Role of Crypto/Cybercurrencies in the PTB's loss of control?

I'm gonna leave this here. So much for the so-called monetary revolution... Well played, the people's revolution is actually their revolution.

Session 18 December, 2021
Q: (L) Okay. We have a lot of questions here, so I guess we might as well get to the first one. Mike has some questions about Bitcoin.

(Mike) In general, who is the person (or people) that created Bitcoin?

A: CIA.

Q: (L) Well, alright.

(Mike) For what purpose did they initially create Bitcoin?

A: Bridge to nowhere.

Q: (L) What do you mean, "Bridge to nowhere"?

A: Digitize, and then deprive common man of resource.

Q: (Joe) The kind of obvious idea about any digital currency despite what they say about them is that it's a transition away from physical money.

(Niall) Cashless society.

(Joe) And more control of people. If anybody thinks that that's not what it's about, you're naive. That doesn't mean you can't make money off it in the interim. But eventually, it's a bridge to, yeah...

(Niall) When the music stops...

(L) Yeah, it's a game of musical chairs.

(Mike) There are currently a lot of interests involved in cryptocurrencies, and cryptocurrencies seem to be heading toward ‘main street’ adoption at some point with ‘Web 3.0’ being worked on, created, and built. Whether or not TPTB (or elements of it) were initially involved in the creation of Bitcoin, what are TPTB’s current plans in relation to cryptocurrencies?

(L) Well, I think we just got the answer to that.

(Joe) The plan is to destroy the current global economy - for all sorts of beneficial reasons for the elite. And obviously when you destroy the economy, you rebuild it on what? A digital currency.

(L) Absolute control!

(Joe) They can shut you off at any time.

(L) Just remember that session where we talked about the Mark of the Beast and 666 and all that stuff. They were moving towards absolute control. You won't be able to eat without being a member under their control.

Well, Tucker Carlson is confirming what the Cass brothers confirmed four years ago.
I wonder how he came to that conclusion...

Tucker Carlson won’t invest in Bitcoin because the CIA “created it”

In this post:​

  • Tucker Carlson says he won’t invest in Bitcoin, claiming the CIA may have created the cryptocurrency’s mysterious founder, Satoshi Nakamoto.
  • The former Fox News host shared his skepticism at a Turning Point USA event, questioning Bitcoin’s origins and lack of transparency.
  • Despite his doubts, Carlson praised Bitcoin’s idea of financial autonomy and privacy, calling it a “great idea” regardless of its creator.

The Tucker Carlson Show host and former Fox News political commentator, Tucker Carlson, won’t buy Bitcoin because it was created by a “mysterious guy who apparently died.”

During a Turning Point USA event honoring the late political activist Charlie Kirk held on Wednesday, Carlson told attendees he avoids investing in things he cannot fully understand, especially those with questionable origins.

“I try to limit myself to things I understand,” he said, adding that nobody has been able to explain who Satoshi Nakamoto really was. “You know, I grew up in DC primarily, in a government family. So, CIA. That’s my guess. Can’t prove it.”

Carlson: Bitcoin was made by the CIA​

Carlson questioned the logic of investing in a digital currency created by an unidentified figure with access to billions of dollars’ worth of untouched coins.

“You’re telling me to invest in something whose founder is mysterious and has billions of dollars of unused Bitcoin. Like, what is that? And no one can answer the question, including some of the biggest holders of Bitcoin in the world,” he told the audience.

 
He wasn't convicted of money laundering. He was charged and plead guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act which enabled others, such as Hamas and Iran, to get around sanctions.

Zhao and others were charged with violating the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to implement an effective anti-money-laundering program and for willfully violating U.S. economic sanctions “in a deliberate and calculated effort to profit from the U.S. market without implementing controls required by U.S. law,” according to the Justice Department.

Zhao personally pleaded guilty to violating and causing a financial institution to violate the Bank Secrecy Act.

