Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous inventor of Bitcoin, is a controversial figurehead in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. He is often invoked among proponents of the cryptocurrency, and his identity remains a subject of debate. Amid the global coronavirus pandemic, cyber security pioneer John McAfee claims to know who created the cryptocurrency. Australian computer scientist Craig Wright has testified in a London court about the cryptocurrency’s origins, using the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto” to protect his identity.
A small sect of Bitcoiners believes that Satoshi Nakamoto is actually the United States National Security Agency in disguise. Others believe that Nakamoto is the true creator of Bitcoin, the first decentralized digital currency and blockchain. This documentary explores the facts, fictions, and conspiracies surrounding his identity and estimated 1 million Bitcoins.
Some believe that Bitcoin might have been created by a government agency, such as the CIA or NSA, with the idea of controlling or monitoring it. The gold standard, an economy with a finite money supply, was accepted mainstream monetary policy until the early 20th century when debts from World War II were accumulated.
Elon Musk has caused controversy after posting about a Satoshi Nakamoto conspiracy theory, reigniting speculations on the true identity of the person behind Bitcoin. In 2011, the person disappeared without a trace, leaving behind a personal stash of an estimated 1 million Bitcoins (valued at about $73 billion US at its time).
📹 Crypto: The World’s Greatest Scam
Bitcoin to Blockchains, to NFTs, to Web 3.0… it’s time to find out if it’s really all the hype or just part of one of the greatest scams in …
📹 The BITCOIN Unsolved Mystery | Satoshi Nakamoto Enigma | Cryptocurrency | ENDEVR Explains
The BITCOIN Unsolved Mystery | Satoshi Nakamoto Enigma | Cryptocurrency | Business Explainer Video On October 31st, 2008, …
UPDATE: Now that we’re seeing the crypto market reach ATH, notice that this is not driven by any sort of use-case or practicality. It is, as it has always been in the past, driven by price speculation. People asking me if I still think crypto is a scam because “number is going up” have failed to understand that the entire point of this article is how “number going up” is all you care about. The technology itself is just a cover for that. If the industry actually found a use-case that justified its value and the harmful externalities it causes I would be more than happy to say I’m wrong, but it hasn’t and it’s been 15 years. ** ► Follow Me for Behind the Scenes, Updates, and Teasers: 📸 IG: james.v.j // bit.ly/2TOaBBC 🐦 Twitter: @jamesvjani // bit.ly/2zYPrsT ► 👇 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐚 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬, 𝐐&𝐀’𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐬!: patreon.com/jamesvj 📦 𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗠𝘆 𝗩𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼 𝗘𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀: ► jamesjani.com/shop/
I’ve been studying crypto, trading, investing, technical analysis, etc, for years now. I fully expected to watch this article and disagree with whatever you were going to say. But there’s not a single thing I’d disagree with. This is why it’s important to not just consume media that supports narratives you believe, but also open-mindedly consume media you think you’ll disagree with. Otherwise you’re just a victim of the algorithms set in place to reinforce your ideals, leaving you with no actual opinions or free thought
When you were describing a lot of the phrases and stuff in the crypto communities, the only thing I could think was that it was a decentralized cult. A sort of modern televangelism similarly based on the prosperity gospel, with the people at the top saying “if you do what I say and give me money without question, you’ll earn it back and more” when in reality the group is being directed to do only things that benefit the people at the top, such as never withdrawing money, not questioning the basis of it, not allowing valid criticism, etc.
I had a few friends that bought into NFTs. Every time they explained it to me I always said it sounds like a pyramid scheme. They told me i didn’t understand it. Then you always have that one friend who tells the truth and doesn’t care. I said the same to him and he said “yeah it is a pyramid scheme. You just have to make sure your at the top of the pyramid”. No thanks. You can keep them.
I personally got into crypto because it was the only way for me to be paid by my employer overseas due to swift being blocked in my country due to sanctions. (You can probably figure out where I am from.) It was also a fairly secure way to complete transactions quickly without fearing chargeback from the other party, since everything on the blockchain is permanent and easily verifiable by anyone. There is genuine use for crypto which doesnt hurt people or the world, but its just not worth the hundreds and thousands of cashgrabs and rugpulls. I really hope technology gets to live on with projects like Monero, which has a unique and genuine usecase aswell, I just hope the nightmare of get rich quick schemes will come to an end.
i remember when NFT’s were just starting to become mainstream, I was at a friend’s wedding and one friend was trying to explain to others who didn’t know about NFT’s what they were. I gave in my two-cents and just said they’re basically things that people with too much money on them buy. How fine that sentiment has aged.
