Bitcoin is more predictable than the current financial system if you zoom out.
There will always be a boom for ~18 months, followed by a bust for ~12 months, and sideways movement for ~18 months.
This is programmatically set to happen every ~4 years because the supply of newly issued #BTC is cut in half every 210,000 blocks.
This is how Bitcoin will be distributed.
People who accumulate during the bust and sideways movement part of the cycle end up having significantly more purchasing power after the boom.
Some of those people start businesses.
Some of those businesses are frauds.
Retail investors will always join in on the fun near the end of the boom and start speculating on random altcoins.
When one of these fraudulent businesses is revealed, it creates a chain reaction and impacts everyone the business works with.
In 2022, we saw a company called Terra fall apart.
Terra issued a stablecoin: UST.
Stablecoins are a way to tokenize government-issued currencies. They are supposed to maintain their value against the currency they are pegged to (eg. UST is pegged to USD).
UST was supposed to maintain a 1:1 value in terms of USD. I don't understand the mechanics of how it happened, but UST depegged from the US Dollar and was never went back to being worth 1 USD.
Any company or individual that held a significant amount of reserves in UST ended up having to claim bankruptcy. FTX came in to rescue these companies. It was acting like the Central Bank of Crypto.
The problem is FTX was trying to stop the collapse by using its customers' money. In crypto/Bitcoin, there's no printing. You can't create more Bitcoin out of thin air. As soon as FTX collapsed, anyone doing business with FTX also collapsed. We saw a significant amount of BTC dumped on the market by insolvent companies.
This cycle will repeat over and over. If there was no bust after the boom, FTX would continue to survive to this day. It would continue trying to create a fractional reserve banking system using crypto. Most people would NEVER have had a reason to self-custody their Bitcoin.
Every 4 years we will have a boom.
Every 4 years we will have a bust.
Every 4 years BTC will move sideways.
If you don't do your due diligence and you work with fraudulent businesses not related to Bitcoin, you will end up losing everything.
Today, there are 25,000 cryptocurrencies. 99.99% of them have no value whatsoever. They're just trying to improve Bitcoin. Bitcoin cannot be improved with another blockchain. Any improvements will be done on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Altcoins are experiments.
#Bitcoin is the only form of neutral #money we will ever have.
It will be used on a brand-new economic system that will always have boom and bust cycles.
Learning to deal with volatility is the only way to build wealth with Bitcoin.
Commodities turn into money in stages.
Stage 1: The commodity is used store of value.
Stage 2: It becomes a widely accepted medium of exchange.
Stage 3: The commodity is used to assign value to goods and services.
We proceed from stage 1 to stage 2 when enough people are using a commodity as a store of value.
We move from stage 2 to stage 3 when the commodity is widely used as a medium of exchange.
#Bitcoin is somewhere between stage 1 and stage 2.
As more people see how well it portrays the characteristics of a store of value (durable, scarce), they start accumulating it to save for the future.
Eventually, the people who want to hold it as a store of value also want to start accepting it in exchange for goods and services. They create and sell some form of value, whether it's their time or an actual good.
At this point, the people who have held their Bitcoin for a while are willing to part with their coins which have significantly appreciated in terms of purchasing power. To be a medium of exchange, money has to be portable and divisible.
This is where Bitcoin is today! More companies are saying they want to accept #BTC in exchange for their product offerings.
When enough merchants accept Bitcoin for their goods and services, customers may start asking for prices in terms of Bitcoin. In this case, fungibility and salability play a role.
We are still very early when it comes to #Bitcoin , but most average people think we should be a lot further along. How is that possible when 99% of the world doesn't get how money works?
It takes longer than a few years for a form of money to be widely accepted. Today, the only thing holding Bitcoin back is the willingness of people to learn about it.
It took gold 2,000 years to move from being a store of value to a medium of exchange. Bitcoin's adoption has been much faster due to the internet. It's only taken 15 years for Bitcoin to almost reach the same stage as gold in its progression.
We're a while away from Bitcoin being used as a unit of account, but progress happens slowly and then suddenly. Every 4 years more people see Bitcoin as something that will never go away.
With the speed at which we are progressing, Bitcoin could be a world reserve asset within 20 years!
In 10 years, anyone with no #Bitcoin will claim "Bitcoiners were so lucky."
