“Understanding Bitcoin”
Disclaimer
This article is not a financial advice. It is only for educational purpose.
Important
Through the article there are several words or sentences that are underlined. It means there is one of my videos related to that topic. Therefore, if you are interested in digging into it, feel free to watch the related video.
1. Outlook and Bitcoin Value Proposition
1a. New Interest in Q1 2023
With the price breaking $27k on 18th of March 2023, I think the bear market is over and that a new “bull run” is started. This will bring many people becoming interested, for the first time or once again, on Bitcoin. This article is for the bright minds who are curious not only to know when to buy but also on Understanding Bitcoin.
1b. “Is it a Good Time to Buy Bitcoin?”
This will be one of the most frequent questions that Bitcoiners will hear. My answer is clear: it depends!
If you look at Bitcoin with the hope of get-rich-quick scheme and you are not able to handle the volatility, then I strongly discourage you to buy it.
If you have a time horizon of at least four years and you can handle volatility, then Bitcoin is, by far, the best asset to buy. The “problem” is that you should look at Bitcoin with the right lens: instead of focusing on the daily price, the right metric is the average price of the last four years. According to it, Bitcoin is a great and stable investment, a reliable store of value.
Another good reason for investing in the long term is that Bitcoin market is around $400b and, thanks to the “nature” of Bitcoin, it can attract a portion of wealth coming from many different type of investments. We should keep in mind that the total wealth worldwide is circa $900T.
In general the percentage of long term allocation is proportional of the level of education on Bitcoin. The more you know, and the more percentage of your portfolio you are willing to allocate on Bitcoin.
The level of education has also a big impact on how a person judges the Bitcoin volatility and the Bitcoin cycles (generally there is a uptrend market followed by a Bull Market, followed by a downtrend market and a Bear Market):
- Precoiner: he will never buy because during a bull market it is too expensive or he is waiting the next dip, while during a bear market he thinks it is too risky or that Bitcoin is dead.
- Nocoiner: he is skeptical on Bitcoin and judges it a bubble during a market and he is proud of himself during a bear market. Unfortunately for him, every new bull market brings the price higher and higher
- Bitcoiner: it doesn’t matter which is the price and in which market Bitcoin is, he keeps buying Bitcoin regularly, because he is for the “long term”
1c. What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is, simply, the most important invention of the century (related video on what is Bitcoin: HERE). It includes three revolutions in one:
- Financial revolution (Related Videos: 1,2,3,4,5,6): with its fixed money supply and its properties, Bitcoin is by far the best money humanity has ever had. Bitcoin will be the tool that will trigger a second renaissance. With better money, our “Time Preference”, a concept well explained by the Austrian School of Economics, would decrease. As result, there would be better citizens, better governments, better entrepreneurs, better politicians and in general a much better society. The biggest property of Bitcoin is its programmed scarcity that will trend to absolute scarcity in 2140. At the moment more than 92% of Bitcoin have been mined and its scarcity, the percentage of supply increase in a give year, can be compared to the one of gold (circa 1.5–1.6%). After the next «Halving», its scarcity will fall to circa 0.8%, making it the most scarcest asset on Earth (in 2028 the scarcity will be 0.4%, in 2032 0.2% and so on).
- Technological revolution: for the first time in history, with the Blockchain, that in reality should be called Timechain (no chance to explain it here, there would need an entire new article on why “Timechain”), the humanity is able to transfer value electronically without the need of a 3rd party. It is NOT coming from “nowhere”, but it is the results of 40 years of research and development. Before Bitcoin, there is a whole history of Digital Money. Satoshi Nakamoto put together many different technologies developed in those 40 years and, by adding the “difficulty adjustment”, the real, big and only innovation he brought, he was able to make the system work. The most important innovation was to have created the Time in a Decentralized World, something that no one has reached before (more detailed information on the Blockchain in these videos: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16).
- Energetic revolution: with its unique ability of channeling excess of energy, surplus of energy and stranded energy, Bitcoin mining will support in channeling more energy, and in particular the energy that otherwise would not be channeled. Every time in history we did a step forward as humanity, it was because we have been able to channel more energy. Furthermore, the whole Bitcoin mining ecosystem will become carbon negative at one point (the latest projection says it will reach “Net 0 Carbon” by December 2024), meaning it will contribute to reduce CO2 emissions and to fight climate change. Environmentalists will be one day in favour of Bitcoin, but they don’t know it yet (more detailed information on Bitcoin and energy consumption in these videos: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
I believe that decades from now historians will choose the 3rd of January 2009 as the date for the shift from the modern to the information/digital age. It was the day when the Bitcoin protocol started and the first block was created.
2. Understanding Bitcoin, Why is it so Hard?
2a. A very Hard Selection — Main Blockers on Understanding Bitcoin
I like to say that Understanding Bitcoin is a very hard selection in terms of intellectual challenge and whoever is listening to the common narrative and is not willing to do the hard work of deeply studying Bitcoin, unfortunately for him/her , didn’t pass that selection. I have estimated that so far only 0.00125% of the world population (100k) has understood Bitcoin, with the remaining 99.99875% having no knowledge or not enough knowledge to have an educated opinion on Bitcoin. There are several reasons behind it:
- The price crashed in 2021–2022: it went down from $69k in Nov-21 to $15.5k in Dec-22 (-77.5%). Barely no one becomes curious of something when the price is trending down, especially for those who are in their “first Bitcoin cycle”;
- It is a “Complex New Technology”: as it happened with electricity, with the car, with the telephone and with the internet, in the first years only a very small % of population is able to understand it. To understand a new technology is very hard, and the brain struggles also because there is nothing to compare to (on this regard, Satoshi Nakamoto wrote that to explain Bitcoin is “bloody hard”). Therefore the vast majority of the people dismiss the new technology at an early stage, reconsidering it only when it is not so new anymore and consequently it is easier to understand;
- It includes “very high numbers”: while the human brain is used to figure out how much is a million or how much is a billion, it struggles with higher numbers, and Bitcoin requests it several times. One example is when considering the Hash Rate, the total amount of computations made by all computers in the Bitcoin mining network per second. Currently we have reached a level of 350 quintillion of hashes per second, meaning that every second the amount of computation is equal to 350 quintillion, an equivalent of 350 thousand of quadrillion of 350 million of trillion and of 350 billion of billion. Definitely something very hard to figure out. Making a comparison, scientists estimate that there are 7.5 sextillions of grain of sands in the Earth. This means that every 21 seconds there are as many computations as there are grain of sands in the world. Another example is the odd to guess the private key of a Bitcoin wallet: 2^256, an incredibly high number. As comparison, the most famous lottery in US is the Powerball, where each ticket has one chance of every 292,000,000 to be the winning ticket: the odds to guess a private key is equivalent to win the Powerball nine times in a row!
- It is very multi-disciplinary topic: never in the history it happened to have so many different subjects belonging to only one topic. To be able to understand Bitcoin, a person should be, at the same time, quite knowledgeable on at least 12 different subjects. Barely no one is highly educated in all of them “by chance” because they are so different from each other. For this reason, there was 0% chance that something like Bitcoin would come from Academia, because in universities people become very knowledgeable on specific topics, while Bitcoin involves many different aspects of our life;
- It is a (almost) “Perfect New Technology”: we are used to think that once a new technology is created in the following decades it is significantly improved, as for example it happened with the car and with the airplane. Therefore the average person thinks that there will be a new coin that would be better than Bitcoin and that with the advance of technology Bitcoin will be improved. Surely there has been slight improves over the years and some others will happen, but they were all of secondary importance. All the core features of Bitcoin (cap at 21m, halving, block at 1Mb, block every 10’, proof of work) remained the same and will always remain the same. Quoting Satoshi Nakamoto: “The nature of Bitcoin is such that once version 0.1 was released, the core design was set in stone for the rest of its lifetime”. This is because it is a “perfect new technology” and whenever a person tries to improve “something”, the trade off is higher than the benefit. You can read the words of Adam Back, the inventor of “Proof of Work” and whose paper was one of the eight quoted by Satoshi Nakamoto in the Bitcoin whitepaper:
- The general level of education on economics and money is very poor: also including very qualified people, the basic principles of economics or the basics of money are not yet understood. Questions like “what is money?”, “which properties makes money a good form of money?, “is our current money a good form of money?, “when the government prints money, where does this money come from?” are the basics but still most of the people are not able to provide comprehensive answers to them. Furthermore, the average person, due to his poor knowledge on economics, thinks that money should come from the government, that we need to print money to “stimulate the economy”, that 2% inflation is a “good inflation” and that we need to fight deflation. This is purely nonsense for people who understood economics. If the the average level of education on money and on economics was good, we would already be in a Bitcoin Standard monetary system. If it was “decent”, Bitcoin would already be worth more than $500k. Just as an example, most of the people are not understanding where “inflation comes from”, even if it is quite well explained by Milton Friedmann in this video;
- The common narrative is full of misconceptions: at the moment the vast majority of the economic world is skeptical about Bitcoin. They are justifying this skepticism with.several reasons that in reality are or misconceptions or not relevant (we will deepdive on them later on). Unfortunately, this is causing a big harm on the adoption. Through the years, many smart people became interested on Bitcoin, but reading the articles full of those misconceptions made them skeptical too. It is very important that the new joiners get educated by Bitcoiners (as said, we are only the 0.0012% so far);
- It is very counterintuitive in many different aspects: to understand Bitcoin, a person should be willing to question/challenge several topics given for granted. This is why understanding Bitcoin is not following the traditional path. Generally, in the aspects of our life, there are very very smart people who lead the way by explaining which is the path to follow, and smart and very smart people follow them. But Bitcoin changes it completely: Bitcoiners are so beyond this logic that even most of the smart, very smart, or very very smart people are not able to “get it”. Sentences like “I don’t like risk, that is why I am saving in Bitcoin”, “No other coin can ever replace Bitcoin”, “For the flourishing of humanity, we should live in a deflationary economy”, “The energy channeled by Bitcoin mining is contributing to our development”, “Bitcoin mining will be good for the environment”, “The best monetary policy will not come from economists and politicians, but from math and technology, and it will be enabled by the laws of physics (Proof of Work)” are the basis of understanding Bitcoin, but are also quite hard not only to understand but also to believe they can be true, also because they are quite counterintuitive to what we have given for granted all of our life.
2b. Bitcoin, Not “Crypto”
One of the biggest mistake on Bitcoin is believing that Bitcoin is part of Crypto. Nothing more wrong than this. In reality Bitcoin is not Crypto.
Whoever is mixing them is clearly poorly educated on Bitcoin. There is Bitcoin, whose purpose is to become the new form of money world wide, and there are the Altcoins (alternative coins), around 15k of them, 99%+ of which is pure garbage and the few remaining have a completely different purpose, a purpose whose value is not even 1/1000 than the one of Bitcoin.
I recommend you to focus only on Bitcoin, not on Blockchain, Crypto, Web3, Metaverse, NFT and all the rest.
People in “crypto” use to think that Bitcoiners have a kind of “limited” mind because they are interested only on Bitcoin. The truth is quite different. The standard path is learning about Bitcoin and then be interested also in “crypto”. Only those who have a deep understanding of Bitcoin do the next step: dismiss all other coins because all altcoins are scam or have a negligible purpose in comparison to the one of Bitcoin. Therefore one of the signs that a person has a good understanding of Bitcoin is that he is talking only about it.
Among the influencers, most of them are in “crypto” and not only in Bitcoin for several reasons: some just want to scam other people, some want to sell stuff (product, courses etc..) and it is much more remunerable to discuss about “crypto” than only about Bitcoin, some simply are not educated enough on Bitcoin to dismiss any other coin.
