What’s your 20, BitCoin?

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This is first published on John Pitts’ Medium site. Read the full piece on here.

A Potentially Heartbreaking Timeline if you don’t expect it

The following timeline-of-success was written in an ironic email on August 15, 2022, to cheer up [0: in the words of Notorious B.I.G.], “all the [lads] in the [BitCoin] struggle, you know what I’m sayin’? It’s all good baby, baby. Ahh…”

It’s also a timeline worth viddying when having one of those days which seems like you, your product, or just BSV adoption in general is moving backwards or in wicked slow motion. If we pan out very far, BitCoin adoption will look like an “S-curve”¹ which is half exponential and half logarithmic, but panned up close, it looks like a price chart for a stock, with spikes and peaks and valleys every second, minute, week, month, and year of the decade.

1971:

Email is invented. I was born (I’m 51 for reference). Nixon “nixes” the gold standard. What a year. I’ve always felt very tied to both of these events

1974:

“TCP” (Transmission Control Program) is released by Vint Cerf & Mr. Kahn

1978:

“IP” (Internet Protocol) joins TCP in version 3 of TCP. “TCP/IP”

I watch “Convoy” and revel in the 1970s CB-lingo phrases:

‘Keep on Truckin’
&
‘What’s your twenty?’

1983:
“IPv4” begins.

Matthew Broderick “breaks the internet” for the first time, by hacking into the US Military’s Nuclear Missile Defense system in “War Games.” (it’s important you watch the clip) 

1986:
Matthew Broderick “breaks the internet” again, by hacking his “times tardy” number from 9 to 2 on his high school principal’s computer in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” 

It is at this point, you acknowledge the cold hard fact that Matthew Broderick invented the internet, not Al Gore.

1990:
Tim Berners-Lee writes the WorldWideWeb program & the first WWW web page is created.

1993:
I graduated Bachelor’s degree (college) without an email address and still had by that year never used the internet despite taking computer programming courses. I, and email, and U.S. Dollar fiat, are 22 years old.

1994:
Mosaic/Netscape, the first truly commercial internet browser is released. Now known as Firefox (also the technological basis for Chrome/Safari which owns roughly 99% market share in browsers in 2022)

1996:
I get my first internet service (Earthlink) a decade after Ferris Bueller did. It’s billed per bit! Also got my first email address ([email protected]). Only teachers think I’m cool, because I’m the ONLY layman they know with email. In reality, I felt like I was REALLY late to the internet, as “War Games” sat fresh in my mind as I “dialed-up” with my 33 kbps modem (bits, not Bytes).

Internet penetration is 0.9% of the world population, 36mm people. I’m in “the 1%”.

1998:
Andy von Bechtolsheim invests $100,000 into BackRub, which was subsequently renamed & incorporated “Google” so Larry Page and Sergey Brin could cash the check, for 3–6% of Google at about $2–5 million valuation (co. worth $2 TRILLION last November).

1999:
AOL “breaks the internet” by being unable to ship CD sign-up discs in the (snail) mail fast enough for US internet demand.

Internet penetration is 4% of world population, or 248mm people.

ONBOARDING PROBLEM? Imagine thinking bitcoin onboarding is hard in 2022—BitCoin onboarding is all electronic & can be done in an hour or two without leaving your bathtub—no waiting for WEEKS for a sign-up disc! Internet log-in takes a FULL MINUTE or more. Yet 248 million people signed up for the world’s most horrendous “onboarding.” Never underestimate the power of games, gambling, love and communications (email). Why did I get on the internet? Email. Love. I wanted to be able to write to the lovely local teachers, whom a helicopter friend of mine had met at a San Diego party, and entice them to come to our Navy Submarine “sausage fest” parties, rather than have to call, and talk awkwardly on the phone.

