6/8 - Consider the scale mismatch. Bitcoin traded around $650 in July 2016, which put the missing 850,000 BTC at roughly $550 million. The bail securing the release of the man at the center of it all came to about 0.017% of that.

7/8 - Who actually paid the ¥10 million was never confirmed. Reddit speculation pointed to his Japanese wife, who had relocated to Canada. And freedom came with a leash: the bail terms prohibited Karpeles from leaving Japan, the country that had just held…

2/7 - On July 14, 2016, Seattle startup iPayYou launched Pay-by-Twitter. You sent Bitcoin to any Twitter handle. An automated tweet notified the recipient, who clicked a link to claim it as BTC or convert it to dollars deposited into their bank.

https:/…

3/7 - The elegance was in what it removed. No copying a 34-character address, no QR codes, no "which wallet do you use?" The Twitter handle WAS the payment address. Founder Gene Kavner, a veteran of Amazon, Microsoft, and Expedia, aimed at Twitter's 310 million…

4/7 - One feature stood out as almost heretical: you could cancel a payment after sending it. Bitcoin transactions are famously irreversible, and iPayYou deliberately softened that edge to make Bitcoin feel like a normal payment app, where mistakes can be…

5/7 - The idea wasn't new. ChangeTip had let people tip Bitcoin via Twitter mentions, got acquired by Airbnb in 2016, and was shut down. iPayYou positioned itself as the fuller successor: a complete wallet, not a tipping toy, with the same trick extended…

6/7 - The punchline came from Kavner himself. 3 months later, announcing a gift card marketplace on October 27, 2016: "the world of Bitcoin is desolate. The lack of fully integrated, seamless ways to spend bitcoin for everyday goods and services is what iPayYou…

Aaron presenting at Learning Bitcoin 2024:

Aaron on the "Inflation is a Silent Tax" panel at Learning Bitcoin 2025 with @tomkaradza @bitcoinyqr and @TJMacD :
https://youtu.be/8KkN8O9w9M4

My favourite slide from Aaron's presentation at Learning Bitcoin 2024:

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Tenha acesso agora mesmo a todo o conteúdo exclusivo para assinante...

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