Jeff Sales space spent about 15,000 hours making an attempt to kill Bitcoin. He failed. The Canadian entrepreneur says the try left him extra satisfied the community can’t be damaged.
Sales space is a founding companion at Ego Dying Capital and a director at Core Scientific. He wrote the 2020 guide The Worth of Tomorrow. His conclusion is that he was the weak hyperlink, not the code.
Why a 20-Yr Tech Veteran Set Out to Kill Bitcoin
Sales space didn’t begin as a believer. He co-founded the web constructing provider BuildDirect in 1999 and ran it for 18 years. When his guide landed in January 2020, Bitcoin (BTC) bought a single paragraph.
The issue was not the maths. It was the ability he anticipated to return after it. At that stage he doubted the community may keep decentralized and safe in opposition to a decided state.
So he tried to interrupt it. He ran a node. He modeled the assaults a authorities, a rival, or a big miner would use.
“I spent about 15,000 hours making an attempt to say, ‘How do I kill Bitcoin? What does that seem like?’” Sales space stated in an interview with the Wolf of All Streets, Scott Melker.
The timing of that verdict issues. BTC presently trades close to $63,000 with a market worth round $1.27 trillion. That’s roughly 50% under the file $126,198 it set on October 6, 2025.
Sales space argues value and safety are separate questions. One strikes each day. The opposite has not moved in any respect.
What 15,000 Hours of Assaults Really Discovered
Each state of affairs bumped into the identical wall. Blocks saved arriving on schedule, and each price actual vitality to supply.
“…each 10 minutes there was a brand new block bounded by vitality decentralized and safe and it could emerge precisely just like the web…”
The comparability is deliberate. Early web protocols stayed slender, so anybody may construct on prime with out asking permission. Sales space reads Bitcoin the identical manner.
The rulebook backs him up on one level. Roughly 24,000 reachable nodes implement the identical consensus guidelines right now, and the 21 million provide cap survived one other public spherical of debate this month after Adam Again rejected a proposal to carry it.
“Do I feel Bitcoin is decentralized and safe proper now? Sure, I do.”
His cash follows the conclusion. Sales space helped discovered Ego Dying Capital in 2022, a fund that backs software program corporations constructed on Bitcoin moderately than miners or tokens.
It closed a $100 million second fund in July 2025. He has additionally sat on the board of Core Scientific because the mining agency left Chapter 11 in January 2024.
The Dangers Sales space Nonetheless Names
He doesn’t declare the community is completed or flawless.
“Mining swimming pools are a threat. Centralization mining is a threat.”
Each dangers are measurable. Three swimming pools produced about 61% of all blocks over the previous month. Roughly 80% of reachable nodes run one shopper, Bitcoin Core, which leaves a single codebase carrying a lot of the community.
Sales space expects competitors to grind these numbers down with none protocol change. His argument is that costly miners merely go bust.
The maths helps the stress. Riot Platforms spent $90,631 per coin final quarter as soon as depreciation is counted, far above the present market value. Hashrate has fallen about 22% from its October 2025 peak as miners depart the community or hire their energy to AI tenants as an alternative.
Core Scientific reveals the shift in a single line of accounts. It drew 83% of second-quarter income from colocation and solely 13% from mining its personal cash.
The place Different Voices Disagree
Not everybody reads the identical knowledge the identical manner. Enterprise investor Chamath Palihapitiya has known as the vitality shift towards AI a structural drawback for miners moderately than a wholesome cleanout. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong disputes that studying.
The governance battle can be reside moderately than settled. A bunch of builders pushed BIP-110, a brief softfork that will have compelled blocks to sign help or be rejected. The chain cut up at block 961,632 on August 8.
That breakaway BIP-110 fork has since discovered 4 blocks. Bitcoin has discovered greater than 1,100. Mining pool OCEAN nonetheless runs a separate endpoint for the minority chain, carrying 1.15 exahashes per second in opposition to 19.22 on its fundamental endpoint.
Customers have taken actual losses within the meantime. The Coldcard pockets hack and a BTCPay Server exploit each drained funds this summer time. Neither touched consensus, which is the excellence Sales space retains drawing.
That leaves one failure case in his framework, and it’s human moderately than technical. Sales space argues Bitcoin solely fails if individuals collectively maintain pouring their money and time into the system he says takes from them.
He nonetheless expects broad adoption, and he refuses to place a date on it.
“I feel it’s inevitable. It’s only a matter of timeline.”
The following check arrives quickly. BIP-110 backers have floated September 1 for a proof-of-work change and a separate coin. Whether or not anybody follows them will say extra about Bitcoin’s governance than 15,000 hours of idea ever may.
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