As an artist I was very excited when I first heard about the NFT’s. Because at first it seemed so good for me like “yes, finally artists are able to sell their digital art for the same value as the traditional art.” Then I found out that all of the people who are interested in this “art collection”, are stoner classmates from my highschool, unemployed people and influencers… That didn’t sound right.
I learned when I was young that once you hear about a bubble it’s too late to buy in. I saw people I know lose everything when they bought in 2007 to the housing market. The crypto bubble was even more obvious. Real money making is boring more than exciting ever. You did an excellent job in explaining why it always felt like BS from the moment I heard it.
I agree with you about all other coins. But not about Bitcoin. It solves the problem it was intended to solve, not been controlled by the state or any centralized organization. And it is able to scale by other layers. Sad is just that there are many scammers enjoying the stupidest people that believe in every single new coin that is just a ponzi scheme
I love perusal Coffeezilla content, so it’s no coincidence this article was suggested by Youtube. Still, I often have a hard time following all of Coffee’s content since I’m not exactly knowledgeable on the subject. This article did an amazing job on presenting the timeline and framework of Crypto in a super engaging way. Subscribed! Thank you!
people thought the same in 1999 about the internet, remember the crash? the problem is the crappy projects and scam projects that are flooding the market. but from all those crappy sites came google, amazon, facebook, twitter, instagram etc. same with crypto, and so will with ai, 2 tech revolutions at the same time. economic digitization and ai technology revolutions happening at the same time.
The crypto market experienced a bubble in 2020-2021 as did many asset categories such as tech stocks. This was caused by low interest rates and government money printing. The crypto bubble was exacerbated by the Bitcoin halving which created a supply shock for Bitcoin its issuance rate halved leading to a mania. If you cherry pick the starting and ending dates as Jan 2021 and Jan 2023 then of course it is easy to make Crypto look like a ponzi scheme. But If you were to other dates such as Jan 2019 and Jan 2023, for example, you will see that the market cap of Crypto has tripled. If Bitcoin were a ponzi, I beleive that it would have ended in 2017/18 after the bubble of that year popped.
it’s really sad, because the broader idea of a decentralized currency that could bypass, for example, bank’s transaction fees and processing times, in order to very quickly send money back to your family living in a 3rd world country, for example, is awesome. the idea of an entire population going around their corrupt or defunct government by having a viable global currency to use instead IS cool as hell, especially if that currency were actually stable. obviously that is NOT crypto. but even in Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision and white paper back from 2007, you can see that – as a broad concept, libertarian in the true sense and not far-right sense – it was supposed to just be a decentralized, “free” P2P monetary system. i wish people would talk about this more because even if the idea itself wouldn’t work, talking about the problems and solutions created and solved by such a thing is important.
What amazes me every time is not even the content, it’s the fact that you thoroughly search for information through out the internet and piece all of it together with astonishing editting skills. I’m not saying the content it’s not good, no, it’s amazing 👌. It’s the effort that you put into all of your work that blows my mind. Can I mention that your ability to sync audio tracks and article clips in a way that perfectly gives the emotion intended is a superpower. Good work lad👏👏, glad to have you back.
Thank you for your articles mate.. . Crypto education is what the world needs the most right now. I don’t think that buy and hold is a valid investment strategy anymore. Not too diluted and to a degree, follows Richard’s trading ideas and signal tips for your portfolio growth and aggressiveness. He is a man who has not only taught me what the cryptocurrency trading world looks like but a secret to uplift my finance. Buying crypto and waiting for the price to shoot up is not the best way to invest in the market but buying and trading is.Harry’s Dent trade signal does the heavy lifting, generating competitive returns for crypto traders and investors in the form of money and peace of mind. Time in the market vs. timing the market. If you keep that mentality as an investor, you will stay calm during the storm! Within some months I was making a lot more money and have continued on that same path…
I Hit 50k today. Thank you for all the knowledge and nuggets you had thrown my way over the last months. Started last month 2024. Financial education is indeed required for more than 70% of the society in the country as very few are literate on the subject. thanks to Ann Elizabeth Messer for helping me achieve this .
Very good article, but it could have gone further into the core issues about whether crypto can ever become widespread currency. The other question is whether crypto will ever revolve around a single currency – Bitcoin, because a fragmented crypto market means no crypto is worth anything, because the supply is limitless.
