1/ If, like me, you've been looking at #Bitcoin over the last few years with interest, but you have never really decided which side of the fence you sit on, this thread might be good for you.

This isn't another opinion piece on #Bitcoin , in-fact, it's exactly the opposite. 👇🏼

1/ @Square buys $50M of #Bitcoin w/ its balance sheet 🚀

let's untangle what corporate treasurers do and why this matters...

the role of corp treasurer didn’t exist until the 1970s, when co's faced high inflation and financial uncertainty

2/ in this environment, companies with no cash management or treasury strategy were losing 10-12% / yr to inflation

modern corporate treasury is typically focused on cash management and managing the opportunity cost of capital

holding cash is *not* a strategy

3/ when i worked in corp treasury, we mostly traded the overnight and short term rate markets

we could earn a nice 3-5% return in these very low-risk assets w/ time preference

treasurers today are living in a radically different world!

RATES ARE 0

TARGET INFLATION IS >2%

4/ faced with this new reality, corporate treasurers (and all investors) are looking at alternatives

#Bitcoin is a highly liquid asset that trades 24/7 in an increasingly regulated and structured global market - and its an effective portfolio diversifier!

5/ Square’s willingness to hold bitcoin on its balance sheet as a treasury asset speaks to:

(1) the changing landscape that treasurers must navigate, and;
(2) their ability to manage the operational, risk, and compliance requirements of holding bitcoin directly

A more detailed explanation of the whole

"A double-spend broke Bitcoin" FUD that was circulated by an irresponsible publication.

1/

There was a chain re-organization in the Bitcoin blockchain. This is a common occurrence that is part of Bitcoin's normal operation. It is a result of decentralized consensus under Proof-of-Work. All PoW chains do this.

2/

Two blocks were mined almost simultaneously, competing for the same height, meaning that they had the same parent block and were trying to extend the chain of the same block

3/

Only one can ever succeed in the long run. It is possible that different nodes and miners see one or the other block first and assume it is the winner. This is also normal in a decentralized consensus algorithm

4/

Eventually, within an average of 10 minutes another block is mined. This new block has as its parent *one* of the two competing blocks. Which one? Whichever one the miner saw first and assumed to be the winner.

The new block extends the chain, resolving the issue.

5/

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

Satoshi Nakamoto
[email protected]
https://t.co/G8BUvnF9nT

Abstract. A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial

institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps

transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came

from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure.

Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone. 1. Introduction
Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial