Bitcoin · power law · sources
This site didn't invent the power law. It builds on the people who found it, formalised it, and chart it. Here are the primary sources, and a brief note on what each one contributed.
01 / THE THEORY
Giovanni Santostasi, physicist (PhD)
Santostasi turned the power-law observation into a full theory. He argues Bitcoin's price tracks a power law of time (price ∝ t⁶ in his derivation, ≈t⁵·⁷ empirically), driven not by scarcity but by self-reinforcing network-effect feedback loops: adoption grows as a power of time, price follows users² (Metcalfe's law), and hash-rate follows price², each feeding the next. He frames these relationships as mechanistically necessary rather than mere curve-fitting, and treats the model as falsifiable over roughly the coming decade. This site's floor uses his parameterization. (We stress-test the maths on the Disprove the Math page.)
02 / THE CHART
Matthew Mezinski, Porkopolis Economics
Mezinski maintains the widely-cited "Chart": Bitcoin's price plotted against a power-law regression of days since the genesis block, wrapped in percentile bands (≈67% and ≈95% of historical observations) rather than standard-deviation bands, a living, continuously-updated view of where price sits inside the corridor, with an R² above 0.95. A memorable framing from his work: price doubles roughly every 13% increase in Bitcoin's age. Porkopolis Economics more broadly covers monetary economics, money-supply metrics and Bitcoin through charts, writing and podcasts.
03 / THE CORRIDOR
Harold Christopher Burger, September 2019
One of the earliest rigorous public treatments. Burger fit power laws in log–log space and introduced the idea of a corridor bounded by two power laws (a support floor and a resistance ceiling) separating "normal" from "bull-market" behaviour (using RANSAC to handle outliers, R² ≈ 0.93). His long-range projections were strikingly prescient: $100k between 2021 and 2028, then never below it, and $1M between 2028 and 2037. The "corridor" framing that this site's chart uses traces directly back to this post.
Build "References" — a sources/credits page listing the primary works behind the Bitcoin power law, each with a brief summary of the author's contribution. Output one self-contained page. ── SHARED DESIGN SYSTEM ── Dark editorial. Fraunces (display) / Hanken Grotesk (body) / JetBrains Mono (mono). Tokens: --bg:#0f1115 --bg2:#1a1d24 --bg3:#14171d --border:#2a2e37 --border2:#23272f --text:#e6e8eb --muted:#9aa0ab --dim:#6b7280 --accent:#f7931a --blue:#5b9bff --red:#ff6b6b --green:#4ade80. Centered .wrap (~780px), faint radial-gradient bg, sticky nav (hamburger on mobile, hide on scroll-down). Header = mono orange kicker (with leading rule) + Fraunces h1 with one italic-orange <em> + muted lede. Not investment advice; external links open in a new tab (rel=noopener). ── STRUCTURE ── Header: kicker "Bitcoin · power law · sources"; h1 "The work this <em>stands on</em>"; lede: the site didn't invent the power law — it builds on the people who found it, formalised it and chart it; here are the primary sources and what each contributed. Then three reference cards (.ref: bg --bg2, orange left border, rounded right). Each card has a mono orange index/label, a Fraunces linked title, an author line, a row of small pill links (primary URL + X handle where given), and a 3–5 sentence summary: 01 / THE THEORY — "The Bitcoin Power Law Theory" — Giovanni Santostasi (physicist, PhD). Links: medium.com/.../the-bitcoin-power-law-theory-962dfaf99ee9 ; X @Giovann35084111. Summary: turned the power-law observation into a full THEORY — price ∝ t⁶ (≈t⁵·⁷ empirically), driven by self-reinforcing network-effect feedback loops (adoption power-law → price ∝ users² via Metcalfe → hash-rate ∝ price²), explicitly NOT scarcity; framed as mechanistically necessary and falsifiable over ~a decade. This site's floor uses his parameterization; link the "Disprove the Math" page. 02 / THE CHART — "Porkopolis Economics — The Chart" — Matthew Mezinski. Links: porkopolis.io/thechart ; X @1basemoney. Summary: maintains the widely-cited "Chart" — price vs a power-law regression of days since genesis, wrapped in PERCENTILE bands (~67% and ~95% of observations) rather than std-dev bands; continuously updated, R² > 0.95; memorable framing "price doubles roughly every 13% increase in Bitcoin's age." Porkopolis covers monetary economics, money-supply metrics and Bitcoin via charts, writing and podcasts. 03 / THE CORRIDOR — "Bitcoin's natural long-term power-law corridor of growth" — Harold Christopher Burger (September 2019). Link: hcburger.com/blog/powerlaw. Summary: one of the earliest rigorous public treatments; log–log power-law fits introducing a CORRIDOR bounded by two power laws (support floor + resistance ceiling), separating "normal" vs "bull" modes (RANSAC for outliers, R² ≈ 0.93); strikingly prescient projections ($100k between 2021–2028 then never below; $1M between 2028–2037). The site's "corridor" framing traces to this post. Footer: a note that external links are unaffiliated, crediting the model to Santostasi, the corridor to Burger, and the live percentile-band chart to Mezinski; plus the site credit line. ── SEO ── title "References & Sources — The Bitcoin Power Law"; meta description naming the three authors; canonical; OG(article)+Twitter; 🟠 favicon; JSON-LD CollectionPage.