Why do we still need Bitcoin 17 years later?

2025-11-01 12:11:16

Collection

The real world forces humanity to create Bitcoin, and Bitcoin will always benefit from the increase of entropy in the real world.

Author: jk, Odaily Planet Daily

Editor: Hao Fangzhou, Odaily Planet Daily

"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"

"Chancellor on the brink of a second bailout for banks." ------ Satoshi Nakamoto, Genesis Block

Introduction: Two Eras, One Question

On October 31, 2008, as the global financial system teetered on the brink in the aftermath of the subprime crisis, a cryptographer named Satoshi Nakamoto sent a white paper to a niche cryptography mailing list. The title was very straightforward: "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System."

Seventeen years later, on November 1, 2025, as we revisit this document, the date on the calendar is vastly different, but the state of the world is astonishingly similar.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the $2.7 trillion bank bailout plan have been replaced by $38 trillion in U.S. Treasury debt and $1.2 trillion in annual interest payments. The prophecy inscribed by Satoshi in the Genesis Block, "Chancellor on the brink of a second bailout for banks," has not only not become outdated but has become even more glaring in 2025.

Seventeen years ago, Bitcoin was born out of skepticism towards the centralized financial system; seventeen years later, this skepticism has not only gone unresolved but has become more urgent.

The question is: In the seemingly "all under control" year of 2025, when Wall Street has embraced Bitcoin, governments are beginning to discuss strategic reserves, and prices have reached historic highs, why do we still need Bitcoin?

2008 VS 2025: A Comparison of Two Crises

2008: The Collapse of the Old World

In the early hours of September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers, a 158-year-old investment bank, declared bankruptcy, becoming the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, with total liabilities reaching $613 billion.

Let’s understand how that crisis occurred with a simple story:

Imagine you are a restaurant server with an unstable income, earning only $30,000 a year. By traditional standards, you would not be able to get a loan to buy a house. But in the early 2000s, banks approached you, saying, "No problem! We can lend you $500,000 to buy a house; for the first two years, you only need to pay a little interest, and house prices will rise, allowing you to flip it for profit!"

Bank employees care about their KPIs, upper management cares about whether they can sell the loans to financial institutions, and you care about owning a house. In this system, no one was wrong, as long as house prices kept rising, this game could go on forever.

This is the "subprime mortgage" ------ high-risk loans issued to individuals with poor credit and low repayment ability. From 2000 to 2007, such loans surged in the U.S., skyrocketing from about $130 billion to $600 billion.

After banks issued these loans, they did not hold them (due to high risk) but played a "magic trick":

Bundle thousands of loans together
Slice them into different grades of "bonds" (this is called MBS - Mortgage-Backed Securities)
Then package these bonds into more complex products (CDO - Collateralized Debt Obligations)
Get rating agencies to rate these products "AAA" (the safest rating, like U.S. Treasury bonds)

It’s like mixing a bunch of rotten apples with good apples, repackaging them, and labeling them "premium fruit."

Lehman Brothers bought a large amount of these "AAA-rated" securitized products, using borrowed money (leverage). By 2007, Lehman Brothers' leverage ratio reached 31:1 ------ meaning it had only $1 of its own capital but managed $31 of assets.

Until 2006, U.S. housing prices began to decline. Those who relied on subprime loans to buy homes suddenly found themselves in trouble ------ home prices fell, home values shrank; interest rates rose, repayment pressure multiplied; wanting to sell their homes but finding no buyers, they ultimately had to choose default.

As the chain reaction spread, the default rate on subprime loans quickly climbed: about 13% in 2006, exceeding 25% by 2008.

This also meant that those securities once rated "AAA" were actually filled with risk, and the so-called premium assets instantly turned into "toxic assets." The hundreds of billions of such assets held by Lehman Brothers thus lost value overnight.

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, with $613 billion in liabilities and 25,000 employees unemployed.

After Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy, the entire financial system plunged into unprecedented panic. Banks no longer trusted each other (no one knew if the other held those "toxic assets"), and interbank lending nearly came to a halt. The credit market froze, businesses could not obtain loans; the stock market continued to plummet, with the Dow Jones index dropping about 2,000 points in just one week, a decline of up to 14%; the unemployment rate also rose from 5% to over 10% by October 2009.