3. A deepdive on Misconceptions and Experts opinions
3a. The Misconceptions to Dismiss
After being in the Bitcoin world since 2017, I collected here the most common misconceptions used to be skeptical:
- Bitcoin is too volatile (debunking video)
- Bitcoin is too risky (debunking video)
- Bitcoin is not backed by anything (debunking video)
- Bitcoin is not money (see paragraph “Financial Revolution”)
- Bitcoin has no intrinsic value (debunking video)
- Bitcoin is used by criminals (debunking video)
- The financial world is still skeptical about Bitcoin (debunking video)
- Bitcoin mining consumes too much energy (debunking video)
- Bitcoin mining is bad for the environment (debunking video)
- The average cost of transaction in electricity is xxx
- Bitcoin mining should move to Proof-of-Stake (debunking video)
- Bitcoin doesn’t produce anything (debunking video)
- Bitcoin is not an inflation edge, as it was planned to be, therefore its monetary proposition failed (debunking video)
- Bitcoin is too volatile and it will never be used as medium of exchanges (debunking video)
- Bitcoin has no industrial value as gold has (debunking video)
- Bitcoin can be replaced by another coin (debunking video)
- Bitcoin can be banned (debunking video)
- Bitcoin is too expensive, I am too late (debunking video)
- If Bitcoin becomes Money, there will not be enough Bitcoin for everyone (debunking video)
- Bitcoin transactions are too slow (debunking video)
Each of them is or a misconception or is not a relevant topic. I recommend you to dismiss all material (video, article, podcast, books) that support even only one of them. Just stating one of them, it means that the author has a poor knowledge of Bitcoin and his opinion should be dismissed.
At this point the reader can think “wait a moment, you are asking to dismiss the opinion of the vast majority of the experts?”, “Yes, it is exactly what I am recommending!” would be my answer.
3b. The Opinion of the Experts
Let’s now do a deepdive on why now the vast majority of the experts is still skeptical about Bitcoin. Some of them, even if few, already change their mind.
But they are still a small minority. I foresee that all the others will, step by step, change opinion and finally embrace what Bitcoiners are saying since years: Bitcoin is the best form of money that humanity has ever had.
An important reason why for them it is even harder to understand Bitcoin is that “It is hard to think differently” (from The Internet of Money -Antonopoulos): “our minds accept patterns that match our sense of reality and discard patterns we are not familiar with. We rely on simple frameworks or mental models so our brains’ limited energy can be directed into what we deem most important and don’t get bogged down in questioning things we already know. We notice things that match our view and we dismiss things that do not. As we build our narrow knowledge on top of that foundation, we might not even realize when the foundation itself is weak. So, we can easily become blind to important information, caught in our own bubble, disregarding some information on alternative views, even when it might be helpful to us. As we saw in the 2008 meltdown, even top experts may not see big changes coming because they, too, are human being with the same cognitive biases as all of us, thinking along established path. After all, in long periods of stability, most of the alternative views prove false and the experts are often right in dismissing them. But in time of great change, the beginner’s mind has the advantage. Without the same fortified foundation of knowledge, the beginner’s mind asks why with the intent to discover the answer and not to defend a previous reality. It is one of the main drivers of the creative destruction process. The expert’s position is one of the key factors to be creatively destroyed”. For this reason, for someone deeply into the Keynes monetary system, will be quite hard to understand Bitcoin, because Bitcoin monetary value proposition challenges his foundation that has been so solid in the experts mind. After all, the digital camera didn’t come from Kodak, Uber didn’t come from a taxi company, Airbnb didn’t come from a hotel chain, Amazon didn’t come from a book store. Why then everyone is expecting that the new form of money should come from the economic world?
Furthermore, there is also the “Ego” problem. The experts in the economic and financial world know Bitcoin since some years and since the beginning they took a position against it. While 10 years ago it would have been much more understandable because Bitcoin was only a “niche” topic, nowadays it is not excusable anymore. But changing opinion on something so important as money, the core of economic studies, and admitting to have been wrong for so long time requires a big level of humility, probably too much for the “Experts”.
Many of them declared Bitcoin dead in 2022 and in 2023–2025 they will be embarrassed from the new bull run. The smartest of them will understand they were wrong, will admit their mistake, possibly also apologizing with Bitcoiners, and they will start to listen to Bitcoiners. Others, for the reasons highlighted earlier, will remain stubborn and still skeptical about Bitcoin, regardless of the quantity and of the quality of information that will be brought to them. They will be the last ones to admit/understand the value of Bitcoin, but at one point they will “bend the knee” to Bitcoiners.
