24. Chainalysis estimate of 2.78 million to 3.79 million bitcoin lost, 17 to 23% of the supply then in existence, as reported by Fortune, November 25, 2017, fortune.com, retrieved September 2026.
  25. Howells v Newport City Council [2025] EWHC 22 (Ch), judgment of His Honour Judge Keyser KC, January 9, 2025 (claim dismissed; hard drive discarded in August 2013; 8,000 bitcoin), caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk, retrieved September 2026.
  26. Mt. Gox Co., Ltd., announcement of its application for civil rehabilitation, February 28, 2014 (“approximately 750,000 bitcoins deposited by users and approximately 100,000 bitcoins belonging to us had disappeared”), mtgox.com, retrieved September 2026.
  27. Federal Bureau of Investigation, public service announcement attributing the Bybit theft to North Korea, February 26, 2025.
  28. Example: the October 2022 Mango Markets exploit of about $110 million, carried out by manipulating the prices the platform relied on; U.S. Department of Justice, “Man Convicted for $110M Cryptocurrency Scheme,” press release, April 18, 2024, justice.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  29. World Health Organization, Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 1986; Robert Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, new and expanded edition, Harper Business, 2021, chapter on social proof.
  30. U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, “NIST Releases First 3 Finalized Post-Quantum Encryption Standards,” August 13, 2024 (FIPS 203, 204 and 205; “some experts predict” a capable machine “within a decade”), nist.gov; Global Risk Institute, Quantum Threat Timeline Report 2024, December 2024, globalriskinstitute.org, retrieved September 2026.
  31. BIP 360, “Pay-to-Merkle-Root (P2MR),” Hunter Beast, Ethan Heilman and Isabel Foxen Duke, status Draft, github.com/bitcoin/bips, retrieved September 2026.
  32. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internet Crime Complaint Center, “Criminals Use Generative Artificial Intelligence to Facilitate Financial Fraud,” public service announcement, December 3, 2024, ic3.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  33. Lightning Labs, “AI for All: Powering APIs and Large Language Models with Lightning,” July 6, 2023 (the L402 protocol and LangChain tools for agents paying over Lightning), lightning.engineering, retrieved September 2026. Lightning Labs, “The Agents Are Here and They Want to Transact: Powering the AI Economy with Lightning,” February 11, 2026, lightning.engineering, retrieved October 2026.
  34. Project Eleven, The Quantum Threat to Blockchains: 2026 Report, May 6, 2026, projecteleven.com (about 6.9 million bitcoin, roughly one third of circulating supply, at addresses with exposed public keys, about 72% of it from address reuse; baseline estimate of a cryptographically relevant quantum computer in 2033, with a range of 2030 to 2042), retrieved September 2026. Peter Shor, “Algorithms for Quantum Computation: Discrete Logarithms and Factoring,” 1994.
  35. Sergio Demian Lerner, “The Well Deserved Fortune of Satoshi Nakamoto,” bitslog.com, April 17, 2013, and later updates to the “Patoshi” analysis, estimating roughly 1.1 million bitcoin mined by a single early miner in 2009 and 2010, most of it never moved; retrieved September 2026.
  36. Coinbase, “Introducing x402: a new standard for internet-native payments,” May 2025; Coinbase, “Coinbase and Cloudflare Will Launch the x402 Foundation,” September 23, 2025 (stablecoin-based transactions); Coinbase, “Google Agentic Payments Protocol + x402,” September 2025, all at coinbase.com, retrieved September 2026.
  37. OWASP Foundation, OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications 2025, LLM01: Prompt Injection, genai.owasp.org, retrieved September 2026.
  38. Block joins the x402 Foundation and contributes Bitcoin Lightning payment support to the x402 standard, September 24, 2026; x402 Foundation under the Linux Foundation, retrieved September 2026.
  39. TRM Labs analysis of x402 payment volume, September 2026 (genuine agent-to-agent commerce a small fraction of headline volume; stablecoins about 99% of volume), retrieved September 2026.
  40. Federal Reserve, “About the FOMC,” federalreserve.gov: the Federal Open Market Committee has 12 voting members and holds eight scheduled meetings a year; John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, 1936.

Chapter 8. Are you ready? Rate your own financial literacy

  1. Klapper, Lusardi and van Oudheusden, Financial Literacy Around the World, S&P Global FinLit Survey, 2015.
  2. FINRA Investor Education Foundation, National Financial Capability Study, 2021 wave (respondents averaged 2.6 of 5 financial literacy quiz questions correct); figure reported in FINRA Foundation, “Why Is Measured Financial Literacy Declining?,” Insights: Financial Capability, 2024, finrafoundation.org, retrieved September 2026.
  3. Bucher-Koenen, Alessie, Lusardi and van Rooij, “Fearless Woman: Financial Literacy and Stock Market Participation,” NBER Working Paper 28723, 2021 (about one-third of the gender gap explained by lower confidence), nber.org, retrieved September 2026.
  4. Council for Economic Education, 2026 Survey of the States, and CEE release “Four New States Implement Personal Finance Courses,” March 18, 2026 (39 states require personal finance; 22 require economics, down from 26 in 2024), councilforeconed.org, retrieved September 2026.
  5. Council for Economic Education, “Supporters” (honor roll of 2022 donors), councilforeconed.org, retrieved September 2026; Federal Reserve Education, federalreserveeducation.org.
  6. FDIC, “Deposit Insurance FAQs,” fdic.gov, 2025.
  7. FDIC, National Rates and Rate Caps, September 2026 (national deposit rate for savings accounts of 0.37 to 0.38%), fdic.gov, as reported from FDIC data by Experian and The Motley Fool, retrieved September 2026.
  8. Internal Revenue Code section 401(k), Revenue Act of 1978.
  9. Pew Charitable Trusts, “State Pension Funding Levels Stayed Stable Despite Volatility,” October 29, 2025 (funding gap of $1.32 trillion for fiscal year 2023), pew.org, retrieved September 2026.
  10. Jerome Powell, interview with Scott Pelley, 60 Minutes, CBS News, aired February 4, 2024; full transcript at cbsnews.com, retrieved September 2026.
  11. Bloomberg US Aggregate Bond Index, 2022 total return of about minus 13%, the worst calendar year since the index’s 1976 inception; see Vanguard, “How 2026 May Set the Table for Stronger Bond Returns,” corporate.vanguard.com, 2026, retrieved September 2026.
  12. FDIC, 2023 FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, November 2024 (4.2% of households, about 5.6 million, unbanked in 2023), fdic.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  13. Thaler, “Some Empirical Evidence on Dynamic Inconsistency,” Economics Letters, 1981.
  14. O’Donoghue and Rabin, “Doing It Now or Later,” American Economic Review, 1999.
  15. Mischel, Ebbesen and Zeiss, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972.
  16. Shoda, Mischel and Peake, Developmental Psychology, 1990.
  17. Kidd, Palmeri and Aslin, “Rational Snacking: Young Children’s Decision-Making on the Marshmallow Task Is Moderated by Beliefs About Environmental Reliability,” Cognition 126, no. 1 (2013); 28 children, mean wait of 12 minutes 2 seconds in the reliable condition and 3 minutes 2 seconds in the unreliable condition.
  18. Watts, Duncan and Quan, “Revisiting the Marshmallow Test: A Conceptual Replication Investigating Links Between Early Delay of Gratification and Later Outcomes,” Psychological Science 29, no. 7 (2018); 918 children, the correlation with later achievement fell by two-thirds with controls for family background, early cognitive ability and home environment.
  19. Kahneman and Tversky, “Prospect Theory,” Econometrica, 1979.
  20. Lusardi and Mitchell, “The Economic Importance of Financial Literacy: Theory and Evidence,” Journal of Economic Literature 52, no. 1 (2014), Table 2 (30.2% of US adults answered all three correctly, 2009 National Financial Capability Study).
  21. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, “Mortality in the United States, 2023,” data brief 521 (December 2024): life expectancy 81.1 years for women and 75.8 for men.
  22. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI Inflation Calculator, bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator, comparing January 1996 and January 2026 (about $213), and January 2006 and January 2026 (about $1.66 per 2006 dollar); FDIC, National Rates and Rate Caps, monthly, savings account national average, retrieved September 2026.
  23. Online Etymology Dictionary, “bankrupt,” etymonline.com, retrieved October 2026: from Italian banca rotta, “broken bench”; the custom of breaking a failed banker’s bench is a traditional story, and the allusion is probably figurative.
  24. Social Security Administration, “Ex-Spouse Benefits” and the SSA blog post “Ex-Spouse Benefits and You,” ssa.gov (“The amount of benefits you get has no effect on the benefits your ex-spouse or their current spouse receives”); SSA, “Benefits for Spouses,” for the 50% rule at full retirement age (retrieved October 2026).