Faced with this systemic collapse, the U.S. government had to intervene. It first launched the "Troubled Asset Relief Program" (TARP), using $700 billion to purchase toxic assets from banks; subsequently, the Federal Reserve initiated quantitative easing (QE) policies, massively printing money to buy bonds, expanding its balance sheet from $800 billion in 2008 to $4.5 trillion in 2014.

However, who ultimately bears the cost of the bailout? Taxpayer money was used to save the banks, and the Federal Reserve's money printing led to currency devaluation, continuously eroding the purchasing power of ordinary people's savings. Ironically, in 2009, those Wall Street banks that received bailouts still distributed bonuses as high as $18.4 billion.

The Paradox Seen by Satoshi Nakamoto

This is the background of the phrase Satoshi Nakamoto inscribed in the Genesis Block: "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."

The paradox he saw was:

When banks make money, profits go to private individuals; when they lose money, losses fall on the public.
Central banks can print money indefinitely, while savers cannot protect their purchasing power.
The entire system is built on "trust," but this trust has been systematically betrayed.

The white paper was born in this context, where Satoshi proposed a solution: no longer needing trust, using a fixed supply to completely eliminate currency overproduction, allowing decentralized consensus to replace the credit endorsement of a once-authoritative institution.

A New World, Strangely Familiar

Fast forward to 2025, on the surface, everything seems different. Cryptocurrency market values are at new highs, 60% of global stock markets are at new highs, Bitcoin has been included in ETFs, and traditional financial giants like BlackRock and Fidelity have become the largest holders.

Even the A-shares have warmed up.

But what about the underlying logic? Let’s understand the U.S. Treasury crisis in the same straightforward way.

What is U.S. Treasury debt? Why is there a crisis?

You can think of the U.S. government as a family with massive income and expenses. By 2025, this family's "annual income" (tax revenue) is about $5.2 trillion, while "annual expenses" reach $7 trillion, leaving a gap of ------ $1.8 trillion, which is the fiscal deficit. To cover the deficit, the government can only borrow money, which means issuing Treasury bonds. Treasury bonds are like a "IOU" issued by the government, promising to repay the principal and pay interest in the future.

As of October 23, 2025, the total U.S. Treasury debt has exceeded $38 trillion. What does this mean? If repaid at a rate of $1 per second, it would take a full 1.2 million years to pay off; averaged per American (including infants), it amounts to about $114,000 per person. This figure accounts for 123% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP, about $31 trillion).

Even more concerning is the speed of debt growth. In 2000, U.S. Treasury debt was only $5.7 trillion, accounting for 55% of GDP; by the eve of the 2008 subprime crisis, it rose to $10 trillion, accounting for 65% of GDP; in 2020, due to pandemic relief, it soared to $28 trillion, accounting for 98% of GDP; and by 2025, the debt scale has reached $38 trillion, accounting for 123% of GDP.

In other words, in just the past five years, U.S. debt has increased by a full $10 trillion.

Borrowing money always comes at a cost. By 2025, the U.S. government spends $1.2 trillion annually on paying interest on Treasury debt, which has already surpassed the country's major spending items: the defense budget of about $842 billion, Medicare spending of about $830 billion, and the education budget of $101 billion.

In other words, the largest expenditure item for the U.S. government today is not defense, not healthcare, and not education, but ------ interest.

Even more worrying is that interest rates themselves are rising. In 2021, the average interest rate on U.S. Treasury bonds was 1.61%; by 2025, this figure had risen to 3.36%.

What does doubling the interest rate mean?

Assuming you owe $1 million:

At a 1.61% interest rate, you pay $16,100 in interest each year;
At a 3.36% interest rate, you pay $33,600 in interest each year;
Interest expenses have doubled, while the principal remains unchanged.

For the U.S. government, every time interest rates rise by 1 percentage point, it means an additional annual payment of about $380 billion in interest. This is like a self-accelerating "debt snowball" ------ getting bigger and harder to stop.

The U.S. fiscal situation has fallen into a vicious cycle: government spending always exceeds revenue, forcing it to continuously borrow to cover the gap. The more debt there is, the heavier the interest burden; to pay interest, government spending rises further, necessitating more borrowing ------ and so on, the cycle accelerates.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections, this trend will become increasingly severe: by 2025, debt will be equivalent to 100% of GDP, reaching 106% by 2027 (exceeding the historical peak during World War II), expected to rise to 118% by 2035, and could climb to 200% of GDP by 2047. In other words, the U.S. debt snowball is expanding at an exponential rate.