But they weren't.
Anyone that owns Bitcoin did something others weren't willing to do:
1) They put in the time and effort to study something that the majority of people see as a "Ponzi scheme"
2) They bought as much as they could
3) Then they held on to it for more than a decade
That's not luck.
That's conviction.
To save in #Bitcoin , you need a MINUMUM 4-year time horizon.
The price of #BTC (the currency used on the Bitcoin network) is volatile in terms of all assets and fiat currencies because it's not yet widely used as money. Keep in mind that more countries and businesses are adopting it over time.
Two months from now, 1 BTC may be worth a lot less than it is today. In four years or more, the purchasing power will very likely increase because:
1) The supply is fixed at 21,000,000 BTC.
2) The amount being issued will decrease by 50% every 4 years until ~2140 (the next "halving" is April 2024).
3) 93% (~19,500,000 BTC) of the total supply has already been issued, and a lot of it is locked away in cold storage.
4) A huge chunk of the issued supply of BTC is likely lost forever (people have lost the keys to their wallets or the wallet was damaged somehow and they didn't have a backup of the seed phrase). The lost supply is estimated to be around 4,000,000 BTC.
5) Bitcoin adoption will increase over time. This will lead to an increase in demand. Increased demand + decreased supply = price is forced to go up.
Bitcoin provides the following utility:
1) The network is censorship resistant. This is so valuable because the current world reserve currency CAN be censored.
US sanctions on Russia have destroyed the trust the world had in the US Dollar. Any country that has problems with the US is in danger of losing its reserves.
2) Bitcoin is decentralized. Nobody controls Bitcoin. Nobody CAN control Bitcoin. Bitcoin is software that runs on computers spread around the world. It's simply a ledger of transactions or a record of who owns what.
That record can't be manipulated because there are now 20,000+ computers running the Bitcoin software and confirming that the ledger is accurate. These computers are confirming the validity of the ledger. You can shut down 1, 2, 10, 100 or 1,000, but shutting down every single one of them is impossible because the locations of more than 10,000 of them is unknown.
3) Bitcoin is a form of secure base-layer money and is comparable to the SWIFT system the world currently uses.
Fees on BTC transactions are considered high, but it's important to consider that Bitcoin transactions are expensive because of the security. When compared to SWIFT, the transactions are NOT expensive... But they ARE much faster (30 mins to 1 hour vs 3 to 5 business days. These networks are used for LARGE transactions.
The lightning network is a layer two solution (it runs "off-chain" using a new network of payment channels), and is built for SMALL transactions. Transactions cost 0.00000001 Bitcoin (1 Satoshi, or a fraction of a penny today) and take a few seconds to complete. The lightning network requires trust in a third party, so it's not as secure as "on-chain" transactions. The fees reflect this.
4) Bitcoin can be traded 24/7. Half of the world doesn't have to stand still because it's outside of banking hours in the US.
5) The entire world can use Bitcoin to store value, instead of just those who have access to a stable banking system.
You may say "I would rather invest in stocks," but you need to realize... most of the world can't buy US stocks, but most of the world can buy Bitcoin.
6) Bitcoin is secure. In the 15 years that Bitcoin software has been running, the network hasn't seen a single exploit (exploits are always at exchanges or on hot wallets that are always connected to the internet).
Take the time to learn about Bitcoin. You won't be disappointed!
In 20 years, #Bitcoin will be a part of everyone's life. Even if you can't visualize this yet, put in the time to study it.
If you're a beginner, here are some topics you can start learning about:
- History of money
- Why gold was money
- Central banking
- Fractional reserve banking
- Executive Order 6102
- The Nixon Shock
- What is fiat currency
- Money creation in legacy financial system
- Bitcoin supply and demand
- Decentralization
After you put in the time, it becomes obvious that decentralized uncorruptible money is where the world is going.
Regular everyday people don't want to be scammed by their bank and the only way to do so is to eliminate the bank from our finances.
Bitcoin does that for you by allowing you to store your wealth in your own possession instead of trusting banks to hold it for you.
#Bitcoin 's USD exchange rate has increased ~150%/year since inception.
