Bitcoin, Citadels and the Zombie Apocalypse
Bitcoin, Citadels and the Zombie Apocalypse
Money and Dystopia
There is no doubt that we are living in strange times. There is geopolitical tension between the United States and China and Russia, the threat of Houthis cutting off access to the Red Sea shipping lanes, massive inflation, the democratic processes in the US being undermined by removing candidates from ballots, and mass migrations from one part of the world to the other, causing increasing social, economic and cultural tensions. With the threat of nuclear apocalypse on the horizon, and an increased focus on dystopian outcomes for mankind in literature, television and film, it is not surprising that many people are considering how society would function and survive after a total systemic collapse of the existing systems and processes that keep society functioning. Of particular interest in popular culture is the notion of a ‘zombie apocalypse’ as popularised in The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, Resident Evil and other games and media.
It is surprising, to me at least, that, in such a dystopian situation, the issue of money and assets is not often considered. There is an assumption, perhaps, that humanity will shift to a more primitive state. The most primitive situation, it is often imagined, is that of barter. If I have some eggs, and you have some yarn, perhaps we can exchange a dozen eggs for a spool of yarn. This does work for limited transfers, but a problem arises when I have a dozen eggs, you have a spool of yarn, but I might want to obtain a pound of sugar. I would have to do multiple barters to eventually reach my goal. Even more complicated is when I want to save the time and energy invested in my goods into the future, preserving wealth over time. This cannot be done with eggs, which go rotten. I would need something which is both saleable and immutable. As Gigi writes in 21 Lessons: ‘Money, as an invention, is ingenious. A world without money is insanely complicated: How many fish will buy me new shoes? How many cows will buy me a house? What if I don’t need anything right now but I need to get rid of my soon-to-be rotten apples? You don’t need a lot of imagination to realize that a barter economy is maddeningly inefficient.’[1]
Effects of a zombie apocalypse
The term ‘zombie’ derives ultimately from the Kikongo word zumbi (“fetish”) and can be defined as ‘a will-less and speechless human (as in voodoo belief and in fictional stories) held to have died and been supernaturally reanimated’ (Merriam Webster) or ‘(in stories) a frightening creature that is a dead person who has been brought back to life, but without human qualities. Zombies are not able to think and they are often shown as attacking and eating human beings’ (Cambridge). This would include the undead creatures in The Walking Dead and popular zombie movies such as George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). Other creatures, such as the zombies in Resident Evil or The Last of Us, are not necessarily dead, but are infected and behave similarly to the zombies in popular culture. We can assume, for the purposes of this article, that zombies are either reanimated corpses or infected individuals which behave like the zombies of popular culture, and, in either case, are infected with a transmissible disease which can be called the ‘zombie virus’, which is passed primarily through biting, causing the virus to enter the bloodstream. This is not entirely unrealistic, as there are fungi that can cause zombie-like behaviour in ants, i.e. Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, which served as the inspiration for the zombies in The Last of Us, and the ‘zombie deer disease’ which is currently spreading in Yellowstone.[2] The disease, called chronic wasting disease (CWD), spreads through cervids (such as elk, moose and caribou) and is resistant to disinfectants, formaldehyde, and even radiation and incineration. The disease infects the host’s brain and leaves the animals drooling, lethargic, emaciated and stumbling, with a blank stare — hence the name ‘zombie deer disease’.[3] There is no reason to believe that a similar disease could not leap to human beings and begin spreading throughout the populations.