James Jani is one of those Youtubers, who takes full pride and dedication to his craft. He would go away for nearly a year and then drop one of the most thought-out, thought-provoking, research-filled and eye-opening articles yet. Keep up the great job. Your work is truly exceptional and admirable. 😍💐👏
Im a software engineer based in Vietnam. I develop mobile apps, REST api’s, database driven apps, all that full-stack good stuff. I create solutions that solve real problems, for businesses. Its all very practical and the utility speaks for itself. Early in 2022, Chinese New Year, i met my wifes Auntie, she was enthusiastically telling me all about her son who is in “blockchain, crypto and nft”. Her eyes lit up as she spoke about it because he was “on the cutting edge”. Naturally I was skeptical and warned her that there wasnt much longetivity in the space, and i advised her to try and steer him away from it. She was deeply offended by what i had to say. Later that day her son came to meet me. I told him he should focus on more conventional programming such as app dev, website dev, etc. It was like speaking to a brick wall, he just wasnt interested, he had been sucked into the mania. Since then he has been laid off from the New York based agency he worked for (they went bankrupt) abd he is struggling to find a similar job. Ill be meeting him again for the chinese New Year, it will be quite difficult to avoid saying the words “i told you so”. Poor kid drank the koolaid and wasted a year, he really should have took my advice.
This lad is INSANELY talented at these sorts of articles. I’ve always been interested in the concept of Crypto (no interested in investing in it, just perusal it) but I’ve never fully understood it. I’ve watched so many people trying to explain what it is and how it works, and always been none the wiser after perusal the article/explanation. After this article, I can finally say that I understand the basics of it and how it generally works. This guy explains it in a detailed, but simple to understand way.
I usually had a basic idea of Crypto being a Ponzi scheme but I literally lost my mind at the part of Axie Infinity game, seeing the articles of people asking for scholarships to help their families showed how desparate they are and how the big players have actually started to manipulate these small people.
You always know it’s a scam when so many are paying for advertisements for “tools” on how to make money rather than investing that adspend money themselves. You see it in real estate and equities as well. It’s not “evil”. It’s the normal predatory zero sum reallocation of money that emerges when capitalism begins to break down.
Looks like we must be getting close to the market bottom now that YouTubers are dropping “I told you so” articles about BTC rather than pumping it lol. People who criticize BTC always fail to realize that Bitcoin prices are behaving exactly how they always have and how you can expect them to be. But everyone shits on BTC when it’s cheap rather than buy it lol
If the critics are right.. there are a lot of companies, pension funds, AMC’s, large corporations etc. that will go under. Some of this is correct however BTC does seem to be valid. People by gold, because people think it has value. A deflationary limited supply asset has more value than an asset that can be simply created out of thin air… with no inherent value… ie the USD. It is interesting that for such an important part of our lives people simply don’t understand what money is….
Under this logic, wouldn’t the entire stock market be a scam as well? It’s not as simple as this article makes crypto out to be, sure there’s bad apples but it’s definitely more nuanced and not black/white than the article makes it out to be when you actually read the white papers of more reputable cryptocurrencies
Your ending is sooo spot on! The way crypto started with bitcoin now is something completely different. And i feel like its gonna keep trying to reinvent itself over and over. Generally the world is going more and more narcisistic due to the internet and the way people like these shown in your vid influence it. Im pretty sure crypto will keep reinventing itself in some shape or form. And people will continiue to be as gulible as they are. Getting rich quickly schemes wont die.
crypto mining was funny to me because during 2020 I couldn’t get my 2060 Super graphics card because all of them sold out, then the 3000 series released and they sold out instantly. Then after crypto crashed and the electric bills rolled in. This farms had to sell off older cards to stay afloat. The issue then came down to them not being able to sell because the cards used for mining were being run at full power 24/7 and it ended up damaging them. So now you have resells being trashed for poor performance, and then they start to pile up.
I’m from the PH and it was really sad to see all the people who lost (most likely) their only source of income when axie infinity finally burned to the ground. Yes, it’s bad to put all of your eggs in one basket especially a play-to-earn type of game. But for 99% of the axie players in the PH, it was either that or starve.
Great article. You commented that there has yet to be a true “use case” developed for Bitcoin…I know that El Salvador and the Central African Republic have adopted Bitcoin as currency, and other localized governments have approved it as a form of payment. It seems like these are the ideal use cases for Bitcoin, I’d love if you did a follow up.
I should’ve be surprised to hear about Axie but I am. It really was big; rich, poor or middle class, it was impossible to not hear about it. Glad my sceptical nature pulled me away from it and that most people I know either didn’t fall for it or lost little. Didn’t know how many people wanted to be scholars though. Hurts to see.