Currently 1 #BTC = ~37,000 USD
For the USD/BTC exchange rate to reach $100,000,000, will take:
44 years @ 20% growth rate
31 years @ 30% growth rate
24 years @ 40% growth rate
20 years @ 50% growth rate
17 years @ 60% growth rate
15 years @ 70% growth rate
14 years @ 80% growth rate
13 years @ 90% growth rate
12 years @ 100% growth rate
11 years @ 110% growth rate
10 years @ 120% growth rate
We're very likely to see a 7 or 8 figure Bitcoin price within our lifetimes.
Fidelity: "If powering #Bitcoin , a global digital monetary network, is considered wasteful, then what does that make the traditional financial system?"
For some context: Fidelity is part of the traditional financial system. It's one of the largest financial institutions in North America.
Every day it becomes clearer that Bitcoin is the best asset we have.
Large financial institutions are coming out to say this. These are some of the wealthiest people and organizations in the world... And yet you're ignoring it because you heard it was a scam.
Set your ego aside and STUDY BITCOIN.
The Federal Reserve is the US central bank.
The Fed's mandate is to control "monetary policy." It lowers interest rates to stimulate the economy. It then raises rates to destroy money after too much is issued.
Lowering rates: quantitative easing
Raising rates: quantitative tightening
Monetary policy is subjective and based on the opinions of a small group of people who don't know everything.
New money is issued whenever someone takes a loan. For example, if you bought a house using a mortgage, you are getting freshly issued money to spend on that house. Monetary policy determines the cost of borrowing that money.
When done incorrectly, quantitative easing can lead to too much money being issued and almost always leads to people overleveraging themselves. This is human nature. People are greedy. The money is being given away almost for free, so why wouldn't they take advantage? When rates are low, more people borrow money.
Quantitative tightening can lead to defaults and bankruptcies on those same debts - THIS IS INTENTIONAL. The goal is to destroy money during periods of QT. Raising rates means borrowing money becomes more expensive. When rates are high, fewer people borrow new money, and people who have already borrowed it can no longer pay back their debts.
The Federal Reserve reacts with higher rates AFTER too many people have borrowed money at low rates. Then, it reacts again after too many people can't afford higher interest rates and stop borrowing by lowering rates again.
If rates stay too low for too long, too many people will borrow money, increasing the demand for goods. The chair of the Federal Reserve said that they "flooded the market with money" during the pandemic. THIS IS WHAT CAUSES MONETARY INFLATION.
More money in the economy leads to higher prices because printing money does not immediately increase the supply of goods and services. This means consumers are fighting for the same supply of goods with MORE MONEY. Demand for goods increases. Prices rise.
Raising rates means some borrowers can't afford to pay back the money they borrowed. When they default, the loan is written off. The money *evaporates.*
Today, we are in the quantitative tightening part of the cycle. In the last 2 years, interest rates went from 0.25% to 5.5%. If you got a variable-rate mortgage when rates were low, your payment would have doubled (or even almost tripled in some cases!).
The goal of the Fed is to ensure that inflation stays at low levels so it can continue to print money forever.
Instead of issuing less money, the current system (and the Fed) is designed to issue boatloads of money, then raise rates to punish anyone who borrowed that money. Raising rates forces them into bankruptcy when they can't afford their payments, and the money supply is now back to where it is no longer leading to high inflation.
This cycle of easing and tightening repeats itself over and over again. Every cycle, more "average" people lose their possessions. Those possessions are bought up by people who understand how the cycles work.
These cycles are intentionally created to transfer wealth from people who don't understand the system to those who do. If this isn't corrupt, I don't know what is!
#Bitcoin is disrupting the entire financial industry
If it weren't for Bitcoin, banks wouldn't work on #CBDCs
CBDCs = Central Bank Digital Currencies
CBDCs are a last-ditch effort to keep you imprisoned in the current financial system and dependent on central banks
Hyperbitcoinization helps the US.
The US government (USG) is currently in $33,700,000,000 ($33.7 trillion) of debt.
It also owns 200,000 #BTC
If the USG just continues to print money whenever it wants do, it will push the price of #Bitcoin up.
At $100,000,000/BTC, the BTC holdings would be worth $200,000,000,000.
$100,000,000/BTC isn't crazy if you think about how fast governments can lose control of their currency.
At the same time, there's no way to produce more BTC... so if people don't sell their coins, those coins will be worth A LOT more because price is based on the most recent sale.
The Weimar Republic lost complete control of the German Papiermark, and in March 1923, 1 USD was equivalent to 4,210,500,000,000 Papiermarks...
Since Bitcoin is the most finite asset we have and the US Dollar is one of the least finite (after most other currencies), the US Dollar could hyperinflate pretty quickly when people lose trust.
The most important question is...
When will this happen?
Bitcoin is distributed based on how early you are to participate in the network.
Most people are spending more time saying Bitcoin is a scam and going to zero, and less time studying how Bitcoin works.
The longer you reject Bitcoin instead of learning about it, the smaller the amount of wealth you'll have in the future global economy.
💯💯💯
I'm not going to lie - when #Bitcoin reached the bottom at around 16K, I was scared.
I thought it was going to keep going lower, just like billions of other people. I still thought there was a small possibility that it could go to 0.
But I relied on logic and facts over my feelings and beliefs.
#BTC is the best money that humans have ever created. It has a limited supply. It can be transferred to other people over the internet. It doesn't rely on trusted third parties.
I did the opposite of the crowd and exchanged some of my hard-earned government-issued toilet paper for the best form of money in the world.
I want my followers to be wealthy.
This is why I stopped promoting stocks and real estate as a great way to build wealth.
The reality is that both are a gamble that rely on governments retaining their power to control the world's money.
Real estate and stocks worked in a world where #Bitcoin did not exist and central banks had a monopoly on the creation and issuance of money.
Central banks constantly debase our money by printing more of it. They stole our wealth to enrich themselves and their friends.
Without Bitcoin, maintaining your purchasing power requires that you find scarce goods and hoard them. You could also buy stocks and own companies making massive profits by destroying society.
The issue with this was that the people who controlled the money controlled everything. They turned housing into a cash cow, they turned food into toxic sludge, and they put plastic in everything. All to make a profit.
Bitcoin exists, and it's never going away. It's designed to take power away from the elite class and distribute it among everyone who chooses to take it.
When you own stocks, you are never truly free.
You have to constantly worry about whether or not the company you own is going to do something stupid and decrease in value. Your accounts can be frozen. When you try to sell your shares, your government can charge massive taxes and take away your life's work.
When you own real estate, you are never truly free.
You will have to pay property tax no matter what. You will take the risk of a tenant skipping out on rent. Insurance may not pay out if something happens to your property.
Bitcoin allows peer-to-peer transactions that were next to impossible in the Bitcoin-free economy. Power (money) will be redistributed to average people rather than being centralized in the hands of the ruling class.
When everything isn't monopolized, the world will improve. We'll have better food, everyone will have shelter, and high-quality products will be abundant because we'll focus more of our resources on creating the things we NEED instead of the things we WANT. The cost of our NEEDS will drop significantly.
Before Bitcoin, businesses had to be able to scale to a certain level to transact. Financial institutions took a cut out of every transaction and increased costs. This prevented countless individuals from trying to start their own businesses.
Bitcoin gives people a way to create digital and physical products and sell them anywhere around the world.
Everyone is going to want a piece of Bitcoin and they'll be willing to create value however they can to get some.
Over the next few decades, this means demand will increase.
But don't believe me. Do the research for yourself.
We finally have a way to build wealth that can't easily be stolen from us by banks and governments.
Throughout all of history, this has NEVER been the case.
I went from thinking "#Bitcoin is an optimistic gamble" to understanding that Bitcoin is the asset that will absorb the monetary value of EVERYTHING.
Keep in mind this was near the beginning of me truly going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole.
I would constantly talk about how stocks and real estate are great investments. They are, but only in a world dominated by fiat currencies.
"When you fix the money, you fix the world."
That means fiat currencies disappear.
That means housing becomes abundant.
That means people earn a livable wage.
That means we don't have to eat grasshoppers because someone said so.
In terms of fiat currencies, all of these things will get more expensive forever.
In terms of Bitcoin, they will all trend toward 0.
It took me 3 years of deep study to finally understand why:
Bitcoin incentivizes improving the quality and quantity of goods that people truly need.
And yet some people regularly say it's a Ponzi scheme, a scam, or a pyramid scheme after doing 3 minutes of research.
The SEC wants to hire Bitcoin experts, but doesn't want them to own Bitcoin.
How can someone be a "Bitcoin expert" and not own #Bitcoin ?