Some may ask: The U.S. is the world's largest economy and holds the right to issue the global reserve currency, why can it keep borrowing? On the surface, it seems limitless, but in reality, there are three fatal risks.

Risk One: Debt Ceiling Crisis

The U.S. Congress has a statutory debt ceiling. In July 2025, Congress just raised the ceiling to $41.1 trillion, but at the current borrowing rate, it is expected to hit the ceiling again in 2026. If Congress cannot reach a consensus on raising the ceiling, the U.S. government will be unable to issue new debt and may even face a "technical default." The debt ceiling standoff in 2023 already led to a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poor's (from AAA to AA+), triggering severe fluctuations in the financial market and putting the government at risk of a shutdown.

Risk Two: Erosion of Dollar Credibility

The dollar's status as the global reserve currency is built on the world's trust in U.S. credit ------ believing that the U.S. can repay its debts and that the dollar can retain its value. However, this trust is being eroded. BRICS+ countries are promoting de-dollarization, the proportion of transactions settled in renminbi in oil trade is rising, and more and more central banks are beginning to reduce their holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds and increase their gold reserves. Data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shows that in 2000, the dollar accounted for as much as 71% of global foreign exchange reserves, but by 2025, it had fallen to 58%. If the dollar further loses its status as a reserve currency, the U.S. government will be unable to borrow at low interest rates, and the debt crisis will explode even faster.

Risk Three: The Demon of Inflation

When debt becomes so large that it cannot be repaid, the government has three options: cut spending, raise taxes, or print money to repay the debt. The first two are politically nearly impossible ------ no politician wants to cut benefits or raise taxes; therefore, the most realistic option is often the third: debt monetization, where the Federal Reserve prints money to buy Treasury bonds, indirectly financing the government.

However, the cost of this approach is inflation. An increase in the money supply means a decrease in the purchasing power of each dollar. Based on 2008, the purchasing power of $1 in 2025 is only about $0.73, with cumulative inflation exceeding 27%. If debt monetization continues to accelerate, inflationary pressures will worsen, and this time, the burden will fall on the savings and living costs of all ordinary people.

The Same Essence, Upgraded Scale

Let’s look at the two crises together, and you will find astonishing similarities:

During the 2008 subprime crisis, the total U.S. Treasury debt was about $10 trillion, accounting for 65% of GDP; by 2025, the scale of U.S. debt has soared to $38 trillion, equivalent to 123% of GDP. The annual fiscal deficit at that time was $450 billion (3.2% of GDP), while today it has expanded to $1.8 trillion (6.2% of GDP). The Federal Reserve's balance sheet expanded from $800 billion to $4.5 trillion, and it currently stands at about $7 trillion. In 2008, the U.S. paid $250 billion in debt interest annually; by 2025, this figure has risen to $1.2 trillion, an increase of about 380%. The TARP and QE1 programs launched by the U.S. government in 2009 totaled about $2.7 trillion in bailouts; today, it is unable to implement interventions of the same scale. The peak unemployment rate in 2009 was 10%, and while there has not yet been a significant wave of unemployment, warning signs are already present. In terms of credit ratings, the U.S. maintained AAA in 2008, but has now been downgraded to AA+ by S&P and Fitch.

The essence of both crises is identical: both are systemic risks caused by excessive credit expansion, both require "printing money" to shift costs, and both erode the wealth storage capacity of ordinary people.

So why Bitcoin?

When the 2008 financial crisis broke out, Bitcoin was still just a concept. The Genesis Block was only just born on January 3, 2009, with no exchanges, no price, no ecosystem, and only a handful of cryptographers discussing this experimental electronic cash system. Its total market value was zero, with no real influence.

By 2025, however, the situation is completely different. Bitcoin has been operating steadily for 17 years without downtime; there are hundreds of thousands of nodes distributed globally, with a hash rate of 650 EH/s, and unprecedented security. Its total market value is about $2.4 trillion, surpassing silver and becoming the seventh largest asset globally.

