They’re Trying To CONTROL Bitcoin!! This Story Will SHOCK You!!

If two developers can Fork Bitcoin and Succeed in redefining what Bitcoin is Then I will have no choice but to Declare Bitcoin a failed project Now this is a quote from an email sent By Satoshi Nakamoto at a time when Institutional investors were trying to Take control of Bitcoin with the help of Certain developers Bitcoin Miners and Crypto companies Thankfully their attempts failed but Recent moves by asset managers like BlackRock Mega Banks like JPMorgan and Financial Regulators like the financial Action task force suggest that they're About to try again so today we're going To tell you the story of how Institutional investors tried to take Control of Bitcoin how the Bitcoin Community won what institutional Investors are doing now and how we can Fight back I'll start by saying that almost all the Information in today's video comes from A brilliant book titled quote the block Size War the battle for control over Bitcoin's protocol rules it was written By Jonathan beer the head of research at Bitmex and I strongly suggest giving it A read if you have the time the link Will be in the description Note that I'm leaving a lot of the Details out for the sake of time Now I want to set the stage with an

Incredible quote from the start of the Second chapter of the book it's a bit Lengthy but it's required to put Everything I'm about to say into context It'll also help you understand and Appreciate just how far Bitcoin has come Quote in the early days of Bitcoin from 2009 to 2011. the entire ecosystem Consisted of just one piece of software The Bitcoin client This software existed initially for Microsoft Windows and comprised of the Wallet full node and minor there were no Mobile applications no Merchants No Gambling websites no Dark Net markets no Exchange traded products no exchanges no Institutional investors just one Primitive and basic software application All one could do was mine some coins Send them and receive them at the time Bitcoin was pretty useless and on the Surface the system did not appear to Have much value or potential to be Interested in the space one had to have Imagination One had to see many steps ahead and Conceptualized how the system would Develop and change over time end quote Obviously there were many different Opinions about how Bitcoin ought to Evolve but they generally fell into one Of two camps those who believed that Bitcoin's primary purpose was to be a New payment system and those who

Believed that bitcoin's primary purpose Was to be a new monetary system Those who believed that bitcoin's Primary purpose was to be a new payment System envisioned a world where BTC Would become a currency like the US Dollar and Bitcoin would become the base Layer for all Global Payments This would require making many changes To bitcoin namely making it faster Now those who believe that bitcoin's Primary purpose was to be a new monetary System envisioned a world where BTC Would become money like gold and Bitcoin Would become the base layer for high Value settlements This would not require making many Changes to bitcoin it could stay almost The same You could sum up these differences in Perspective as BTC being digital cash Versus BTC being digital gold Of course most institutional investors Initially believed that bitcoin's Primary purpose was to be a new payment System whereas most Bitcoin users Believe that bitcoin's primary purpose Was to become a new monetary system this Resulted in two camps so-called big Blockers and so-called small blockers If you watched our video about the Fastest cryptos you'll know that one of The ways that you can make cryptos Faster is by increasing the size of each

Block on the blockchain again this is What institutional investors aka Big Blockers wanted for Bitcoin it was Necessary if it was to become a payment System however from the Viewpoint of the Bitcoin users AKA small blockers Increasing bitcoin's block size could Make it impossible for Bitcoin to Fulfill its primary purpose of becoming A new monetary system this was for many Reasons but primarily because it could Set a precedent for changing btc's total Supply of 21 million another reason why Small blockers were against a block size Increase was because it could reduce Bitcoin's decentralization over time That's because fewer and fewer nodes Would be able to store bitcoin's full Transaction history if it's blockchain Grew too quickly this is some something That we've seen with other cryptos Logically if btc's Supply was subject to Change and the Bitcoin blockchain itself Was centralized it wouldn't make for a Very good store of value it would be Analogous to the supply of gold being Subject to change and only a handful of Institutions being able to verify what's Real gold and what's fake gold not only That but many small blockers believed That Bitcoin could still support a new Payment system on its blockchain They just believed that this purpose was Secondary to creating a new monetary

