Your dollar is shrinking.
In 1970, a dollar bought a dollar's worth of goods. Today, that same dollar buys what twelve cents would have bought back then.
Someone keeps printing.
The US money supply from 1970 to 2025. Each bar is one year. Look at what happened between 2020 and 2022.
M2 went from $15.5T to $21.7T at its peak, a 40% increase.
You see it every week at the grocery store.
What if money had a limit?
Bitcoin has a hard cap of 21 million coins. No government, central bank, or company can create more.
Gold
Bitcoin
You don't need a whole one.
Each bitcoin splits into 100 million pieces called satoshis. You can buy a few cents worth.
Start with one question: who controls it?
No one is in charge.
If you take out the center of a bank's network, everything collapses. Try removing a node from Bitcoin's network and see what happens.
Centralized
Decentralized
The network keeps running regardless.
Send money anywhere.
$500 from New York to London. Same amount, two very different paths.
International Wire
- Alice initiates transfer at her bank
- Her bank verifies and debits account~1hr
- SWIFT network routes the message~4hr
- Correspondent bank processes exchange~1 day
- Bob's bank receives and holds funds~1-3 days
- Bob sees funds (maybe)
Bitcoin
-
Sign · Alice signs with her private key
-
Broadcast · Sent to the network in seconds
-
Confirmed · Miners add it to the blockchain
You actually own it.
Your bank holds your money and gives you permission to spend it. With Bitcoin, you hold the keys yourself. Want to go further? Read How Bitcoin Works or jump straight to How to Buy Bitcoin.
Your bank
- They can freeze your account
- They can set withdrawal limits
- They can close your account
- They can deny transactions
- They can share your data
Your bitcoin
You hold it. You control it.
Dollar. Gold. Bitcoin.
Three forms of money compared across seven properties. Bitcoin leads on nearly all of them except track record.
Property |
Dollar |
Gold |
Bitcoin |
|---|---|---|---|
Supply |
Unlimited |
~212K tonnes |
21 million |
Inflation |
~2-3% / year |
~1.7% / year |
Halves every 4 yrs |
Portability |
Physical + digital |
Heavy, slow to move |
Send in minutes |
Divisibility |
2 decimals |
Hard to split |
8 decimals |
Censorship |
Can be frozen |
Can be seized |
Cannot be frozen |
Availability |
Banking hours |
Dealer hours |
24/7/365 |
Verifiable |
Trust the bank |
Requires assay |
Verify in seconds |
Track Record |
~250 years |
5,000+ years |
17 years |
It's been around for 17 years. Gold has 5,000.
Now go deeper.
Those are the basics. Here's where to go next.