Considering the Banking Secrecy Act is bogus government overreach to begin with and the people the government is most upset about Binance helping, the Iranians, I say good job Trump.

If Trump had pardoned FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, then I'd be upset and oppose the pardon.
 
Interesting article about cryptocurrencies, block chain encryption and quantum computing.

The author is prone to some exaggeration, but I think overall he is correct with his opinion: Unless cryptography is upgraded forthwith, it’s a matter of time until SHA-256 becomes breakable - and then all hell will break loose, not only for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s Game Over Moment: Quantum Computing, Deep State Intrigue, and the Coming Crypto Collapse


The final bell is tolling for Bitcoin. The grand experiment in digital sovereignty, once touted as “unbreakable” money, now faces a quantum doomsday scenario that even its critics didn’t see coming.
THE SILVER ACADEMY
OCT 25, 2025









Quantum computing has sounded the alarm that could render blockchain—and Bitcoin in particular—fundamentally obsolete. As the technological race hurtles forward, the cryptographic underpinning of digital currencies faces mathematical extinction, not by mere gradual obsolescence but by sudden, irreversible compromise. The countdown to Bitcoin’s judgment day has truly begun as quantum computers approach the capabilities necessary to shatter its security—and the world is running out of time to adapt.

The SHA-256 Breaking Point​

Bitcoin’s security cornerstone, SHA-256 encryption, wasn’t considered breakable for decades. Yet, the ground has shifted. As quantum computing milestones are reached, the vulnerabilities in SHA-256 are no longer theoretical. The chilling reality is encapsulated in this emerging consensus: “the mathematical certainty is now established: 13 million qubits breaks SHA-256 in 24 hours. We’re 99.2% of the way there in qubit count alone.” That quote marks the point at which the quantum threat transcends mere possibility and becomes an impending inevitability.

Google’s Willow chip—a breakthrough quantum processor with 105 qubits—cannot break Bitcoin today. But it has “started a clock that cannot be stopped.” Today’s quantum leap means that each advancement brings us closer to the day when the very foundation of Bitcoin’s encryption will expire. The invisible time bomb ticking in the wallets of every crypto holder is no longer hypothetical; the ongoing progress in quantum hardware means the timer is running.

Wealth Hoards Under Quantum Siege​

The ramifications are catastrophic. Satoshi Nakamoto’s legendary cache of 1 million BTC—almost $35 billion—sits in “exposed public keys” vulnerable to quantum attack. Whoever achieves cryptographically-relevant quantum computing first could instantly become the wealthiest individual on Earth, overnight, in what one observer has called the Satoshi Singularity: a $1 trillion Sword of Damocles hanging over the crypto world.

Nor is this a distant scenario. Nation-states, knowing the writing is on the wall, are already archiving every Bitcoin transaction. The “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later Apocalypse” points to a future where privacy evaporates. What is encrypted today becomes public knowledge tomorrow, as quantum breakthroughs will make historical Bitcoin transactions instantly decipherable—unmasking identities and financial records dating back to Bitcoin’s creation.

The 25% Vulnerability Clock​

The urgency is compounded by Deloitte’s alarming finding: 25% of all circulating Bitcoin—roughly 5 million BTC worth over $300 billion—remains locked in vulnerable address formats. These coins could be emptied the moment a quantum computer crosses the critical threshold. With such a large proportion at risk, Bitcoin faces existential peril.

The Hard Fork Ultimatum​

Bitcoin is now at its ultimate test: can the community coordinate the most complex global hard fork in history to upgrade cryptographic primitives before disaster strikes? With no central authority and over 100 million users, successfully implementing quantum-resistant upgrades may be the greatest decentralized coordination feat ever attempted.