Chapter 9. Your first purchase

  1. FinCEN, “Application of FinCEN’s Regulations to Certain Business Models Involving Convertible Virtual Currencies,” FIN-2019-G001, 2019 (a person trading for personal use is not a money transmitter; a business may be).
  2. Federal Trade Commission, Data Spotlight, “Bitcoin ATMs: A payment portal for scammers,” September 3, 2024, ftc.gov, retrieved September 2026 (reported losses of over $110 million in 2023, nearly tenfold the 2020 figure). Fees: Iowa Attorney General, press release on suits against Bitcoin Depot and CoinFlip, February 26, 2025, iowaattorneygeneral.gov, retrieved September 2026 (fees of about 23% and 21% of each transaction); Massachusetts Attorney General, press release on suit against Bitcoin Depot, February 3, 2026, mass.gov, retrieved September 2026 (markups of 15 to 50%).
  3. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, approval order for spot bitcoin exchange-traded products, January 10, 2024.
  4. FinCEN, “Application of FinCEN’s Regulations to Persons Administering, Exchanging, or Using Virtual Currencies,” FIN-2013-G001, 2013; 31 CFR 1022.210, anti-money laundering program requirements for money services businesses, including customer identification procedures, ecfr.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  5. River, “What are River’s fees?” support.river.com, retrieved September 2026 (1.00% on one-time purchases up to $1 million; no fee on recurring purchases after the first week); Swan, “Fees,” swanbitcoin.com, retrieved September 2026 (1% on purchases, effective July 1, 2025); Kraken, “FAQs about buying instantly,” support.kraken.com, retrieved September 2026 (1% plus a spread, with payment-method fees shown at checkout); Coinbase, “Coinbase pricing and fees disclosures,” help.coinbase.com, retrieved September 2026 (fee and spread shown on the trade preview screen); Coinbase, “USD ACH Deposits,” help.coinbase.com, retrieved September 2026 (ACH transfers take three to five business days, and funds cannot be withdrawn until received).
  6. Bitcoin average transaction fee, daily series from Blockchain.com via YCharts, retrieved September 2026 (daily averages between about $0.17 and $0.58 from August through late September 2026); live fee estimates at mempool.space.
  7. Internal Revenue Service, Notice 2014-21, 2014 (virtual currency treated as property).
  8. Internal Revenue Service, “Gross Proceeds and Basis Reporting by Brokers and Determination of Amount Realized and Basis for Digital Asset Transactions,” T.D. 10000, 89 FR 56480, July 9, 2024; IRS Fact Sheet FS-2024-23, June 2024, irs.gov, retrieved September 2026 (gross proceeds reported for transactions on or after January 1, 2025; basis for certain transactions on or after January 1, 2026); Form 1099-DA.
  9. Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” 2008, section 10, “Privacy.” Divisibility to 100 million units is set in the Bitcoin software, not the paper.
  10. Brigitte Madrian and Dennis Shea, “The Power of Suggestion: Inertia in 401(k) Participation and Savings Behavior,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2001; Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Nudge, Yale University Press, 2008.
  11. Mt. Gox Co., Ltd., civil rehabilitation petition, Tokyo District Court, February 28, 2014 (about 850,000 bitcoin reported missing, about 750,000 of them customers’); Mt. Gox announcement of March 20, 2014 that about 200,000 bitcoin had been found, leaving about 650,000 missing, as reported by CBS News and the Associated Press, March 21, 2014, cbsnews.com, retrieved September 2026.
  12. FTX Trading Ltd., Chapter 11 petition, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, November 11, 2022; FTX debtors, second stakeholder presentation, March 2, 2023 (about $2.7 billion of customer assets identified against $11.6 billion of customer balances, a shortfall of about $8.9 billion), as reported by Securities Docket, March 3, 2023, securitiesdocket.com, retrieved September 2026.
  13. Celsius Network, notice pausing all withdrawals, swaps and transfers, June 12, 2022; Chapter 11 petition, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, July 13, 2022, as summarized by the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation consumer alert, 2022, dfr.vermont.gov, retrieved September 2026; the company left bankruptcy and began paying creditors under its plan on January 31, 2024, without reopening withdrawals.
  14. United States v. Frank Richard Ahlgren III, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas: U.S. Department of Justice, press release on guilty plea, September 12, 2024, and sentencing to two years in prison, December 12, 2024, justice.gov, retrieved September 2026; Congressional Research Service, Legal Sidebar LSB11353, “United States v. Ahlgren: A Study in Lost Cryptocurrency Tax Revenue,” everycrsreport.com, retrieved September 2026 (Ahlgren sold bitcoin for cash in person, moved coins through mixers and multiple wallets, and deposited cash in amounts just under $10,000).
  15. U.S. Constitution, Fourth Amendment; United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 12, 1948; Harper v. Werfel, No. 23-1565, U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, September 24, 2024, certiorari denied June 30, 2025, No. 24-922.
  16. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica, 1979; Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, “Advances in Prospect Theory,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1992 (loss-aversion coefficient near two).
  17. Glassnode, “A Bear of Historic Proportions,” The Week On-chain, June 2022, research.glassnode.com, retrieved September 2026 (bear-market lows of 75 to 84% below the prior high in 2015 and 2018); the 2021 to 2022 decline, from a November 2021 high of $68,906 to a November 2022 low of $15,517, or 77.5%, as reported by Yahoo Finance, 2026, retrieved September 2026; the 2011 decline, from about $32 in June 2011 to about $2 in November 2011 on Mt. Gox, about 93% (Coin Metrics daily reference price, as in the Chapter 6 notes).
  18. Bybt (now Coinglass) liquidation data, as reported by CoinDesk, “Bitcoin Drops Below $31K Before Rebounding; $8B in Liquidations Triggered,” May 19, 2021, coindesk.com, retrieved September 2026 ($8 billion of futures positions liquidated in 24 hours).
  19. Peter Gollwitzer, “Implementation Intentions: Strong Effects of Simple Plans,” American Psychologist, 1999; Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran, meta-analysis, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2006.
  20. Anatoly Shtekhman, Christos Tasopoulos and Brian Wimmer, “Dollar-cost averaging just means taking risk later,” Vanguard Research, July 2012 (lump-sum investing outperformed a 12-month dollar-cost average in about two-thirds of rolling 10-year periods: 67% in the United States, 67% in the United Kingdom and 66% in Australia, for 60/40 portfolios).
  21. Brad Barber and Terrance Odean, “Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 116, no. 1 (2001): men traded 45% more than women and earned lower net returns.

