Muse 008: 2.1 Quadrillion
Origin Story
In Greek and Roman mythology, a muse referred to each of nine goddesses, the daughters of Zeus (god of sky and thunder) and Mnemosyne (goddess of memory), who preside over the arts and sciences. The above is, of course, the definition of a muse as a noun but it can also be used as a verb. That can be defined as “ to be absorbed in thought” or “say to oneself in a thoughtful manner”. I like all of this as it relates to what I intend these writings will to be for both myself, as well as, anyone who finds value in them.
2.1 Quadrillion
When we prognosticate that bitcoin will be the reserve currency of the world at some point in the future, some mouth breathers retort that, because there’s only going to be 21 million, it’s impossible. Today’s writing is going to address this point. The total debt on Earth is estimated to be $303 trillion. The total value of gold on Earth is somewhere around $12.5 trillion. In 2020, the net worth of the world was $510 trillion. My point here is to build a mathematical foundation to understand that the idea of bitcoin being the unit of account of the globe is not all that far-fetched and I think the table is set. I’ll concede that 21 million seems like a very small sum in context to the aforementioned figures but entertain me here. Every single bitcoin can be subdivided into 100 million units. These are referred to as satoshis (or sats). Simple arithmetic says that there will be precisely 2.1 quadrillion satoshis with the last one being mined approximately 118 years from now. Approximately 90.98% of all sats have been mined as of block 747,113, which was the place on the timechain when this piece was incepted. Isn’t it fair to say that there are plenty of units to go around? And no, we do not need elastic money as some low IQ “economists” will say, this is only the case in a debt-drowning world. I will argue in a future essay that debt is not needed either at all or in an extremely reduced capacity in a bitcoinized world. Finally, if I am going to exchange my time for money then it better be f###ing hard to make more of it. Full stop.
21,000,000 x 100,000,000