According to one study based on the SIR (Susceptible, Infect and Recovered or Removed) model, there is a 90% chance that an uninfected person who met a real-life zombie would become infected, and, assuming that zombies died after 20 days of not feeding, and with a global population of 7.5 billion, most of the world’s population would be wiped out within three weeks, with only 181 uninfected people surviving by day 100.[4] A second paper by the same team, which gave each person a 10% chance of killing a zombie, estimated that, by day 100, some 200 million humans would still be uninfected.[5] By day 1,000, there would be some 67 million survivors remaining.[6] A global population of 68 million would be more than sufficient for the human race to sustain itself and increase its population, and the vast resources of the world would be more than enough to provide humans with the means necessary to build sustainable communities and begin building up industries and technology. In fact, Frédéric Marin, an astrophysicist from the University of Strasbourg, has estimated that the minimum number of human beings needed to replenish the species is only 98 healthy individuals.[7] Cameron Smith argues that a more sustainable population size would be around 14,000. In either case, 68 million would be more than enough for humanity to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. There are, moreover, many scenarios which could result in a human population that is far reduced from today’s roughly 8 billion people, including a nuclear apocalypse, an extinction-level asteroid strike, or some other catastrophe. In fact, there are many people (and perhaps groups) who actually want humanity’s population to be reduced this drastically, as evidenced by the Georgia Guidestones, which were destroyed on 6 July 2022.
Money in the zombie apocalypse
The obvious solution to this was the invention of money, which starts as the most saleable (i.e. ‘fit or able to be sold’) and durable asset. Eggs are not the most saleable, because they cannot be bought or sold for any other item, and they are certainly not durable. As Carl Menger explains in The Origins of Money, ‘it is also clear that nothing may have been so favourable to the genesis of a medium of exchange as the acceptance, on the part of the most discerning and capable economic subjects, for their own economic gain, and over a considerable period of time, of eminently saleable goods in preference to all others.’[8][9] In Principles of Economics, Saifedean (2023) further explains: ‘The more salable a good, the more likely the owner is to obtain a prevalent and undiscounted market price in exchange for his good when he chooses to sell it. A good with low salability is a good whose owner would expect to offer a significant discount on the price of the good if he wanted to sell it quickly. A highly salable good is one with significant market depth and liquidity, making it possible for the holder to obtain the prevailing market price whenever they want to sell it.’[10]
For a long time, cowry shells served this function, followed by gold and silver, wampum belts, Rai stones, and finally Bitcoin, which is the most saleable, durable and portable asset of all. Bitcoin has emerged as the latest stage in the evolution of money and is, by far, the best money that has ever existed. Ammous (2023) writes: ‘The two most important features of bitcoin are that its native currency has a strictly fixed supply that is completely unresponsive to demand, making it the hardest money ever invented, and that it allows for cross-border payments without needing any political authority to supervise the transaction. These two properties — hardness and censorship-resistance — arguably give bitcoin the capability to be the most salable good across time and space. Its scarcity means that its supply cannot be diluted unexpectedly, ensuring it is likely to hold on to its value in the future. And its automated processing of payments, secured by a truly decentralized network, means it can travel worldwide, and no single authority has the power to censor or confiscate it.’[11] For more on this, see Vijay Boyapati’s ‘The Bullish Case for Bitcoin’.[12] In The Walking Dead and other dystopian media, however, there is rarely any mention of any of these mediums of exchange, with perhaps the occasional use of gold, e.g. in the episode ‘The Diviner’ of Fear the Walking Dead, in which a canister of gold is used as a medium of exchange.
In many of these ‘zombie apocalypse’ scenarios, the greatest danger is not the zombies themselves, but other human beings. In such a world, both zombies and violent humans pose a danger to nascent communities in the post-apocalyptic world. People are often shown as struggling in small bands or living in small communities with makeshift walls. When supplies of petroleum run out, they shift to using horses and carts. Bow and arrow replace guns and bullets. Electricity is non-existent. There are no computer networks, and only radios are used for long-distance communication. This is all, in my opinion, highly unrealistic. If there is one thing we know about technology, it is that it does not simply cease to exist once discovered. Electricity can be generated in dozens of ways, fossil fuels are quite abundant, and renewable energy exists as a backup option. There is no Mad Max world where we suddenly run out of oil and gas, coal, uranium or other mineral resources that are necessary to generate fuel, heat and electricity. We can safely assume, therefore, that, in any zombie apocalypse, there will be abundant electricity and engines for transport.