Chapter 10. Keeping it safe

  1. Mt. Gox Co., Ltd., petition for civil rehabilitation, Tokyo District Court, February 28, 2014, reporting a loss of about 750,000 customer bitcoin and 100,000 of its own; withdrawals halted February 7, 2014 (Duane Morris LLP, client alert, March 2014, duanemorris.com, retrieved September 2026; CoinDesk, “Mt. Gox Files for Bankruptcy,” February 28, 2014, coindesk.com, retrieved September 2026). Recovery of about 200,000 coins in an old-format wallet, confirmed March 7, 2014 and announced March 20, 2014 (CNBC, “Mt.Gox says it found 200,000 bitcoins in ‘forgotten’ wallet,” March 20, 2014, cnbc.com, retrieved September 2026). Share of trading: about 70% of bitcoin transactions in 2013 (Stanford Review, “What happened at MtGox?,” April 22, 2014, stanfordreview.org; CoinDesk, “The Legacy of Mt. Gox,” May 4, 2023, coindesk.com; both retrieved September 2026). Repayments: Mt. Gox rehabilitation trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi, “Notice regarding Commencement of Repayments in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash,” June 24, 2024, and repayment progress notices July and August 2024, mtgox.com, retrieved September 2026; CoinDesk, “Mt. Gox to Begin Repayments in July,” June 24, 2024, coindesk.com, retrieved September 2026.
  2. CNBC, “Bitcoin falls below $200, making some investors worry about downward spiral,” January 14, 2015, cnbc.com, retrieved September 2026 (2013 top of about $1,150; January 14, 2015 low of about $170); Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED series CBBTCUSD (Coinbase bitcoin price), daily closes of $204 on January 15, 2015 and $199 on January 16, 2015, fred.stlouisfed.org, retrieved September 2026.
  3. FTX Trading Ltd. and affiliates, voluntary Chapter 11 petitions, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, November 11, 2022; John J. Ray III, written testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, December 13, 2022 (commingling of FTX.com customer assets with Alameda Research); U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, press release on the sentencing of Samuel Bankman-Fried, March 28, 2024, justice.gov, retrieved September 2026 (“stealing over $8 billion of his customers’ money”). Bahamas headquarters: CoinDesk, September 27, 2022, coindesk.com, retrieved September 2026. FTX Arena naming rights (Miami, 2021, 19 years, $135 million) and Bahamas base: NPR, November 24, 2022, npr.org, retrieved September 2026. Super Bowl LVI commercial with Larry David, February 2022, and Tom Brady endorsement: CBS News, cbsnews.com, retrieved September 2026.
  4. United States v. Bankman-Fried, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York; U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York, statement on the conviction of Samuel Bankman-Fried on seven counts, November 2, 2023, and press release on his sentencing to 25 years in prison, March 28, 2024, justice.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  5. FTX debtors, proposed valuation of customer claims at petition-date prices, filed December 27, 2023, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, setting bitcoin at $16,871 as of November 11, 2022 (Bitcoin.com News, December 28, 2023, news.bitcoin.com, retrieved September 2026; Cointelegraph, “FTX debtors propose $16,871 Bitcoin price for creditor claims,” December 2023, cointelegraph.com, retrieved September 2026). Plan of reorganization confirmed October 7, 2024 (The National, October 12, 2024, thenationalnews.com, retrieved September 2026).
  6. Voyager Digital, Chapter 11 petition, July 5, 2022; Celsius Network, Chapter 11 petition, July 13, 2022; BlockFi, Chapter 11 petition, November 28, 2022 (American Bar Association, Business Law Today, “The Crypto Bankruptcy Wave,” March 2023, americanbar.org, retrieved September 2026). Coinbase data breach: Coinbase Global, Form 8-K, May 14, 2025, sec.gov, and Help Net Security, “Coinbase suffers data breach, gets extorted (but won’t pay),” May 15, 2025, helpnetsecurity.com, retrieved October 2026 (support contractors bribed for customer names, addresses and account data; Coinbase refused a $20 million ransom).
  7. Ontario Securities Commission, QuadrigaCX: A Review by Staff of the Ontario Securities Commission, June 2020, and OSC news release, “OSC publishes investigative report of QuadrigaCX,” June 2020, osc.ca, retrieved September 2026 (Gerald Cotten died in India in December 2018; the exchange collapsed in early 2019; the OSC found about $115 million of the $169 million shortfall came from Cotten’s fraudulent trading rather than lost passwords).
  8. Blockstream Store, Jade $67 to $79, Jade Core $99, Jade Plus $149 to $169, store.blockstream.com, retrieved September 2026; Trezor Safe 3 $79, Safe 5 $169, Safe 7 $249 (BitDegree comparison, updated September 29, 2026, bitdegree.org; bitcoins.tools, March 2026); Ledger Nano S Plus $79, Nano X $149, Nano Gen5 $179, Flex $249, Stax $399 (Coin Bureau, Ledger review, June 24, 2026, coinbureau.com, retrieved September 2026). Trezor and Ledger store pages load prices dynamically and could not be captured directly.
  9. Palatinus, Rusnak, Voisine and Bowe, “Mnemonic code for generating deterministic keys,” BIP-39, 2013.