One Sentence that Bitcoiners love to say is: “Everyone buys Bitcoin at the price they deserve”
Once Bitcoin passes again the level $40k-$50k there will be a new “wave” of people talking good about Bitcoin. Ask them which was their opinion during the second half of 2022, with the Bitcoin price ranging between $15k and $24k. There have been endless articles explaining the crisis after the period 1929–1932 and after 2008, but barely no one saw it coming before it had happened. With the same logic, there will be many people explaining why Bitcoin has reached a new “All Time High” after it has happened, while barely no one was believing it could have happened with the Bitcoin price at $15k-$20k. A real Bitcoiner would have always talked about the good future for Bitcoin, regardless which was the price at that moment.
4. The Path to Understand Bitcoin
4a. The 250 Hours of Study
I estimated that a person, to stand a chance to understand it, needs to spend at least 100 hours of deep study on Bitcoin to appreciate it and 250 hours to understand it . I personally stopped to debate with anyone who studied less than this because I don’t debate with people who did the biggest mistake on Bitcoin: “to have an opinion on Bitcoin before having understood it”.
I had already several discussions where the person skeptical on Bitcoin for reasons like “it has not intrinsic value” or “it consumes too much energy”, despite the quality and the amount of information I was providing to debunk his statements, remained with the same opinion. I came then to the conclusion that understanding Bitcoin is so hard that every person who thinks to have a valid opinion without having studied it for at least 250 hours, unfortunately for him, didn’t pass the hard selection. Therefore I personally stopped to debate with any of them because it is just a waste of time: the reality is simple, they don’t stand a chance to understand Bitcoin at this point of time. My time is much more valuable when it is spent with people who are curious, even if relatively skeptical, on Bitcoin. Being “skeptical” on some parts of it is quite normal, and what is important is to be curious to learn and not have strong opinions before having studied it.
4b. The 250 Hours Material
You can look at all the education material at this link: https://storeofbitcoin.com/education/
It contains my 100+ educational videos, and all the recommended materials (20 books, articles, videos, podcasts, courses) to learn about Bitcoin. As you can see, there is plenty of good material available to study Bitcoin.
4c. My recommendation: Study Bitcoin!
Without the deep study mentioned above, it is quite normal that people get “fooled” with the many misconceptions that currently are around Bitcoin. Therefore my recommendation is to study Bitcoin for at least 250 hours before formulating a valid opinion about it. And it all starts asking yourself THE question: “What is money?”
If, without this “hard work”, you think that whatever opinion you have on Bitcoin is a valid and educated opinion, well, unfortunately for you, you belong to the group of those who didn’t pass the hard selection. Therefore, it is better that you dedicate your time to something else, because Bitcoin is not for you.
At this point of time, this is the effort needed to understand Bitcoin. The more the time passes, the less will be the effort required. In the next years more and more people will have a better knowledge about Bitcoin, some misconceptions will be debunked and Bitcoin as asset in a portfolio will be recommended also from the finance world. 15–20 years from now, the average person will have Bitcoin in his portfolio or, even better, will “save” in Bitcoin, without having any knowledge of money, of economics and of the Bitcoin technology. Same as with the internet: nowadays the average person recognize internet as the biggest innovation of the precedent generation and uses it without understanding how it works. Differently, during the 1990s, only those who made a big effort in studying the internet knew its potential and that it was the biggest innovation of the current generation.
Compared to sport, think at Bitcoin as running a marathon under 3h 00’. To reach that goal, you have to have a good trainer AND you need to do the hard physical work to reach the condition needed to be able to run that fast for that long. The concept for Bitcoin is the same. Bitcoiners can be the trainers; they can explain you the reasons why they believe in Bitcoin and they can enlighten for you the best path to understand it, but they cannot do the work for you: YOU need to do it, obviously if you are passionate and curious on the subjects. As for the marathon, without the training required you don’t give a chance to your body to reach you goal, with Bitcoin without the 250 hours of deep study you are not giving your brain a chance to understand it.
