As the bitcoin ecosystem continues to grow, new users entering the space are faced with the task of educating themselves all about bitcoin and how it works. The problem is that there is so much bad information out there, that it becomes difficult to know what is the truth, what is a common misconception and what is a complete bitcoin myth. We’ll be going over the most common myths and misconceptions to help you make the most educated decisions with your bitcoins.
The Best And Worst Bitcoin Myths
Bitcoin Isn’t Backed By Anything
The Myth: “Bitcoin is just a bunch of numbers in a database and therefore it isn’t backed by anything.”
The Truth: While it is true that bitcoin is not backed by any physical good or commodity, it does, however, possess a number of the same attributes as gold. Bitcoin is scarce, transportable, divisible, durability, uniformity, and easy to accept in almost every country in the world.
Bitcoin Is Dead.
Myth:Bitcoin is dead because it keeps crashing. It’s time to move one.
The Truth: Bitcoin is neither living nor dead because it is nothing but a software program that runs on incentives. If you are able to find a number that completes a bitcoin hash that meets the current bitcoin mining difficulty requirements, then you get some brand new bitcoin and some miner fees.
As long as that incentive structure exists, there will inevitably be someone somewhere in the world who is willing to devote some computational power to finding that number that completes the hash that wins new bitcoin. Since Bitcoin is such a pure and objectively unbiased system for issuing new money, it’s unlikely that it will ever stop. As a result of such perfect incentives, Bitcoin is definitely not dead. In fact, it is more accurate to say that bitcoin is undead because it continues to add new blocks completely unaware of the world around it.
Bitcoin is “The Root of All Evil” or “The Mark of the Beast”
The Myth: “Bitcoin is the manifestation of a religious prophecy as “the mark of the beast” or “the root of all evil” because the intent behind bitcoin is to be used as a borderless money.”
Both of these ideas come from The Bible. In 1 Timothy 6:10 the love of money is referred to as “the root of all evil” but unfortunately too many people seem to remove “The love of…” from the beginning of the verse when making these claims.
The idea of bitcoin as The Mark of The Beast comes from the Book of Revelation which talks about the world using one form of money and there are even some users who have a chip implanted into their hands so they can never lose their bitcoins. This has been viewed by some to be receiving the mark of the beast on your right hand.
The Truth: Bitcoin is neither the root of all evil nor is it the mark of the beast.
Bitcoin is not “the root of all evil” because…
Money by itself is neither good nor evil. Money is a tool and any tool can be used for good or for evil. Historically, money has been the tool that enables society to organize solutions to complex problems and not the root of all evil. Without money, society cannot grow beyond small isolated hunter/gatherer tribes. Money was one of the first inventions to allow different people groups to trade amongst each other. It was the source of progress, NOT the source of all evil.
Bitcoin is not “The Mark of the Beast” because…
Bitcoin is a borderless monetary unit so it could easily be perceived by some as “the mark of the beast” since it has the potential to become a global currency or for “the world to use one money”. Here are some articles that have been written in regards to bitcoin being the mark of the beast, one global monetary unit and the end times.
Bitcoin’s Relationship with The Mark of The Beast
Is Bitcoin The Mark of The Beast?
If you believe that money is the root of all evil, we would like to ask you…
“What is the root of all money?”
We would love your answer in the comments below or in a tweet at @WhatIsBitcoin.
Bitcoin Is A Ponzi/Pyramid Scheme
The Myth: “Bitcoin is a Ponzi/Pyramid Scheme because as more people buy into it, the people who bought in earlier will just sell and get out and those who bought in later are left holding a bag of worthless magic internet money.”
In a traditional Ponzi scheme, there is your centralized actor who is responsible for getting a round of investors to invest in something with a phenomenal rate of return. In order to pay those investors back, he needs a new round of investors to buy into his scheme. He then pays back the initial round of investors with the investment from the new round of investors.
What creates the “returns” in a Ponzi scheme is fraudulently raised money to pay the Ponzi and the previous round of investors. Eventually, this scheme will collapse as the Ponzi runs out of money to pay off older investors with and the scheme collapses.
The Truth: Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme because there is no Ponzi and there is no scheme. Bitcoin is sound money and as more users leave their fiat economies and currencies behind to enter the bitcoin economy, the value of each bitcoin rises relative to the amount of money that they bought bitcoin with.
