Joseph Antonakakis

Interested in Bitcoin, consumer tech, and space exploration. Investment management and securities lawyer. Philly maximalist.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

There’s an important question in this thread that asks what the fundamentals of Bitcoin are.

The answer is simple if we view Bitcoin as a commodity rather than as a business. We can determine Bitcoin’s value by its fundamental features and how it compares to other types of money (including “hard” money like gold, and “easy” money like the US dollar).

- Durability: Good money cannot be easily perishable or destroyed. Bitcoin is durable because it has proven immune to regulatory headwinds (bans on mining, bans on use). It’s a decentralized P2P currency that no single nation state or entity can stop.

- Portability: Usable money is portable. It can be carried anywhere and sent anywhere easily. Paper bills and coins are generally fairly portable. Gold bars are not portable for obvious reasons - you can’t send $100,000 in gold bars overseas easily. Bitcoin is extremely portable - can be sent easily and cheaply to someone sitting next to you or across the world.

- Fungibility: Gold is extremely fungible - gold atoms are indistinguishable from each other. Bitcoin has some fungibility limitations due to the blockchain on which it operates, but generally speaking one unit is interchangeable with another. Same with fiat currency.

- Verifiable: Bitcoin’s blockchain ensures that all Bitcoin transactions are completely verifiable with a little bit of research. It’s also fairly easy to verify the authenticity of gold and fiat currencies.

- Divisibility: Bitcoin can be infinitely divided due to its digital nature. Fiat is divisible down to pennies (hundredths of a unit) and gold is somewhat difficult to divide into small pieces.

- Scarcity: This is where Bitcoin truly shines. Fiat currencies are not scarce - sovereign nations can print money to their heart’s content, which is one of the dangers of saving in fiat currency. Gold is one of the scarcest assets we know of, which is why it made great money for thousands of years. However, gold is also easy to inflate - “clipping” gold coins is attributed as one of the causes of the fall of Rome. Bitcoin cannot be inflated and the strictly limited supply (21 million coins) cannot be changed. This makes Bitcoin a strictly scarce asset - its core feature.

- Established History: Gold and fiat currencies have a track record - can’t beat that. Conversely, Bitcoin is a relatively young asset with only 15 or so years of history.

- Censorship Resistance: Gold can be confiscated (see FDR’s 1933 Executive Order, Nikon’s 1971 deviation from the gold standard). You can be excluded from traditional fiat networks. Conversely, Bitcoin is censorship resistant. Due to its decentralized network, cryptographic nature, and pseudonymity, Bitcoin is hard to confiscate, hack, or censor.

Thank you @ribeirodelemos for the question and @real_vijay for the inspiration for this post! Check out the full The Bullish Case for Bitcoin online.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

With the coldcard attack we saw that transferring a corrupted CC seed to another wallet (eg Trezor) transitioned the flaws associated with that seed, making the new wallet susceptible to attack. Could a Bitkey user theoretically be susceptible as well if they bring their own seed?

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@danheld @BitPaine You and others criticize and name-call plebs for distrusting entities who “haven’t lost client funds” like Saylor and Coinbase. But you endorsed the exchanges and platforms in the past which did end up losing client assets. It’s drenched in obvious irony.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@jackmallers @Strike How big is Strike’s email list? I got an email this morning about your collateralized debt product but haven’t seen anything from you via email about Coldcard.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@danheld @BitPaine Says the guy who was shilling BlockFi before they went belly-up and users lost $1.3B+

[Dan Held @danheld]

1/ I put 10 BTC in my BlockFi compound interest account to earn a return on top of my Bitcoin return.

I negotiated the HIGHEST rate at BlockFi for my followers which is effectively 6.82% until December 31st using my referral (10% higher)

https://t.co/m6mdzVDlJb

Thread on why👇

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@shaguncrypto If you’re going to do this you may want to consider doing it in a 529 plan - tax free growth and tax free withdrawals for qualified educational expenses.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

Is it any surprise that OpenAI - the company that allows governmental mass surveillance using their tools - is being sued for stealing Apple’s trade secrets? They’ve shown they’ll do anything to get ahead, including partaking in unethical and misanthropic practices. Quit ChatGPT.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@BTC_for_Freedom The average rate of inflation in the US over the past ten years is 3.2% per year. Since 2016, over 37% of the dollar’s value has evaporated. Bitcoin’s CAGR over the same period is 58.35% per year.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@mweinbach There are almost 30 Tesla tasks that Siri can do via the Shortcuts app, including setting temperature. Worth a look.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@AdamBLiv Speaking of repricing things in sats: https://t.co/gzQRZRdF0O

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@infraa_ What happened in 1971?

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

Liftoff! First $SPCX trade complete 🚀

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@Nebraskangooner What does the Nebraskangooner vacation signal say?

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@PhillyMayor Mayor Parker, I understand the rationale behind your proposal, but what’s stopping the corporations - Uber and Lyft and the like - from passing on the tax to consumers? In the end, consumers will bear the brunt of these taxes, not the corporations.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@AmtrakNECAlerts Any update on 185 originally from NYP to WAS?App says that train is set to depart from PHL at the scheduled time - is that accurate?

[Eric Balchunas @EricBalchunas]

Whether it ends up a good inv or not, I can't not appreciate bitcoin's special ability to irk all the right people. The amount it pisses someone off is equal to the amount of high priest-ish-ness they carry themselves with. ETFs had a similar effect esp early on, and the FT regularly fearmongered about them as well.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@LudovicCreator This is a great prompt. I've been making CEOs the subject of several and I really like the responses.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@udiWertheimer Bitcoin is decentralized. Crypto is centralized. Bitcoin is low time preference. Crypto is high time preference. Bitcoin has no boss. Cryptos have CEOs and boards of directors. Bitcoin’s creator is pseudonymous. Crypto founders think they're celebrities. Bitcoin is not crypto.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@coryswan I guess people didn’t learn enough from FTX, Celsius, and BlockFi failures

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@rajatsoni People who use fiat currency as a store of value…we have a word for them.

[Joseph Antonakakis @ntonakakis]

@GrantCardone If you could receive passive income every month would you take it in the worst savings vehicle possible or the hardest money to ever exist?