The Bitcoin Citadel
Next, we can safely assume that human beings will gather together for protection. One thing that is apparent throughout history is that human beings go from small bands to forming tribes, and from tribes to villages and city-states. This is a natural phenomenon of development that cannot be undone. In an especially violent and dangerous world where both zombies and other human beings pose a threat, it would be necessary to form tight-knit communities. Let us assume that, as in The Walking Dead, people begin to form communities that are essentially tribal in nature. Let us assume that these nascent tribes follow Dunbar’s number, i.e. they are either small (30–50 members), medium (100–200 members) or large (500 to 2,500 members). In 1992, biological anthropologist Robin Dunbar predicted a mean group size of 148 members, which we can round up to 150 members. Such a group could form a ‘citadel’ or small city-state, equivalent to the concept of the ‘Bitcoin Citadel’. The concept of a Bitcoin citadel first emerged in a supposed message from a time traveller on Reddit in 2013,[13] and has since been adopted by the Bitcoin community as a new form of community that would exist in the future, where sovereign individual Bitcoiners would come together to live in small walled communities free from the control of national governments and tax-collectors.
Based on the above, let us assume then that survivors of the zombie apocalypse, or other apocalypse, will gather together into groups which meet Dunbar’s number, i.e. 150 members on average. These 150 individuals will be mostly fit, healthy individuals who were able to survive being chased by hordes of the undead. To be accepted into such a community, one must have skills which are saleable and can thus be exchanged for money. We should not imagine that such societies would be based on communism or socialism. While socialism might work to some extent within a family of two parents and let us say, five children, it breaks down when applied beyond the family level, and even within the family, there is a stratification of levels and roles. In a more dangerous world, we can assume that men and women would take on more traditional roles based on biology, and children must naturally obey their parents. As I wrote in my blogpost on ‘The Origins of Wealth’ (Part 2 of 4): ‘Capitalism is, basically speaking, economic freedom… The economy is not managed by a central authority, as in socialism, nor are the means of production controlled by the government. It is characterised, they argue, by three institutions: private property, the free market, and the rule of law, all of which are essential for capitalism to function.’[14]
Assuming that there are some 68 million people left on Earth in a zombie apocalypse scenario, let us further assume that there are between 150–200 people in each citadel. If there are 150 people in each citadel, that gives us 453,333 citadels. Assuming 200 people in each citadel, that leaves us with 340,000 citadels. There can only ever be a maximum of 21 million Bitcoin, or 2.1 quadrillion Satoshis. There are 100 million Satoshis per Bitcoin. Roughly 6 million Bitcoin are irretrievably lost, leaving only about 15 million Bitcoin available. Currently, 75% of Bitcoin addresses hold less than 0.01 BTC, while only 2.3% hold 1 BTC or more.[15] Exchanges hold roughly 2.3 million BTC, miners hold 1.8 million, ETFs and funds hold roughly 762,000, private companies 435,000 and public companies 248,000. Governments hold roughly 242,000 and Robinhood holds 122,000. If we take these out of the equation, as well as the 262,000 in ‘Wrapped BTC’, that gives us 15 million minus 9,163,000, leaving us with 5,837,000 BTC.[16] Assuming all of the 9 million or so BTC mentioned above is either inaccessible or held by institutions and companies which survive the apocalypse, that only leaves some 5.837 million BTC for the population of 68 million. Assuming an equal distribution, that is roughly 0.0858 BTC per person, or roughly 8,580,000 Satoshis. Given the Pareto principle, however, the actual amount per person would be less, with 20% of the individual survivors likely to hold 80% of the BTC supply. Given that, conservatively, 15 million BTC would represent 100% of global wealth, if current global wealth is roughly $454.4 trillion dollars, we can assume a rough value per Bitcoin of $30,293,333 per Bitcoin in today’s dollars. Divided by 100 million, that gives us a value of roughly $0.30 per Satoshi in today’s terms. A loaf of bread is currently roughly $2.80, so we can assume that it might cost around 9 Satoshis in this post-apocalyptic world.