What creates the “returns” in bitcoin is a market demand that is increasing at a rate faster than the supply. As more users join the bitcoin economy, the relative amount of value in the economy grows faster than the corresponding supply.
Over time, Bitcoin absolutely creates wealth for the entire network of users because it is sound money and as more people join the network, the value of the entire network increases. This gives the illusion that Bitcoin is somehow a pyramid scheme since people who bought bitcoin early on are realizing substantial capital gains.
BEWARE: Just because the bitcoin network itself is not a Ponzi scheme doesn’t mean that there aren’t any Ponzi schemes in the bitcoin space. Simply buying and hodling bitcoin is a perfectly safe way to invest in the long-term benefits of bitcoin. If someone asks you to send them bitcoin in some sort of investment scheme, it is likely a scam.
It is important to do your own research before sending your bitcoin to third parties.
Bitcoin Doesn’t Solve Anything Gold or Fiat Money Don’t Already Solve
The Myth: “We don’t need bitcoin because it doesn’t solve any problem that fiat money and gold don’t already solve.”
The Truth: Bitcoin solves a number of problems that fiat money and gold do not solve. Let’s take a look at them in a bit more detail.
Bitcoin vs. Gold
Transportability: While gold ingots and bullion are easily transportable in small amounts, once you have larger amounts, it becomes near to impossible to move without a trusted third party to transport it.
Bitcoin is Infinitely more transportable than gold since bitcoins are not physical coins. They can be transported around the world in minutes or even seconds without any trusted third parties or intermediaries.
Security: Gold is also incredibly difficult to secure. It requires a vault or safe of some kind to keep bad actors from stealing your gold. Most gold is held in large repositories around the world. Some of them are privately owned while others are run by governments to hold national gold reserves.
Bitcoins are not physical and as a result, it is exponentially easier to store them in a secure manner. Security is the primary reason why we encourage all of our readers to use a hardware wallet. They are simply the absolute safest way to store your bitcoins.
Verifiability: Gold has been counterfeit by bad actors ever since gold started being used as money. Iron Pyrite was the swindlers choice for fake gold which is commonly known today as “Fool’s Gold”. Swindlers as far back as the Roman era would shave the edges of coins and melt the shavings into new coins. To combat this currency debasement and to ensure authenticity, Gold coins were given reeds on multi-sided made multi sided as a means to verify that the coins were worth their true weight in gold.
Bitcoin is verifiable in real time since all transactions proposed to the network will be added to the blockchain if they ARE authentic and rejected from being added to the blockchain if they aren’t. This takes seconds to verify and costs nothing if the bitcoin is not authentic.
Divisibility: Gold is not divisible by itself. You cannot easily make a payment for something both small and large with the same piece of gold. In order to spend gold you need either pure granulated gold or the means to melt gold down into perfectly smaller pieces.
Each bitcoin is divisible by 100,000,000 units called Satoshis. With bitcoin, you can easily pay for goods and services both small and large without the need to melt anything down or transport granulated gold around.
Bitcoin vs. Fiat Currencies
Scarcity: Fiat currencies lack scarcity. Every fiat currency in the world is centrally controlled and can be printed from a central supplier. Fiat currencies all around the world have been printed into oblivion. One of the most recent examples of this hyperinflation has been taking place in Venezuela.
Bitcoin’s supply is limited and audited by a network of peers every 10 minutes to ensure that the system is 100% solvent and that the number of bitcoins in circulation is exactly what it should be. Anyone can audit the network at any point in time to see exactly how many bitcoins are in existence. This cannot be said of any fiat currency in the world.
Transportability: Fiat currencies are not as transportable as digital currencies. If you want to move fiat currencies, you either need to move physical money by yourself or hire a trusted third party such as Brinks or Loomis to do it for you. If you want to move fiat currencies electronically, you still need a centralized trusted third party like Visa, PayPal, Western Union or Venmo.
Bitcoin is a payment network that is not owned or operated by any central entity and as a result, payments cannot be stopped or seized like they can on traditional legacy payment networks. While you are free to hire a third party to be the custodian to transport your bitcoin, there is little to no need to do so since bitcoin can easily be sent from point A to point B using only the blockchain.
Sovereignty: Fiat Currencies are all centrally issued with both the supply and demand under at least some form of a government monopoly.