On Bitcoiners and education, every Bitcoiner loves to educate people on the matter and he will try to “squeeze” Bitcoin in every possible conversation.
If you meet a person talking about Bitcoin, first thing you should ask him is if he has studied it for at least 250 hours, and if the answer is «no», I recommend you to not accept any advice from him, for the same reason highlighted earlier: his education on Bitcoin is too poor to be able to provide an advice about it.
4d. Don´t “Wait and Study”, but “Study and Wait”
I am a firm believer that the next Bitcoin bull run will follow the “Gradually, and then Suddenly” path.
Once we have reached a tipping point, the price appreciation will be very fast, and only those who have understood Bitcoin prior to that phase will be able to properly benefit from it. All the others will be “paralyzed” by the magnitude of the bull run and will miss, apart of maybe have invested “something into Bitcoin”. We need to reach that “turning point”: once a certain amount of people understood Bitcoin and a certain amount of people has invested in Bitcoin, the growth will be accelerated and unstoppable. No one knows when it happens or which is the adoption % needed to make it happen, Bitcoiners are sure that IT WILL HAPPEN, it is just basic math and just a matter of time.
In 5–10 years from now, everyone will regret to not have bought enough Bitcoin and the price under $50k will be considered almost as a gift. Only the Bitcoiners will not have regrets because they already built a good position during the bear market.
My personal opinion is that Bitcoin will reach at least $200k by the end of 2025 and $500k by end of 2030 (obviously with the “help” of institutional money). Even if it would reach $2m by then I would not be surprised by the price, but by the fact that the world was able to understand it so quickly.
If you think these numbers are too high, let me tell you something you may have overlooked: Bitcoin is the first asset in history with a programmed scarcity and a limited supply. For any other asset/commodity/good, if the price increases because of more demand, the next step would be an increase of supply because the price is higher, and that would bring the price down. With Bitcoin this will not work, because, regardless on how advanced the technology is and on how many people or companies will start to mine Bitcoin, the supply cannot be increased more than the programmed scarcity trending to limited supply. At a big increase of demand will follow an appreciation of price, but regardless how advanced is the technology of the computers used for Bitcoin mining or how many more people in the world will start to mine Bitcoin, the supply increase will remain the programmed one and therefore the price will stay high, attracting other people to “put something on Bitcoin”.
Bitcoiners from all over the World are waiting for the “short squeeze”, the moment when there would not be more Bitcoin available to sell and the demand being still high. It will be a phenomenon that the world has never seen so far, because there was never been an asset with programmed scarcity tending to a limited supply. It is only a matter of “When”.
Remember: there are only 21 million Bitcoin and there will always be only 21 million Bitcoin! (the 19m Bitcoin has been mined in April 2022)
In terms of investments/savings, one important rule valid from 1600s to now has been «diversify your investments», also know as «don’t put your eggs in one basket». Well, for the first time in history this rule has been outdated, and it was outdated by Bitcoin. The problem is that it is clear only for who understood Bitcoin, therefore 99.99875% of the population still believe that «diversification» makes still sense, and believe that those are not following it due to Bitcoin likes too much risk or that they are irresponsible. This is very far from the reality, because it is inevitable that portion of each kind of asset market cap (bonds, stock, options, real estate, art, ETFs) will flow into Bitcoin, simply because Bitcoin is, by far, superior to any of those.
5. A look at the Future
5a. What the Future Will Bring
I believe the question on Bitcoin becoming a store of value is only a matter of “when”, not of “if”. It is a superior form of money, it is engineered to be the best form of money. I also assume that it will be used as medium of exchange in not financial privileged countries and in transfers among countries. On the question if it will become medium of exchange and unit of account in the “West World”, I think no one can answer it with accuracy. We will know more once it is store of value, but surely Bitcoin has all the potential to become also both medium of exchange and unit of account in the West World.
While at the moment only a very small elite of people understood it, year by year, the same opinion will be shared by more and more people and it will be easier and easier to understand Bitcoin. We should keep in mind that once a person understands Bitcoin, there is no way back, because it is impossible to “unlearn” Bitcoin. Therefore the amount of Bitcoiners can only increase.
