@ Bitcoin Infinity Media
2025-03-21 17:03:01
This is a part of the Bitcoin Infinity Academy course on Knut Svanholm's book Bitcoin: Sovereignty Through Mathematics. For more information, check out our[ Geyser page](https://geyser.fund/project/infinity)!
## **Preface**
At the time of writing, it is New Year’s Day, and 2019 has just begun. For once, I have a resolution to live up to: I’ve promised myself to write a page per day every day this year until I have something real to publish. In June 2018, I published my first book, *Three Minute Reads on Bitcoin* — *A Year of Thoughts*. The book consisted of articles I had published online from May 2017 up to that point. This time it’s different. Instead of a mere collection of articles, I intend to write a “proper” book. A book that explains why Bitcoin is the most important invention of our lives.
I didn’t choose Bitcoin; it chose me. I had been trying to figure out how the world worked under the hood all my life, and then this simple idea of absolute scarcity popped up. It had a profound impact on how I view human interaction. Because of my curious nature, I instantly fell deep into the rabbit hole. I decided to educate myself on how this mysterious technology worked, and that got me into Austrian economics, which expressed very clearly what I had always suspected — that you really can't create value out of thin air.
In this book, I will try to explain every aspect of what makes this technology so special, what sets it apart from the abundant shameless copies of it, what’s wrong with our current system, and what the future might look like. In just two days from the time of writing these words, we’ll celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the Genesis Block when the Bitcoin blockchain came into being. That block contained a message, a newspaper headline that read: “03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”. No one knows why Bitcoin’s mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, chose to include this in the Genesis Block. There is also some debate on whether the Genesis Block was actually mined on the 3rd of January since the next block wasn’t mined until six days later. Somehow, Satoshi managed to stay hidden and weave several layers of mystique into the fabric of Bitcoin from the very beginning, which is part of what makes its conception so immaculate. This book aims to strip Bitcoin of its shady cloak and illuminate its true nature. After all, the only thing any person can do about Bitcoin now is to study it.
## **Foreword**
My journey down the Bitcoin rabbit hole has provided me with a newfound clarity of how our world should be perceived. In the same way that getting married and having my first child were beautiful life-changing events, discovering Bitcoin was a new chapter in my life. I can easily divide my life into two distinct periods: before and after Bitcoin.
Before discovering Bitcoin, life was perplexing. For years, even dating back to my school days, I had an innate sense that something was amiss in the world. Although I wasn’t a good student by any means, it was obvious back then that many aspects of life simply didn’t add up.
One thing that I was sure of was that money was corrupt. However, it took me a while to realize that money itself is fundamentally corrupt. Furthermore, what is typically taught and accepted as money by society is a perversion of what money should be. These are the first steps of understanding Bitcoin, which require you to admit that you have been fooled and lied to all your life. The hard lessons of hard money.
The way I see it, the revelation about the true nature of money is akin to a bracing cold shower that wakes you up to reality. Emerging from that cold shower is an incredibly liberating and invigorating sensation. Unfortunately, many individuals are not motivated enough to take that crucial step into the chilly waters. Instead, they will later experience an ice-cold bucket of water being dumped on their head unexpectedly whilst naked on a cold winter’s day.
The year 2020 was a watershed moment in my journey towards truth, and it was Bitcoin that served as my guide. As the world grappled with an unprecedented black swan event in March of that year, every asset, including bitcoin, took a severe hit. However, what followed in the subsequent months was the largest money-printing expedition in history. A tsunami of stimulus was pumped into the markets. The outcome was a K-shaped recovery. Small, honest brick-and-mortar businesses continued to suffer while many of the largest conglomerates not only rebounded but reached all-time highs. This ludicrous, short-sighted plan, known as quantitative easing, resulted in the most pronounced example of the Cantillon effect in human history, a fact that should have served as a wake-up call for anyone who was not already suspicious of the events surrounding the global financial crisis of 2008.
Since entering my post-bitcoin life, I’ve experienced a newfound coherence. The transition was not exactly instant, instead it has been a continuous process of discovering bitcoin over and over again, and I owe many of these enlightening moments to Knut Svanholm’s writing, for which I’m grateful.
