We live in a world where very few of us can earn a living wage, even those that do, are starting to fall prey to rising inflation. Each year as inflation increases while wages stagnate, you fall a little more behind; you have to keep running faster, work harder, cut costs only to remain in the same place. We’ve seen the result of this through growing poverty divides and the rise of the hustle culture.
People are looking for ways to earn additional income, be that through side businesses, the gig economy, working multiple jobs, trading and investing.
As the financial economy grows at the expense of the real economy, it attracts more people and capital into the sector. People will instead try their hand at investing rather than do something more productive because investing pays more in the short term.
Gone are the days when you could work and save your money, and that was it; no need to consider risk in various markets unless you wanted to take a risk with your capital. Today you are forced to risk your wealth; you are forced to earn your money twice as taxes and inflation continue to eat into your disposable income over time.
Taking away from your capacity
I find no joy looking at charts all day, listening to the news and trying to find narratives that fit the chart data and building macro frameworks around it. I have no interest in what the bond market or stock market is doing, nor do I have the time to track all of these. I am not a professional investor.
Yet, in the fiat world, you are forced to; if you don’t, you are guaranteed to lose. When you abstain from participating to those that do risk their capital in the market, when you participate in the market, you could still lose if you make incorrect bets.
A possibility that grows as those who have more capital, skill, knowledge and data resources can destroy you on any trading day; in fact, they thrive on eating click traders and retail investors’ lunches.
The truth is you’ve dammed it you do and dammed if you don’t.
Outsourcing your financial future
All these concerns force many of us to outsource our investments to third parties—these index funds or firms who manage our capital for us and take a fee for their services. There is no guarantee they would outperform the market, but you take the risk because you know holding cash will not get you very far. So you pay the fee and hope it pays off in the long term.
Pick your poison
While one method requires more active participation than the other, they both provide no surety or safety in your funds. You still sit with the worry that you are being devalued by inflation, and once you do take your profits, you need to consider the tax implications. These considerations weigh on the average person’s mind all the time, especially as bills increase and the standard of living deteriorates.Â
So much of your mental bandwidth gets absorbed by your financial situation that you cannot entirely focus on yourself and what you’re good at or want to be good at in the future.
We see so many people riddled with stress from financial burdens, and it takes a toll on their productivity.
Taking the complexity out of saving
Saving in the past could be done with cash or precious metals, then it became the 60/40 bond stock portfolio, and now you have to add even more risk like private equity to help make up the shortfall. Â
So saving has become far more nuanced and complicated the more you try to outpace inflation. But what if there were a way to beat inflation that was simple, a way to acquire an asset that outpaces inflation, you would store it away and only tap into it when you need it.
Would that not make your life easier?
What if saving was its only function, and it became an automatic part of your life? Imagine a world where you can focus on what you enjoy doing while your savings are safely tucked away for the future.
Do you think that you’d be more committed to saving?
I think so, and I believe that this automaticity that bitcoin provides will free up many people to focus on real problems the world faces instead of the bullshit box-ticking jobs we have today.
What is automaticity?
Automaticity is the ability to do things without occupying the mind with the low-level details required, becoming an automatic response pattern or habit.
It is usually the result of learning, repetition, and practice. Think about when you first learned to drive; you were checking everything, conscious of where you’re going, the speed, the signs on the road, and your blindspot.
After a few years, you could be singing along to your favourite tunes, and by the time you realise it, you’re parking at the shopping mall and wondering how I got here?
That’s the power of automaticity.
Benefits of automaticity
Think of automaticity as an autopilot that kicks in on certain functions freeing you up to do thinking that can be beneficial. For example, it frees up our attentional resources so we don’t become overwhelmed by even the simplest tasks. You can easily wash the dishes while thinking up your grocery list.
Providing improved efficiency
By slipping into this automated mode for routine tasks, people can function quickly and efficiently in their daily lives without having to devote attention to every tiny detail. Thanks to learning, practise, and repetition, repeated behaviours can become automatic.
Comfort in different environments
Automaticity also allows people to feel comfortable and familiar with different environments. Through our experiences, we learn what is typical and expected in various similar yet different situations.
Applying automaticity to savings
Now consider freeing ourselves from all the worry that comes with modern-day saving through bitcoin. When you save in bitcoin, you know you cannot be diluted; there is only 21 million bitcoin, there will never be more, and your share of the network only increases or decreases by your decision to buy or sell it.
When you have a scoreboard that cannot be rigged and everyone plays by the rules, you have the security to keep increasing your score, knowing that it will provide you with resources for the future.
Saving becomes an afterthought; you do it because it’s what you’ve always been doing and because it rewards you for doing the work. You build conviction, and you allocate less mental capacity towards trying to outpace the market.
Maximising human capacity
As humans, we have a limited capacity for thought and action and to use our time constructively, instead of wasting our time looking at numbers and discussing theories that will help us exchange assets to try and increase some number in our account.
You can focus your energy on creating something you enjoy, be that art, a craft, a hobby, a business and exploiting opportunities you would have ignored because you’re so focused on investing, which isn’t a profitable way to spend your time for most of us.
Freeing up that time, energy and intellectual capacity of people and allowing them to focus on problems that fit their skill would unlock more productivity. We would have more products and services as active participants look for new ways to make money and increase their bitcoin position.
Bitcoin would, in theory, allow people to optimise their time better, to find ways to leverage their skills and talents to earn more bitcoin, driving massive deflation in a range of industries.
The more deflation we have, the cheaper life becomes in bitcoin terms as the supply of other goods and services increase faster than the supply of bitcoin.