Communism vs Capitalism
As we know from the brief experiments with communism tried out in Jamestown and the Plymouth Colony,[17] the inevitable result of communism is starvation and privation. This is because communism goes against human nature, which naturally results in wealth differences based on different talents, skills, IQ (intelligence) and even differences in physical strength, technology and geography. As I explained in my essay on ‘The Origins of Money’ (Part 1 of 2), ‘capitalism is an essential part of human nature, because each human individual is different in their capacities and abilities to acquire, collect and manage wealth.’[18] This is reflected in the Pareto principle, in which 80% of wealth tends to go to 20% of the population. Communism and socialism lead to human beings not taking personal accountability and not having the motivation to work hard or produce resources. This results in people taking more than they put into society, leading to famine and lack of resources. Capitalism, on the other hand, results in individuals taking care of what is theirs, producing more than they consume in order to exchange goods for money, and saving wealth for the future. By saving wealth (‘capital’), individuals can then invest that wealth in producing even more goods or services through a business. Every individual can thus become a ‘capitalist’ and produce wealth where wealth did not previously exist.
Let us assume, therefore, that, based on the above, the future communities would be capitalist. They would have access to electricity either through fossil fuels, renewable energy or small nuclear reactors. Due to the danger of moving from one place to another, communication would primarily be through electronic means and radio. Wireless mesh networks, which use radio nodes organized in a mesh topology, would work for communication and could also be used to broadcast Bitcoin transactions. In one form or another, there would be an internet, which, in any case, was designed to survive a limited nuclear conflict due to its distributed nature and lack of a single point of failure. Thus even potentially hostile communities could communicate with one another without any danger of being attacked by hordes of the undead en route. Bitcoin is a distributed network of nodes and miners which also has no single point of failure. Each node contains a copy of the blockchain, thus preserving the Bitcoin code, and preserving the full ledger from corruption. As I have explained elsewhere, e.g. in my articles on ‘What is Bitcoin?’,[19] ‘The Origins of Bitcoin’,[20] and ‘The Case for a $10,000,000 Bitcoin’, Bitcoin is anti-fragile and can serve as a means of exchange with no centralised control.
A Bitcoin standard
Let us further assume that these communities of 150 or more individuals have highly specialised skills and access to resources. Some communities will focus on producing certain goods, such as textiles or weapons, tools, or electronic devices, while others will focus more on agriculture, animal husbandry or energy production. Bitcoin would work as a neutral medium of exchange and store of wealth that would allow long-distance transfers and trade. It would also help with energy arbitrage, as even remote communities could produce electricity which is monetised through Bitcoin mining. These communities would be known as ‘citadels’ or ‘Bitcoin citadels’ because they would be surrounded by walls and other physical barriers and would resemble medieval fortresses or castles. These walls would keep out both the undead and hostile bands of humans. The population would also be heavily armed with guns and other weapons, much as people were in the ‘Old West’ of the United States of America. Physical trade would take place through heavily armoured vehicles, ‘citadel trucks’ or helicopters, which would transport goods from one citadel to another. Payment would be settled in Bitcoin or via the Lightning Network, which is a second layer of Bitcoin. Individuals within citadels could either use Bitcoin for intra-citadel trade or could use the Lightning Network or Bitcoin-backed tokens produced by the local bank. These could even take the form of physical Bitcoin tokens or notes backed by Bitcoin. Nearby citadels, which are militarily allied, could also use underground tunnels with an underground network of trains for transporting goods.
Prosperity and Innovation
With such levels of defence, there would never be any real danger of attack from the undead, whose half-rotten bodies could not penetrate the solid stone walls, moats, and other barriers. Trade and the accumulation of wealth would also be more beneficial than attacking other citadels, so most humans would avoid open conflict. Why fight wars when you can obtain Bitcoin by producing goods and services? A sound money standard is a huge incentive towards wealth creation, productivity and technological and artistic development. As Saifedean Ammous explains in The Bitcoin Standard, a sound money standard leads to ‘a society in which individuals bequeath their children more than what they received from their parents,’ and where ‘life is improving, and people live with a purpose of making the next generation’s lives better. As society’s capital levels continue to increase, productivity increases and, along with it, quality of life. The security of their basic needs assured, and the dangers of the environment averted, people turn their attention toward more profound aspects of life than material well-being and the drudgery of work. They cultivate families and social ties; undertake cultural, artistic, and literary projects; and seek to offer lasting contributions to their community and the world.’[21]
In ‘The Case for a $10,000,000 Bitcoin’, I wrote: ‘Is it possible that a new Age of Sound of Money is on the horizon? Will Bitcoin bring about a new Bitcoin Era of prosperity and economic growth? I believe that that will come to pass within our lifetimes, as crisis is followed by victory, and as the current economic and political turmoil of today are replaced by a new order of peace, prosperity and social consensus which will follow. As the old central banking system breaks down, a new Bitcoin standard is emerging. Only time will tell what the ultimate result of that system will bring.’[22] As I wrote, furthermore, in ‘Ten Reasons to Buy Bitcoin’: ‘Bitcoin will allow for the emergence of a new type of economy, and a new golden age of commerce, free market capitalism and prosperity — an economic boom the like of which we have never witnessed before.’[23] Moreover, in Principles of Economics, Saifedean Ammous (2023) writes:
‘With transparent rules available for anyone in the world to audit, and with a system built entirely on verification rather than authority, bitcoin gives the entire world a monetary market commodity that works without needing coercive political authority. It allows us to make peaceful non-aggression the basis of human economic interaction, bringing the productivity of the market system to the monetary realm, reversing the violent high time preference statist fiat detour of the last century. If it can unleash human civilization from the clasp of the state’s fiat claws, bitcoin will be remembered as our age’s most significant civilizational achievement.’[24]
How to prepare for the post-apocalyptic world
If you want to prepare for any apocalypse-type scenario, I would recommend the following:
1. Keep a ‘bug out bag’ with all your essential survival items, including a first aid kit, knife or knives, a bat or other weapon to defend against zombies, and other essential items;
2. Read and collect survival books and books on Bitcoin, including The Bitcoin Standard;
3. Develop a skill or service you can provide for money in the future citadels;
4. Develop of a network of friends or like-minded individuals whom you can collaborate and/or form a new tribe and Bitcoin citadel with;
5. Set up your own Bitcoin node so that you can contribute to the decentralisation of the Bitcoin network and use this in the post-apocalyptic world;
6. Acquire a faraday cage or bag to keep your electronic items in in case of an EMP which wipes electronics; and
7. Acquire as much Bitcoin as you can, and secure it on a hardware wallet with a metal seed key backup .
Conclusion
In short, if you believe that a zombie apocalypse, or other apocalypse, is coming around the corner, or even if you want to represent such a scenario in computer games or the media, do not forget to include Bitcoin in the equation. Survival is paramount, but survival depends on being in a closed-knit community of other survivors and developing the skills and resources to be able to trade skills or services for money. Building a citadel will be essential for survival, and this will require a form of sound money which can be used for long-distance trade as well as trade within the community itself. Such a citadel would qualify as a ‘Bitcoin citadel’ and would, like ancient Athens, be a place of culture, literature, the arts, and technology, incentivised by a sound money standard and the ability to save wealth. It would result in social stratification, based on the Pareto principle, with 20% of the community holding 80% of the wealth, and there would be an elite of larger business owners and Bitcoin holders, as well as a wealthy middle class of artisans and skilled individuals. There would also be some individuals with lower intelligence or fewer skills who would contribute through basic manual labour or military service. These small communities of 150 or so individuals would serve as a microcosm of a modern society, but would be highly productive and successful, far more than the wasteful and corrupt societies of the modern fiat standard. A post-apocalyptic world would be more of a utopia than a dystopia due to the Bitcoin standard.
