The Gift of Bitcoin GiveBitcoin

Common concerns and issues about Bitcoin debunked. You’ll learn why Bitcoin is good for the environment, is for everyone (not just criminals), has real value, and will survive the rise of quantum computing. We’ll also acknowledge the sordid side of many crypto projects and explain why Bitcoin is different.

When a government recklessly prints fiat currency, it is basically stealing from the hard-earned savings of regular people. Bitcoin gives us hope for a better future.
if you know your money will hold onto its value, you’re less likely to spend it right away and more likely to save for the future.
If we want free societies, we need to give people control over their money and data.
Bitcoin will lead us into a world where it’s much harder for governments to control citizens.
Bitcoin is a tool to help the most vulnerable around the world, people who lack bank accounts.

The marshmallow test teaches us that delayed gratification yields greater rewards.
High time preference behavior focuses on immediate gratification. Low time preference behavior foregoes immediate benefits for increased returns in the future.
The most important decisions for your well-being are the tradeoffs you make with your future self.
A society filled with people exercising low time preference will save for tomorrow, engage in large scale projects, and plan far in advance.
The higher the inflation rate, the more it steers people toward high time preference thinking. Bitcoin is deflationary so it steers people and businesses toward low time preference thinking.

Quick summary:


Bitcoin is like electronic cash. It’s a peer-to-peer digital currency that can be transferred instantly and securely between any two people in the world.
After the start of the financial crisis of 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released Bitcoin as a decentralized technology to help escape a broken financial system.
People around the world run Bitcoin on their computers, verify transactions and maintain the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin doesn’t require a credit card company, bank, or other intermediaries to confirm transactions. The lack of middlemen opens up a friction-free, single currency, global economy that enables greater cooperation and stamps out authoritarianism.
Bitcoin separates money and state. No one can access your Bitcoin unless you give them the key; you control your own financial freedom.
Beware of “experts” who are biased towards the status quo power structure/financial system.
Eventually, enough people will be using Bitcoin that you’ll need it to participate in the economy.

In this lesson, you’ll learn all about the origins of money and the  problems with our current monetary system. It helps to understand  Bitcoin in the context of other forms of money. Most people are  surprised to realize how little we were taught about money in school.  We’ll also recommend some additional resources if you’re hungry to  continue learning.

This is the first of 12 chapters of The Gift of Bitcoin, the guide created specifically for recipients of bitcoin gifts through GiveBitcoin.io.  In this chapter we welcome new owners into the world of Bitcoin, and encourage them to "go down the rabbit hole."  Contributors to the text include authors Saifedean Ammous, Yan Pritzker, and Michael Caras, podcast hosts Stephan Livera and Matt Odell, and GiveBitcoin founder Cory Klippsten, among others.  The writer/editor is Matt Ruby, and the audio version was contributed by Guy Swann.