Bitcoin is not centrally issued and the supply is both open-source and regulated by math. The demand for bitcoin is also based on relatively free and open markets. The same cannot be said of fiat currencies.
Bitcoin is a Get Rich Quick Scheme
The Myth: “Bitcoin is a get rich quick scheme put together by hackers and cypherpunks.”
The Truth: While there is absolutely a benefit to getting into bitcoin as early as possible. There is no exponential guarantee that you will get rich quick. Bitcoin is an incredibly risky investment with incredible opportunity for substantial capital gains. Bitcoin is sound money and a tool that helps to create an affluent society.
Investing in bitcoin also provides an asymmetric upside. If you invest in bitcoin, you could possibly lose 100% of what you invest. There is, however, no limit to the upside opportunity. You could return 10,000% return since there is no limit to how high the price can go.
Bitcoin Has No Intrinsic value
The Myth: “Bitcoin has no intrinsic value and is worthless.”
The Truth: Intrinsic value is a myth. Value is relative and subjective to the person who gives value to something. You might value bitcoin more than someone else who doesn’t understand the technology Bitcoin also has unique features that give it market utility such as a digital money for a digital age.
Bitcoin is Anonymous and Can’t Be Tracked
The Myth: “Bitcoin is anonymous and can’t be tracked because it’s not attached to my identity.”
What people are talking about when they say that it can’t be tracked is they are referring to is pseudo-anonymity that bitcoin provides. Since a bitcoin address is just a string of numbers and letters, it is not necessarily attached to your real-world identity but this doesn’t mean that it is anonymous or that it cannot be tracked.
The Truth: Bitcoin is the most trackable money on the planet because the blockchain is public to the world. Bitcoin also provides more privacy than every other payment network in the world and can provide near anonymity to those who know how UTXOs are consolidated.
Bitcoin is not anonymous but it does offer far more privacy than any other form of digital money on the planet since you are not necessarily required to attach your identity to your bitcoin. If you’re willing to take the proper steps, it’s possible to use bitcoin anonymously but it takes some time.
Since all transactions on the blockchain are totally public, governments and corporations have been spending well into the millions to create a system for tracking bitcoin transactions on the blockchain in an attempt to identify the owners of certain wallets.
In fact, a number of Heuristics can be applied to basic bitcoin transactions to get a “transaction footprint” and identify certain transactions as being owned or controlled by certain users.
Bitcoin is Illegal Because It’s Not Legal Tender
The Myth: “Bitcoin is illegal because it’s not legal tender.”
The Truth: Bitcoin is not illegal in most countries and also does not have to have legal tender status in order to be money. Money is anything that two or more people will agree on as having a common value.
You can learn more about the legal status of Bitcoin here: https://coin.dance/poli
Bitcoin’s Creator is Anonymous, Therefore Bitcoin Can’t Be Trusted
The Myth: “Bitcoin cannot be trusted because we don’t know who created it.”
The idea is that if we do not know the identity of the creator then we can’t trust it because it is somehow insolvent or fraudulent.
The Truth: It doesn’t matter who created bitcoin since it the source code is completely open-source and transparent for the whole world to view, audit, modify and even submit proposals to make the system better. This open collaboration is one of the main reasons why Bitcoin is such a transformative piece of technology.
The likely reason why Satoshi kept his/her/their identity a secret is because Bitcoin has the potential to challenge the financial system that has been in power for hundreds of years. If Satoshi’s identity was ever to become compromised, their life could be in serious danger.
Bitcoin Will Collapse The Government
The Myth: “Bitcoin is not under government control and it will ultimately result in the demise of the government.”
The Truth: Bitcoin is not under government control but it will not collapse the government. If anything, bitcoin will stabilize economies that are struggling financially such a Venezuela, Argentina, and Turkey. If anything, bitcoin will enable governments to provide higher quality services to their citizens. Only regressive government regimes will prohibit their people from using a system that is outside of their direct control.
We are already seeing this happen in places like North Korea, Iran, Vietnam and New York.
Furthermore, blockchain can be used to provide a more equitable system for managing ID, land titles, vehicle registry, employment contracts, marital agreements and a number of other social contracts.
