Bitcoin Vault Quotes

Bitcoin’s cryptography is solid, but it’s a bit like putting a six inch thick steel vault door in a cardboard frame.

In retrospect, the major difference between World War I and the previous limited wars was neither geopolitical nor strategic, but rather, it was monetary. When governments were on a gold standard, they had direct control of large vaults of gold while their people were dealing with paper receipts of this gold. The ease with which a government could issue more paper currency was too tempting in the heat of the conflict, and far easier than demanding taxation from the citizens. Within a few weeks of the war starting, all major belligerents had suspended gold convertibility, effectively going off the gold standard and putting their population on a fiat standard, wherein the money they used was government-issued paper that was not redeemable for gold.

Two particular technological advancements would move Europe and the world away from physical coins and in turn help bring about the demise of silver's monetary role: the telegraph, first deployed commercially in 1837, and the growing network of trains, allowing transportation across Europe. With these two innovations, it became increasingly feasible for banks to communicate with each other, sending payments efficiently across space when needed and debiting accounts instead of having to send physical payments. This led to the increased use of bills, checks, and paper receipts as monetary media instead of physical gold and silver coins. More nations began to switch to a monetary standard of paper fully backed by, and instantly redeemable into, precious metals held in vaults.