So around the time when a single Bitcoin started to be worth, like, thousands of dollars

You started emailing me every once in a while saying you're pretty sure that sometime in the distant past

Somebody sent us a Bitcoin.

And I told you that that was ridiculous and impossible and to stop having weird dreams.

And then the price of a Bitcoin jumped up to ten thousand dollars

And you email me again, and you're like

"Hank, I'm pretty sure somebody gave us a Bitcoin."

And I told you that you were wrong and, if anything, somebody sent us a Dogecoin

Which isn't worth a lot.

And then a single Bitcoin became worth fifteen thousand dollars,

And you stopped bothering with me

And instead did a systematic search of every email we had received since the beginning of Bitcoin.

And then, John, you found that a nice person named Sean had in 2014 sent us a Bitcoin,

Almost an entire Bitcoin. We had to recreate an old email address to get access to that Bitcoin.

It was a bit of a to-do, but at the end of the process I logged into Coinbase

And there was $15,000 that we didn't know we had.

And then we sold it immediately and then donated the proceeds to Partners in Health.

So thank you Sean.

This is very strange and there's a lot to cover when it comes to Bitcoin,

And while the technology of Bitcoin is super amazing,

And we made a Scishow video about it and you can watch it,

I want to talk about one of the more boring mundane aspects of Bitcoin,

Which is how something that cost Sean a hundred dollars

Became worth fifteen thousand dollars.

Where did that value - that actual literal money - come from?

All the times in our minds when we talk about financial markets

We imagine them as being like either

Magic or like invisible hand-ish things are happening.

Like our Bitcoin became worth fifteen thousand dollars because the value of Bitcoin increased.

But of course that's gibberish.

Basically like saying it rained more because more water came out of the sky.

My Bitcoin became worth fifteen thousand dollars the moment

Someone else bought another Bitcoin on the open market for fifteen thousand dollars.

And not only mine - everyone's.

And when I sold my Bitcoin

I sold it to someone who bought it with money.

A lot of money!

When they paid for it, they set the price for every Bitcoin in that moment.

And of course the same thing goes on the way down.

If suddenly there are more people selling Bitcoin than buying Bitcoin

People start selling their Bitcoin at lower prices and suddenly

Every Bitcoin that exists is worth less money.

This is the way that financial markets work, and it's pretty weird.

The only thing that decides how much a share in Google is worth is the most recent purchase of Google stock.

If suddenly no one in the world would buy a share in Google for more than a dollar,

Google shares would be worth a dollar.

It's just humans deciding whether to buy or sell to other humans.

But the value of Google stock is based on Google's ability to make money, which has some consistency to it.

To some extent it's additionally based on people's belief

That it will be able to make more money in the future.

A Bitcoin's value on the other hand is

Mostly based on an uncertain prediction that at some point in the future

Lots of people will use Bitcoins as currency.

And that's a bet on a future that no one can accurately predict,

And also that I can't really even advocate for.

But Partners in Health I know is adding value to the world

So I'd rather them have my Bitcoin because Partners in Health

Does amazing work with passion and intelligence.

And if you want a wonderful way to spend a half an hour or so

I've linked to an amazing article about Partners in Health in the description.

John, thank you for sharing that article with me.

It's changed the way I think about a lot of stuff

And thank you for finding our Bitcoin.

I still cannot believe that you were right.

I'll see you on Tuesday.

Hey everybody two things.

First - I did the Nerdfighteria census analysis,

It's over on Hanks Channel.

It's quite long and very interesting.

And number two - until the end of January you can join DFTBA's new pin subscription, The DFTBA Pin Pals.

This is the first pin. Shipping is free everywhere in the world.

The second one hasn't been printed yet

But it looks like this and the third one I've been working on - it's Mars Pathfinder,

Which the first rover on Mars - an extremely important object in my life.

There's a limited number of openings in the subscription club

So that we don't make too many or too few pins, so go sign up!

Links in the description.