At the institutional level, BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF has managed $89 billion in assets; at the sovereign level, countries like El Salvador and Bhutan have incorporated Bitcoin into their national reserves; at the corporate level, MicroStrategy holds 640,808 Bitcoins, worth about $6.9 billion at current prices. From "zero price" to $126,200 per coin, Bitcoin has completed a long-term price validation across the entire market.

More importantly, Bitcoin has not only withstood the test of time but has also survived several "catastrophic" crises:

In the 2018 bear market, the price plummeted 84%, yet the network remained resilient;
During the pandemic in 2020, it dropped 50% within 24 hours but quickly recovered;
In the 2022 crypto winter, with the collapse of FTX and Luna, Bitcoin still maintained above $10,000;

This means that when the next systemic crisis arrives, people will already have an alternative solution that has been validated over 17 years of practical experience:

A decentralized system that has never defaulted, never inflated, and has never been shut down.

In 2008, Satoshi asked a question: "If we cannot trust banks, what can we trust?"

In 2025, this question escalates to: "If we cannot trust sovereign credit, what can we trust?"

The answer in 2008 was an experiment, an idea, a nine-page white paper.

The answer in 2025 is a validated system, a $2.4 trillion asset class, a network that has been running for 17 years.

The Reconstruction of Holder Identity: From Utopia to Wall Street

The Bitcoin that Satoshi outlined in the white paper is a pure peer-to-peer electronic cash system. No intermediaries, no censorship, no inflation ------ this is a declaration of technological utopia against the financial leviathan.

The early Bitcoin community consisted of a group of cypherpunks, hackers, and libertarians. They discussed code on forums, bought pizzas with Bitcoin (on May 22, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 BTC, worth over $1.2 billion at today's prices), and validated censorship-resistant payments on the "Silk Road."

But history never progresses according to the script of idealists. The evolutionary path of Bitcoin has been filled with compromises, controversies, and unexpected twists.

2017: The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Launches BTC Futures: Wall Street officially recognized Bitcoin as a financial asset for the first time. Although this sparked controversy over "betraying the spirit of decentralization," it also marked Bitcoin's transition from the margins to the mainstream.

2021: Tesla and MicroStrategy's Gamble: Michael Saylor fully Bitcoinized MicroStrategy's balance sheet, pioneering the "corporate treasury strategy." In February 2021, Tesla purchased $1.5 billion in Bitcoin. The participation of these traditional companies transformed Bitcoin from a "speculative asset" into an "asset allocation option."

September 2021: El Salvador's National Experiment: Led by President Nayib Bukele, El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Despite strong opposition from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a controversial implementation process, this was the first recognition of Bitcoin at the sovereign level. As of September 2025, El Salvador holds 6,313 BTC, worth over $700 million, with unrealized gains exceeding $400 million.

January 2024: Milestone for ETFs: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs, including those from BlackRock, Fidelity, and Ark Invest. This is one of the most significant turning points in Bitcoin's history.

So who is buying?

Today's Bitcoin is no longer just a game for retail investors and geeks, but has been officially incorporated into the asset allocation landscape by mainstream institutions. An increasing amount of institutional capital is entering the Bitcoin market through compliant channels like ETFs.

The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), which manages about $156 billion in assets, purchased $164 million in Bitcoin ETFs in the second quarter of 2024, holding about 99,000 shares of IBIT and 71,000 shares of FBTC, becoming one of the first publicly disclosed state pension funds in the U.S. with Bitcoin exposure.

Harvard University's Endowment Fund (Harvard Management Company) also made allocations in the second quarter of 2024, investing about $116 million in Bitcoin ETFs, holding about 1.9 million shares of IBIT. This marks the formal inclusion of Bitcoin in the long-term asset pool of one of the most influential educational funds globally.

Morgan Stanley's 15 million clients can purchase Bitcoin ETFs through wealth management accounts, with a minimum investment threshold of $100,000 account size. This means traditional financial clients are accessing Bitcoin assets in a compliant manner.

Broader data shows that over 937 institutions have disclosed Bitcoin ETF holdings in the U.S. SEC's 13F quarterly reports, covering various types of long-term capital, including pension funds, endowment funds, hedge funds, and family offices.

Philosophical Reflection: Compromise or Maturity?

