bitcoinwell on Nostr: Bitcoin has a birth certificate, and it's a bailout. Eighteen years ago today, on ...

Bitcoin has a birth certificate, and it's a bailout.

Eighteen years ago today, on October 3, 2008, Public Law 110-343 gave the Treasury Secretary authority to buy up to $700 billion of troubled assets from banks, "on such terms and conditions as are determined by the Secretary."

That's the clause. Not Congress. Not you. The Secretary.

The House had voted it down four days earlier. It passed anyway, and your taxes stood behind it.

28 days later, Satoshi published the white paper. 92 days later, block 0 locked a newspaper headline into the chain forever: "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks."

The rescues never really stopped. They just stopped making headlines.

Bitcoin is the money whose terms no Secretary gets to determine.