In the Bitcoin genesis block, Satoshi Nakamoto wrote: "British Chancellor on the verge of a second bailout for banks". It was a cryptic message, but not esoteric. It was the headline in The Times of January 3, 2009. It is another matter what Satoshi meant by that message, or what it was later understood that he meant. Let your imagination run wild. There are those who think that it is a proof of date. But, at best, such an insertion would only prove that the first block was created no earlier than that day. So, if Occam's explanation, the simplest one, is the best explanation, then it was a wink showing the weaknesses of the fiat money system to, from there, open the mind towards alternative systems as it was—and it is—the Bitcoin.
Humans do not change as long as things go more or less well where "as long as things go more or less well" is but a paraphrase of "as long as things do not give problems". And this is a real and severe problem. Because lost profits (lucrum cessans) are normally associated with harmful acts (contractual or not), with acts that show emergent damage (damnum emergens); but lost profits are also found—and who knows if more often than not and in greater measure—in apparently neutral or efficient acts, in everyday acts and even in illustrious and stupendous acts. In other words: when an act is bad, it is easy to identify a better alternative; but when an act is not bad (which includes good acts), it is taken for granted that there are no better alternatives.
And it is those humans who do not surrender to this—pathetic—pragmatic customaryism who, for better or worse, go down in the annals of history. They are then labeled as geniuses or monsters.
But we are not here to say that Satoshi went down in history for his Bitcoin—this is already well known—, nor are we here to assess whether it was for better or worse—that is presumptuous, even though it is still early in terms of historical time. Perhaps in a thousand years, the blockchain will destroy the planet because it destroys the environment, or because it will provoke a world war for energy resources to maintain the networks.
Or, maybe in a thousand years, the world will be a magnificent and wonderful place because, thanks to distributed decentralization, a real universal democracy will be established in which there will be no humans dominated by other humans in a top-down power scheme. Who knows if it will be that or this, something halfway or something completely different. Because the paths of the future are infinite and, in the best of cases, we can lay the foundations for it to be a smaller infinite, but not smaller than the transfinite aleph zero. Nor do we come here to talk about hidden texts in the blockchain—this is enough for a treatise or a long novel. Although we do come to talk about a particular hidden text, one that has been revealed to us under the professional secrecy inherent in the client-attorney relationship.
Therefore, it should go without saying that we can only tell those things that we have been mandated to tell. All other things will go to the grave with us unless our client changes his mind.
And as for the things we can and must tell—that is what we are being paid for—are the revelations of @Anarchosatoshi—that is what our client calls himself in order to keep his knowledge safe without endangering his personal safety:
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The last bitcoin (bitcoin number 21 million) will not be mined around 2140 but—with absolute certainty—before 2100. The price of that last bitcoin—with the same absolute certainty—will break all expectations. So much so that it is absurd to try to estimate it. Because at that point, towards the end of mining, Bitcoin will no longer be appreciated as a cryptocurrency, but as a work of art.
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The use of the blockchain as a payment system (via services like will NOWPayments) will grow exponentially until it becomes the general norm. This will also happen before 2100 thanks to the fact that states will adopt their own currencies (stable and non-stable) on the blockchain. So, the business of bitcoiners and other crypto-enthusiasts will be, by then, the business of governments and their administrative apparatuses. Because they do not fight for the unity, transparency, and reliability of the markets, to protect crypto asset users, or things alike. Those are the excuses. They fight—without a doubt—for cryptoassets to be their business, and not the people's business.
At that point Satoshi's dream of creating an alternative and decentralized payment system outside any kind of hierarchical and institutional power will be over. -
The above (point 2) will lead to the emergence of first and second-class blockchain networks. The first will be the state ones, absolutely controlled by a global organization created by all states. Curiously enough, there will be no trouble for the whole international community to agree on this. In them—the first-class ones—everything, absolutely everything, will be registered: identity, amounts, concept, time, place... There will be no data that escapes the distributed registry, by then, a real distributed nightmare. The second ones will be decentralized and anonymous, mounted on shared servers in peer-to-peer networks outside the Internet to avoid website shutdowns and blocking by IP geolocation. In these second-rate networks, humans will seek loopholes of freedom and privacy at the risk of being harshly prosecuted by specialized police under very harsh criminal laws.
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In this scenario, fiat money will not disappear, but it will be all dirty money used by criminal organizations as the only untraceable means of payment. Ironies of civilization.
Up to this point, we are authorized to report following the express instructions of our principal and in the best defense of his rights and legitimate interests.
Manuel Astillero
Lawyer, member 83857 of the Ilustre Colegio de Abogados de Madrid (Bar Association of Madrid)