System which ultimately means taking Away the ability of central banks and Governments to control money a much Bigger End Game No Doubt Jonathan the aforementioned author of The book summed up the difference Between the big blockers and small Blockers as follows quote large blockers Prioritize the short term while small Blockers focused on the long term large Blockers prioritized user experience While small blockers favored making the System more resilient Large blockers prioritize growth while Small blockers were more concerned about Sustainability Large blockers were more pragmatic and Focused while small blockers were more Scientific and theoretical Now you'd be forgiven for thinking that Satoshi was on the side of the small Blockers the email quoted in the Introduction might give that impression In fact there are many other emails and Blog posts which suggest that Satoshi Was open to increasing bitcoin's block Size at least in its early days Now believe it or not but Bitcoin Initially didn't have a maximum block Size when it launched in January 2009. It wasn't until September 2010 that a Block size limit of one megabyte was Introduced a change that had been Proposed a few months earlier by Satoshi

Himself It's not actually known why he set this Block size limit what is known is that Concerns about this limit emerged just One month later Another early Bitcoin developer named Jeff garzick argued that the one Megabyte limit needed to be removed if Bitcoin ever wanted to compete with the Likes of PayPal in terms of speed as Such you could say Jeff was the first Big blocker 15 minutes later Jeff Received a reply from Michael McCart one Of bitcoin's earliest Advocates and the Creator of the first Bitcoin block Explorer Michael warned Jeff that if he Tried to increase the block size it Would cause a hard Fork as such you Could say Michael was the first small Blocker now for those unfamiliar a hard Fork occurs when a change is made to a Blockchain but not all the nodes on the Blockchain agree to the new rules what Results is a chain split with one Blockchain following the old rules the Other blockchain following the new rules And both blockchains being less secure As a result on that note a hard Fork Because of a block size increase was Another reason why small blockers were Opposed to it that's because it would Make Bitcoin less secure Satoshi agreed With Michael for this reason and the one Megabyte limit wasn't raised the block

Size debate was essentially settled Until August 2015. now August 2015 is When Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen Announced their support for a proposal For a new version of Bitcoin called Bitcoin XT The proposal had initially been Published by Gavin in July 2015 to the Bitcoin GitHub as Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 101 or bip 101. look it up if You have time as you might have guessed Bitcoin XT would increase bitcoin's Block size from one megabyte to 8 Megabytes and then double its block size Every year until 2036. by that point Each Bitcoin block would be a whopping 8 Gigabytes large effectively ensuring That only a handful of nodes would be Able to store bitcoin's full history Naturally the big blockers argued that Aggressively increasing bitcoin's block Size was necessary if it was to become a Global payment system they also argued That there wouldn't be a hard Fork Because most people in the Bitcoin Community including most nodes supported Increasing bitcoin's block size Naturally the small blockers were not on Board with this whatsoever hence the sub Heading from the guardian in an article On the following Monday quote the Bitcoin Wars have begun now this is Where it's extremely important to put Things into perspective for starters

Mike and Gavin were two very influential Bitcoin developers Mike was a Google Engineer who worked on Bitcoin in his Spare time and managed to create Bitcoin Code that made it possible to create the First mobile crypto wallets Gavin was Especially influential he was one of Bitcoin's earliest developers and is Famous for creating the Bitcoin Fawcett A website that would give you five BTC For free just for completing a captcha Gavin is also famous for co-founding the Bitcoin foundation in 2012. he left the Foundation in 2017. speaking of which if You watched our video about the company Taking over crypto you'll know that usdc Issue a circle was actually delete the First gold member of the Bitcoin Foundation you'll also know that before Usdc Circle was focused on BTC payments And wanted Bitcoin to become a payment System it should come as no surprise Then that Circle supported Bitcoin XT After it was published along with bitpay The largest crypto payment processor at The time Blockchain.info the largest crypto Wallet company at the time and Cryptocustodians bitco and Zappo which Was acquired by coinbase in 2019. what Might come as a surprise is that some Bitcoin miners also through their Support behind Bitcoin XT but not for The reasons you might think we'll come