2001:
I buy AMZN shares for $13, with a long-haul vision in mind, then get talked out of it a couple months later at $17 by a retail stock “expert.” The guy that talks me out of it, ends up being right, and kills it on the short side, as AMZN goes to $6 in the Fall. This is the biggest mistake of my stock-picking career. AMZN thereafter always feels “too expensive”, but Bezos ensures it never really is, over the next 20 years. Patience grasshopper. This mistake is corrected and leads to more sure-footed long term investments in GOOG (2004–2019) and AAPL (2006–2018). Those investments become my house, my car, and maybe even the confidence needed to talk to my out-of-my-league future wife.

Keep on Truckin’ Rubber Duck🐥

I invest in Goto.com (GOTO: later Overture OVER, later Yahoo YHOO, later Bing MSFT), the company which invented the advertising auction model for search, that Google would copy and improve-upon this year.

The BAD internet companies (“dotcoms”) all bottom/die in the Fall. Burned VCs want nothing to do with internet companies at this point. Shorts like BID.com, AudioHighway.com, PurchasePro.com, and Pets.com all have gone to zero or are at the “last mile” for getting there.

The highway’s jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power-drive — Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run

“It’s a great time to invest!!!” — Reliable Investments Advisor

2004:
After witnessing that Google can read your gmails (new that Spring) and after asking an uncomfortable Larry Page about text-messaging + targeted ads under the rainbow umbrellas at the first (and only?) Google Investor Day, I advise my investment fund go “whole hog” into the suprisingly unpopular GOOG IPO at $85 per share or $25 billion.

2007:
20% of world population is on the internet, more than 1 billion people

2008:
The Bitcoin protocol is invented

2012:
Netflix pisses off all their investors, by declaring that STREAMING movies over the internet is the future, not DVD movies mailed in red envelopes. Hollywood thinks Reed Hastings is totally insane.

2017:
50% of the world population is on the internet, almost 4 billion people

2020:
GOOG & AMZN are the first “internet-only” companies to reach $1 trillion valuations

2020:
The BitCoin protocol is restored (or at least to about 90% of its former self)

2022:
Dr Craig Wright, Latif Ladid, and Vint Cerf are scheduled by the IEEE to officially discuss marrying IPv6 + Bitcoin (#BSV).³

***

We’re all not even in a marathon, we’re in a life-a-thon. Let’s pray like crazy (real) BitCoin (SV) in its 14th year is more like “WWW” circa 2004, than email circa 1985, yes? When you hear someone like me rigging ship for the next 20 years, it doesn’t mean the payoff is in 20 years. The payoff is the ENTIRE twenty years, and hopefully your waystations are chock full o’ billions just like the email and internet eras were.

Hang in there, and keep on truckin’ Rubber Duck, your “20” is…

EARLY
;as in, you’re the 1% and just have to keep working to stay ahead of the S-curve.

To earn REAL BitCoin, go here and compete to define words: SLictionary.com/WordBounty

…or if etymologies are your thing, help out this article here.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

If you got something out of this, please tip your waiter at $JOHNPITTS or follow:
Tw@ttr: https://twitter.com/EquityDiamonds
Medium:
John Pitts
(@EquityDiamonds)
Twetch: u/462: https://twetch.com/u/462

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REFERENCES:
[0] “Juicy” — The Notorious B.I.G.

[1] Defintion of “S-CURVE”
Look it up on SLictionary.com
[2] “Steve McQueen” by the Drive-By Truckers

[3] Picture credit

https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/short-history-internet

[4] Unconfirmed Rumor
It seems both Vint Cerf and Dr. Craig Wright pictures have been taken down from the list of speakers on the IEEE conference website. Not sure what it means, but it seems par for the course in REAL Bitcoin-land.

[5] “Convoy” by C.J. McCall
Original version:

New-Lyrics version with movie clips:

This article was lightly edited for clarity purposes.

Watch: The BSV Global Blockchain Convention presentation, Blockchain for Data Integrity & Business Process Management

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGi9nYUBYo0