I made a mistake during my Bitcoin lecture last week in the university of Bologna. One I’m not going to repeat. I assumed something. And I shouldn’t have.

Since I was talking about my job, I told the students that a big part of it is debunking myths around Bitcoin...

You know, the usual stuff: Bitcoin is a Ponzi, it’s going to zero, it’s killing the planet. I built like 15 slides for this. I was ready to fight. Ready to debunk every single one of them, one by one.

So I asked them: “What’s something negative you’ve heard about Bitcoin?”

Silence. No one raised their hand. No one mentioned pollution. No one said anything about volatility or scams. These were 22 years old, curious, open-minded, and genuinely there to learn. They didn’t have myths to unlearn.

So there I was, spending the next 20 minutes talking about gas flaring, carbon-negative mining, and all the reasons Bitcoin is not what “they” say it is. But “they,” in this case, didn’t even exist. The only person bringing up those narratives was me.

And that’s when it hit me. All these years in the Bitcoin scene have trained my brain to always be on the defensive. To expect resistance. To anticipate criticism. And that mindset slowly killed a part of the joy I used to feel when I first learned about Bitcoin.

Back then, no one had told me it was bad. I just found it exciting, revolutionary, empowering. My brain wasn’t busy filtering negative takes it was busy being amazed.

That beginner’s energy, that childish awe, that sense of discovering something precious, it’s something I want to reconnect with. I don’t want to be the person who walks into a room full of open minds and immediately starts talking about the bad things people say.

I want to talk about freedom from banks and government, creativity, women empowerment, potential. I’m not saying I’ll stop responding to critics when necessary. But I want to stop assuming that everyone is a critic.

There are way more people out there who are just curious, interested, open to learning, than there are loud contrarians I’ll never change the mind of anyway.

From now on, I want to speak to the curious ones. Not the ghosts in my head.

Just had one of those nights - our garage door spring broke, sent the door off the tracks, and nearly dropped it on my wife’s car. Got it fixed, but now I’m just thinking about how many sats I could’ve stacked instead.

Yes, there will be many potholes along the way:

- expected EU retaliatory measures, and others

- 2Q pre-announcements and downgrades, followed by artificially deflated earnings and down forecasts

- potential exogenous events (e.g. blow ups, EM instability)

- Apr macro data trickling in May

- revisions to GDP and recession calls

- Fed struggles, maybe even Trump jumps over the fence and takes over

- cabinet reshuffles (eg. Lutnick or Navarro ejected, Bessent runs away)

You say "there was a mismatch between what was promised and what is possible". I agree but not in terms of pain, but of outcomes. I fear that the rebalancing will never arrive or will be smaller than expected. For example, no company is going to commit to big capex investments if things change in 2-4 years. That won't stop them from announcing future investments of "hundreds of billions" as the Admin says. Like DOGE, it all feels like a TV reality show where capturing attention with glitter and drama, day by day, aims to mask a much more complicated and different reality. A reality where real change usually only happens with constant effort and discipline (not edicts and pyres).

By the end of this process there will be a reconning, and the blue collar vote that propelled him will turn to a more extreme and protectionist flavor. Under this scenario, BTC, an orthogonal bet to the system is a good diversifying strategy.

BTW guys, this nostr thing is an awesome therapeutical machine! Thanks!!

I remember back when Israel went into Gaza, and markets took a hit, bitcoin was down notably and many tradfi macro folks who I otherwise respect for good market analysis were like “Why is bitcoin down today? I thought it’s a safe haven, lol.”

Similarly, today when bitcoin is up amid market turmoil, the bitcoin bulls celebrate it.

I’d be cautious about all one-day moves. If you over-emphasize them, you risk looking like someone with a memory of a goldfish, or otherwise operating with selection bias.

However, a point I have made in the past, and will repeat today, is that there are different types of risk-off events. A risk-off event that hurts liquidity is likely to hurt bitcoin. A risk-off event that demands more liquidity, or that is unrelated to liquidity (eg tariffs attacking corporate margins), is more likely to benefit or at least kind of spare Bitcoin.

Focusing on Bitcoin as a risk on or risk off asset is first level thinking. People who understand it deeply and self custody it tend to view it as risk off period, for good reason. But not always in terms of price. In terms of price, whether it functions as a risk on/off asset varies based on what type of risk on/off catalyst it was.

This catalyst risks hitting margins, not liquidity, and thus so far the reaction makes sense. But it still pays to be careful not to celebrate one-day moves too much.

Cautiously bullish.

GM.

Although I have been thoroughly enjoying my break from social media, I thought I would post a quick update on the #Bitcoin magical line chart.

OPINION:

#bitcoin, as priced in US dollars, continues to show remarkable strength during this *anticipated* period of consolidation since its 20-Jan-2025 high.

As the green line shows, we continue to see a series of higher lows IN SPITE OF EXTREME MARKET UNCERTAINTY AND FEAR.

This is exceedingly bullish behavior.

Could the price break down temporarily to the $70k-75k range?

Of course.

But I would view this as an incredible short-term buying opportunity... and, importantly, I am not expecting this to happen.

Based on M2 global liquidity and sharp movements in the US dollar, I still anticipate new all-time highs for bitcoin sometime between mid-May and mid-June 2025.

Could I be wrong?

Of course. But this remains my highest probability expectation, even (and especially) IN SPITE OF EXTREME MARKET UNCERTAINTY AND FEAR.

I hope this commentary helps.

Back to my break from social media.

Onward and upward.

Exactly 4 years ago today, I sat in a company-wide meeting with a "crypto expert."

He said Bitcoin was useless beyond being digital gold — and some random altcoin called Polkadot was the future. Everyone thanked him for his wisdom. We were supposed to learn from "industry experts" to keep up with trends as early-stage venture investors.

I started digging deeper into Bitcoin and calling out altcoins as scams.

A senior partner pulled me aside and tore me down:

"Are we done here?"

"You have no track record."

"Your conviction is like a religious belief."

"You're being irrational and ideological."

He laughed when I said maybe the financial system is broken. From his perspective, he couldn’t see it — because he was making a fortune pumping startups that barely existed. The irony was lost on him: the very fact that so much money was being thrown at vaporware proved just how broken the system was.

Another partner called me a spruiker — said I was trying to pump my own Bitcoin bag to get rich and dump it on others.

It was hard to hold steady when surrounded by people who benefit from the status quo.

That day, I wrote in my journal: "As of today, I've decided to leave [this company]."

Four years later, Polkadot is down 90% against Bitcoin. And it’s been the best four years of my life.

(Btw, I use a journalling app called Journey that reminds me of what I wrote x years ago today, it's useful for reflecting)

Same, I burned some reserves the last time we hit 78k. But we’re at 83k today so I can’t complain!

When I dip you dip we dip. #BTFD

Sometimes, when I notice I have persistent trolls over months, I take a couple tries to reach out and talk to them.

I try to directly address their issues, and ask what their problem is, or who hurt them.

Like someone who is clearly a human but posts anti-Bitcoin stuff on my threads 193 times. Or who makes fun of my voice 65 times.

Thus far, it has almost never worked out. They just keep going until they burn out. Their views and comments tend to be near-zero anyway. It’s a mental illness issue. And I’m not equipped to handle it.

Kind of like how people throw poop in certain cities, there are people who digitally just parasitically can’t stop clutching to others negatively.

I invite them to do better, hope they recover, but I increasingly learn that dealing with them rationally doesn’t work and I’m not the right one to help with that sort of mental illness.