Back to miners in just a moment Now you could say that these were the Soldiers on the big blocker side the Soldiers on the small block aside were Revealed in the following months during Bitcoin scaling conferences in Montreal And Hong Kong both of which Jonathan Attended note that Jonathan attended Many of these key events in the block Size Wars The key players on the small blocker Side were Gregory Maxwell and Adam back Co-founders of blockstream a tech Company that creates Bitcoin products Gregory is famous for being one of the Best Bitcoin developers whereas Adam is Famous for being credited in the Bitcoin White paper another key player on the Small blocker side meanwhile was Samson Mo who was working for a crypto exchange Called btcc at the time and subsequently Became the chief security officer of Blockstream Samson left blockstream in March last year to focus on helping Countries adopt BTC as legal tender as a Fun fact blockstream seems to have Played a key role in El Salvador's Bitcoin adoption There's lots of circumstantial evidence For this the most significant being that The Salvadoran government announced it Would be issuing its Bitcoin volcano Bonds on blockstream's layer 2 for Bitcoin the liquid Network as another

Fun fact Jonathan notes in the book that One of blockstream's earliest investors Was French insurance giant AXA group Whose former CEO Henry de castri was the Head of the Bilderberg meetings at the Time that AXA invested in blockstream Some food for thought to say the least Sorry to interrupt you folks but I have To let you know about the coin Bureau Deals page now my team and I have been Able to pull together some of the best Promos and discounts in the crypto space We're talking trading fee discounts of Over 50 thousands of dollars in bonus Airdrops amazing deals at top exchanges Reduced prices on Hardware wallets and Much much more besides so just go to Coinbureau.com forward slash deals also Linked to below and find the promo Suited to you enjoy the rest of the Video But back to the miners Now it seems that Bitcoin miners were Initially on the fence about increasing Bitcoin's block size on the one hand They believed that a block size increase Was reasonable so long as it wasn't too Large on the other hand they were Worried about unwanted side effects such As a hard Fork Jonathan explains the Situation perfectly quote Most miners seem to agree that they were In control of the network and that it Was their decision however they believed

They did not have enough information Available to make the right decision Kind of like Golems without their Masters so to speak This ties into one of the key questions Of the book and that's who controls Bitcoin recall it's in the title From the perspective of the big blockers Miners control Bitcoin so if there's a Bitcoin Fork then the one with the most Mining power is the real Bitcoin this is What we've been taught to believe in Crypto however the small blockers see it Differently from their perspective Bitcoin nodes control Bitcoin now to Clarify miners proposed blocks Containing BTC transactions whereas Bitcoin nodes validate these blocks add Them to the Bitcoin blockchain and store Bitcoin's full transaction history the Full chain of blocks Once Upon a Time All Bitcoin miners were also nodes this Was because the only reason you'd run a Bitcoin node is if you were also mining Bitcoin today the two roles are more Distinct with multiple mining machines Using just one node and many non-miners Running nodes just to help secure the Blockchain in any case whereas big Blockers would see the Bitcoin fork with The most mining power as the real Bitcoin small blockers would see the Bitcoin fork with the most node support As the real Bitcoin regardless of mining

Power and of course it's the Bitcoin Developers who make the node software This relates to an interesting Development during the block size war And that's segregated witness or segwit Which was introduced in 2015. the segwit Upgrade would optimize Bitcoin Transactions in a way that would have The Practical effect of increasing its Block size to 2 megabytes all without Causing a hard Fork as an added bonus Segwit would make it possible to create Layer 2 scaling solutions for Bitcoin Such as the lightning Network which was Proposed that same year More importantly layer twos would make It possible for Bitcoin to become a Payments Network without compromising Its monetary mission More about the lightning Network in the Description I digress On paper Sigrid was the perfect Compromise between what the big blockers And small blockers wanted and meant that Miners wouldn't have to worry in Practice however the big blockers were Not satisfied according to Jonathan this Was because quote this war was about Control and they wanted control In other words the institutional Investors didn't actually care about Scaling Bitcoin they just wanted an Excuse to control it what's strange is That the Bitcoin miners seem to join

Forces with the big blockers after Segwit was proposed it was later Revealed that the Bitcoin miners didn't Care about scaling Bitcoin either it Turns out that segwit would Simultaneously patch an extremely Lucrative Bitcoin mining exploit This exploit was called Asic boost and It made it possible to mine BTC for 20 Cheaper what's crazy is that bit main The largest maker of Bitcoin mining Machines had patented Asic boost in China this Advantage would have Eventually given them a monopoly over Bitcoin mining not just the hardware in Other words the Bitcoin miners weren't Actually on the side of the big blockers They just wanted to keep making money lo And behold minor sentiment towards Segwit started to change after the Dow Hack in 2016. if you watched our video About ethereum classic you'll know that The Dow hack caused ethereum to Fork This caused huge issues for both Cryptocurrency Miners and cryptocurrency Exchanges just before the big blockers Had been trying to push through another Bitcoin upgrade called Bitcoin classic Which is apparently where ethereum Classic got its name from at the time Other crypto companies heavily funded by Tradify namely coinbase had started Supporting larger Bitcoin blocks after The ethereum hard Fork the big blockers

