I am a bitcoiner who doesn’t shut up about bitcoin, can’t you tell? I created an entire site so I could have a place to dump my thoughts and ramblings since I don’t know anyone who would be willing to listen to me pontificate about monetary policy and its effects on the planet. I get it; it’s BORING; when are you going to tell me how I get rich so I can spend my time on the beach getting a tan.
When the ship seems to be going full steam ahead, and you’re the only one sitting in the lifeboat with a life jacket on yelling, the boat is sinking; you will look like the delusional one; I completely get that.
We’ve had so many gold bugs, black swan evangelists, and downright nutters cry wolf that people have become numb to it, and the bitcoin message tends to drown out among normies. Meanwhile, normies and fiat maximalists will post rationalise increased prices and accept a lower standard of living despite rampant deflation through the expansion of technology.
We are all finding the moment where bitcoin clicks.
I can see it in the way people react and the rhetoric; people feel something is wrong. They find different scapegoats to blame or ignore it as they are too lazy or too accepting to find out what it is or how to articulate it.
As bitcoiners, we’ve found a tool that is a reference point in the chaos and frames our thinking and worldview. Once it clicks for you, it can be pretty hard to go back to the normie way of thinking or empathise with that mindset.
Once you understand bitcoin, once you know the forces of deflation and the grotesque and perverted nature of the fiat system, and how bitcoin provides a hedge against it all and is pristine collateral, you will want to stack it aggressively and never part with it.
If you hear people talking about how they will sell bitcoin to “take profits’ you can assume right then and there that they have not done their homework and are not far enough down the rabbit hole. It’s okay, I mean, it’s your money, and you can do as you please with it, even if it is a bad financial decision. Stackers will be there to gobble up that extra supply and punish you for your low time preference.
I think the best way to learn is to get burned; it’s a lesson that will live with you for a lifetime. It’s a right of passage, so don’t feel like you’re the only one who will go through it.
I have, and now I know a little bit better.
I am sure I will get burned a few more times in the future, and I am open to that possibility; I don’t know everything but im here and ready to learn.
Don’t spend your bitcoin.
Ask any real Bitcoiner; it doesn’t matter if you have one bitcoin or one satoshi; stacking is stacking. In a world with relative abundance in everything except bitcoin, you will want to gather the most liquid, most scarce and therefore most valuable means of transacting wealth across space and time.
As humans, we understand the idea of keeping resources for the future; even if the fiat system continues to erode the incentive to do so, we think we have to deploy capital and find all sorts of silly reasons to do so; that’s mindless consumerism for you.
Then ask any real bitcoiner, what’s the first rule of bitcoin, you NEVER sell your bitcoin.
So what’s the point of stacking all this bitcoin if you’re never going to spend it? You still want to live and enjoy the fruits of your labour, and this is true; there will come a time when spending your bitcoin won’t be such a grossly shortsighted economic miscalculation.
However, as it is still such a nascent asset class with so much upside potential, it behoves you to be prudent with your bitcoin. At the moment, it would be far better to borrow against your bitcoin if you want to extract the value from it and protect your potential upside, but that’s a story for another day.
Suppose you are privileged to have enough fiat to cover your living expenses and allow you to stack bitcoin. You are in the driving seat right now and in a fortunate position that should not be squandered.
Why I break this rule of not spending bitcoin
I’ve spent most of this post telling you why you should not spend your bitcoin, yet now I am telling you that I spend mine, but it’s not what you may think. I am not spending my bitcoin on meaningless consumer goods or experiences I can pay for in fiat. I would rather spend the bad money and keep the good money.
I am happy I can pay my bills and meet my living obligations in a currency that I don’t value and save in money that I appreciate the most.
Fiat is for spending, and bitcoin is for saving.
But that doesn’t mean I am stingy with my bitcoin; of late, I have been spending more satoshis than I have ever spent before. Each cycle, the CAGR of bitcoin will decrease, and I may regret the purchase less, or so I hope.
The reason, or rather the situations I find myself spending bitcoin, is when I want orange pill other people. Instead of paying for a meal or a few drinks in fiat, I would ask a friend to settle the fiat bill, for example, and square off my half with bitcoin.
I will admit that I double up my purchase, so if I owe someone $20, I will purchase $40 of bitcoin, square what I owe and have the other half to make myself feel better. It also helps me focus on what I spend my money on, as I have to pay double for it and punish myself and drive myself to be even more prudent than I already am.
Sure it may be a financial mistake on my part, but I feel dispersing the coins, creating new hodlers that may turn into stackers is not only good for bitcoin but good for that individual. I may convince them to take a position and have a little hedge or life raft of their own.
If they do happen to cash out, it’s a lesson they will learn from as bitcoin appreciates, and if they don’t, it’s a lesson in how hodling bitcoin makes the most sense. Either way, I don’t see it as bitcoin wasted but as bitcoin used to invest in other future bitcoiners.
An investment I think is worth the risk.
Have you spent bitcoin before? Do you try to help friends get off zero? Let me know in the comments below; I’d love to hear all about your orange pilling tactics.
