Claims Under Review

“Bitcoin's mining difficulty is in the second-longest stretch in its history without a new all-time high.”

True, with one qualification the claim does not state. Difficulty last set an all-time high of 1.5597 × 10¹⁴ at the adjustment at height 921,312, timestamped 29 October 2025, and had not exceeded it 324 days later on 19 September 2026. Measured between successive all-time highs, the only longer completed stretch caused by a decline is the 364 days from 1 August 2011 to 30 July 2012. There is, however, a longer interval still: the 360 days from the genesis block to the first adjustment on 30 December 2009, during which difficulty sat at its floor of 1 because there was not yet enough hashrate to raise it. Ranking the current stretch second therefore requires excluding that period, which is defensible — it was a starting condition, not a decline — but it is an exclusion and it is unstated. The current stretch passes the 1 August 2011 record on 28 October 2026 and completes a full year on 29 October 2026.

3 sources · checked 19 Sep 2026

“The Founders made debasement a capital crime.”

Section 19 of the Coinage Act of 1792 made it a felony punishable by death for an officer or person employed at the United States Mint, acting for profit or with fraudulent intent, to debase coins or embezzle metals or coins entrusted to the Mint. It did not prescribe that penalty for legislators, executive policymakers, monetary officials generally, or every act later described as currency debasement.

1 source · checked 26 Aug 2026