About & sources

How these lessons are made — and what they are not.

ILearnBTC is an independent educational project. It argues that monetary hardness matters, and it tries to show the strongest opposing case instead of hiding it. It is not financial, legal, or tax advice.

Editorial stance

The lessons start from a hard-money perspective: supply rules shape who bears the cost of monetary expansion. That is a position, not a neutral fact. Where a claim is contested — fungibility, censorship resistance, energy, volatility, the case for elastic fiat — the lesson says so or links to the counterpoint. If a lesson reads as one-sided, that is a defect. Report it.

The Network Lab is a teaching simulation. It uses real cryptography (ECDSA, SHA-256, proof-of-work) but a simplified P2WPKH-level script model, a small set of nodes, and no real peer-to-peer network. “Real cryptography” does not mean “a full Bitcoin node.”

Data and methodology

  • Money fundamentals: the ECB’s explanation of money describes the three functions and monetary forms. The Bank of England’s money-creation explainer and 2014 research article explain bank deposits, lending and constraints. Dollar amounts in the Money page’s worked example are fictional, not historical prices. Its answer reveals are self-checks, not recorded completion credit.
  • USD purchasing power: annual average CPI-U from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1913–2026, rounded to one decimal; 2025 averages its 11 published months and 2026 averages January–September. Basket costs divide each year’s CPI by 1913’s CPI; retained purchasing power divides 1913’s CPI by 2026’s CPI. Both Inflation charts use linear axes starting at zero; the money-supply chart is annual average M2 from 1959. The CPI figures measure uninvested cash, not personal inflation, wages, investment returns or money-supply growth. BLS historical CPI-U, December 2024 snapshot · FRED CPIAUCNS · FRED M2SL
  • Fiat graveyard: six selected cases from Hanke–Krus (2012), Table 1, plus Venezuela’s two episodes (November 2016–February 2019 and April–December 2020, Hanke, August 2026; the 234% is his April 2018 measurement, Hanke, Forbes, not a confirmed peak, and we could not verify a published monthly peak for 2020) and Lebanon (the 52.6% monthly rate measured when it entered the table in July 2020, Hanke, Cato; no later peak is published, and its doubling time is computed from that rate). The 2012 study documents 56 episodes and the updated table 71 (Hanke, August 2026); these are episodes, not nations or bankruptcies. Monthly peak inflation and reported doubling times are estimates with different source methods (including wholesale prices for Germany and an exchange-rate estimate for Zimbabwe). They are not a uniform official CPI dataset or rates sustained throughout each episode. All percentages are displayed in full, without logarithmic scaling. Rome’s metallic debasement and the old illustrative price-index paths are excluded from this fiat comparison.
  • Supply comparison: Bitcoin’s subsidy is multiplied by 52,560 target-paced blocks per 365-day year, not by observed calendar-year block counts. The 2024 annualized percentage uses scheduled supply at the halving; the approximate 2028 date is projected. Gold’s 1.7% is a historical average reported by the World Gold Council, not a fixed rate. Recycling does not create new gold. Fiat has no single global supply-growth rate.
  • Money scorecard: strong / mixed / weak teaching judgments for each row’s stated question, not a rating agency or a summed ranking. The columns compare physical gold, fiat bank deposits and self-custodied Bitcoin. Supply audit asks about independent verification of total issuance, not merely identifying a genuine note or bar. Bitcoin’s fungibility and censorship-resistance marks refer to protocol capabilities; public history, intermediary restrictions and practical network and custody limits affect their use. Acceptance, liquidity and purchasing-power stability remain separate considerations. Fiat cash and physical gold can change hands directly; a custodial bitcoin claim depends on its provider.

How the currency crises ended

Currency replacement alone is not a cure. These accounts describe the wider monetary and fiscal changes; a statistical episode endpoint can precede a formal currency reform.

Protocol references

Terms used in the lessons are defined in the glossary. Each lesson links its own sources at the bottom.

Privacy

There are no accounts, no cookies, and no analytics. Lesson progress is stored in your browser’s localStorage on this device. It is not sent to a server. The academy never asks for a real seed phrase, private key, address, or wallet data. The mining lesson asks mempool.space for the current network difficulty when it opens; like any website, mempool.space sees your IP address for that request. If that changes, this page must change first.

Terms

Educational content only. No warranty of accuracy or fitness for a particular purpose. Bitcoin and other assets can lose value; custody mistakes can be irreversible. Nothing here is an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Verify protocol details against Bitcoin Core and the BIPs before relying on them.

Corrections

Found an error or a broken exercise? Email [email protected] with the page URL, the exact claim or behavior, and a supporting source if available. Never include seed phrases, private keys or wallet information. This channel is for content corrections, not personal investment or wallet support. Last content review: 2026-10-25.

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