Somewhen in the future, also people with an IQ of 60–70 will understand it, as now they understand the importance of internet, something that in the 90s was understood only from a small elite of people. We are, still, very very early, and Bitcoin has still a long way to go. Bitcoin is only 14 years old, gold as money is 5000 years old and Fiat money is hundreds of years old, let’s give Bitcoin some time!
5b. A Unique Chance for Our Generation
Understanding Bitcoin is particolarly important if you are in your late 20s, 30s or 40s. Keeping clear that Bitcoin will be the most important innovation of the century, even if another innovation comparable to it will appear, it will not be in 1–2–3 years, but very likely in 25–30 years, because innovations like Bitcoin are coming once a generation, if we are lucky.
Those who are now in the range from middle 20s to middle 40s are the most likely to stand a chance to understand it, and it is the “chance of our life”, because by understanding it at such early stage we can benefit from it the most. As The Internet WAS THE THING of the previous generation, Bitcoin IS THE THING of our generation. We were too young to understand the internet at an early stage (around 30 years ago, in the early 90s) and we will be too old to understand the next “big thing” at an earlier stage, and even if we will be able to, considering our age in 30 years, it will not have such a significant impact in our life.
Therefore I say that Bitcoin is the chance of our life for our generation: spending 250 hours on it can be a game changer of a person life. For how many others hobbies, interests or side hustle can you say the same? I guess the answer is clear: 0.
6. Conclusion
6a. Summary & Personal Opinion
If you have reached this paragraph, congratulations because it means you are interested in Bitcoin.
There is a big difference between having a basic understanding and being a Bitcoiner. Understanding Bitcoin at this point of time can be reached only by dismissing misconceptions and by a deep study. For the reasons specified earlier, the intellectual challenge of it is so high that regardless what a person studied, his current or any future job position, with the projects, responsibilities, duties involved, nothing can be compared to “understanding Bitcoin”. But it is possible, if you listen to Bitcoiners.
For me Bitcoin is the most interesting thing ever: it is about technology, it is about money and economics, it about policts, it is about math, it is about psychology, it is about phylosophy, it is about the flourishing of humanity, it is about elevating the human being to a new level. It is a leap forward for humanity, it is only that 99.99875% has still to understand it, that means that for every Bitcoiner there are circa 79500 people with no clue, poor education or anyhow not enough knowledge on Bitcoin to have an educated opinion about it.
6b. The Three Options
You have now three options:
- (Recommended): start or continue the learning path. Congrats! You will learn the tool that will reshape our society and will trigger a new renaissance, allowing our society to flourish. Understanding Bitcoin is a long, fascinating, journey. Don’t stop till you reached the “250 hours”. During the path, feel free to connect with any Bitcoiner you know because, as stated earlier, every Bitcoin loves to educate curious people on Bitcoin.
2. Not recommended — but “OK”) Being neutral on Bitcoin, not studying it but also not skeptical about it. Fair enough, you are among the 99.9994% who have not understood Bitcoin and it is ok. Many smart people in the past missed to understand the car, electricity, the telephone and the internet ahead of time. You will umderstand it at one point, probably when most of the misconceptions will be debunked.
3. (Wrong) Being skeptical about Bitcoin without having studied it for at least 250 hours. This is a mistake. I encourage you to not discuss negatively about Bitcoin because one day you will regret to not have listened to Bitcoiners and to not have bought Bitcoin when the price was under $50k. Furthermore, there will be high chance that Bitcoiners, once the value of Bitcoin will be clear, will approach you with this t-shirt.
On the options given, my recommendation is…. CHOOSE WISELY!!! :)
6c. Closing Remarks
I cannot close the article without sahring the video of 1984 with Frederich Von Hayek, one of most influential economicst of the Austrian School of Economics and Nobel Prize of Economics in 1974, while he is “foreseeing Bitcoin”.
Last, but not least, I am repeating which is the Bitcoiners mindset in terms of investments. It is quite clear and quite simple:
