Bitcoin is complicated. Dollars are simple. (not)

I'm just a simple guy, so lets talk about cash, greenbacks, moolah - you know...the paper we've been "spending" forever.

All money requires a ledger; a spread sheet with goesinta's (deposits) and goesoutta's (expenditures).   When the two agree - what is left on the ledger is your balance.  Easy peasy - we all know this.   Now connect all the ledgers in town, state, country and world and things get complicated.  Now introduce debit cards and internet transactions, ouch, my head hurts.  Now talk about exchange fee's, card processing fee's bank fee's and interest on that credit card that protected your checking account from your oopsie that caused your goesoutta's to exceed your goesinta's.  Now let's talk about exchange rates between FIAT currencies.  My ledger is in US Dollars, your ledger is n Canadian Dollars - which one holds more value?  Isn't money fun?   (don't get me started on creation of central banks - that will make your head explode - read "The Creature from Jekyll Island")

So, here's the thing: To keep it simple lets talk about giving a 20.00 bill to the Pizza Guy for an exchange of value on a 16.00 Pizza.   You've got your delicious Limburger and Anchovy thin crust and the undiscovered heavy metal drummer that just dropped it off has the 20.00 in his pocket.   That 20.00 is a bearer instrument.  Who has the value?  You do, you have your gut bomb Pizza, and so does the delivery guy, because he holds the bearer instrument that the Federal Reserve promises is worth 20.00 (until they print more).  Does Big Billy's Pizza Company who made the pie and paid for it? Nope.  They have a promise that delivery drummer will give them the 16.00 for the pizza and keep the 4.00 for his tip. Two things could happen:

1) Drummerdood could finish the shift and balance the ledger (Big Billy's goesinta's are goesouta's from DD's ledger *pocket*) and the remainder are Drummerdood's potential deposits into his bigger ledger at the bank. Cool, DD's ledger's balanced and it only took a few hours. Big Billy's will take a while longer.

2) Drummerdood got a text that if he left NOW with his drumkit his band could open for a famous act.  DD never returned to Big Billy's.   Good thing the shift just started because Billy is only out the 16.00.   To get HIS ledger to balance he has to wait and write off the loss on that stinkyfish special your are enjoying.  This will take a period of time.....longer than a few hours for sure.

This silly example points out two simple truths - our current system depends on promises and time.    If either are unkept or delayed, the exchange of value is unbalanced, and value is lost.  The truth is,  in any exchange of a bearer instrument (ex: dollar) we assume parties to be trustworthy and time efficient.   Because people can be untrustworthy and systems can be inefficient, a VALID transaction could be delayed.  Deposit a check of some significant amount in your bank and then try to withdraw it.  Even doing this all electronically (nearly instant settlement) the bank will delay a portion of the funds because they have to balance the ledger first.  Why?  Because they are in the loan business and they loan out many times more dollars than they have on deposit.  Their loans are goesoutta's.   Your deposits are goesinta's combined with all the other depositors.   The bank is INSOLVENT in real time and only credits (promises of paybacks) can balance their ledger. In fact, the goesoutta's are many times the goesinta's.

Now think about the Bitcoin Ledger.   Is is a Time-Chain (more accurate description than "Blockchain").  In essence what it does is reconcile 100% of the transactions every 10 minutes, and adds it to the entire history of the exchanges of value on the bitcoin network since the first transaction, which just happened to be a Pizza.

Here's the thing.  There is no central authority or set of regulations between ledgers (banks are just a ledger really).   Its 100% of the exchanges of value reconciled by (conservatively) 50,000 Bitcoin nodes as of April 2025 - they ALL agree, 100%, every 10 minutes. For a MUCH better and more entertaining explanation I suggest "God Bless Bitcoin" on you tube.

For now, BTC is unfortunately held primarily on exchanges - who hold the keys - the real value.  The promise of real efficiency will arrive when most people have their own BTC and their own node in very secure self custody.  (Talk to my friends at thebitcoinway.com for the simple answers to that challenge)  When this occurs, you are the bank.  You take money out of the big wallet, move some to a small wallet, and pay in BTC.

Easy, trustless, permissionless, promise less and 100% balanced every 10 minutes.   We at Hodlintee's are not experts by any means, but we know some! And we are on a mission to educate and start a conversation by putting Tee Shirts out there that will start a chat.  

God Bless you.