Nice article! I’d mostly consider myself a bitcoin maximalist these days so agree most cryptos are scams., but it might have been more balanced if you’d talked about some of the problems with current monetary system, especially inflation and money printing and the ways bitcoin can solve those issues. The use case pushed for bitcoin now is not so much as a currency but as a store of value, hence the term “digital gold”. Might also have been worth talking about the lightning network which does allow bitcoin to be used more like a currency for small, fast transactions. Also, a mention of CBDC’s could have been a good idea. That is, Central Bank Digital Currencies – basically a government run cryptocurrency. There’s a lot of talk about governments sneaking these into use in their path to cashless societies. If governments do take control of your cash away from you like this, then bitcoin becomes an even more attractive alternative!
This is basically my initial reaction to crypto in 2009. The reason I was convinced otherwise, is because of things like free GTA mods, Java programming and Torrents. When something is hosted or maintained by a community, the chances of it becoming obsolete decreases. Especially if it is open source. A software based currency with semi permanent records is not a bad way to harness that power.
Great article! There’s a thin line between a scam and a company that profits excessively from their customers. The intent is obviously the same, to make most money. The thin line being drawn mostly what is allowed within regulations. Or in case of crypto: complete lack of any regulations, making it easy to sell a high risk asset without any consequences.
Somehow I sensed this was a scam from the very beginning, especially NFTs, and it’s been infuriating to have to deal with people treating me like I’m not smart enough to understand how great it is. I understand it! And that’s why I think it’s a scam! Because I do understand how sketchy it is and how much of a climate disaster mining is.
It’s only those who have bought into it or work in trading it who promote it – and they have to promote it or else it’s nominal value will fall and then they’ll lose.. Once they’ve sold up they’ll stop promoting it. The worst thing about it is that it’s ‘mining’ has used up massive resources / energy.
There is only one thing he missed early on, three words. The Silk Road. The use case that propelled BC in the early days was untraceable payments for illegal contraband via dark web marketplaces, primarily The Silk Road. I was an observer at the time. A very large, and very difficult to estimate amount of funds was being funneled into the hands of some very powerful crime organizations. There is a non negligible portion of crypto that continues to serve this function and has expanded beyond hippie dealers in Colorado paying German MDMA labs to ship an ounce or two of moonrocks. People hide dirty money in BC, and use it to do dirty things.
and what intrinsic value does gold or silver have? It’s all about social contracts of agreed value formed around these commodities. The only difference I see as to why gold’s value is not questioned by anybody while bitcoin’s is, it’s that gold has been around for 1000s of years, while bitcoin has only 15 years of run time. But in nature they are the same.
Another awesome documentary, mr Jani. It was a pleasure to watch it! But allow me to criticize you a bit. As far as I know, Bitcoin is one of the official currencies in Central African Republic and El Salvador. Madeira also considers making Bitcoin its official currency. And the transaction speed for Bitcoin, thanks to Lightening network, is now much faster than any of the payment systems you mentioned (Visa, Paypal, etc.) Also the energy consumption of Bitcoin mining seems to be bloated out of proportions. I don’t have any Bitcoin myself, I’m just learning about it. And maybe I am mistaken. I may very well not see something that you see so clearly. But I think you didn’t do justice to Bitcoin. As for NFT’s and all other cryptocurrencies, I’m pretty much on the same page. The financial incentives are doing their dirty job to people’s minds. Thank you for your work!
Really enjoy the flow and creativity of your articles, man! I’ve been perusal for about a year now and I would like to know more about how you go about researching a lot of the information you find. I think it’s a good skill to have and I’d like to learn more about that and you seem to do a great job!
Why does a dollar have value? It’s just a piece of paper. It has value because we agree it has value, we use it for a store of value and medium of exchange. It could be sea shells or pretty rocks, it’s all the same. Yes, there were and are a lot of scamy crypto projects, but the idea that all crypto is a scam is no different than calling any other “currency” a scam.
Timestamp for myself 15:03 use case for new people to draw into ponzi scheme 33:05 origin of nft on blockchain 46:55 new ponzi play to earn 49:03 new token shiz, how you are being brought into ponzi scheme and how vc firms found a new way to make money Tie this up to coffeezilla’s 3 part Logan Paul series on their greedyness 50:47 world lives (digital world atleast) lives on ponzi scheme or the micro transaction scheme…. where end user is teased of getting something that’s highly digital only and end up losing their time or money in exchange for sudden happiness Basically they end up as drugs 51:45 conclusion… 51:56 pass on the value to other person at higher value… Trading at its niche but hidden 53:12 my perspective.. not wealthy.. but a source to lead my life as an average/above average and feed myself of basic necessities till death
As a newbie, about to invest you most have four things in mind. 1 have long time mindset 2 be willing to take risk 3 be careful on Money usage, if you are not spending to earn back then stop spending 4 never claimed to know -Ask question, it’s the best you work with a financial advisor.. like Martinez Amend, he is good on what he knows how to do best.