  10. The manufacturer’s own security disclosure and technical write-up, July 30, 2026, on its website and blog, retrieved September 2026 (flaw introduced March 2021 with a firmware update; seed generation fell back to a software random-number routine instead of the hardware generator; effective search space about 40 bits on older models and about 72 bits on newer ones, against 128 intended; seeds made with at least 50 private dice rolls not exposed by this issue alone; updating firmware does not repair an existing seed). Follow-up analysis: TRM Labs, “The Largest Hardware Wallet Exploit of 2026,” August 5, 2026, trmlabs.com, retrieved September 2026. [Stacey: the maker is not named here or in the text, per your rule. The full citation with the company name is in the sources file for the website. Decide whether print should name it.]
  11. Galaxy Research (Alex Thorn), on-chain tracing of the sweep waves, as reported by TFTC, August 5, 2026, tftc.io (“zero multisig wallets have been identified in any of the high-confidence promoted waves”); Decrypt, August 14, 2026, decrypt.co (more than 5,200 addresses drained, about 1,778 bitcoin confirmed); crypto.news, August 4, 2026; all retrieved September 2026.
  12. Ledger, security disclosure confirming a hardware implant in devices sold by a reseller, October 2026, ledger.com; Crypto Briefing, “Ledger confirms draining cases linked to CryptoBilis-sold devices,” October 11, 2026 (early estimates of $72 to $93 million from more than 300 wallets, most of it in USDT on Tron; the reseller sold in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines; Ledger’s direct channels unaffected), retrieved October 2026. Updated: CoinDesk, “Ledger says unauthorized implant found in at least one device sold by CryptoBilis,” October 12, 2026 ($86 to $93 million, more than 300 wallets); Bitquery on-chain count through October 16, 2026 (about $102 million across 335 wallets, 78% of it USDT); Help Net Security, “Hidden implant in Ledger hardware wallets linked to $93M theft,” October 12, 2026, helpnetsecurity.com; Bitcoin.com News, “Ledger Confirms Hidden Hardware Implant in Affected User’s Wallet” and “User Exposes Hidden Hardware Implant in European Ledger Wallet,” October 11, 2026, news.bitcoin.com; Protos, October 9, 2026, protos.com; all retrieved October 2026. Ledger customer data leak, December 2020: The Block, “A detailed look at the Ledger data leak,” December 2020, theblock.co, retrieved October 2026. Jack Mallers, “Hardware wallets are riskier than you think,” The Jack Mallers Show, Ask Jack segment, October 2026. Views on ETFs and self-custody (PlanB, Ophelia Snyder, Jameson Lopp, Adam Back): DigitalToday, citing Cointelegraph, October 13, 2026, digitaltoday.co.kr, retrieved October 2026. Who pays you back: FDIC, “Financial Products That Are Not Insured by the FDIC,” fdic.gov, and FDIC, “Advisory to FDIC-Insured Institutions Regarding Deposit Insurance and Dealings with Crypto Companies,” FIL-35-2022, July 29, 2022; SIPC, “What SIPC Protects,” sipc.org; iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, Form 10-K for 2024, sec.gov (Coinbase Global commercial crime insurance of up to $320 million, shared among Coinbase’s customers and not specific to the Trust); Coinbase, “Insurance and Protections,” coinbase.com/legal/insurance (digital currency not FDIC or SIPC insured; crime policy excludes losses from compromised login credentials; USD pass-through FDIC coverage up to $250,000); Coinbase Global, Form 8-K, May 14, 2025 (voluntary reimbursement of eligible retail customers); Bybit hack of about $1.5 billion, February 21, 2025, with customer assets backed from company funds (Reuters, February 2025); Unchained, “Unchained vs AnchorWatch,” unchained.com (Unchained “does not sell consumer-facing custody insurance”; AnchorWatch minimum $250,000, premium 0.40% to 0.80% of insured value a year); No Bullshit Bitcoin, “AnchorWatch Launches in the U.S.,” January 7, 2025, nobsbitcoin.com; Crypto Briefing on Bitkey’s Emergency Exit Kit, 2025, cryptobriefing.com; Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Interpretive Letter 1183, March 7, 2025, and FDIC, FIL-7-2025, March 28, 2025; all retrieved October 2026.
  13. Casa, pricing page, Standard plan $250 per year, casa.io, retrieved September 2026; Unchained, pricing page, Personal Vault $250 per year, unchained.com, retrieved September 2026.
  14. Bitkey (Block, Inc.), “How it works,” bitkey.world, retrieved September 2026 (2-of-3 multisig with one key on the phone, one in the hardware device and one on Bitkey’s server; “No seed phrase”).
  15. Chainalysis, bitcoin market analysis, June 2020, estimating about 3.7 million bitcoin unmoved for five years or more, about 20% of supply at the time, as reported by Decrypt, “Lost Bitcoin: 3.7 million Bitcoin are probably gone forever,” January 3, 2021, decrypt.co, retrieved September 2026; River Intelligence, “How Much Bitcoin Is Gone Forever?,” September 6, 2023, river.com, retrieved September 2026 (3 to 4 million bitcoin irreversibly lost).
  16. Howells v Newport City Council [2025] EWHC 22 (Ch), High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, judgment of HHJ Keyser KC, January 9, 2025, dismissing the claim over a hard drive holding the keys to 8,000 bitcoin discarded in August 2013 (Local Government Lawyer, January 10, 2025, localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk; Hausfeld, “Waste not, want not,” 2025, hausfeld.com; both retrieved September 2026).
  17. Andreas M. Antonopoulos, on Twitter after the August 2016 Bitfinex hack, “Your keys, your bitcoin. Not your keys, not your bitcoin,” as reported by Cointelegraph, “Antonopoulos: Your Keys, Your Bitcoin. Not Your Keys, Not Your Bitcoin,” August 10, 2016, cointelegraph.com, retrieved September 2026.