This evolution has sparked intense debate.

Critics say: Wall Street's embrace is a form of "co-optation." When BlackRock holds a large amount of Bitcoin, and ETFs become the main entry point, Bitcoin loses its decentralized soul, becoming just another asset controlled by financial elites and "old money."

Supporters say: Broader adoption is an inevitable evolution. The core values of Bitcoin, fixed supply, decentralization, and censorship resistance, have not changed. Even if Wall Street buys Bitcoin, they cannot change the protocol rules or print new Bitcoins.

In fact, the compromise in form has achieved an uncompromising core.

Bitcoin has not changed itself to cater to Wall Street; instead, Wall Street has had to accept the rules of Bitcoin. When BlackRock wants to hold Bitcoin, they must learn to manage private keys, accept a decentralized network, and acknowledge the supply cap of 21,000,000 coins.

For the first time, traditional finance has yielded to Bitcoin.

When Satoshi designed Bitcoin, the goal was not to make it a tool for a small circle but to create a currency system that everyone can use, everyone can verify, and no one can control. From this perspective, the institutional adoption by Wall Street is a necessary path.

Bitcoin: An Asset That Always Benefits from the Increase of Entropy in the Real World

"Entropy Increase": The Key to Understanding Chaos

Let me introduce a concept from physics: entropy.

In the second law of thermodynamics, entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system. The total entropy of a closed system always tends to increase ------ this is "entropy increase." Coffee cools down, rooms get messy, and order always evolves into disorder.

But this physical concept is precisely the best metaphor for understanding the value of Bitcoin.

In economic and social systems, "entropy increase" is not an abstract metaphor; it occurs in every complex system we inhabit.

Imagine a company just established, small in scale, with clear goals and simple processes; everyone knows what they should do, information flows efficiently, and decisions are clear, so the system's "entropy" is low.

However, as the company continues to expand, hierarchies increase, personnel flow, inter-departmental conflicts arise, information delays, and institutional rigidity gradually appear. The initial clarity of order begins to be replaced by noise: more and more meetings, longer and longer documents, and increasingly blurred responsibilities, with managers spending more time "coordinating" rather than "acting." At some point, the company seems to lose its initial sense of direction.

This is a typical case of "organizational entropy increase."

The same applies to economic systems. The more currency is issued, the more complex the debt, and the more entangled the relationship between politics and finance, the harder it becomes for the system to maintain its original order. Every crisis is a natural manifestation of entropy increase.

Bitcoin, however, is a mechanism of anti-entropy.

The "Negative Entropy" Attributes of Bitcoin

Rigid Supply: The Iron Law of 21,000,000 Coins

In fiat currency systems, the money supply is elastic and arbitrary. Central banks can freely adjust liquidity based on economic conditions, and this "adjustment" often means printing more money. For example, in 2008, the Federal Reserve's balance sheet was about $800 billion, and M2 money supply was $7.5 trillion; by 2020, these numbers expanded to $4.5 trillion and $15.5 trillion, respectively; and by 2025, the Federal Reserve's balance sheet reached $7 trillion, while M2 money supply soared to $21 trillion. In just 17 years, the money supply of the dollar has grown by 180%, equivalent to ordinary people's savings purchasing power being diluted by nearly two-thirds.

This trend is not unique to the U.S. The Bank of Japan's balance sheet is equivalent to 130% of GDP, the highest in the world; the European Central Bank launched a total of €1.85 trillion in bond purchase programs during the pandemic; and China's M2 has grown from ¥47 trillion in 2008 to ¥280 trillion in 2025, expanding nearly sixfold.

We can understand it this way: Suppose there were originally 100 apples in the world, and you owned 10 of them, accounting for 10% of the total. But if the central bank suddenly "prints" 900 new apples, the total becomes 1,000, and your 10 remain unchanged, now only accounting for 1% of the total. Your absolute wealth has not decreased, but your relative wealth has been diluted by 90%.

Bitcoin's supply mechanism is completely opposite. Its issuance rules are written into the code, with a total cap of 21 million coins, halving automatically every four years, and no one can change it.

As of November 2025, Bitcoin's supply curve is nearing its end. Approximately 19,580,000 Bitcoins have been mined, accounting for 93.2% of the total, with about 1,420,000 coins (6.8%) gradually released over 115 years through the halving cycles.

