 Where does the supply of Bitcoin come from? Are you sure the market doesn't get over-supplied? The supply of Bitcoin is determined algorithmically based on a geometrically declining supply function. In the beginning, every 10 minutes, 50 new Bitcoin are created. Every block, the heartbeat, created 50 new Bitcoin. This Bitcoin is used as a reward in a game theory-based security model... that ensures that every transaction is independently validated by completely anonymous actors... who have to stake electricity as a guarantee of the security work they have done. If they succeed in doing the security work, validating transactions correctly, they earn as a reward. Based on a probabilistic return, that reward is 50 Bitcoin every 10 minutes. That is how currency is introduced into the economy. Every four years, it gets cut in half, 50 to 25 in November of 2012. This year, in July, this past July, we had our second halving event, which was celebrated with birthday parties all over the world. Bitcoin's reward went from 25 to 12 and a half Bitcoin. As a system, it is designed to have a monetary policy that is purposefully deflationary... and simulates the issuance of precious metals. It gets harder and harder to mine gold at greater and greater cost. Bitcoin is the same. The idea being that less and less is issued over time. If you follow that geometric curve, at some point you reach the end. In the year 2141, Bitcoin is no longer issued. 21 million coins is the asymptotic cap. It will never reach 21 million coins. That is part of the protocol, is an unchangeable part of the protocol. It is a rule enforced by every system that participates in the Bitcoin network. It is meant to be sound money, but it is not the only monetary policy that exists. There are several other currencies that implement different monetary policies. The idea is really for Bitcoin to serve as a very solid reserve currency for many other things. The question about Bitcoin economics? Bitcoin economics, great. Yes, thank you. So there are 70% of old Bitcoins in the world have been given out? Mine already, yes. You seem to be a fan of Bitcoin, so... I am. If there is going to be widespread adoption, do you think the supply of new Bitcoins is going to be sufficient? For that widespread adoption? Is that going to be in the way of adoption? No, because in my opinion, if there is demand for Bitcoin, the Bitcoin that is already being issued, is going to circulate and create velocity in the economy. You have to think of this economy not as a static thing, but as a dynamic thing, where the people who hold Bitcoin are better off, if you have an environment of adoption, investing that Bitcoin. I get that, but I hold Bitcoin as many people here. Would that make us the new 1%? It might make you the new 1%, I certainly wouldn't promise you that. It might make you the new 0%, we'll see how it goes. In your world? Yes, to go to the root of the question, Bitcoin's current monetary distribution has a pretty nasty Gini coefficient, which means that it's unequally distributed. The fundamental difference, of course, is that the reason you will be the new 1% is because you took an enormous risk on an untested technology based on a vision you had, rather than because your grandfather killed more people than my grandfather, which is how the 1% have their money today. But you don't think that's going to be in the way of adoption? I don't think it is going to be in the way of adoption, also because we're going to see other monetary policies and other cryptocurrencies, and they'll serve different needs. We might see ones that are more geared towards higher velocity currency, and Bitcoin may become much more of a long-term store value. I don't know, we don't know, the market will have to decide these things. But I'm not particularly worried about the fact that people who took enormous risk early on get to have a significant reward if this works, because if it doesn't, nobody's going to bail you out.