$BTC / $KAS I am presenting this chart to the community to document a set of relationships and allow each reader to draw individual inferences from the evidence. I invite fact checking, corrections, and additional primary-source evidence. To what extent was the early development of Bitcoin’s architecture shaped by persuasion, institutional influence, censorship, or intentional coercion? My broader theory is fundamentally Hayekian: layering a monetary base invites the political and institutional machinations that have repeatedly emerged around money, whether the base is gold or Bitcoin. These layers may provide genuine technical benefits, but they also create institutions, economic interests, and points of discretion between individuals and final settlement. Wherever such discretion emerges, so does the potential for monetary power to become concentrated in institutions rather than dispersed among market participants. This is why the relationships shown in the chart matter to my thesis. During the period in which Bitcoin’s scaling architecture was being contested, a network of banks, developers, business investors existed around that debate. The chart documents those relationships; it does not establish that they collectively determined Bitcoin’s scaling path. Rather, it raises the question central to my argument: if a monetary architecture makes additional layers economically necessary for scale, does it also create new institutional positions from which economic interests and discretionary influence can emerge? The connections shown are evidence; their significance is for the reader to judge. Bitcoin’s scaling dispute ultimately presented 2 competing responses to the limitations of its base layer architecture: constrain L1 capacity and move increasing economic activity into higher layers, or increase block size and transfer greater resource requirements to node operators. Neither approach fundamentally changes the underlying linear blockchain architecture. My thesis is therefore that the most politically neutral digital monetary architecture would address the layering of money by sufficiently resolving the decentralization-security-scalability trilemma at the base layer, preserving decentralized verification and security while enabling scalable settlement. Such an architecture would minimize the economic necessity for trusted intermediaries and discretionary authority above the protocol. In the Hayekian sense, the objective is not to find better monetary layers, but to construct a monetary system in which layers are optional rather than economically necessary. I surmise that the deeper constraint is the linear blockchain architecture itself. Increasing block size expands capacity, but it does not eliminate the relationship between throughput and the resources required for independent verification. Simply increasing blocks from 1 MB to 8 MB, 32 MB, or eventually much larger sizes scales the existing architecture rather than introducing a fundamentally different scaling mechanism. As throughput grows, the burden of scaling is increasingly transferred to node operators, who must accommodate greater computational, bandwidth, storage, and synchronization requirements etc. ---------------------------------------------------------- REFERENCES 1. Bitcoin Core - Capacity Increases FAQ Bitcoin Core scaling roadmap, SegWit, payment channels, and block-size arguments. bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/… 2. Bitcoin Core - Capacity Increases for the Bitcoin System Scaling roadmap and developer signatories/support. bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-core/… 3. r/Bitcoin - Contemporary Bitcoin XT censorship/moderation discussion (2015) Contemporary discussion concerning removal of Bitcoin XT posts and banning of users. reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/… 4. BitcoinTalk - Bitcoin XT Moderation Discussion (2015) Contemporary discussion concerning Theymos, Bitcoin XT, moderation, and censorship allegations. bitcointalk.org/index.php?to… 5. MIT Digital Currency Initiative - Bitcoin Core Development MIT DCI funding of Bitcoin Core development. dci.mit.edu/projects/bitcoin… 6. MIT Media Lab - Bitcoin Developers: Gavin Andresen, Cory Fields and Wladimir van der Laan MIT documentation concerning its relationship with Bitcoin developers. media.mit.edu/events/mltalks… 7. Blockstream - Liquid Transaction Fees Explains Liquid transaction fees and the Blockstream-controlled fee wallet. help.blockstream.com/liquid-… 8. Blockstream - $55 Million Series A Announcement (February 3, 2016) Documents Blockstream's $55 million financing round and AXA Strategic Ventures, Horizons Ventures, Digital Garage and other investors. blockstream.com/press-releas… 9. Blockstream - Adam Back Appointed CEO / Investor Information (October 3, 2016) Documents Blockstream's investors, including Digital Currency Group, and $76 million raised in its first two investment rounds. blockstream.com/press-releas… 10. AXA - Henri de Castries Retirement Announcement Documents de Castries remaining Chairman and CEO of AXA until September 1, 2016. axa.com/press/press-releases… 11. AXA - April 29, 2010 Leadership Change Documents Henri de Castries becoming Chairman and CEO of AXA. axa.com/press/press-releases… 12. Bilderberg Meetings - Frequently Asked Questions Official description of Bilderberg meetings, privacy, invitation process and Chatham House Rule. bilderbergmeetings.org/frequ… 13. Bilderberg Meetings - Former Steering Committee Members Official Bilderberg information concerning former Steering Committee membership. bilderbergmeetings.org/backg… 14. Bilderberg Meetings - 2019 Participants Official participant list identifying Henri de Castries as Chairman of the Steering Committee. bilderbergmeetings.org/meeti… 15. Digital Currency Group - Launch and Financing Announcement (2015) Documents the creation and financing of DCG and its institutional investors. dcgco.medium.com/digital-cur… 16. Digital Currency Group - New Investors, Board Members and Advisors Documents Glenn Hutchins joining DCG's board. dcgco.medium.com/digital-cur… 17. Federal Reserve Bank of New York - Glenn Hutchins (2011) Documents Glenn Hutchins joining the New York Fed board as a Class B director. newyorkfed.org/newsevents/ne… 18. Federal Reserve Bank of New York - Glenn Hutchins Departure (2021) Documents the conclusion of Hutchins's service at the New York Fed. newyorkfed.org/newsevents/ne… 19. Digital Currency Group / Mastercard - TechCrunch (October 27, 2015) Contemporary report documenting Mastercard and other institutions participating in DCG financing. techcrunch.com/2015/10/27/ba… 20. CoinDesk - Blockstream $55 Million Financing (February 3, 2016) Contemporary reporting on Blockstream financing; CoinDesk also discloses DCG's ownership stake in Blockstream. coindesk.com/es/markets/2016… 21. U.S. Department of Justice - Epstein Library Primary government repository for publicly released Epstein records. justice.gov/epstein 22. Released Epstein Document - Blockstream Correspondence Released correspondence involving discussions surrounding Blockstream financing. efta.threats.watch/documents… 23. Searchable DOJ Epstein Records - Adam Back Search Search interface for released records mentioning Adam Back. bitcoinprotocol.org/epstein-… 24. The Block - Blockstream / Jeffrey Epstein / Adam Back Records (February 2, 2026) Secondary reporting concerning released Blockstream financing correspondence and related records. theblock.co/news/business/20… 25. The Blocksize War - Chapter 1: First Strike Historical account of Bitcoin XT, the block-size conflict and censorship/moderation controversy. farside.co.uk/the-blocksize-… 26. Blockstream - SegWit Myths Debunked Blockstream discussion of SegWit, Bitcoin Core development and developer independence. blog.blockstream.com/en-segw… $bch ------------------------------------------------------------

A Blockstream engineer saying the quiet part out loud. $Kas