Proving that bitcoins don’t exist is straightforward. All we need to do is clarify the difference between a thing and a number.
Let’s start with a basic example. Imagine you have a dozen apples. The apples are the thing. They exist in the physical world. The number 12 is just a symbol we use to count them. The apples are real; the number exists only in your mind, on paper, or on a screen. Simple logic.
This applies to more abstract cases too. Say you own 5 shares in a company. The company is the thing. The number 5 indicates how much of that thing you own.
Or consider fiat currency. A bank creates debt in the form of a loan, which is a legal obligation. That’s a thing. The number, say 1,000, represents the size of that obligation. As the debtor pays it off, the number decreases until it reaches zero. Why zero? Because the thing (the debt) no longer exists and there's nothing to count.
Now let’s examine the Bitcoin system.
We’re told a thing referred to as bitcoins, coins, money, a currency, an asset is real. That this alleged thing gets mined, stores value, and circulates in the amount of 19.85 units.
So let's ask: where is it?
When we look at the Bitcoin system, what do we actually see?
What we see is a digital ledger, a database, and code that assigns numbers to addresses. That’s all. The system records that Address A has 2.5, Address B has 0.3, Address C has 17. It is just a machine updating numbers based on cryptographic inputs.
But where is the thing counted by those numbers?
With apples, 12 meant twelve apples. With shares, 5 meant five units of a company. With fiat currency, 1,000 meant one thousand units of debt.
But in Bitcoin, 2.5 means… what? Coins? Tokens? Where are they?
Some argue, "Bitcoin is digital. It doesn’t need to be seen."
But that doesn’t hold up. MP3 files are digital, and they exist. You can locate the file, measure its size (say, 5 megabytes), copy it, or move it. Digital photos, PDFs, and videos. They’re all digital things. If something exists digitally, it occupies space and has a presence in the system.
So let’s test the existence of bitcoins.
If Person A has 1 bitcoin and Person B has 1,000 bitcoins, then Person B should hold 1,000 times more digital "stuff", more bits, more data. Can we measure that? No.
There’s no file, no data chunk, no digital object that is "a bitcoin." An address with 1,000 assigned to it doesn’t contain a thousand times more data than one with 1. It just has three extra zeros.
So again, what is the thing?
There isn’t one.
Bitcoin is a high-tech illusion. It is a system that records and updates numbers that count nothing. It’s like writing “10” in an Excel spreadsheet. You have a number, but no thing.
That’s why every concept tied to Bitcoin is imaginary.
Your Bitcoin "balance"? That’s imaginary. A balance is a number that counts something, but here, there’s nothing to count.
"Transfers" or "trades"? Also imaginary. A transfer implies a thing moving or changing owners. But here, nothing moves or changes ownership. Only numbers tied to address increase or decrease. Paying money to alter a number isn’t a trade. It's some kind of scheme.
Bitcoin having or lacking "value"? Imaginary. Value is a property of a thing. Apples have value. Gold coins have value. Chaff lacks value. Expired coupons lack value. But something that doesn’t exist can’t have or lack value.
Bitcoin being "limited in supply" or "scarce"? That’s imaginary too. Scarcity applies to things that exist. Since bitcoins don’t exist, there’s nothing to be scarce. The Bitcoin code creates the illusion of limited supply by setting a math rule saying the sum of numbers in the system can be 21 million, max.
Bitcoin as "just a number"? Wrong. One is a number. Two is a number. Bitcoin is just a name for an imaginary thing.
Everything you’ve heard about Bitcoin is just a story. A myth. An elaborate fiction, like Snow White. Even skeptics buy into it, which makes it all the more hilarious. An anonymous guy came up with a system that changes numbers, wrote a story in the white paper about money, and people believe it’s real.
The story might be clever. It might be intricate. It might even be profitable for some.
But just as Snow White never met her prince, bitcoins don’t exist. They’re purely imaginary.