This means Bitcoin is entering an unprecedented "scarcity era." First, its inflation rate continues to decline, with the annual inflation rate in 2024 being about 1.7%, and after the next halving (in 2028), it will drop to about 0.85%, far below the Federal Reserve's long-term inflation target of 2%.

Secondly, Bitcoin also faces a natural deflationary effect. It is estimated that about 1 million Bitcoins are permanently lost each year due to lost private keys, the death of holders, or operational errors. This means the actual circulating supply is continuously decreasing.

2. Decentralization: No Single Point of Failure

When a system is overly centralized, it becomes susceptible to corruption, manipulation, and abuse. Power concentrated in the hands of a few means that risks and decisions are also concentrated; once an error occurs, the costs will be borne by the entire system.

In the traditional financial system, this centralization is particularly evident.

The power to issue currency is held by a very small number of people ------ the Federal Reserve Board has only seven members, yet they can determine the direction of trillions of dollars in monetary policy. Payment systems are controlled by a few giants like SWIFT, Visa, and Mastercard, who have the authority to freeze any individual's or institution's transactions. Bank accounts do not truly belong to individuals; an administrative order can freeze assets ------ the 2022 Canadian trucker protest is a typical example.

In stark contrast is the decentralized reality of the Bitcoin network. As of 2025, there are about 180,000 full nodes running globally, distributed around the world: North America accounts for 35%, Europe 40%, Asia 20%, and the remaining 5% spread globally. Anyone can run a node ------ just a regular computer and a 2TB hard drive, costing about $500. The existence of nodes means that rules are verified collectively by all participants, rather than dictated by a central authority.

At the computational level, the security of the Bitcoin network is jointly maintained by miners distributed globally. The total network hash rate is about 650 EH/s, with the top five mining pools accounting for about 55%, but no single entity controls more than 25%. The geographical distribution is also broad: the U.S. accounts for 38%, Canada 7%, Russia 5%, Kazakhstan 4%, with the rest scattered across Latin America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. This distribution ensures that no country, institution, or company can unilaterally control or shut down the network.

3. Transparency

Moreover, Bitcoin's transparency eliminates the information black box in the traditional financial system. In the fiat world, the public is often excluded from key data ------ the flow of funds in the 2008 bailout plan was unclear, the details of the Federal Reserve's QE asset purchases were opaque, and parts of currency swaps with foreign central banks were kept confidential. Even in the 2023 Silicon Valley Bank collapse, customers had no idea that the bank's balance sheet hid a large number of long-term bonds with losses.

In the Bitcoin system, this asymmetry is almost nonexistent. Every transaction, every block, and every transfer is publicly recorded on the chain, and anyone can independently verify it.

Historical Validation: The Positive Correlation Between Entropy Increase and BTC Price

Let’s look at the data.

March 2020: The Outbreak of COVID-19

Global central banks initiated unprecedented quantitative easing, with the Federal Reserve's balance sheet swelling from $4.2 trillion to $7.4 trillion within a year. Bitcoin's response? It surged from $3,800 (the low in March 2020) to $69,000 (in November 2021) ------ an increase of over 1,700%.

2022: The Russia-Ukraine Conflict and Financial Sanctions

Western countries froze about $300 billion of Russia's foreign exchange reserves. This unprecedented financial weaponization has led many countries worldwide to rethink the safety of reserve assets.

2024-2025: ETF Approvals and the U.S. Debt Crisis

As U.S. debt surpassed $35 trillion, when interest payments exceeded defense spending, and when the CBO predicted that debt would reach 135% of GDP by 2035, Bitcoin broke through its historical high, reaching $126,200.

Future Projections: Accelerating Entropy Increase

Looking ahead, three trends will further accelerate the entropy increase in the real world:

1. The Impact of Artificial Intelligence

The rise of artificial intelligence is profoundly reshaping the global labor market. As AI gradually replaces a large number of repetitive jobs, structural unemployment may become a long-term phenomenon. At that point, governments may have to implement "Universal Basic Income" (UBI) to maintain social stability. The funding source for UBI is almost certain ------ printing money. New currency issuance means new inflationary pressures, which also means another round of "monetary entropy increase."

At the same time, the explosive growth of AI-generated content is making "truth" increasingly blurry. Images, sounds, and texts can all be algorithmically forged, and the reliability of information is rapidly declining ------ this is a manifestation of "information entropy increase." In such a world where truth and falsehood are hard to distinguish, a tamper-proof, verifiable ledger system will become particularly important.

2. Resource Competition

Frequent extreme weather events, energy and food shortages, and supply chain conflicts are exacerbating global inequalities in resource distribution. The failure of international cooperation mechanisms is leading to a fragmented world order ------ this is another manifestation of "order entropy increase."

As trust systems between countries continue to break down, a neutral, decentralized settlement layer becomes particularly necessary. Bitcoin has no borders, no political stance; in a fragmented world, it can become the minimal consensus that maintains global value exchange.

3. Intergenerational Wealth Gap

Generation Z and Millennials are the generations that grew up under the shadow of the financial crisis. They have witnessed the bursting of the housing bubble that affected their parents, the heavy burden of student loans, and the gradual collapse of pension systems. For them, distrust of the traditional financial system is not an emotional rebellion but a reality-based, structural understanding.

According to a VanEck survey in 2025, young consumers in emerging markets are more inclined to choose Bitcoin over gold as a means of value storage. They have grown up in the digital age, believing algorithms over institutions, trusting code more than authority.

As long as the "chaos index" of the real world continues to rise ------ currency overproduction, uncontrolled debt, geopolitical fragmentation, and information pollution ------ the value of Bitcoin as an "anchor of order" will continue to strengthen.

Seventeen Years Later: The "Satoshis"

Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared in 2011, leaving behind code and a question: "Can this experiment continue?"

Seventeen years have passed, and the answer is affirmative. But this answer is not given by Satoshi alone; it is collectively written by countless "Satoshis" ------ those who continue his spirit, redefine its meaning, and expand its boundaries.

Guardians at the Technical Level: Code is Constitution

The Core developer community (such as Wladimir van der Laan, Pieter Wuille) are Bitcoin's "anonymous guardians." During the SegWit2x battle in 2017, large mining pools and exchanges united to push for block expansion, attempting to change Bitcoin's fundamental rules. Core developers refused to compromise, insisting that "the value of Bitcoin lies in the immutability of its rules." Ultimately, the community sided with them, proving a principle: code is constitution, and no one can unilaterally modify it.

Lightning Network Developers (such as Elizabeth Stark) built a Layer 2 payment network on top of Bitcoin, enabling small, high-frequency payments. El Salvador is utilizing the Lightning Network for everyday payment scenarios ------ making the original vision of "peer-to-peer electronic cash" possible again without compromising the security of the base layer.

Pioneers at the Application Level: From Ideals to Reality

Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador, is the boldest national-level experimenter. On September 7, 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Bukele launched the Chivo wallet (based on the Lightning Network), providing every citizen with a $30 Bitcoin reward, installing 200 Bitcoin ATMs, and starting a strategy of "buying 1 Bitcoin daily" from November 2022. He also did something unprecedented: in March 2024, he publicly disclosed the national Bitcoin wallet address, allowing the world to view El Salvador's holdings in real-time.

As of September 2025, El Salvador holds 6,313 Bitcoins, invested about $300 million, with unrealized gains exceeding $400 million (a return of 133%). The actual effects are significant: tourism grew by 55% ("Bitcoin pilgrimage"), remittance costs dropped from 10% to less than 1% (saving a cumulative $2.4 billion), and 3 million people use the Chivo wallet (accounting for 47% of the population). Although the IMF strongly opposed this and demanded the cancellation of Bitcoin's legal tender status in exchange for a $1.3 billion loan, Bukele ultimately only agreed to make merchant acceptance of Bitcoin "voluntary," while retaining its legal tender status and continuing to purchase.

Bukele's vision is clear: "When the dollar ultimately loses its status as a reserve currency, the countries that prepare in advance will be the winners. El Salvador will be one of them." Regardless of whether this experiment ultimately succeeds, this small country of 6.4 million people is writing the boldest national-level experiment in Bitcoin history, and its results will influence future countries' attitudes towards Bitcoin.

Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman of Strategy, has pushed "corporate Bitcoinization" to the extreme. In August 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused corporate cash to depreciate, Saylor made a radical decision: to fully Bitcoinize MicroStrategy's balance sheet. He financed continuous Bitcoin purchases through issuing convertible bonds and stocks, creating the "Bitcoin Barbell Strategy": using debt and equity financing to buy Bitcoin, repaying debt with Bitcoin appreciation, achieving a positive feedback loop.

As of October 30, 2025, Strategy holds 640,808 Bitcoins (about 3% of the total supply), with a total cost of about $42.4 billion, and a current value of about $69 billion, with unrealized gains of $26.6 billion. The company's stock price has risen 3,300% over the past five years, far exceeding Bitcoin's own increase of 1,100%. Saylor's strategy is now being emulated by dozens of publicly traded companies (such as Metaplanet, Marathon Holdings), forming a new category of "Bitcoin treasury companies."

Saylor's philosophy is simple: "Bitcoin is the highest form of property in human history. We will never sell Bitcoin, never. The one who acquires the most Bitcoin wins." He transformed a traditional software company valued at $1 billion into a Bitcoin development company valued at over $121 billion through Bitcoin strategies. This is one of the boldest balance sheet restructurings in corporate financial history.

Evangelists at the Ideological Level: Connecting Two Worlds

Lyn Alden, a macroeconomic analyst, explains Bitcoin's monetary attributes using the language of traditional finance. Her research reports are widely read by Wall Street fund managers and pension fund managers. The core argument is: Bitcoin is not a "digital tulip," but an "upgrade of monetary technology" ------ the path of monetary evolution is from "hard to counterfeit" to "easy to carry," and Bitcoin meets both conditions (harder to counterfeit than gold, easier to carry than paper money). She serves as a bridge connecting traditional finance and the crypto world.

Nic Carter, a partner at Castle Island Ventures, reinterprets the energy issue of Bitcoin mining. In response to criticisms that "Bitcoin consumes too much energy," he proposes a new framework: energy consumption itself is not the problem; the problem is whether the energy is wasted. He points out that 52% of Bitcoin mining uses renewable energy, and many miners utilize "stranded power" (excess electricity from hydropower plants), with mining also serving as a "grid stabilizer." This work has changed ESG investors' views on Bitcoin, allowing more institutional capital to be allocated compliantly.

Builders of Infrastructure: Lowering Barriers

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, established a compliant exchange that allows ordinary people to safely access Bitcoin. Coinbase is the custodian for 7 of the 11 Bitcoin ETFs, proving a reality: the vast majority of people need a regulated, user-friendly entry point.

Jack Dorsey, founder of Block (formerly Square), integrated Bitcoin payments into mainstream applications through Cash App. In 2018, Cash App became the first mainstream payment application to support Bitcoin buying and selling, and by 2024, over 13 million Americans had purchased Bitcoin through Cash App ------ this is the most concrete manifestation of Bitcoin's "mass adoption." Dorsey also funded the Bitcoin Development Kit open-source toolkit, helping developers easily build Bitcoin applications.

Satoshi designed the engine, and these individuals built the roads. The success of Bitcoin is not the success of Satoshi alone, but a collective achievement of countless individuals willing to inherit its spirit.

What is the Contemporary Spirit of Bitcoin?

When AI can forge any voice or face, we need a ledger that cannot be forged;

When regulators say "innovation must be within the boundaries we define," we need a permissionless space for innovation;

When everyone is celebrating that "crypto has finally been accepted by the mainstream," we need someone to remember that Bitcoin was never meant to be accepted, but to exist even when it is not accepted.

In an increasingly centralized world, retaining a decentralized option ------ this is the contemporary significance of the Bitcoin spirit.

Conclusion

Let me return to the question at the beginning of the article: Seventeen years later, why do we still need Bitcoin?

Bitcoin itself has provided four answers:

Historical Level: The problems of 2008 have not been solved, but have become more severe in 2025.
Functional Level: Bitcoin has evolved from a payment tool to a store of value.
Philosophical Level: Bitcoin is a negative entropy mechanism against entropy increase.
Spiritual Level: In the triple siege of AI, regulation, and institutionalization, the spirit of Bitcoin is the courage to continue questioning and creating.

But the most genuine answer may be simpler:

Seventeen years later, we still need Bitcoin ------

Not because it is perfect,

But because the world is still not good enough.