However far-fetched a zombie apocalypse may seem, this article seeks only to explore the utility of Bitcoin as the most likely and best money that can exist in such a fictional or theoretical scenario. Equally, Bitcoin can serve as the one money used in a nuclear apocalypse or other global disaster. There is little doubt that we are living in dangerous times, and the world is slowly teetering on the brink of global conflict, especially between the major world powers, as well as renewed tensions in the Middle East and even within the United States itself, where the prospect of civil conflict is no longer unimaginable. Bitcoin offers a new ray of hope for people and nations who wish to escape from the massive theft caused by inflation, as well as the tyranny of the central banking system, and it opens the way for the establishment of a much more decentralised financial system. Even with the approval of ETFs (exchange-traded funds) in America nown secured, and there is a growing number of institutional holders, Bitcoin nevertheless offers the fairest opportunity for individuals to free themselves from currency debasement, enables them to transfer their wealth into the future through savings, and empowers people to save up capital so that they can better themselves, build businesses and ultimately provide greater value to society. With that in mind, whatever the future holds, Bitcoin provides immense opportunities for human flourishing and prosperity amidst the greatest trials and tribulations.
NJ Bridgewater
Follow me on Twitter @ Nicholas19
Sources
Saifedean Ammous (2018) The Bitcoin Standard: A Decentralized Alternative to Central Banks (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley)
Saifedean Ammous (2023) Principles of Economics (The Saif House)
NJ Bridgewater (2017) ‘What is Bitcoin?’ Crossing the Bridge, 7 December 2017. Available online at: https://nicholasjames19.blogspot.com/2017/12/what-is-bitcoin.html (accessed 07/01/2024)
Vijay Boyapati (2018) ‘The Bullish Case for Bitcoin’. Available online at: https://vijayboyapati.medium.com/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-6ecc8bdecc1 (accessed 07/01/2024)
NJ Bridgewater (2018) ‘The Origins of Wealth (Part 2 of 4)’, Crossing the Bridge, 6 July 2018. Available online at: https://nicholasjames19.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-origins-of-wealth-part-2-of-4.html (accessed 07/01/2024)
NJ Bridgewater (2018) ‘Ten Reasons to Buy Bitcoin’, Crossing the Bridge, 24 September 2018. Available online at: https://nicholasjames19.blogspot.com/2018/09/ten-reasons-to-buy-bitcoin.html (accessed 07/01/2024)
NJ Bridgewater (2018) ‘The Origins of Bitcoin’ Crossing the Bridge, 5 December 2018. Available online at: https://nicholasjames19.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-origins-of-bitcoin.html (accessed 07/01/2024)
NJ Bridgewater (2018) ‘The Origins of Money (Part 1 of 2)’, Crossing the Bridge, 25 November 2018. Available online at: https://nicholasjames19.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-origins-of-money-part-1-of-2.html (accessed 07/01/2024)
NJ Bridgewater (2021) ‘The Case for a $10,000,000 Bitcoin’ (Medium, 5 January 2021). Available online at: https://nicholasbridgewater.medium.com/the-case-for-a-10-000-000-bitcoin-92a889a17ba6 (accessed 07/01/2024)
Richard M. Ebeling (2017) ‘How Communism Almost Ruined The First Thanksgiving’ (Foundation for Economic Freedom, November 23, 2017). Available online at: https://fee.org/articles/how-communism-almost-ruined-the-first-thanksgiving/ (accessed 07/01/2024)
Gigi (2019) 21 Lessons: What I’ve Learned from Falling Down the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole (Independently published), Lesson 11. Available online at: https://21lessons.com/toc (accessed 07/01/2024)
Luka_Magnotta (2013) ‘I am a time-traveler from the future, here to beg you to stop what you are doing’. Available online at: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1lfobc/i_am_a_timetraveler_from_the_future_here_to_beg/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body (accessed 07/01/2024).