Post-Quantum Renaissance … and Quantum Arms Race​

There is hope—if action is swift. Algorithms like Algorand’s quantum-resistant FALCON signatures and NIST-certified CRYSTALS-Dilithium offer alternatives, but their mere availability is not enough. Bitcoin’s ossified culture and slow-moving consensus mechanisms make adaptation a herculean task. Meanwhile, the quantum arms race has begun: the nation that first achieves 13 million error-corrected qubits will gain unprecedented access to all legacy encrypted data, including Satoshi’s fortune and military secrets. It’s the new space race—only faster, more lucrative, and utterly destabilizing.

The Civilizational Lesson​

Security is no longer static—“it’s a process.” In the quantum era, every encrypted dataset has an expiration date, and Bitcoin’s clock just started ticking. Financial sovereignty and digital privacy now depend on constant evolution of cryptographic standards. The question is not if quantum computing will break Bitcoin’s encryption, but when—and whether adaptation will outpace destruction.

Political Dysfunction and Accelerating Risk​

Compounding this threat, the real-time geopolitical landscape is increasingly dire. The Trump administration’s decision to cut cybersecurity funding—even as quantum threats loom—diverts precious resources away from protecting critical infrastructure. As funding shifts to anti-immigration initiatives, national vulnerability increases just as the quantum clock strikes its final minutes. The disconnect between technological risk and political reaction exacerbates the danger.

Conclusion​

The quantum countdown represents a radical shift in the fate of blockchain and Bitcoin. The technology that once guaranteed digital freedom and financial privacy can now be rendered not just obsolete but utterly compromised. With 13 million qubits poised to break SHA-256 in a single day and critical mass all but achieved, only rapid adaptation and global coordination can keep the crypto dream alive. The clock started today—there is no time left for complacency.
 
Interesting article about cryptocurrencies, block chain encryption and quantum computing.

The author is prone to some exaggeration, but I think overall he is correct with his opinion: Unless cryptography is upgraded forthwith, it’s a matter of time until SHA-256 becomes breakable - and then all hell will break loose, not only for Bitcoin.

I've been hearing a lot about this, but I think it's a bit of nonsense. SHA-256 is a hashing algorithm, not encryption. The idea is that with hashing, you give it input of any length, and the algorithm will output a 256-bit string that is unique for that input data. Change even one bit of the input data, and you get a totally different output. For example:

"Scottie is a nerd" --> d6df508b2b561a5c22ad19a3ddac7efe3cad927040b0f72f8a408087e3e3be5b
"ScottiE is a nerd" --> 7243a5a89adbfc5b12ea9e51b55d88a9b74f2f284020ae262cffc98d1870a972

And the key is that you can't go backwards - IOW, you can't figure out the original input if given the hash. Well, okay, that's used in cryptography, and breaking it would be super-bad.

The trouble is that - as usual - Google is using Willow and claiming it will be super-awesome... just give us some more time! This is the 'theme' of quantum computing. Willow only has 105 qubits, and millions are needed. That's a big problem because the more qubits you have, the more "noise" is introduced, and suddenly things don't work at all.

So, when Google or whoever shows me an actual functioning 10 million qubit chip, THEN I'll say, "Uh-oh, quantum computers are about to break cryptography!"

I suppose it might not happen that way, but I suspect that they're prepping people for the 'crash' of cryptos (and everything else) while simultaneously getting them to believe crazy narratives. Also, keep in mind that SHA-256 and AES encryption (the most popular type used for everything) were basically designed by the NSA itself in the first place, so... Yeah.

Business as usual!
 
Also, keep in mind that SHA-256 and AES encryption (the most popular type used for everything) were basically designed by the NSA itself in the first place, so... Yeah.
The bigger story would be that all of banking becomes hackable, not just crypto. And of course this potential danger has been known for many years and supposedly quantum-proof algorithms exist as well.
 
He wasn't convicted of money laundering. He was charged and plead guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act which enabled others, such as Hamas and Iran, to get around sanctions.
I'd say that the timing for the pardon was really bad, as a lot of people got liquidated on a recent BTC price dump. Exchanges like Binance profited from that, and he's a number one public enemy for the people (greedy fools?) that used 50x leverage. On the other hand, it looks like Binance had technical difficulties causing stop losses to not work... But the media are surely using this pardon to spread more discord.

