In a world where next day deliveries and instant gratification becomes all too familiar, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has seen a rampant societal decrease in one of life’s virtues – patience.
I was speaking with a couple of friends recently who have “invested” in crypto and they wanted my insight in to what’s going on with the markets since the sudden price crash.
Not that I’m any kind of guru, expert or professional advisor in any way shape or form, I do still have some pleb thoughts based on my own experiences over the last 4 and a half years.
However, I also noticed that there’s a couple of cardinal sins that normies commit when they first get involved with Bitcoin and I’ve been guilty of it too from my shitcoining days.
Conflating Bitcoin With The Rest
The big question I was asked was “is crypto all going to 0?”
Obviously, with the latest major drawdown over the last month or two, it’s got everyone a little flummoxed to say the least!
For me though, it’s been a much welcomed opportunity to get some sats at half the fiat price from earlier in the year so I’m buzzing.
But then again, I’ve become numb from the last 4 years of topsy-turvy price action and, having been rekt from my previous shitcoinery, I’ve been behaving somewhat maniacally contrarian during bear markets!
So when I got asked that question, I could only speak for my thoughts on Bitcoin as I don’t follow the ins and outs of other altcoin experiments. Although I’m aware of recent multi-billion dollar market cap shitcoins going to zero.
Unfortunately, my normie friends lob Bitcoin in with the rest of the cryptocurrency market thinking that they are the same thing, but anyone who’s spent a little bit of time reading and learning about Bitcoin will realise they aren’t the same thing.
What’s Your Time Preference?
The bit that got to me the most though was when my friends said something along the lines of “I sold everything, I’m out, I can’t wait another 2 years for things to pick up again” after talking about the next Bitcoin halving being in 2024 if they can just HODL but alas.
Sadly, this high time preference, i.e. looking after one’s well-being in the immediate future, is what I’ve experienced in various conversations with friends who mistakenly think Bitcoin is a volatile stock.
Yes there is a strong correlation at the moment with Bitcoin price movements and the stock market. Add to that the way that shitcoin casinos and some “crypto-friendly” banks portray them on their apps with little educational content and you can see how noobs fall in to traps.
With the main trap being the appeal of making a quick buck at the tap of a button and ultimately getting burned, causing many to get on the first plane back to fiat-land.
This is bad news for the individual concerned as they’ll likely never come back to learn about Bitcoin properly and succumb to a high time preference way of life encouraged by fiat society.
Bitcoin Encourages Low Time Preference
Still, it’s good news for Bitcoiners who are looking to pick up sats for the long term as the transfer of Bitcoin from weak hands to HODLers takes effect.
Since the 2008 crash, if you didn’t want to spend your excess fiat needlessly on items you don’t really need then your options for saving your hard earned money are extremely limited, with bank savings rates being next to 0% and not getting close to covering inflation.
Now with everyone feeling the pinch of shaft-flation, it’s getting increasingly difficult for many to hold spare cash at the end of the month as high time preference takes precedence.
However, as Bitcoin’s inflation schedule is known with the maximum number of Bitcoin being already defined and unchangeable, there is a new long term savings account and asset class we have the option of exploring.
That’s not to say that Bitcoin is perfect but when you’re able to secure some sats that will never have its money issuance changed at the touch of a button, it gets you thinking about future plans that you may have put off due to fiat eroding your purchasing power.
“Saving Is Boring”
There is no promise of dividends or cash flow from buying Bitcoin unless you risk your coins on various lending platforms for “interest payments”.
This is why we at TBM think of Bitcoin as a long terms savings account as there’s only ever going to be 21 million with quite a few coins already lost.
No, it’s not sexy to talk about savings, managing finances, putting a spreadsheet together and working out what you have left at the end of each month.
But I believe such practices are essential, if not a little scary to begin with, to help cut unnecessary spends and adjust to the low time preference Bitcoin encourages.
I’ve lost count the amount of times I have to fight off my own impulses to spend frivolously and would love nothing more than to just throw in the fiat mining towel, go travelling and stick the middle finger up to the fiat world.
But keeping track of everything does make it a lot easier to work out what I can save in Bitcoin with it as we all know where fiat is heading towards.
Sure, we never know what might happen with Bitcoin. After all, the fluctuations in prices are still pretty wild in this nascent asset class but as fiat money is programmed to lose its purchasing power over time, I’ll take my chances with Bitcoin’s NGU technology – the test of patience continues…