Carl Menger (author), C.A. Foley (translator) (1892, 2009) On The Origins of Money (Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute), p. 37. Available online at: https://cdn.mises.org/On%20the%20Origins%20of%20Money_5.pdf (accessed 07/01/2024).
Will Ogden Moore (2023) ‘Demystifying Bitcoin’s Ownership Landscape’ (Grayscale, last update 11/29/2023) https://www.grayscale.com/research/reports/demystifying-bitcoins-ownership-landscape#:~:text=As%20such%2C%20Bitcoin's%20ownership%20structure,of%20November%206th%2C%202023) (accessed 07/01/2024)
Kevin Munrane (2017) ‘Guess How Many People Will Survive A Zombie Apocalypse’ (Forbes, Jan 8, 2017) Available online at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2017/01/08/guess-how-many-people-will-survive-a-zombie-apocalypse/ (accessed 07/01/2024)
Corey S. Powell (2018) ‘How many humans would it take to keep our species alive? One scientist’s surprising answer’ (NBC News, Aug 13, 2018). Available online at: https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/how-many-humans-would-it-take-keep-our-species-alive-ncna900151 (accessed 07/01/2024)
Murray N. Rothbard (2012) ‘The Fall of Communism in Virginia’ (Mises.org, 02/23/2012). Available online at: https://mises.org/library/fall-communism-virginia (accessed 07/01/2024)
Todd Wilkinson (2023) ‘‘Zombie deer disease’ epidemic spreads in Yellowstone as scientists raise fears it may jump to humans’ (The Guardian, 22 Dec 2023). Available online at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/22/zombie-deer-disease-yellowstone-scientists-fears-fatal-chronic-wasting-disease-cwd-jump-species-barrier-humans-aoe (accessed 07/01/2024)
See also:
BBC News (2022) ‘Georgia Guidestones: ‘America’s Stonehenge’ demolished after blast’ (BBC News, 7 July 2022). Available online at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-62073675 accessed 13 January 2024)
Aleksandar Svetski (2021) ‘Bitcoin, Bitcoiners & Citadels’ (Medium, 19 December 2021). Available online at: https://medium.com/@svetski/bitcoin-bitcoiners-citadels-622e20001a9d (accessed 13 January 2024)
John Vidal (2012) ‘Cut world population and redistribute resources, expert urges’ (The Guardian, 26 April 2012). Available online at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/apr/26/world-population-resources-paul-ehrlich (accessed 13 January 2024)
References
[1] Gigi (2019) 21 Lessons: What I’ve Learned from Falling Down the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole (Independently published), Lesson 11. Available online at: https://21lessons.com/toc (accessed 07/01/2024).
[2] Todd Wilkinson (2023) ‘‘Zombie deer disease’ epidemic spreads in Yellowstone as scientists raise fears it may jump to humans’ (The Guardian, 22 Dec 2023). Available online at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/22/zombie-deer-disease-yellowstone-scientists-fears-fatal-chronic-wasting-disease-cwd-jump-species-barrier-humans-aoe (accessed 07/01/2024).
[3] Wilkinson (2023).
[4] Kevin Munrane (2017) ‘Guess How Many People Will Survive A Zombie Apocalypse’ (Forbes, Jan 8, 2017) Available online at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2017/01/08/guess-how-many-people-will-survive-a-zombie-apocalypse/ (accessed 07/01/2024).
[5] Munrane (2017).
[6] Munrane (2017).
[7] Corey S. Powell (2018) ‘How many humans would it take to keep our species alive? One scientist’s surprising answer’ (NBC News, Aug 13, 2018). Available online at: https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/how-many-humans-would-it-take-keep-our-species-alive-ncna900151 (accessed 07/01/2024).
