The Path to Bitcoin
Episodes / Era 1 · Orientation / Ep 13
Episode 13 · 23 Jul 2021 · 21:57

The Bitcoin Dividend

Bitcoin pays a yield without a scheduled dividend. With supply fixed, every unit of energy anyone unlocks and saves into it raises the claim of every existing holder, so owning bitcoin is a standing bet that humanity keeps getting more efficient.

The one-minute version

What it argues against

The claim, made by Warren Buffett about gold, that an asset without a scheduled payout has no yield and no intrinsic value.

Ideas in this episode
The pie grows. The calls on that pie stay the same size.01:43
Constants allow us to do that. Finally, Bitcoin is a constant.07:53
Is it worth it to risk it all for another 6%?18:39

Every passage, on the record.

  1. 00:32Analogy

    Plugging your energy into a battery like Bitcoin gives you access to more yield than any other asset class or item in the history of the world.

  2. 00:32Claim

    There is no better option at generating a yield than owning Bitcoin, than having the private keys to a UTXO. There is nothing more productive than doing that.

  3. 01:04Claim

    And I often hear that because it doesn't produce a yield, therefore there isn't any intrinsic value. We've gone over how faulty the term intrinsic is when it comes to value.

  4. 01:43Quote

    The pie grows. The calls on that pie stay the same size.

  5. 02:46Analogy

    You invest $100 in a company, every six months you get a dollar back as a dividend... Bitcoin works the exact same way, except you don't get a check in the mail.

  6. 03:19Quote

    So you are betting on mankind to continue to innovate. That is what you are doing.

  7. 03:51Claim

    It's not possible, the Bitcoin system, without the hard cap of 21 million. That is why it is so imperative that we credibly enforce the 21 million hard cap to make sure that Bitcoin becomes the next global reserve asset.

  8. 03:51Prediction · condensed

    Bitcoin becomes the next global reserve asset, provided the 21 million hard cap is credibly enforced.

  9. 04:21Reference · condensed

    Warren Buffett mocked gold for having no utility: dug out of the ground in Africa, shipped across the world, buried again, with people paid just to watch it.

  10. 04:21Claim

    The reason that gold has value is that it fulfills the necessary properties of a good money: it's really hard to make more of, and you can measure the energy that was put into something by seeing the gold with your own eyes, because they can't just make it out of nothing.

  11. 04:56Claim

    You can't just inflate money. You can inflate gold. You have to do the work, you have to sink the energy into that gold nugget. Bitcoin is its gold but better, in every aspect.

  12. 05:26Reference

    People gravitate toward gold because it has been around for the last five thousand years, the Lindy aspect of money.

  13. 05:26Claim

    The 21 million cap is taking the total accessible energy that is in savings that the world has access to and splitting that into 21 million units.

  14. 06:10Quote

    The Lindy effect isn't the Bitcoin. It's the energy. It's the pie.

  15. 06:10Claim

    Humans have been innovating since the dawn of time. That is why we are the dominant species. We want to store as much energy as we can because the more savings we have, the more we can deal with an uncertain future.

  16. 06:49Claim

    The total supply of gold is unauditable. We cannot know what the total supply of gold is. If you can't verify that for yourself, you can't be sure there isn't another stash somewhere else, and that breaks down the trust, which limits the amount of return you can get by plugging your energy into the gold system.

  17. 07:19Claim · condensed

    Gold doesn't have a difficulty adjustment like Bitcoin does to maintain a constant new supply. As the price of gold rises, previously prohibitively expensive extraction methods become worth it and the supply increases. There is no difficulty adjustment in gold.

  18. 07:53Quote

    Bitcoin is the world's first economic constant.

  19. 07:53Quote

    Constants allow us to do that. Finally, Bitcoin is a constant.

  20. 08:59Analogy

    The Bitcoin network is like the ocean for energy. All water will eventually find its way into the ocean.

  21. 08:59Prediction

    All energy will eventually find its way into Bitcoin.

  22. 09:30Analogy

    You can bet it's going to rain more in China this year than in America and try to capture that flow of water, or you can own a piece of all of the water in the entire world.

  23. 10:04Claim

    For the overwhelming majority of individuals, would it be better to own, or to take a guess as to where it was going to rain?

  24. 10:35Claim

    The system works and it is the most secure network in the world.

  25. 11:06Claim

    It is past the point that it can be attacked by any government, because based on the sheer law of it, you can't get a hold of that much material to then turn it into computer hash rate to try to attack the network.

  26. 11:39Quote

    So then really there's two questions that you have. Well, there's one question you have to ask yourself and it has two answers, both of which are the same, which is, is the human race likely to improve its energy usage and stay alive?

  27. 11:39Quote

    If no, you can still buy Bitcoin because if we don't improve efficiency, it's over.

  28. 12:45Reference

    That transaction we talked about a few episodes back, about Alice and Bob and how together, through exchange, they can unlock energy that would not have been possible on their own.

  29. 12:45Quote

    So exchange is a positive sum action.

  30. 13:22Claim

    By putting your excess energy into the system, you have a call on a larger bank of energy than you previously did. You were rewarded for not consuming the energy you unlocked previously by getting more in the future.

  31. 15:29Claim

    It doesn't even require new entrants into the system. On a long enough time scale, all we have to do is just find more energy, those people that believe in Bitcoin, making them more efficient.

  32. 16:10Prediction · condensed

    The hardcore holders that unlock energy and plug it into the system will win: eventually time says it will win.

  33. 16:46Analogy

    It's just like a snowball rolling down a hill.

  34. 16:46Event

    The crazy monetary and fiscal policies that are happening now, with the creation of money.

  35. 17:29Quote · condensed

    It only takes a few questions to be answered to quickly go from 'Bitcoin makes no sense' to 'I can't operate outside of the Bitcoin system.'

  36. 18:08Claim

    Because the protocol is so young, there are actual opportunities to generate what would commonly be referred to as yield in the legacy markets, by lending it out or parking it at another institution that lends it out.

  37. 18:39Quote

    Is it worth it to risk it all for another 6%?

  38. 19:18Analogy

    It seems like you are picking up nickels in front of a steamroller.

  39. 19:50Claim

    All of the rewards go to the people that are the earliest, because they invested that energy early on and the base gets built up from them.

  40. 19:50Prediction

    You might then come to a point where you are not getting the crazy returns year over year that you are getting right now in Bitcoin, and then it will make sense to take a small portion of your stack and try to get a little bit more from it by lending it out.

  41. 20:54Claim

    When you buy into the Bitcoin system, you are betting on mankind to continue what it has been doing since the dawn of time. If you don't think that's going to be the case, there's room for discussion as to why you wouldn't invest in Bitcoin.

  42. 21:28Quote

    Every time I think about things in the Bitcoin world, it's how is energy, how is more energy coming on the other side of this. And Bitcoin allows for that better than any other asset that is out there.