Bitcoin has gone from government laughing at it till governments fighting it.

"first they ignore you,

then they laugh at you,

then they fight you,

then you win"

On Jan 17, 2020 Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs offered 16 Bitcoins to any one who is willing to do Bitcoin Block-chain analysis to deanonymize bitcoin transactions.  This is the last step before Bitcoin becomes the currency of choice. Sure it has been 7 years since the US arrested/convicted Ross Ulbricht for allowing people to buy drugs anonymously. Some people have been trying to use Coinjoin to avoid KYC (Know your customer) rules. The problem with using Bitcoin is you can't send the whole amount in your address so whatever is left behind at least one person knows who you are.
Is there a better way to keep your privacy? Several of the most prolific Bitcoin Core contributors — including Pieter Wuille, Anthony Towns, Johnson Lau, Jonas Nick, Andrew Poelstra, Tim Ruffing, Rusty Russell and, indeed, Gregory Maxwell — are working on a Schnorr signature proposal that would include Taproot, all in one protocol upgrade. If this upgrade goes ahead it will be harder to deanonymize bitcoin transactions. There is not a time frame on this proposal, but probably will be available for smart contracts in a years time. The second layer Lightning network does help deanonymizing bitcoin transactions because there is no permanent block-chain record -- just signatures that you lost x amount of Bitcoin to the cosigner. x amount of on chain BTC is still available in your wallet.
Iran has been sending oil to China even though the US outlawed it. Venezuelan has had a hard time trying to avoid US sanctions.  Maybe in the future Central Banks will be asked how much Bitcoin they have rather than how much gold they have stored at Fort Knoxs.

AMEN Do That.

Bitcoin's network value

There are a number of ways you can value an asset. Here are the 2 most important ways.

1. Cost Method -How quickly you get your investment back
2. Market Value Method -What someone will pay you for the asset

When analyzing Bitcoin's market value we see a 140 Billion variation over the last 2 years; which is why there is a lot of truth to the fact that most people don't understand Bitcoin.

Another way to evaluate is via what people have paid for it.

This is called realized market cap. As you can see by the graph people as a whole have paid 102 Billion to store Bitcoin in their wallets. The value really went up 2 years ago when some people where paying US$20k to get a Bitcoin. If you average the cost out per Bitcoin -- Realized Market cap divided by active wallets-- people will have paid US$5700 for 1BTC. This means to me the cost of Bitcoin going below US$5700 is slim.

My history in Bitcoin

9 years ago today Doug and I where having a hard time understanding Paypal's role in our "current" monitary system. So, I mentioned the idea of Bitcoin to him. This (according to my gmail history --see image) was my first conversation with a friend about sending money over the internet. Paypal was already 10 years old and generating almost 1 billion every year. This is when Paypal decided to freeze money that was destined for Bitcoin. Now there are over 400 exchanges and every fiat currency can find a way into Bitcoin. In Canada yesterday, we had 86 million go in/out of btc/can, which is normal. See CBIX  What is so amazing to me, even though Paypal tried to stop Bitcoin, Bitcoin has now come out ahead.  Bitcoin is now worth 1/4 of a trillion dollars.