Replying to Avatar HODL

A lot of people have heard my moped story, but heres the math on it.

In 2016 I needed $5,000 to pay my wife’s master’s school tuition.

I didn’t have $5,000 cash at the time, but I did have bitcoin.

Bitcoin was trading at roughly $500, so I would have had to sell 10 bitcoin in order to pay the tuition.

I didn’t want to do that so I sold my car instead for $5,500.

I took $500 of that and bought a shitty moped and used the rest to pay my wife’s tuition.

So I rode the moped around the rest of the year and everyone made fun of me. Usually I play this part of the story up, but tbh it didn’t bother me. The people making fun of me were poorer than I was, they didn’t understand bitcoin or the market or even basic budgeting.

When people would make fun of me I would tell them why I was doing what I was doing. Then I would start peppering them with questions about their financial life.

“Oh so you financed your refrigerator? You’re still paying that off huh?”

“You have a timeshare you’ve never been to? How’d you get talked into that?”

People would generally go from laughing at me riding the moped to feeling shell shocked by me popping their bubble of comfortable delusion.

Still I drove the moped and everyone thought I was being weird and ridiculous and silly etc…

At 100k that decision was worth a million dollars.

At a million it will have been worth 10 million.

And at 10 million it will have been a nine figure decision.

100 million dollars.

I only rode the stupid moped for 8 months.

Ask yourself? Would you face 8 months of sacrifice and ridicule for 10 million in the future?

Because there are things you could be doing today that would generate that for future you.

My advice is to have your own moped moment.

Do something a little weird/cringe/out there in order to stack more sats and then check in on the sats in 10-15 years.

I think you’re going to be happy with the results.

I hate when these are called mopeds. The moped was a light motorcycle that had peddles that you could actually power the rear wheel like a bicycle.

Other than that cultural faux pas it's a great story.

/600px-Honda_Hobbit.jpg

"Historically, the term exclusively meant a similar vehicle with both bicycle pedals and a motorcycle engine." -- Wikipedia

-- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moped

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

Note to self: "e bikes" are real mopeds, scooters are not

Kind of sort of. The moped made you very independent. You could get 100 miles on a gallon of gas which in the 1970s was under 1 $USD. If you ran out of fuel you could pedal to the gas station. It was a miserable pedal but it was possible.

eBikes definitely have a use though. In Portugal I saw a lot of ebikes doing food delivery. The hills were manageable with the electric motor. I still prefer the moped and I'm disappointed that it's hard to buy or find one.

Hmm. Maybe gas stations should add battery change stations for e bikes so you can refill the battery instantly at a station instead of waiting to charge

Yeah my grandpa had one of those. Overtime the term shifted when they stopped making pedal bikes like that.

My uncle had one in the 70s and it was amazing. In the late 90s one friend rigged one to run on alcohol. He started the Hempcar program.

Pedantry is underrated. Thankyou for your service 😉

Ped means foot. This a pedal. Similar to pod as pseudopod. Also pada in Sanskrit is pathway as in walking, e.g. Dhamapada, the pathway to/of Dhama (Dharma).

You're welcome.

Pedagogy is teaching.

To be clear, I applaud it... 😃

In that case I must zap you.

Onwards 🫡

Yup. Motor scooter. I had one.