"And 17 years later, the protocol still runs. The supply schedule has held exactly as designed. The cap of 21 million coins remains absolutely intact. Block zero still sits there with the Times headline embedded inside it, immutable on every node on Earth. The 50 coins from that first block still sit there too, permanently frozen. And this hundred billion dollars still sits untouched and addresses everyone can see and no one can move."

… Its founder vanished so it could never be captured by the people who do the bailing out. Every single design decision, every line of the original protocol, every choice the founder made was aimed at one outcome. A money that could not be controlled debased frozen or rewritten by the institutions whose failures had made it necessary. And 17 years later, the protocol still runs. The supply schedule has held exactly as designed. The cap of 21 million coins remains absolutely intact. Block zero still sits there with the Times headline embedded inside it, immutable on every node on Earth. The 50 coins from that first block still sit there too, permanently frozen. And this hundred billion dollars still sits untouched and addresses everyone can see and no one can move. So the next time somebody dismisses Bitcoin as a fad or a gamble or a meme or some kind of internet curiosity, remember the origin. Remember what the founder put inside the very first block. Remember what he walked away from. And remember that the most important monetary invention since the printing press was born on a Halloween, launched in the m …