About

Last Coin Standing exists to help people better understand Bitcoin - from perspectives and angles they may not have encountered before. This isn't about investment thesis, and it's not a deep dive into the technical underpinnings of the protocol. It's a philosophical examination and appreciation of Bitcoin's unique properties, from first principles: what makes it special, what makes it unprecedented, and why it is likely to become the last coin standing.

The interactive tools on this site are designed to drive home these insights with visceral impact.

John McCabe

@lastcoinstandng

I'm a Bitcoin Maximalist, putting in my few thousand hours since 2017. I have a degree in Economics and Business from Trinity College Dublin, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. I've spent 25 years working in Product Management in Silicon Valley, including long stints at Yahoo and Mastercard - the latter focused specifically on merchant loyalty, an expertise I've since turned toward Bitcoin.

I'm currently working full-time on a Bitcoin venture.

I've been published in Bitcoin Magazine and have been a guest on a number of Bitcoin podcasts. Bitcoin is the most important of my interests and I devote a significant amount of my time - professional and personal - to better understanding it and helping others understand it, to the extent that I can.

• Bitcoin Magazine
  Merchant Loyalty Competitive Advantage — Reimagined Through Bitcoin
• Once Bitten! A Bitcoin Podcast · Episode #480
  Working On Bitcoin
• Bitcoin for Millennials · with Bram Kanstein
  Video Interview

On this site you'll find a growing collection of interactive visualizations, each designed to make a different dimension of Bitcoin's design tangible. The approach is always the same: contrast and clarity — showing what Bitcoin is by demonstrating what everything else isn't. No investment advice, no price predictions. Just structural arguments, made visible.

I also write longer-form pieces on my Substack, exploring the economic, philosophical, and strategic dimensions of the Bitcoin migration. My goal is to provide coherent insights that move you toward a deeper understanding of what Bitcoin is — and an appreciation of why it represents a paradigm shift. More to come.

Numbers across Last Coin Standing are denominated in US dollars. This is deliberate. The question comes up often from readers outside the United States, so a brief explanation is warranted.

Bitcoin trades primarily against the dollar. The deepest order books, the longest historical record, the canonical Power Law fit — all are USD-anchored. Presenting bitcoin's projected path in any other currency means also projecting that currency against USD over the same horizon; for retirement-scale time windows, the second forecast is its own deeply uncertain problem, layered on top of the first. The figures on this site are uncertain enough already; adding a layer of currency-trajectory uncertainty would make them feel more precise while actually being less so.

There is a second, more interesting reason. Bitcoin's case is strongest for readers whose local currency is losing ground to the dollar. If you live in Turkey, Argentina, Nigeria, Lebanon, or much of the rest of the world — anywhere the local currency is debasing faster than USD — your bitcoin's purchasing power in local terms will grow even faster than what these numbers show. The USD figures are the conservative presentation. Converting them to lira or pesos at today's spot rate would make the bitcoin case appear smaller than it actually is, not larger; the conversion would underweight precisely the dynamic that brought you to bitcoin in the first place.

So: read the numbers as USD figures, with the understanding that for most non-US readers, your bitcoin's local purchasing power will exceed what's displayed. The asymmetry favors you. The conversion math is yours to do at the rate you experience; this site stays in the canonical currency the asset is priced in, and lets you carry the rest.

I'm always interested in connecting with others who are thinking seriously about Bitcoin's role in the real economy - whether that's monetary theory, the broader migration from fiat to sound money, or the future Bitcoin is making possible. If you'd like to connect, have me on your podcast, or share ideas, reach out.