Chapter 11. Scams, frauds and red flags

  1. FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2024 Internet Crime Report, April 2025, ic3.gov, retrieved September 2026 (cryptocurrency-related losses of $9.3 billion; losses by complainants over 60 of $4.9 billion, of which $2.8 billion was cryptocurrency-related).
  2. Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024, March 2025, ftc.gov, retrieved September 2026 (2024 losses by payment method: bank transfer or payment $2.09 billion, cryptocurrency $1.42 billion, wire transfer $391 million, gift or reload card $287 million); Federal Trade Commission, “Who Experiences Scams? A Story for All Ages,” data spotlight, December 2022; Federal Trade Commission, annual report to Congress on protecting older consumers, December 2025, ftc.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  3. Ledger, “Addressing the July 2020 E-commerce and Marketing Data Breach,” ledger.com, July 2020; Ledger, “Message by Ledger’s CEO: Update on the July Data Breach,” ledger.com, December 21, 2020, retrieved September 2026 (approximately 272,000 customers’ names, postal addresses and phone numbers published December 20, 2020); CoinDesk, “Scammers Are Sending Ledger Users Fake Hardware Wallets,” June 17, 2021.
  4. United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Online Scam Operations and Trafficking into Forced Criminality in Southeast Asia, 2023; FBI IC3 public service announcement on cryptocurrency investment fraud, 2023.
  5. Coinbase Help Center, “Technical Support and Impersonation Scams,” help.coinbase.com, retrieved September 2026; Kraken Support, “Protect Yourself from Scams,” support.kraken.com, retrieved September 2026; Kraken, “How to Verify a Call Is Really from Kraken Support,” blog.kraken.com, retrieved September 2026.
  6. FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, “Criminals Increasing SIM Swap Schemes to Steal Millions of Dollars from US Public,” public service announcement I-020822-PSA, February 8, 2022, ic3.gov, retrieved September 2026 (1,611 complaints and adjusted losses of more than $68 million in 2021).
  7. Federal Trade Commission, “Refund and Recovery Scams,” consumer.ftc.gov, December 2023, updated August 2026, retrieved September 2026.
  8. Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab, “Crypto-Scam Hosts Pop-Up Livestream Featuring a Deepfaked Elon Musk,” dfrlab.org, September 25, 2024, retrieved September 2026 (June 18, 2024 YouTube livestream that ran more than seven hours); Michael Saylor, statement on X, January 13, 2024, as reported in Decrypt, “Michael Saylor Sounds Alarm on Deepfake Bitcoin Scams,” January 2024, retrieved September 2026.
  9. Federal Trade Commission, “Scammers use AI to enhance their family emergency schemes,” consumer alert, March 2023.
  10. U.S. Department of Justice, “BitConnect Founder Indicted in Global $2.4 Billion Cryptocurrency Scheme,” press release, February 25, 2022, justice.gov, retrieved September 2026; SEC v. BitConnect et al., complaint filed 2021.
  11. Securities and Exchange Commission, “SEC Charges Kim Kardashian for Unlawfully Touting Crypto Security,” press release 2022-183, October 3, 2022, sec.gov, retrieved September 2026 ($1.26 million total, of which a $1 million penalty and about $260,000 in disgorgement and interest; $250,000 promotional payment).
  12. Satoshi Nakamoto, “Strange block 74638,” bitcointalk.org, August 15, 2010; Bitcoin commit d4c6b90, “fix for block 74638 overflow output transaction,” github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin, August 15, 2010, released as Bitcoin 0.3.10, retrieved September 2026.
  13. Andreas M. Antonopoulos, “Your keys, your Bitcoin. Not your keys, not your Bitcoin,” quoted in Cointelegraph, August 10, 2016, after the Bitfinex hack, retrieved September 2026; Antonopoulos popularized the line, and no earlier documented origin was found.
  14. Kraken, “Proof of Reserves,” kraken.com, retrieved September 2026; Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, “Investor Advisory: Exercise Caution with Third-Party Verification/Proof of Reserve Reports,” March 8, 2023, pcaobus.org, retrieved September 2026.
  15. U.S. Department of Justice, “Three Individuals Charged for Alleged Roles in Twitter Hack,” press release, July 31, 2020, justice.gov, retrieved September 2026 (more than 400 transfers worth more than $100,000); Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office, Florida, charges against Graham Ivan Clark, 17, announced July 31, 2020, as reported by CBS News, July 31, 2020.
  16. Federal Trade Commission, “Romance Scammers’ Favorite Lies Exposed,” data spotlight, February 9, 2023 ($1.3 billion reported lost in 2022); Federal Trade Commission, “Love Stinks When a Scammer Is Involved,” business blog, February 13, 2024 ($1.14 billion reported lost in 2023), ftc.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  17. Peter M. Gollwitzer, “Implementation Intentions: Strong Effects of Simple Plans,” American Psychologist 54, no. 7 (1999): 493-503; Robert B. Cialdini, Raymond R. Reno and Carl A. Kallgren, “A Focus Theory of Normative Conduct: Recycling the Concept of Norms to Reduce Littering in Public Places,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58, no. 6 (1990): 1015-1026; Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge (Yale University Press, 2008).
  18. U.S. Department of Justice, “Two Arrested for Alleged Conspiracy to Launder $4.5 Billion in Stolen Cryptocurrency,” press release, February 8, 2022, justice.gov, retrieved September 2026 (over 94,000 of the 119,754 bitcoin stolen from Bitfinex in 2016).
  19. AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline, 877-908-3360, aarp.org, retrieved September 2026; Eldercare Locator for state Adult Protective Services offices.
  20. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, personal casualty and theft loss limits for 2018 through 2025; IRS Office of Chief Counsel, memorandum 202511015, “Allowance of Theft Losses for Victims of Scams Under I.R.C. Section 165,” dated January 17, 2025, released March 14, 2025, irs.gov, retrieved September 2026. The memorandum concluded that a victim who sent money to a scam platform intending to earn a profit may claim a theft loss under section 165(c)(2), which the 2018 suspension does not reach, while a victim of a romance or impersonation scam with no profit motive may not. The 2025 budget law made the suspension of personal casualty losses permanent (One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law 119-21, July 4, 2025; IRS, “Casualty loss deduction expanded and made permanent,” irs.gov, updated September 15, 2026; from 2026, losses in state-declared disasters also qualify).
  21. Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024, romance scam losses by gender and age, ftc.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  22. Federal Trade Commission, “Scammers use AI to enhance their family emergency schemes,” consumer alert, March 2023; FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, public service announcement on criminal use of generative AI, December 3, 2024, ic3.gov, retrieved September 2026.

Chapter 12. Spending, sending and Lightning

  1. Bitcoin base-layer throughput, derived from block contents and the 10-minute target interval: in September 2026, blocks on mempool.space held roughly 2,300 to 5,000 transactions each, or about four to eight per second (mempool.space, recent blocks, retrieved September 2026); Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” 2008.
  2. Visa, “Fiscal 2025 Annual Report,” 2025 (329 billion payment and cash transactions in the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025, an average of 901 million per day, or more than 10,000 per second); Visa, “About Visa Fact Sheet,” visa.co.uk (capacity of “65,000+ transaction messages per second”), retrieved September 2026.
  3. Quiet-day fees: mempool.space showed every recommended fee tier at 1 sat per vB in late September 2026, roughly a dime for a typical transaction at the May 2026 price (mempool.space, retrieved September 2026). Crowded-day example: on April 20, 2024, the day of the fourth halving, the average fee paid per transaction reached a record of about $128 (Cointelegraph, “Bitcoin fees crash after record daily average of $128 on halving day,” citing YCharts, April 2024).
  4. SWIFT, “Discover Swift,” swift.com (“11,500+ connected institutions” in “220+ countries and territories”), retrieved September 2026.
  5. Federal Reserve Financial Services, “Fedwire Funds Service Operating Hours,” frbservices.org (funds-transfer business day runs from 9:00 p.m. ET on the preceding calendar day to 7:00 p.m. ET; closed Saturdays, Sundays and Reserve Bank holidays), retrieved September 2026. The Federal Reserve announced in October 2025 that it will add Sundays and weekday holidays in 2028 or 2029.
  6. Poon and Dryja, “Lightning Network,” presentation to SF Bitcoin Devs, February 23, 2015, lightning.network; Poon and Dryja, “The Bitcoin Lightning Network: Scalable Off-Chain Instant Payments,” draft 0.5.9.2, January 14, 2016; Lightning Labs, “Announcing our first Lightning mainnet release, lnd 0.4-beta!,” lightning.engineering, March 15, 2018.
  7. mempool.space, Lightning explorer statistics (public channel capacity of about 3,754 bitcoin across about 32,500 channels and 16,200 nodes as of August 30, 2026), retrieved September 2026.
  8. River, “The Lightning Network Grew by 1,212% in 2 Years,” river.com, October 2023 (an estimated 6.6 million Lightning payments in August 2023 against 503,000 in August 2021).
  9. Federal Reserve, Regulation II (debit interchange for covered issuers capped at 21 cents plus 0.05% of the transaction, plus a 1 cent fraud adjustment), federalreserve.gov, retrieved September 2026; Stripe, “Pricing,” stripe.com (2.9% plus 30 cents online, 2.7% plus 5 cents in person, for domestic cards), retrieved September 2026.
  10. BTC Map, “Dashboard,” btcmap.org (27,148 places listed, about 15,000 of them verified within the past year), retrieved September 2026; BTC Map, “2025 Annual Review,” blog.btcmap.org (21,823 places at the end of 2025).
  11. Steak ’n Shake, announcement of bitcoin acceptance, May 2025; Bitcoin Magazine, “Steak ’n Shake Now Accepting Bitcoin via Lightning Network Across U.S. Locations,” May 16, 2025.
  12. Typical published card processing rates: Stripe, “Pricing,” stripe.com (2.7% plus 5 cents in person; 2.9% plus 30 cents online), retrieved September 2026; Nilson Report, “Merchant Processing Fees in the United States, 2024,” 2025 ($187.20 billion in fees on $11.903 trillion of card purchase volume, about 1.6% averaged across credit and debit).
  13. Nilson Report, “Merchant Processing Fees in the United States, 2024,” nilsonreport.com, 2025 (U.S. merchants paid $187.20 billion in processing fees in 2024, up 8.7% from 2023), retrieved September 2026.
  14. Linthicum, “Welcome to Bitcoin Beach: How a California surfer brought cryptocurrency to a small village in El Salvador,” Los Angeles Times, June 26, 2021 (an anonymous American donor gave “more than $100,000” in bitcoin in 2019; Peterson declined to give the exact amount); CoinDesk, “Bitcoin Beach’s Pioneering Circular Economy Is Making a Global Impact,” April 17, 2023.
  15. Bitcoin Beach, bitcoinbeach.com, retrieved September 2026; CBS News, 60 Minutes, “Bitcoin Beach: How a town in El Salvador became a testing ground for bitcoin,” April 10, 2022 (the pupusa stand run by Mama Rosa was the first business to accept bitcoin).
  16. Bukele’s announcement by video to the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, June 5, 2021 (CoinDesk, “President of El Salvador Says He’s Submitting Bill to Make Bitcoin Legal Tender,” June 5, 2021); El Salvador Legislative Assembly, Decreto Legislativo No. 57, Ley Bitcoin, dated June 8, 2021 and approved in the session of June 8 to 9, 2021, in force 90 days after publication, September 7, 2021.
  17. World Bank, Global Findex Database 2021 (35.9% of Salvadorans age 15 and over had an account at a financial institution or mobile money provider in 2021; 43.4% in 2024), data.worldbank.org, retrieved September 2026.
  18. World Bank, “Personal remittances, received (% of GDP), El Salvador” (26.3% in 2021; 24.3% in 2024), data.worldbank.org, retrieved September 2026.
  19. Instituto Universitario de Opinión Pública, Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas, “Encuesta de evaluación del año 2024,” Informe 177, survey of December 5 to 17, 2024, 1,266 interviews (91.8% said they had not used bitcoin in 2024), uca.edu.sv, January 2025; reported in El Diario de Hoy, “El 92% de salvadoreños no usó Bitcoin en 2024,” January 2025.
  20. International Monetary Fund, “IMF Reaches Staff-Level Agreement with El Salvador on an EFF Arrangement,” press release 24/485, December 18, 2024 (about US$1.4 billion; Executive Board approval February 26, 2025); El Salvador Legislative Assembly, reform of the Ley Bitcoin approved January 29, 2025, making acceptance voluntary (El Diario de Hoy, “Asamblea aprueba reforma a Ley Bitcoin,” January 29, 2025).
  21. Oficina Nacional de Bitcoin, El Salvador, reserve figures published at bitcoin.gob.sv (7,740 bitcoin in the second week of August 2026), as reported by Infobae, “Reserva de Bitcoin de El Salvador sube a 7,740 monedas,” August 12, 2026; International Monetary Fund, El Salvador, Country Report No. 25/190, July 2025 (increases in the reserve “reflect the consolidation of Bitcoin across various government-owned wallets”), imf.org, retrieved October 2026.
  22. Internal Revenue Service, Notice 2014-21, 2014; IRS “Digital Assets” guidance page.
  23. Internal Revenue Service, Topic No. 409, Capital Gains and Losses (long-term rates of 0, 15 and 20% by taxable income; net short-term gains taxed as ordinary income), irs.gov, retrieved September 2026; Publication 544.
  24. Internal Revenue Service, “Final regulations and related IRS guidance for reporting by brokers on sales and exchanges of digital assets,” T.D. 10000, June 2024 (gross proceeds reported for transactions on or after January 1, 2025; basis for certain transactions on or after January 1, 2026), irs.gov, retrieved September 2026; IRS, “Understanding your Form 1099-DA,” irs.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  25. Virtual Currency Tax Fairness Act, H.R. 6582 and S. 4608 (117th Congress, 2022) and S. 4808 (118th Congress, 2024); S. 2207 (119th Congress), introduced by Sen. Lummis in June 2025 with a $300 per-transaction exclusion. None had been enacted as of August 2026: The Tax Adviser, “Tax legislation for digital assets: What’s the conversation in Congress?,” August 2026.
  26. Lightning Goats, lightning-goats.com (live YouTube camera; “Send treats using the QR code in the video”), retrieved September 2026.