[8] Carl Menger (author), C.A. Foley (translator) (1892, 2009) On The Origins of Money (Auburn, Alabama: Ludwig von Mises Institute), p. 37. Available online at: https://cdn.mises.org/On%20the%20Origins%20of%20Money_5.pdf (accessed 07/01/2024).
[9] Saifedean writes: ‘“Salability” is the term Carl Menger gave to the property that makes a money desirable, and the more salable a good is, the more successful it is as a money.’ Saifedean Ammous (2023) Principles of Economics (The Saif House), pp. 183–184.
[10] Ammous (2023), p. 184.
[11] Ammous (2023), p. 268.
[12] Vijay Boyapati (2018) ‘The Bullish Case for Bitcoin’. Available online at: https://vijayboyapati.medium.com/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-6ecc8bdecc1 (accessed 07/01/2024).
[13] Luka_Magnotta (2013) ‘I am a time-traveler from the future, here to beg you to stop what you are doing’. Available online at: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1lfobc/i_am_a_timetraveler_from_the_future_here_to_beg/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body (accessed 07/01/2024).
[14] NJ Bridgewater (2018) ‘The Origins of Wealth (Part 2 of 4)’, Crossing the Bridge, 6 July 2018. Available online at: https://nicholasjames19.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-origins-of-wealth-part-2-of-4.html (accessed 07/01/2024).
[15] Will Ogden Moore (2023) ‘Demystifying Bitcoin’s Ownership Landscape’ (Grayscale, last update 11/29/2023) https://www.grayscale.com/research/reports/demystifying-bitcoins-ownership-landscape#:~:text=As%20such%2C%20Bitcoin's%20ownership%20structure,of%20November%206th%2C%202023) (accessed 07/01/2024).
[16] Moore (2023).
[17] See: Murray N. Rothbard (2012) ‘The Fall of Communism in Virginia’ (Mises.org, 02/23/2012). Available online at: https://mises.org/library/fall-communism-virginia (accessed 07/01/2024); Richard M. Ebeling (2017) ‘How Communism Almost Ruined The First Thanksgiving’ (Foundation for Economic Freedom, November 23, 2017). Available online at: https://fee.org/articles/how-communism-almost-ruined-the-first-thanksgiving/#:~:text=Plymouth%20Colony%20Planned%20as%20Collectivist%20Utopia&text=Their%20goal%20was%20the%20communism,property%20nor%20self%2Dinterested%20acquisitiveness. (accessed 07/01/2024).
[18] NJ Bridgewater (2018) ‘The Origins of Money (Part 1 of 2)’, Crossing the Bridge, 25 November 2018. Available online at: https://nicholasjames19.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-origins-of-money-part-1-of-2.html (accessed 07/01/2024).
[19] NJ Bridgewater (2017) ‘What is Bitcoin?’ Crossing the Bridge, 7 December 2017. Available online at: https://nicholasjames19.blogspot.com/2017/12/what-is-bitcoin.html (accessed 07/01/2024).
[20] NJ Bridgewater (2018) ‘The Origins of Bitcoin’, Crossing the Bridge, 5 December 2018. Available online at: https://nicholasjames19.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-origins-of-bitcoin.html (accessed 07/01/2024).
[21] Saifedean Ammous (2018) The Bitcoin Standard: A Decentralized Alternative to Central Banks (Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley), pp. 78–79.
[22] NJ Bridgewater (2021) ‘The Case for a $10,000,000 Bitcoin’ (Medium, 5 January 2021). Available online at: https://nicholasbridgewater.medium.com/the-case-for-a-10-000-000-bitcoin-92a889a17ba6 (accessed 07/01/2024).
[23] NJ Bridgewater (2018) ‘Ten Reasons to Buy Bitcoin’, Crossing the Bridge, 24 September 2018. Available online at: https://nicholasjames19.blogspot.com/2018/09/ten-reasons-to-buy-bitcoin.html (accessed 07/01/2024).
[24] Ammous (2023), p. 390.