The author is prone to some exaggeration, but I think overall he is correct with his opinion: Unless cryptography is upgraded forthwith, it’s a matter of time until SHA-256 becomes breakable - and then all hell will break loose, not only for Bitcoin.
I think that the Bitcoin network can easily be upgraded because it's not decentralized at all. There are just a few major mining pools that will surely coordinate an upgrade to the latest cryptographic primitives to avoid going out of business. As for old wallets that can be hacked and stolen, I guess that the US government could seize them in crypto reserves and implement a gradual and regular selling plan to avoid devaluation (and even stabilize volatility). Perhaps the Chinese will do the same, whoever makes a working general-purpose quantum chip first.

The bigger story would be that all of banking becomes hackable, not just crypto.
I think that this will be exactly the case in the next years, and just another incentive for everyone to hop on stablecoins and digital tokenized assets later. Blockchains are generally append-only databases tailored for a single use case (and are extremely good at that), so I guess banks will just be a front end that gives people face-to-face support on issues and a mobile application, and maybe they will be able to issue stablecoins by themselves.
 
If there is one thing I like about crypto, it is that you do not need any banks to hold your money or to send it. Of course in practice we are far from banks being obsolete, though it is possible that they will consolidate into a few megabanks which will always be bailed out.
 
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If there is one thing I like about crypto, it is that you do not need any banks to hold your money or to send it. Of course in practice we are far from banks being obsolete, though it is possible that they will consolidate into a few megabanks which will always be bailed out.
I guess at some point self-custody wallets will be phased out by means of whitelisting only the ones that belong to banks. It's kind of like hosting your own e-mail server in a seemingly federated network: it's hard to deliver e-mail to Outlook or even Gmail, and it takes time to configure and pass all the needed security features.
 
If there is one thing I like about crypto, it is that you do not need any banks to hold your money or to send it. Of course in practice we are far from banks being obsolete, though it is possible that they will consolidate into a few megabanks which will always be bailed out.
I just purchased a new computer downloaded my Cardano based wallet entered my memonic phrase and poof all my ADA is there…so nice
 
This writer claims that Bitcoin will collapse in the next 10 years due to miners, security issues, fees, and a centralized governance structure with decentralized aesthetics that will only exacerbate any type of bank run scenario.


Remember when I talked about quantum computers potentially cracking Bitcoin? Turns out we might not need to wait for quantum computing. Bitcoin’s own design might kill it first.

Justin Bons just dropped this thread that should terrify every Bitcoin holder. Not because he’s predicting some external attack or regulatory crackdown. Because the math simply doesn’t work. And even though he’s talking his book (he owns a crypto-security company), unlike most crypto doomposting that I read, this one isn’t speculation. It’s arithmetic.

Let me walk you through why Bitcoin has a built-in expiration date. And why almost nobody seems to (want to) understand what’s going on.

How Bitcoin Security Actually Works​

Think of Bitcoin like a fortress. The walls are built from mathematics - cryptographic puzzles that are insanely hard to solve. Miners are the guards patrolling those walls. They use electricity and computing power to solve these puzzles, and in return they get paid. This payment is what keeps them showing up for work.

Right now, miners earn money two ways. First, they get the newly created bitcoin - fresh coins that didn’t exist before. This is called the “block reward”. Second, they collect transaction fees from everyone moving bitcoin around.



The block reward started at 50 BTC per block back in 2009. Every four years, it gets cut in half. This is the “halvening” that Bitcoin fans celebrate like some kind of religious event. 50 became 25 in 2012. Then 12.5 in 2016. Then 6.25 in 2020. Then 3.125 in 2024. Next halvening in 2028 drops it to 1.5625 BTC.

The halvening continues forever until the number becomes so small it’s basically zero. By 2140, the last bitcoin gets created and the block reward disappears completely.