Chapter 13. Where bitcoin fits in your money

  1. Peak-to-trough declines and time to a new high, computed from Coin Metrics Community Network Data, daily bitcoin reference price (PriceUSD), coinmetrics.io, retrieved September 2026: June 2011 high to November 2011 low, 93%, new high February 2013; December 2013 to January 2015, 84%, new high February 2017; December 2017 to December 2018, 84%, new high November 2020; November 2021 to November 2022, 77%, new high March 2024.
  2. Nakamoto Portfolio, a Swan Research project, nakamotoportfolio.com, retrieved September 2026. Allocation ranges: BlackRock Investment Institute, “Sizing Bitcoin in Portfolios,” December 12, 2024, blackrock.com; Morgan Stanley Global Investment Committee, October 2025, as reported by CNBC, October 2025; Bank of America, Chief Investment Office guidance effective January 5, 2026, as reported by The Block, December 2, 2025, theblock.co; all retrieved October 2026.
  3. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, “Statement on the Approval of Spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Products,” January 10, 2024.
  4. iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT), sponsor fee 0.25%, ishares.com, retrieved September 2026; Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), expense ratio 0.25%, fund fact sheet, Fidelity, June 2026. The spot bitcoin ETFs are organized as grantor trusts rather than as funds under the Investment Company Act, which is why a share is a claim on the trust’s bitcoin and why sales are reported on Form 1099-B.
  5. IRS, Publication 590-B, Distributions from Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs), for use in preparing 2025 returns, “What Are Qualified Distributions?”, irs.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  6. iTrustCapital, pricing page, 1% per crypto trade and no monthly or annual fee on standard accounts, itrustcapital.com, retrieved September 2026; Swan Bitcoin, IRA fee schedule, 1% per trade plus a monthly fee of 0.02% of assets with a $20 minimum, swanbitcoin.com, retrieved September 2026.
  7. Internal Revenue Code section 408(a)(2), and IRS, Publication 590-A, Contributions to Individual Retirement Arrangements (IRAs), for use in preparing 2025 returns: “The trustee or custodian must be a bank, a federally insured credit union, a savings and loan association, or an entity approved by the IRS to act as trustee or custodian,” irs.gov, retrieved September 2026; McNulty v. Commissioner, 157 T.C. 79 (2021), holding that an IRA owner who took personal possession of the account’s assets took a taxable distribution.
  8. IRS, Notice 2014-21, 2014.
  9. IRS, “Digital Assets,” irs.gov/digitalassets, and Frequently Asked Questions on Virtual Currency Transactions, 2025.
  10. IRS, Revenue Procedure 2024-40, section 2503 annual exclusion of $19,000 for calendar year 2025; IRS, Revenue Procedure 2025-32, October 9, 2025, $19,000 for calendar year 2026, irs.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  11. IRS, Topic No. 409, Capital Gains and Losses; IRS, Revenue Procedure 2024-40, maximum zero rate amount for unmarried individuals of $48,350 for 2025; IRS, Revenue Procedure 2025-32, $49,450 for 2026, irs.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  12. Internal Revenue Code section 1091 (wash sales). Proposals to extend it to digital assets include Senator Cynthia Lummis’s digital asset tax bill, press release, July 3, 2025, and H.R. 10357, the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, described in Joint Committee on Taxation, JCX-47-26, September 14, 2026, and approved by the House Ways and Means Committee on September 16, 2026. As of September 2026, none had been enacted.
  13. Celsius Network, Chapter 11 petition, July 2022; BlockFi, Chapter 11 petition, November 2022, U.S. Bankruptcy Court filings.
  14. IRS, Form 1040 instructions, digital asset question, tax year 2025.
  15. IRS, Treasury Decision 10000, “Gross Proceeds and Basis Reporting by Brokers and Determination of Amount Realized and Basis for Digital Asset Transactions,” June 2024: gross proceeds reporting for transactions on or after January 1, 2025, basis reporting for covered digital assets acquired and sold on or after January 1, 2026; IRS, “Final regulations and related IRS guidance for reporting by brokers on sales and exchanges of digital assets,” and Instructions for Form 1099-DA (2026), irs.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  16. Jeff John Roberts and Nicolas Rapp, “Exclusive: Nearly 4 Million Bitcoins Lost Forever, New Study Says,” Fortune, November 25, 2017, reporting Chainalysis estimates of 2.78 to 3.79 million; River Intelligence, “How Much Bitcoin Is Gone Forever?”, September 6, 2023 (3 to 4 million), river.com; Dhruv Bansal, “The Geology of Lost Coins,” Unchained, updated April 17, 2026 (3.0 to 3.8 million), unchained.com, retrieved September 2026.
  17. Coinbase Help Center, “Claim a decedent’s Coinbase account,” help.coinbase.com, retrieved September 2026.
  18. Internal Revenue Code section 1014, basis of property acquired from a decedent; IRS, Publication 551, Basis of Assets, revised December 2025, “Inherited Property,” irs.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  19. Nunchuk, “Inheritance Planning,” nunchuk.io/inheritance, and “Nunchuk 2.0: Autonomous Inheritance,” November 12, 2025, nunchuk.io; Casa, “Casa Inheritance,” casa.io/inheritance, retrieved September 2026.
  20. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, “Mortality in the United States, 2024,” NCHS Data Brief No. 548, January 2026: life expectancy at birth of 81.4 years for females and 76.5 years for males, a difference of 4.9 years.
  21. Kahneman and Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica, 1979.
  22. Drawdowns computed from Coin Metrics Community Network Data, daily bitcoin reference price (PriceUSD), coinmetrics.io, retrieved September 2026: December 2017 high to December 2018 low, 84%; November 2021 high to November 2022 low, 77%.
  23. Gollwitzer, “Implementation Intentions: Strong Effects of Simple Plans,” American Psychologist, 1999.
  24. Andreas M. Antonopoulos and David A. Harding, Mastering Bitcoin, 3rd ed., O’Reilly, 2023, chapter 4, on the 20-byte (160-bit) hash that standard pay-to-public-key-hash and native segwit addresses commit to; 2 to the 160th power is about 1.46 times 10 to the 48th, a 49-digit number.
  25. Federal Housing Finance Agency, Director William Pulte, directive to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on considering cryptocurrency as a reserve asset in single-family mortgage risk assessments, June 25, 2025, fhfa.gov, retrieved September 2026.
  26. Internal Revenue Code section 1014 (basis of property acquired from a decedent); IRS Publication 551, Basis of Assets, on the fair-market-value basis of inherited property, irs.gov, retrieved September 2026.