Bitcoin is an Ecological Disaster and Will Consume The Global Energy Supply
The Myth: “Bitcoin consumes too much electricity. It will consume the global energy supply and destroy the planet in the process.”
The Truth: Bitcoin consumes much less electricity and other resources than the existing global financial system. The cost just to produce the coins that circulate in the US alone costs more than $x per year and $Y to produce it’s paper money. All those resources being spent on a system that has a massive problem with being counterfeit. Also, a bitcoin has never been counterfeit so not only does it consume less energy than the legacy finance model it is also the most secure monetary unit on the planet.
To better understand why bitcoin doesn’t waste energy, you first need to understand how electricity is created and stored. When electricity is produced, it needs to be consumed right away or stored somewhere for later use. This means that is has to either go to consumers as it is being created or be stored in a battery of some sort or it can be used to mine bitcoin. This is not always as practical as doing something like bitcoin mining.
Bitcoin mining is one of the most fascinating manifestations of a free market since bitcoin miners tend to aggregate toward parts of the world where electricity is cheap/abundant and are pushed away from parts of the world where electricity is expensive/scarce.
Mining bitcoin in parts of the world where the cost of electricity is low allows users to turn surplus electricity into bitcoins. This tends to be more true where electricity comes from green energy sources like hydroelectric dams, windmills, geothermal power plants, and concentrated solar farms.
Since many of these sources of green energy are producing electricity 24/7, there is a surplus of electricity that gets wasted when electricity consumption is not at its peak. It is this exact electricity surplus that can be stored via bitcoin mining and then sold off to reduce the operating costs of generating electricity. This is very common in places like Iceland and China.
Bitcoin enables both the storage and exports of surplus energy from parts of the world where electricity is abundant to parts of the world where electricity is scarce. Iceland is a perfect example of this. They have an abundance of cheap electricity and no means to export it to other parts of the world. Electricity generated in Iceland needs to be consumed or it is wasted. This is one of the reasons why bitcoin mining has become incredibly popular in Iceland. Bitcoin miners can mine bitcoin where electricity is incredibly cheap and 100% renewable and then either sell the mined bitcoins on a market or use them to pay for goods.
https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/mining/waste-electricity/
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/aek3za/bitcoin-could-consume-as-much-electricity-as-denmark-by-2020
http://fortune.com/2016/05/11/germany-excess-power/
Bitcoin Forks are Inflation
The Myth: “Forks of the bitcoin software are inflation because there can be unlimited forks of bitcoin and as a result, bitcoin is not scarce at all.”
The Truth: Bitcoin forks have no direct correlation to bitcoin (BTC) itself since they are not Bitcoin. The supply of existing Bitcoin stays exactly the same. The supply of new bitcoins doesn’t change regardless of how many forks there are of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is Deflationary
The Myth: “Bitcoin is Deflationary and the supply of bitcoins is actually shrinking instead of expanding like an inflationary currency.”
The Truth: Bitcoin is actually not deflationary. Bitcoin is inflationary at a fixed rate that is based on math. This is commonly known as disinflationary.
The misunderstanding here is that Bitcoin is somehow “deflationary” because there is a limited amount of if it and the price continues to climb over time but it is not deflationary. Bitcoin is actually inflationary but the inflation rate is open-source, based on math, visible to the entire world and audited by a network of peers every 10 minutes.
https://medium.com/@matteoleibowitz/bitcoin-disinflating-to-death-b4ba7b691969
Bitcoin’s Value Is Based On The Amount Of Electricity Required To Mine Them
The Myth: “The value of a bitcoin is based on the amount of electricity that is used to mine them.”
The myth is that if you spend $5000 worth of electricity, then the bitcoin that was mined is somehow worth $5000 because that is the amount of electricity that was consumed to produce the bitcoin.
The Truth: Bitcoin’s value is based on market supply and demand. The idea that bitcoin’s value comes from the amount of electricity that is required to mine them is based on the Theory of Labor Value. Ideally, if you mine a bitcoin and you decide to sell it, you want to sell it for at least the amount of resources that you consumed to produce the bitcoin. Ideally, you would want to sell it for more than it cost you to produce.
Bitcoin Is Used By Criminals, Money Launderers and Terrorists
The Myth: “Bitcoin is only used by criminals, drug dealers, money launderers, tax evaders and terrorists.”