Thanks!! A huge step in understanding and basically confirming what i concluded. Basically like the stock market but even more volatile and where those who get a substantial profit, taking from someone else. I didn’t understand much when i began my search but quickly did understand that you can’t have crypto used as exchange and investment at the same time, at least not in the way it’s being shown to be. It reminds me of why glass steagall makes sense.
2021 was a year that made me realize i was very naive to think people were smart enough to avoid being scammed by a common sense practice, like there was nothing that screamed ” YEA THIS IS REALLY USEFUL AND SAFE LETS GO” and what puts a crown on the whole situation is that they marked themselves for us without asking as dumb apes. Glorious! Also, thank you for sharing how it goes with the mainstream in general. So next time someone will tell you this touching story about this lil boy out of nowhere being popular over night and think it’s not given to them by design cause they want to profit off of them as any company does, ask yourself again WHO do you support. Every mainstream artist in this garbage up to the neck and i always cringe whenever i see people defending them and saying how “Self Made” they are. Go out for a while and search for the actual self made in the independent scene and maybe you realize who are the ones giving you the real art, before you buy an ape next time ( or whatever scheme they will create for you, that will surely scam you once again knowing how freakin low some people can go for few bucks ) Being given free worthless ether… hmmm surely cannot happen the same with being given fame and money for free either to generate false sense of ” Accomplishment ” for masses to cater in huh? This is the world we live in, i am out ; )
I just wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude and thank you for the inspiration and motivation you have provided me. Your YouTube website was the catalyst for me to start my own Web3 media platform, As a new investor, 15 months of trading / investing, I went 95% cash end of September. We cannot predict bottoms, but it was obvious things were getting ready to go down. I don’t watch the media but the news that you present gives me just enough to know what’s going on without riding the emotional rollercoaster if I were to watch the news everyday. Now I buy and just trade long term more than ever, I have made over 10.6BTC from day trading with Vinod Kuria . Signal in 5 weeks, this is one of the best medium to backup your assets as it goes bearish
This guy is correct. BTC and crypto are speculative. The speculation is the future use case. BTC is quite unique as its supply is hard capped at 21 million and almost 20 million have already been created. The use case, if it ever arises to a dominant use, it will come up and slap all these nay sayers very fast.
This is just a microcosm of the economy as a whole. The fine art market has always been super inflated due in part to tax evasion and status. And while crypto only gets value from people’s trust, so does the US dollar (and by extension, every currency in the world). Money says, “In god we trust” and that’s because trust that the dollar is worth anything is all that is holding it up – it is not backed by gold, silver, or anything else finite (which is why we have inflation).
People don’t understand the use case for Bitcoin. It’s a hedge against the debasement of fiat currencies and bad central bank policy. – an inversely correlated store of value. Crypto will be used to tokenise traditional markets and personalised information – like digital ID. It’s use case stretches far beyond nfts or meme coins. Blockchain is an ncredibly valuable technology.
First article I’ve seen from your website, and I just felt compelled to say: what a immaculate piece of research and storytelling you’ve done here. Amazing work. As for your open ended question: I’m not sure that this potential bomb going off would work out in an outcome where crypto collapses and disappears. As long as these securities exist, they will forever remain a store of value — large or small — and remain functional (highly-speculative) financial instruments. Discarded tokens, coins, nfts, or the likes have no underlying asset that ceases to exist; they can and are picked up randomly in pump-and-dump activities and follow market trends. For me, the scarier question is not “what if it crashes?”, but rather: what if it continues to inflate and reaches a point where it affects real economic ability to produce and manage debt?
Great work of analysis done here. With the markets having less order executions; situations like this are best hedged with sustainable positions especially bitcoin, as price strongly deviated against its long term mean average. The further it deviates the more momentum for a reversal to the upside. whales are currently in a liquidity grab at the lows. I’ve had series of trading losses I’d best not mention before being introduced to Mr. Callum Lucas. His careful guide and employing his Signal for my trades orders has been a great experience as my portfolio took a positive turn to 9 BTC from 2 BTC . Callum’s signal algorithm are based on combinations of unique strategies.
people think satoshi is hall finney, nick zabo, adam back, but they dont know the real satoshi is sinichi mochizuki, prof computer scient, prof math and economic. kyoto university. people maybe dont trust it. but someday all people will know. like what sinichi mochizuki did about bitcoin and ABC conjecture