Bitcoiners will tell you this scarcity is brilliant. Fixed supply. No inflation. Sound money. And they’re not wrong about the scarcity part. There will only ever be 21 million bitcoin. That’s guaranteed by the code.

What they don’t tell you is what happens to security when you keep cutting miner revenue in half every four years.

Because those guards patrolling the walls? They need to get paid. And if you keep cutting their salary in half, eventually they stop showing up. When enough guards leave, the fortress becomes vulnerable. Someone can bribe the remaining guards cheaper than the fortress is worth defending. That’s when the raids begin.

The timeline? Three more halvenings. 2028, 2032, 2036. Somewhere in that window, Bitcoin’s security budget drops low enough that attacking it becomes profitable. Not theoretically profitable. Actually profitable. Like, you’d be stupid NOT to attack it profitable.

Why Price Can’t Save This​

Bitcoin maximalists have a simple answer. Price goes up. If bitcoin costs twice as much, then half as many coins equals the same dollar value for miners. Problem solved.

Except Bitcoin would need to double in price every four years. Forever.

Let’s run those numbers. Bitcoin is near $100k today. Next halvening in 2028, it needs to be $200,000 to maintain current security. Fine, maybe that happens. Then $400,000 in 2032. Then $800,000 in 2036. Then $1.6 million in 2040. Then $3.2 million in 2044. Then $6.4 million in 2048.

By 2060, one bitcoin needs to be worth over $100 million. By 2080, over $6 billion per coin. Bitcoin’s total market cap would be larger than the entire global economy. Multiple times over.

Michael Saylor keeps predicting Bitcoin will hit $1 million, $5 million, $13 million. Great. That buys you maybe another halvening or two. Then what? $26 million? $52 million? At what point do we acknowledge that “number go up forever” isn’t a security model, it’s hopium?

This is not a “maybe it works” scenario. This is a “basic arithmetic says no” scenario. There is not enough wealth on Earth for Bitcoin to maintain its current security through price appreciation alone.

You can’t exponential your way out of an exponential problem. The halvening IS exponential decay. You need exponential price growth to compensate. Exponentials always win these races. Always. The numbers get absurd within decades, not centuries.

So price can’t save this. What about fees?

The Fee Trap​

Bitcoin processes about 7 transactions per second. That’s roughly 600,000 transactions per day. For miners to earn the same revenue they get from block rewards today, each transaction would need to pay enormous fees once the block reward disappears.

How enormous? Let’s do the math.



Currently, miners earn about $17 billion per year total (block rewards plus fees). Almost all of that comes from block rewards. Fees contribute maybe $140 million - less than 1% of the total.

Fast forward to 2036, after three more halvenings. The block reward contributes only $2 billion per year instead of $16.5 billion. To maintain the same total revenue, fees need to make up the $14.5 billion difference.

That’s 600,000 transactions per day times 365 days. About 219 million transactions per year. Divide $14.5 billion by 219 million and you get roughly $66 per transaction just to maintain current security levels. And that’s assuming the number of transactions stays constant, which it won’t if fees spike.

Here’s where the trap closes.

When Bitcoin fees hit $50 or $100 or $200 per transaction, people stop using Bitcoin. They go use something else. Lower volume means even higher fees per transaction to hit the same revenue target. Higher fees drive away more users. It’s a vicious cycle.

We’ve seen this happen already. December 2017, fees spiked to over $50. Users fled. May 2021, fees hit $60. Users fled. Every time fees explode, Bitcoin becomes unusable for normal people. They leave. Transaction volume collapses. Fee revenue crashes.

Bitcoin maximalists call this “fee market dynamics” and claim it’s working as intended. What they mean is the network deliberately prices out normal users to preserve scarcity. Cool. Cool cool cool. So Bitcoin’s security model requires pricing out the very users who would pay the fees necessary to fund security.

What most people don’t understand is that most Bitcoin aren’t even moving on-chain anymore. It’s sitting in cold storage for ETFs. BlackRock’s IBIT holds over $50 billion in bitcoin that never moves. Those coins generate zero transaction fees. Billions more sit on exchanges where people trade paper claims - again, zero on-chain fees. The actual number of on-chain transactions that could pay meaningful fees is tiny compared to Bitcoin’s total value.

So not only do you need fees to skyrocket, you need them to skyrocket on an ever-shrinking base of actual on-chain activity. Good luck with that.

Why Hashrate Is A Lie​



Bitcoin influencers love talking about hashrate hitting all-time highs. They treat it as proof that security is fine. Look at all those hashes! All that computing power! Bitcoin has never been more secure!

They’re lying to you. Probably unintentionally, but still lying.

Hashrate measures how many computational puzzles the network solves per second. That number is completely meaningless for security. What matters is how much it would COST for someone to solve 51% of those puzzles and take control of the network. (Why 51%? Because controlling more than half the mining power lets you rewrite transaction history. I’ll explain exactly how that works in a moment.)

Imagine two scenarios.

Scenario A: Bitcoin’s network produces 1 trillion hashes per second. Mining equipment is expensive and inefficient. It costs miners $100 million per day to produce those hashes.

Scenario B: Bitcoin’s network produces 10 trillion hashes per second. Mining equipment is cheap and efficient. It costs miners $50 million per day to produce those hashes.

Which scenario is more secure? Scenario A. Even though Scenario B has 10 times the hashrate.

Because security is not about how many hashes exist. Security is about how expensive it is for an attacker to produce 51% of those hashes. In Scenario A, attacking costs $51 million per day. In Scenario B, attacking costs $25.5 million per day. Scenario B has higher hashrate but lower security.

This is not complicated. Mining hardware improves every year. New machines are more efficient. They produce more hashes per kilowatt-hour. As hardware improves, the same amount of money produces more hashes. Hashrate goes up while security - measured in dollars needed to attack - goes down.



And that’s exactly what’s happening. Look at miner revenue vs BTC price graph above. It spikes during bull runs - around $70M in early 2021, then up to $107M during the 2024 rally. But these spikes don’t last. Revenue drops back down after each peak. Currently it’s around $50M despite Bitcoin trading at much higher prices than 2021.



The security budget as a percentage of market cap is collapsing. As Bitcoin's market cap has grown into the trillions, miner revenue hasn't kept pace. The network is becoming exponentially cheaper to attack relative to its value.

Because the halvening keeps cutting miner revenue. The guards keep getting paid less. At some point, the cost of bribing the guards falls below the value of what they’re guarding.

Attack Economics 101​

Earlier, I said that controlling 51% of the hashrate lets you rewrite history? Here’s what that means in practice.

You need to control 51% of Bitcoin’s hashrate. That lets you determine which transactions get added to the blockchain. More importantly, you can reverse your own transactions. This is called a double-spend attack.

You buy $100 million worth of bitcoin. You send that bitcoin to five different cryptocurrency exchanges. You trade it for other cryptocurrencies - ones that aren’t Bitcoin. You withdraw those other cryptocurrencies to wallets you control.

Now you have $100 million in various other cryptocurrencies. And the exchanges think they have your bitcoin.

But you control 51% of Bitcoin’s mining power. So you go back in time - blockchains let you do this if you have enough control. You rewrite history. You create an alternate version of the blockchain where those transactions to the exchanges never happened. Your version is longer, so it becomes the “real” version. The old version gets deleted.

You still have your original bitcoin. And you have the $100 million in other cryptocurrencies you withdrew. The exchanges lose everything. You just doubled your money.



This isn’t even theoretical. Smaller cryptocurrencies have been hit with this exact attack. Bitcoin Gold in 2019 - someone rented enough mining power to double-spend $70,000. Ethereum Classic has been attacked multiple times. These were smaller networks with lower security budgets. Bitcoin is heading toward those security budget levels.

Right now, attacking Bitcoin would cost roughly $6 billion in hardware and infrastructure - about 0.3% of Bitcoin’s total market value. [link to research]

You don’t need to be a rational profit-seeker to make this work.

If you’re a nation state? You already manufacture the hardware (China). Or you control miners that represent 30-40% of the network (China, again). Your actual cost is just electricity - maybe $20-30 million for a week-long attack. You could coordinate a massive double-spend hitting every major exchange simultaneously, stealing hundreds of millions before they freeze operations. Or you could just crash Bitcoin entirely while holding massive short positions in derivatives markets.

Spend $30 million. Short $10 billion in Bitcoin futures. Execute the attack. Bitcoin crashes 60%. You walk away with $6 billion. That’s not a gamble. That’s printing money.

And this assumes you’re motivated by profit. What if you just want destruction? What if China wants to wreck America’s strategic Bitcoin reserve? Spending $2 billion to crash a $2 trillion asset your adversary is holding? That’s a 1000x force multiplier. The cost of two fighter jets to potentially destroy their entire crypto position.

Bitcoin becomes a geopolitical liability at these security levels. Not because governments hate freedom or whatever (they do). Because the cost-benefit analysis becomes absurdly favorable to attack.

The Blockchain Run​



Bitcoin processes 7 transactions per second. About 600,000 per day. There are roughly 33 million people with bitcoin stored in addresses they control - actual on-chain holders, not people keeping bitcoin on exchanges.

If every current Bitcoin holder tried to move their coins just once, the queue would be 55 days long.

Except Bitcoin can’t actually handle queues longer than a few days. Unconfirmed transactions start getting dropped from the mempool - the waiting room for transactions. After 72 hours or so, if your transaction hasn’t been confirmed, it disappears. You have to try again. Pay higher fees. Hope you get in this time.

During a panic, people don’t try once. They try multiple times. They keep bumping their fees. The network clogs completely.

This is the bank run scenario. Not a traditional bank run - as there’s no bank involved. But the same dynamics. Everyone rushes for the exit at once. The exit is a tiny door. And most people won’t make it through.

Your bitcoin becomes worthless if you can’t move it. If the network is jammed for weeks and the price is crashing and you’re stuck watching your wealth evaporate because your transaction won’t confirm... what good is “self-custody” then?

The trigger could be anything. News about a security budget crisis spreading. A successful attack happening. Institutional investors suddenly wanting out. Doesn’t matter. Once enough people try to exit, the network chokes. That choking causes more panic. More panic means more people wants to exit. The network chokes worse.

And that’s the death spiral mechanics that kick in.

The Death Spiral Mechanics​

Bitcoin adjusts mining difficulty every 2,016 blocks - roughly two weeks in calendar time. This adjustment keeps blocks coming at a steady 10-minute pace. More miners, difficulty goes up. Fewer miners, difficulty goes down.

The problem is that the adjustment period is measured in block time, not calendar time.

If half the miners quit because Bitcoin’s price crashed and they’re no longer profitable, blocks take twice as long. For two weeks - until the next adjustment. So that two-week adjustment period? That becomes four weeks in real time.

During those four weeks, Bitcoin’s capacity drops in half. From 7 transactions per second to 3.5. Your 55-day backlog just became 110 days. More panic. More price crash. More miners quit. Blocks take even longer. The adjustment period stretches even more.

This is a compounding feedback loop. Price crash → miners quit → network slows → bigger backlog → more panic → bigger price crash → more miners quit → network slows more → even bigger backlog → even more panic.

This is not even speculation. It’s in the code. It is how Bitcoin’s difficulty adjustment algorithm works. It’s verifiable. When miners leave during a crisis, the network doesn’t just lose security. It loses capacity. And that lost capacity makes the crisis even worse.

Bitcoin has no circuit breakers for this. No emergency protocol. No way to speed up the adjustment. The only solution is an emergency hard fork, which requires coordination across thousands of independent operators during a crisis, which is saying: impossible given Bitcoin’s governance structure.

Quantum computers cracking BTC

Quantum computers cracking BTC​


No1
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December 7, 2025
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I wrote about similar dynamics in my quantum computing piece. The technical threat isn’t necessarily the killer. The panic is - as always. Markets can collapse on fear long before the actual problem materializes. And Bitcoin’s design amplifies panic rather than absorbing it.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

— Litany Against Fear

The Tragic Irony​

Bitcoin wasn’t designed this way.

Satoshi Nakamoto explicitly planned for massive capacity increases. He wrote that Bitcoin could “already scale much larger than Visa with existing hardware for a fraction of the cost”. The original design anticipated billions of users, each paying small fees, generating massive aggregate revenue for miners.



That’s a sustainable model. Billions of users paying pennies creates enormous miner revenue without pricing anyone out. High volume, low fees, sustainable security. Everybody wins.

Then the Block Size Wars happened.

A small group of developers controlling Bitcoin Core - the dominant software client - refused to increase block size. They claimed it would centralize the network. They said bigger blocks required specialized hardware, would drive out home users running nodes, would destroy Bitcoin’s decentralization.

All of which turned out to be completely false. Bitcoin Cash runs 32 times larger blocks than Bitcoin. Litecoin processes transactions faster. Other blockchains do 10,000 transactions per second. None of them are more centralized than Bitcoin. You can run a Bitcoin Cash node on a laptop from 2015. The hardware requirements are trivial.

But the narrative worked. The blockers won the propaganda war. Bitcoin’s capacity was frozen at 7 transactions per second. Anyone who disagreed got pushed out. Gavin Andresen, Mike Hearn, Jeff Garzik - the developers who wanted to scale - all left.

What remains is a network that can’t serve users, can’t generate fee revenue, can’t sustain its own security model. Seven transactions per second in a world where Visa processes 5,000 and competing blockchains do 10,000+.

This was sold as preserving decentralization. But Bitcoin’s governance is now effectively controlled by six people with commit access to Bitcoin Core. That’s not decentralized. That’s a dictatorship with decentralization aesthetics.

They won’t fix this. The demographics are wrong. Everyone who fought for scaling left. Everyone who remains supports the status quo. The culture actively punishes anyone suggesting changes. Proposing a competing software client is seen as “attacking Bitcoin”.

Layer 2 companies built businesses on Bitcoin never scaling Layer 1. They profit from Bitcoin being broken. The incentives are completely misaligned.

By the time the crisis forces change, it will be too late.

What This Means​

Bitcoin will hit a crisis point in the next 10 years. Maybe earlier if panic accelerates it. Maybe slightly later if price does something miraculous. But the trajectory is clear.

Miner revenue is declining on a predetermined schedule. Security budget as a percentage of market cap is collapsing. Attack profitability threshold is being crossed. The math is not ambiguous.

When the crisis hits, Bitcoin faces an impossible choice. Inflate beyond 21 million coins - breaking the one promise that supposedly made Bitcoin special. Or watch the network get attacked into irrelevance while unable to evacuate because 7 transactions per second can’t handle a mass exodus.

The maximalists promising “21 million forever” are setting everyone up for betrayal. Several Bitcoin Core developers already acknowledge the problem. Peter Todd publicly advocates for inflation. They know the math doesn’t work. They’re just not telling retail buyers.

This isn’t about hating Bitcoin or wanting it to fail. This is about reading the code and doing the arithmetic. The numbers say collapse within three more halvenings. Show me the math that says otherwise. Show me how 7 transactions per second serves billions. Show me how fees skyrocket without destroying demand. Show me how price doubles every four years forever without exceeding planetary GDP.

Those explanations don’t exist. Just faith that somehow, magically, the exponential decay reverses itself.

Exponents don’t reverse. They compound until something breaks.
 
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