The Truth: Bitcoin is a monetary instrument and just like other monetary instruments, it will be used by some for illicit activities. Roads, cars, cell phones and countless other modern inventions that we use in daily life are all used by bad actors but that does not make these tools innately evil. Bitcoin is no different.
Bitcoin Enables Tax Evasion and Will Collapse Society
The Myth: “Bitcoin will enable the widespread ability to evade taxes and society will collapse.”
The Truth: All bitcoins and all bitcoin transactions are visible on the public blockchain which makes bitcoin one of the worst ways to evade taxes. Cash still remains the instrument of choice for tax evasion.
Bitcoins are “printed out of thin air” and That Makes Them Worthless.
The Myth: “Bitcoins are printed or “mined” from nothing or out of thin air and anything that can be created out of nothing has no real value.”
The Truth: Bitcoin are mined with a unique type of math algorithm called “Proof Of Work” and it means that a miner has to show proof that it has completed a computationally difficult task. Once it has proven to the network that it has completed the task, it is rewarded with some bitcoins.
Think of bitcoin mining as a race to solve a Rubik’s cube. It is mathematically difficult to solve a Rubik’s cube but mathematically easy to verify that it has been solved correctly. Once someone has solved a Rubik’s cube, they show the rest of the network that they have completed it successfully and are awarded bitcoins. Showing the other computers in the network that they have solved the Rubik’s cube is the “proof of work” because we can see the Rubik’s cube has been solved.
It is this proof of work that secures the bitcoin network, keeps the system 100% solvent and gives Bitcoins value as a digitally scarce asset.
Bitcoins Are Just Information That Can Be Copy/Pasted To Duplicate Coins.
The Myth: “Bitcoins are just bits of information and information can just be copied and pasted.”
The Truth: Bitcoin is a technological masterpiece because it is the first mechanism to allow for bits of information that cannot be counterfeit. It just so happens that anything that can’t be counterfeit makes for a quality form of money.
Bitcoin’s themselves do not exist as actual coins. From a technical perspective, bitcoins exists as part of a decentralized database that is stored across tens ouf thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands of computers around the world. This distributed database is known as the Blockchain. Each address on the blockchain has a corresponding private key and the private key is all that is needed to gain access or control over the bitcoins at that address.
Controlling the private keys for any given bitcoin address is what gives you ownership of those bitcoins. You can make a copy of the private key for any given amount of bitcoin but that is not a copy of the coins themselves. Think of moving bitcoin like moving the contents of a safe deposit box. You can make multiple copies of the key but just because you duplicate the key multiple times doesn’t mean that you are duplicating the contents of the safe deposit box. The first one with one who has one of those duplicated keys can open the safe deposit box and spend its contents.
Bitcoin works the same way. You can duplicate the private keys for any given bitcoin address as many times as you want but that doesn’t mean that you are duplicating the bitcoin at that address.
Bitcoin Transactions Can’t Be Reversed So You Can’t Dispute Charges
The Myth: “Bitcoin will never go mainstream since transactions can’t be reversed and as a result, you can’t dispute fraudulent charges.”
The Truth: Bitcoin transactions are supposed to be spent like digital cash. Once you give cash to someone else, you can’t dispute giving them money. This irreversibility is a feature of bitcoin and not a bug. If you could pay someone with cash and dispute the charge later, it would create a massive lack of trust in cash as anyone could pay for things and then dispute that cash being spent.
Anyone With Enough Computing Power Can Take Over The Network
The Myth: Anyone who has access to enough computing power could take over the bitcoin network and mine as many bitcoins as they want which would drive the price of bitcoin to $0.
The Truth: Yes, anyone with enough computing power could take over the bitcoin network but it wouldn’t provide many benefits to them.
If any single entity gained 51% power over the whole network, they would not be able to double-spend any bitcoins. They would not be able to exceed the hard cap of 21 million bitcoins ever to be mined. They would only be able to do something called a block reorg which means that this attacker could unspend bitcoins that had recently been spent.
There is little to no economic incentive to do this.
After All 21 Million Bitcoins Are Mined, There’s No Incentive To Keep Mining
The Myth: “After all 21 million bitcoin have been mined, there is no incentive for bitcoin miners to keep the network running since there will be no more block reward for mining new blocks.”