Chapter 14. Bitcoin and meaning

  1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U, series CUUR0000SA0), December 2020 to December 2025, a rise of 24.4%; the 2020 to 2025 annual averages give the same 24.4%. Series retrieved through FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, September 2026.
  2. Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” section 6, 2008.
  3. W. Mischel, E. B. Ebbesen and A. R. Zeiss, “Cognitive and Attentional Mechanisms in Delay of Gratification,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 21, no. 2 (1972): 204 to 218.
  4. C. Kidd, H. Palmeri and R. N. Aslin, “Rational Snacking: Young Children’s Decision-Making on the Marshmallow Task Is Moderated by Beliefs About Environmental Reliability,” Cognition 126, no. 1 (2013): 109 to 114. Children in the reliable condition waited a mean of 12 minutes 2 seconds; children in the unreliable condition waited a mean of 3 minutes 2 seconds.
  5. T. W. Watts, G. J. Duncan and H. Quan, “Revisiting the Marshmallow Test: A Conceptual Replication Investigating Links Between Early Delay of Gratification and Later Outcomes,” Psychological Science 29, no. 7 (2018): 1159 to 1177. The correlation between delay at age 4 and achievement at age 15 fell by about two thirds once family background, early cognitive ability and home environment were controlled for.
  6. Jeff Booth, author of The Price of Tomorrow (Stanley Press, 2020). Quotation: Christina Comben, “Jeff Booth wants you to move more of your time into Bitcoin,” CryptoSlate, October 26, 2025, cryptoslate.com, retrieved October 2026. A longer wording shown in the author’s UNLV OLLI course materials in May 2026 could not be traced to a source, so the text paraphrases it.
  7. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, FRED, series M2SL (M2 money stock, seasonally adjusted): $15,425.0 billion in January 2020 and $21,647.4 billion in January 2022, a rise of 40.3%. Retrieved September 2026.
  8. Department of Finance Canada, “Remarks by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance,” June 14, 2022, canada.ca, retrieved September 2026: approximately 280 financial products, including savings and checking accounts, credit cards and lines of credit, totaling approximately 8 million Canadian dollars, were frozen as of February 21, 2022. See also Public Order Emergency Commission, Report of the Public Inquiry into the 2022 Public Order Emergency, Government of Canada, February 2023.
  9. U.S. International Trade Administration, “Lebanon Country Commercial Guide: Trade Financing,” trade.gov, updated February 2026, retrieved September 2026 (banks introduced informal capital controls in late 2019 and have accumulated more than $72 billion in losses); The National, “Lebanon’s bank customers won’t see the $93 billion they are owed any time soon,” April 16, 2025; UPI, “Seven years after crisis, Lebanon’s banks struggle to survive,” September 8, 2026.
  10. FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2024 Internet Crime Report, April 2025, ic3.gov, retrieved September 2026: 149,686 cryptocurrency-related complaints and $9.3 billion in losses for 2024. The 2025 Internet Crime Report, released April 2026, put 2025 losses above $11 billion.
  11. On the suspension of the gold standard at the outbreak of the First World War: Barry Eichengreen, Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919 to 1939, Oxford University Press, 1992.
  12. Daniel Krawisz, “Hyperbitcoinization,” Satoshi Nakamoto Institute, March 29, 2014.
  13. Spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds approved by the SEC, January 2024; Executive Order 14233, “Establishment of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and United States Digital Asset Stockpile,” signed March 6, 2025, 90 Fed. Reg. 11789 (March 11, 2025), federalregister.gov, retrieved September 2026. The order capitalizes the reserve with bitcoin already forfeited to the government and permits only budget-neutral acquisitions. As of September 2026 the government had made no purchases and had not published an official count of its holdings (CoinDesk, “U.S. Bitcoin Reserve update coming in ‘next few weeks,’ White House advisor says,” May 6, 2026).
  14. Saifedean Ammous, The Bitcoin Standard, Wiley, 2018.
  15. CNBC, “This family bet it all on bitcoin,” October 17, 2017 (the Dutch Taihuttu family sold their house, cars and possessions in 2017); Decrypt, “The Bitcoin Family: Still on the Road After Three Years,” 2020; CNBC, June 7, 2025, on the family’s continued travels. Retrieved September 2026.
  16. CBS News, 60 Minutes, “Bitcoin Beach: How a town in El Salvador became a testing ground for bitcoin,” April 10, 2022, retrieved September 2026 (an anonymous donor’s bitcoin gift in 2019 funded the Bitcoin Beach initiative in El Zonte under Mike Peterson).
  17. The Bitcoin ledger, block 840,000, timestamped 00:09 UTC on April 20, 2024, which was the evening of April 19 in the United States; viewable on any block explorer (mempool.space, retrieved September 2026).
  18. CME CF Bitcoin Volatility Index (BVX), a 30-day implied volatility measure, 37 on September 29, 2026, cfbenchmarks.com; iShares, “Bitcoin Volatility Guide,” updated July 2025, citing Bloomberg 1-year realized volatility of about 54% as of January 31, 2025. Retrieved September 2026.
  19. Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper,” Cryptography Mailing List, October 31, 2008. Martin Luther’s 95 theses are dated October 31, 1517; whether he nailed them to the Wittenberg church door that day is disputed by historians, beginning with Erwin Iserloh in 1961, and the date itself is not. See Lyndal Roper, Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet, Random House, 2016.
  20. Proverbs 11:1 (“A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight”) and Leviticus 19:35-36, King James Version.
  21. Quran 83:1-3 (Al-Mutaffifin, “The Defrauders”), Sahih International translation.
  22. Majjhima Nikaya 117, Mahacattarisaka Sutta, on wrong livelihood (scheming, talking, hinting, belittling, pursuing gain with gain), translation by Bhikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications, 1995; and Anguttara Nikaya 5.177, Vanijja Sutta, on trades a lay follower should avoid.
  23. Federal Housing Finance Agency, Director William Pulte, directive to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on considering cryptocurrency as a reserve asset in single-family mortgage risk assessments, June 25, 2025, fhfa.gov, retrieved September 2026.

Chapter 15. From reader to neighbor

  1. Roediger and Karpicke, “Test-Enhanced Learning: Taking Memory Tests Improves Long-Term Retention,” Psychological Science, 2006.
  2. Gollwitzer, “Implementation Intentions: Strong Effects of Simple Plans,” American Psychologist 54, no. 7 (1999): 493-503; Gollwitzer and Sheeran, “Implementation Intentions and Goal Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of Effects and Processes,” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38 (2006): 69-119. The meta-analysis covers 94 independent tests with 8,461 participants and reports an effect of medium-to-large size (d = .65).
  3. Christakis and Fowler, “The Collective Dynamics of Smoking in a Large Social Network,” New England Journal of Medicine 358, no. 21 (2008): 2249-2258. In the Framingham Heart Study network of 12,067 people followed from 1971 to 2003, a spouse quitting reduced a person’s chances of smoking by 67%, a friend quitting by 36%, and a coworker at a small firm quitting by 34%.
  4. World Health Organization, Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, 1986.
  5. Bandura, Social Learning Theory, Prentice-Hall, 1977.
  6. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 5th edition, Free Press, 2003 (first edition 1962).
  7. Ryan and Gross, “The Diffusion of Hybrid Seed Corn in Two Iowa Communities,” Rural Sociology 8, no. 1 (March 1943): 15-24. Nearly half of the farmers (49%) named salesmen as their first source of information, but neighbors were the source most often credited with the decision to adopt (45.5%, against 32% for salesmen), and the lag between first hearing and first use was roughly five years.
  8. Cialdini, Reno and Kallgren, “A Focus Theory of Normative Conduct,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1990.
  9. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internet Crime Complaint Center, 2025 Internet Crime Report (April 2026), ic3.gov, retrieved September 2026. Reported cryptocurrency-related losses were $11.4 billion across all ages, of which $4.35 billion came from complainants aged 60 and over, the largest amount of any age group; total reported internet-crime losses were $20.9 billion.
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