Had to come up with yet another Bitcoin Upgrade called Bitcoin unlimited by that Point it was becoming clear that doing a Full Bitcoin upgrade wasn't the way to Go the watershed moment came in March 2017 when big crypto exchanges became Small blockers bitfinex Kraken bitstamp Bitmex and others all made an Unprecedented announcement in short the Bitcoin fork with the most node support Would be the original Bitcoin regardless Of mining power not that it was an issue Miners had become more skeptical of a Full upgrade because of the ethereum Hard Fork All that was left to do was find a way To convince everyone involved to support The segwit soft fork and this is where Litecoin comes into the picture If you've watched any of our videos About Litecoin you'll know that it's a De facto test net for Bitcoin many of The Bitcoin upgrades happen on Litecoin First what you may not know is that Litecoin miners tried to stop the segwit Upgrade on Litecoin this was simply Because the Litecoin miners were tied up With bitmain and other miners using Asic Boost These entities could see that segwit for Litecoin was a dry run for Bitcoin and Didn't want it to succeed unfortunately For the Litecoin miners the entire Litecoin Community was on the same page

About segwit in large part due to Founder Charlie Lee another significant Small blocker The Litecoin Community basically forced The miners to implement segwit setting a Precedent for Bitcoin this brings us Back to that big question and that's who Controls Bitcoin is it the miners or is It the node operators and Developers Litecoin cigarette upgrades suggested The answer was the latter and a post by A pseudonymous developer called Shaolin Fry came up with a plan to make it the Final answer the plan was to orchestrate A so-called user-activated soft fork or Uasf This would involve Bitcoin nodes Signaling that they would stop accepting Blocks from Bitcoin miners who refused To implement segwit in turn this would Force Bitcoin miners to signal that they Intended to implement segwit To promote this Grassroots initiative Samson Mo created hats with military Colors and the letters uasf emblazoned On them These hats were worn by small blockers At Bitcoin conferences around the world To show their support for the initiative Which was starting to gain Traction in The broader Bitcoin Community what's Fascinating is that node signaling is How the Bitcoin Community voted on Upgrades back in satoshi's time

This made sense because all Bitcoin Miners were also nodes as you'll recall But as with the node users the voting Split into two distinct types voting With nodes and voting with mining power Today both forms of signaling are Required for Bitcoin upgrades to occur And the upgrades themselves must be Coded by the Bitcoin developers back Then this was not well understood Particularly not by the big blockers who Were starting to realize that they Needed to take drastic action to stop Segwit the DraStic action they took was The so-called New York agreement a Meeting of the largest crypto companies Organized by digital currency group Itself a massive crypto company The big blockers heavy guns were present Bit main Circle bitco and even Hardware Crypto wallet provider Ledger the Resulting document is believed to have Been drafted by Melton dimiros formerly Dcg now at coin shares The tldr is that the largest crypto Exchanges wallet providers and miners Representing 80 percent of bitcoin's Hash rate committed to the segwit uasf Followed by a hard fork for a larger Block size Well the big blockers got their hard Fork but not the one they wanted another Group of big blockers did a so-called Clean Fork of Bitcoin to create Bitcoin

Cash now without getting too technical a Clean Fork involves forking the Blockchain without disrupting the Original chain a sort of copy and paste Meanwhile the segwit part of the New York agreement had gone live a clean Victory caused by the uasf As time went on it became clear that the Hard Fork part of the New York agreement Was dead in the water and bitco CEO Mike Belshi sent out a letter to his Institutional peers admitting defeat the Big blockers realized that pushing for Another Bitcoin hard Fork made no sense Since it probably wouldn't be bigger Than Bitcoin cash many of the big Blockers had also turned their focus From controlling Bitcoin to controlling Ethereum that's a topic for another time And perhaps another book Regardless Jonathan sums up the small Blocker Bitcoin Victory as follows quote In the true Spirit of Bitcoin and its Pseudonymous creator Satoshi the uasf Didn't demerge from an official Closed-door Round Table meeting among The big players instead it was released In the open and promoted by a Pseudonymous developer Shaolin Frye Somehow one pseudonymous individual a Few Grassroots hardcore followers and a Few hats commissioned by Samson Mo had Gone head to head with a multi-billion Dollar Enterprise and one I remember