The Truth: Bitcoin miners also earn the miner fees from transactions that are transacted on the bitcoin blockchain, so once all of the bitcoins have been mined, there is still the potential to earn bitcoin from miner fees since there is still a cost to transact on the bitcoin network.
In fact, in December 2017, the demand for bitcoin transactions grew to such high levels that miners earned more from miner fees than they did from the block rewards.
It’s also important to note that the last bitcoins are projected to be mined in the year 2149 so this is not a problem that anyone alive today will ever need to deal with. It’s likely that we will so much innovation in money over the next 20-30 years that bitcoin will evolve into something completely different from what it is today.
Quantum Computers Will Break Bitcoin’s Encryption
The Myth: “Quantum computers will break bitcoins cryptographic security and the entire network will become worthless.”
The Truth: Not only is the Bitcoin network quantum resistant because it is the largest cryptographic achievement in history but it is also open-source so in the event of a quantum attack on the bitcoin network, it’s possible that we would upgrade the system to use quantum resistant cryptography.
It’s also important to note that if someone had access to quantum computing, and they could break Bitcoin’s cryptography, they could also compromise the encryption of every bank, nuclear missile, all public and private sector and every username and password that you’ve ever created anywhere on the internet.
The Bitcoin network is currently the single most secure network that has ever existed and if its cryptography is ever “broken” then all other forms of encryption will also be broken. If that happens, the last of our concerns will be our bitcoin.
Nobody Can Accept Bitcoin for Payments Because It’s Too Volatile
The Myth: “Bitcoin can’t be used as payment because it’s price is too volatile and nobody can price goods & services in Bitcoin.”
The Truth: In order for something to be money, it needs to do/be 3 things. A store of value, a medium of exchange and a unit of account. Currently, bitcoin is primarily used as a store of value and a medium of exchange but because of the volatility, it’s not yet able to function as a unit of account on its own but it doesn’t need to yet. Since bitcoin is a global and borderless economy it is going to be traded against a number of fiat currencies around the world
Bitcoin Is Worthless Because It Isn’t Insured By The Government
The Myth: “Bitcoin is worthless because it isn’t insured by the government. Government is what gives money value rather than supply and demand.”
The Truth: It’s true that Bitcoin is not insured by the government but because of the way bitcoin works, there is much less need for insurance. If you use a hardware wallet, your bitcoins are in the safest environment that they can possibly be.
In the future, it’s possible that bitcoin may qualify for Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation (FDIC) but given that the bitcoin has some of the smartest minds in the world working on it, it’s more likely that we will find a solution that is technologically superior to insurance.
Bitcoin Has Been Hacked Multiple Times
The Myth: Bitcoin has been hacked many times over the years and it will continue to get hacked.
The Truth: Bitcoin has never been hacked and is actually the most secure computer network in the entire world by a substantial margin.
What bitcoin skeptics are talking about is centralized bitcoin exchanges being hacked or compromised and they think that this is Bitcoin itself being hacked. These large centralized custodial exchanges are one of the reasons why we encourage all of our readers to use a hardware wallet to hodl all of their bitcoin.
After each exchange gets hacked or compromised, new practices are adopted to prevent this kind of hacks again. So, with each new hacked exchange and custodial service, new best security practices are implemented not just at the compromised exchange but are adopted by numerous exchanges.
Bitcoins Costs Thousands Of Dollars and Nobody Can Afford Them
The Myth: A single bitcoin costs thousands of dollars and as a result, nobody can afford them.
The Truth: Bitcoins can be divided into 100,000,000 smaller units called Satoshis. Not only does that make each bitcoin 1 million times more time divisible than the dollar (or any fiat currency that can only be divided into 100 smaller units) but it means that you can buy a very small fraction of a bitcoin. You can buy $100 worth of bitcoin if you want or you can buy $100 million worth. There is no limit to how much or how little bitcoin you can buy.
Final Thoughts
The Bitcoin space is full of misconceptions, misunderstandings and pure falsehoods but we are committed to creating quality content that helps to eliminate these myths by educating bitcoin users around the world. If you feel like this page could be made better or if you would like to refute some of these myths, please let us know with a tweet at @WhatIsBitcoin.
Thank You For Reading
If you found this article helpful, please consider sharing it, supporting one of these affiliates, or making a value for value donation so that we can continue to publish more Bitcoin-only content.