While Knut’s books do not serve as a technical guide for Bitcoin, they provide a deep and philosophical introduction to a new era of money; the separation of money and state. The end of fiat money.
The creation of fiat money, a practice that emerged with the rise of central banking, has been the source of significant damage to human civilisation. Central banking, championed by Keynesianism, has granted immense power to centralized entities, allowing them to dictate fiscal policies and control the creation of money for billions of people. The very idea of a single entity wielding such vast authority and determining the economic fate of entire populations is utter madness. The state monopolizes money because it allows them to print money rather than having to directly tax people (but it still doesn’t stop them). Printing money is more easy, subtle and lucrative than direct taxation. And this continual erosion of purchasing power can be readily associated with the evident decline and deterioration of modern society.
At the heart of the issue is the importance of individual property rights. The money that individuals earn and save is their property, not the state’s. The state’s duty (should there be a need for it to exist) is to safeguard private property, not to continually debase or confiscate it. A centralized power that constantly devalues your hard-earned money and time by printing money is both morally and ethically wrong. Every individual has the right to turn their hard work into savings that they can rely on for the future.
In *Bitcoin: Sovereignty through Mathematics*, Knut not only delves into the fundamental principles underlying Bitcoin’s creation but also presents the groundbreaking concept of absolute scarcity. Bitcoin’s limited supply of 21 million and the impossibility of creating more due to its protocol creates a condition of absolute scarcity, a first in human history. Absolute scarcity, coupled with Knut’s poetic description of Bitcoin’s creation as "an immaculate conception," emphasizes its unique and revolutionary nature. The term "immaculate conception" highlights the fact that Bitcoin’s creation was not based on any pre-existing financial system but rather emerged from a set of mathematical principles that ensure its security and scarcity. The conditions that gave birth to Bitcoin will never be replicated, which further cements Bitcoin’s status as a one-of-a-kind element that will revolutionize the way we view and use money. Absolute scarcity aligns with the Austrian school of economics’ views on money, which argue that sound money should be scarce, durable, and difficult to counterfeit. Bitcoin ticks all the boxes for sound money, laying the ground for a genuine foundation to end the era of so-called cheap or easy money.
In the follow-up to this book, *Bitcoin: Independence Reimagined*1, Knut presents us, using plain logic and reasoning, the primitive constraints of the current fiat system and status quo governance. These structures, which we have so readily accepted, are gradually stripping us of our freedoms. By highlighting these shortcomings, he urges us to critically examine them and envision a future where we exercise greater autonomy over our lives, both financially and socially. Bitcoin’s simple and secure existence stands in contrast to the coercive and interventionist nature of the fiat system. Bitcoin is sincere; it neither favors nor opposes us. Bitcoin simply exists. Coming to terms with this truth is both humbling and liberating.
Knut’s writing, with its clear and elegant style, offers insightful guidance for those interested in exploring the deeper implications of Bitcoin beyond its function as a mere currency, recognizing it as a truly transformative breakthrough. A breakthrough that provides us with hope, a viable solution to reverse the degeneracy and decadence plaguing humanity.
Prince Philip of Serbia, 21st February 2023
#### **Footnotes:**
1\. This foreword was originally written for a combined volume containing both *Bitcoin: Sovereignty Through Mathematics* and *Bitcoin: Independence Reimagined*.
### **About the Bitcoin Infinity Academy**
The Bitcoin Infinity Academy is an educational project built around [Knut Svanholm](http://primal.net/knut)’s books about Bitcoin and Austrian Economics. Each week, a whole chapter from one of the books is released for free on Highlighter, accompanied by a [video](https://www.youtube.com/@BitcoinInfinityShow) in which Knut and [Luke de Wolf](http://primal.net/luke) discuss that chapter’s ideas. You can join the discussions by signing up for one of the courses on our [Geyser](https://geyser.fund/project/infinity) page. Signed books, monthly calls, and lots of other benefits are also available.