Thinking that something like that could Only happen in Bitcoin Now this was a bigger Victory than you Might think because it also established BTC as digital gold with Bitcoin layer 2's supporting payment systems Jonathan concludes the book by saying Quote Bitcoin demonstrated that it could Be the user-controlled money that it was Destined to be but warns that this may Not last forever Quote when the primary beneficiaries of The centrally controlled monetary Systems finally realized the potential Of user-driven money they may not like It these future battles may be over Censorship resistance rather than Scaling and the block size limit this Time the financial and political Establishment are likely to initiate the Conflict This brings us to the present day with Asset managers like BlackRock filing for A spot Bitcoin ETF Mega Banks like JP Morgan getting involved in defy and Financial Regulators corrupted by Wall Street cracking down on offshore Exchanges and centralized stable coins From our perspective it appears that Institutional investors are trying to Take control of the entire crypto Market Not just Bitcoin From their perspective they appear to Believe that if they can control the

Price action and availability of crypto Then the miners validators nodes and Developers don't matter The way institutional investors try and Control crypto will likely vary between Coins and tokens in the case of Bitcoin There's been speculation that they want To manipulate BTC the same way that they Allegedly manipulate the gold market JP Morgan was recently fined for this by The way In the case of ethereum it's clear that They see it as the payment Network that Bitcoin was supposed to be and Everything we've discussed today Suggests that they want to control Ethereum as much as possible this is Theoretically easier to do now that Ethereum is proof of stake take a second To consider that these institutional Investors literally have trillions of Dollars in assets it would only take a Small fraction of that cash pile to buy Up the stake required to control every Single proof-of-stake cryptocurrency on The market at that point they would Truly have total control however this All fundamentally depends on whether Crypto is allowed to trade freely Meaning peer-to-peer or on decentralized Exchanges so long as BTC and eth can Trade freely even just outside of Jurisdictions controlled by the United States it will be very difficult to do

What I just described that's probably Why Financial Regulators are actively Cracking down on the crypto niches I Just mentioned a few moments ago they Make it possible for BTC eth and other Cryptocurrencies to escape institutional Capture Even if they managed to succeed we still Have non-custodial wallets but if you've Watched any of our videos about the fat F you'll know that its mission is to Eliminate all non-custodial crypto Activities by labeling them as high risk One of the fat F's first moves is to Force all crypto transactions to and From crypto exchanges to be tracked Jeopardizing censorship resistance Remember that this is exactly what Jonathan predicted at the end of his Book now the Silver Lining is that Jonathan also predicted that these new Attempts to control Bitcoin and crypto Won't succeed quote No doubt history will repeat itself as The establishment fails to appreciate Some of the nuances in the incentives Making blunders on the way providing Users with potential tactical advantages To exploit put differently these Institutions don't understand that lots Of crypto holders are in it for more Than the short-term Fiat gains they have The same imagination that bitcoin's Early Believers did they can see what

This technology is capable of and how it Can set them free from the existing Financial system The difference is it's not just Individuals anymore it's institutions Now and even some governments it's Becoming a lot easier for the decision Makers in these organizations to imagine What crypto could become and every day This imagination is coming closer to Becoming actualized into reality and That my friends is how we fight back by Using our imaginations to create an Alternative system as Jonathan notes Quote the outcome here is far from Certain but if we try hard enough we may Just succeed And that's all for today's video folks So if you learned something new Smash That like button to let us know if you Want to keep learning subscribe to the Channel and ping that notification Bell If you want to help others learn take a Second to share this video with them and If you're looking for a hardware wallet To store your crypto or an exchange to Accumulate said crypto with check out The coin Bureau deals page it's got the Biggest discounts on the best hardware Wallets and up to forty thousand dollars Of airdrops bonuses and incentives on The best crypto exchanges the link will Be down in the description thank you all So much for watching and I'll see you

Next time till then my name is guy and Satoshi be with you [Music]