This week's most memorable moments

Author

Bitcoin History
August 05, 2024

Greetings,

Rizzo, the Bitcoin Historian here, gearing you up for a big week with the most memorable moments from Bitcoin’s history. 

From a near hostile takeover to the legendary hip hop artist turned Bitcoin HODLer, there’s a lot to cover.

Let’s dive in.

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$64,000 l Interviewing Ron Paul

This wasn’t just one of the highlights of Bitcoin2024 for me, it was one of the highlights of my career.

Dr. Ron Paul is a legend and he deserves to be put up there in the pantheon of economic thinkers who influenced Bitcoin. As I mentioned in my interview, it’s perhaps even fair to say he influenced a whole generation that wouldn’t have embraced Bitcoin without his mission to “End the Fed.”

Here’s the full interview.

$64,000 l The first Bitcoin held by a former President

Bitcoin 2024 had no shortage of historic moments, but this one flew under the radar – at the conference, President Trump was gifted 1 BTC. (David Bailey who organized the conference, said it was to officially make him a Bitcoiner.)

Beyond the 1 BTC gift, it’s not able Trump holds a Casascius Coin. These physical Bitcoin from 2011 to 2013 hold the private keys to Bitcoin. They’re treasured goods nowadays, just see the fanfare around this 100 BTC gold bar from the same makers.

$500 l Nas buys bitcoin

Nas is one of the most legendary rap artists of all time, and I got the chance to interview him back in 2014 when he just started getting into Bitcoin.

He recognized the security concerns that many voiced back then, and noted how Ben Horowitz – the Horowitz in Andreeseen Horowitz – orange pilled him.

Here’s an interview I did with him back in 2014.

$2,700 l The end of the block size war

Perhaps the most important event of the week, is the one that had the least to do with today’s headlines – I’m talking about the anniversary of the spiritual (if not final) end of the fork wars, the point at which Bitcoin experienced – and survived – it’s first-ever hostile hard fork.

While the details are a bit complicated, that’s the date when the UASF would have activated SegWit, and triggered an upgrade to Bitcoin. Any user running the code, at that time, would have rejected blocks mined by miners who hadn’t upgraded as invalid.

The threat was enough to sway the day – and SegWit was enacted some weeks later. Still, for many veterans, it stands as a reminder of the importance of users in Bitcoin consensus.

If you haven’t done so yet, I highly recommend the book The Blocksize War by Jonathan Bier. It’s a solid introductory to the subject.

$22,000 l Microstrategy’s unsuccessful obituary

The media has a knack for unsuccessfully calling Bitcoin, and firms in the industry, dead. Two years ago, it was Michael Saylor that got the treatment.

Sure Saylor had taken a massive risk and bought a bunch of bitcoin–his company holds around 226,000 BTC as of writing, but it’s paid off big.

Despite today’s savage dip, Saylor and Microstrategy are up nearly double on their investments. We’re talking about billions in profit – all from HODLing Bitcoin. It’s a beautiful thing.

Extra posts:

Have a great week,

Rizzo

P.S. This Bitcoin dip is savage, but not as savage as if you’d loss all your BTC.

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