Fellow humans,
Today is my four year anniversary as a bitcoin investor, so now seems like an appropriate time to reminisce, review some highlights, and lessons learned. The four year mark is significant because Bitcoin’s monetary policy is adjusted once every four years to add more scarcity to the asset. Holding bitcoin for an entire cycle is a kick-ass accomplishment. I’m glad to be here — feeling like a Bitcoin Black Belt.
My early days in Bitcoin were chaos. I had no idea what I was doing, and I was dependent on internet influencers to make decisions. I was eventually able to separate the fake and real Bitcoiners — thank God. I’ve learned a lot from Pomp since the beginning, and his content introduced me to other legitimate people in the space. Branching out and learning from different sources is the way to go. One of my favorite educators is Dan Held. Feel free to check out both of their newsletters!
The Bitcoin industry is nothing without independent educators. American society is very comfortable receiving information from schools and mainstream news. Bitcoin is not being taught in most schools, and certainly not given enough credit in mainstream news. The only way for me to learn was to find educators on the internet or find books. The Bitcoin Standard and Bitcoin: Hard Money You Can't F*ck With: Why bitcoin will be the next global reserve currency are two of my favorite books. Invest in yourself.
I’ve learned a lot since August 9, 2017. Not only Bitcoin, but also money, business, economics, finance, politics, computers, the internet, markets, and human psychology. Bitcoin was my motivation to educate myself while away from military duty. I would still be in the Army if I had never dove into the Bitcoin rabbit hole. Huge shoutout to Carlos Arce for mentioning Bitcoin at Fort Pickett, VA! I’m not sure why I was immediately hooked. Maybe Bitcoin was a way for me to do my own thing, instead of being so dependent on the military, so I grabbed the baton and ran. God works in mysterious ways!
The most important lesson overall was understanding that learning and growing are most effective when treated as a continuous process, rather than a singular event. Many times we want to skip ahead to the finish line, and this mentality is our first mistake. We can’t have everything we want immediately. The path to success is a long one with many challenges. Doesn’t matter how old we are, or what’s happening in our lives, we can start fresh every day by eliminating negative thinking and behavior, and working consistently to achieve our goals. Everybody deserves an opportunity to succeed.
The most important lesson specific to Bitcoin was understanding who I am in the industry. Everybody fits in somewhere. Bitcoin maximalism is the belief that Bitcoin is the only crypto asset necessary. I’m a Bitcoin Maxi. Not the entire four years, but I’ve become one through thousands of hours of research. Not joking — thousands of hours of reading, writing, listening to podcasts, watching YouTube videos, having conversations, and even attended the MIT Bitcoin Expo in 2019. Jack Mallers was on a small panel in a small classroom with maybe twenty or thirty people, talking about Lightning — had no idea who he was or how impactful Lightning would become. Shoutout to Jonah Foeday for going to Massachusetts with me!
I’ll go deeper into Bitcoin maximalism, because understanding and accepting the concept was a defining period of time for me. Rather than tell you in my own words why Bitcoin should be the only blockchain, I’ll refer to an industry expert instead. Quoting Muneeb Ali from the Stacks Whitepaper:
“Our thesis is that decentralized apps and use cases will eventually get built on Bitcoin, the strongest and most widely used blockchain network, instead of disconnected networks. In the early days of the internet, there were several competing protocols. TCP/IP emerged as the winning standard, and everything else was built on it. Bitcoin is that standard for crypto.”
I love analogies. The way Muneeb is able to compare internet protocols with blockchain protocols is brilliant. Internet’s early days are often compared to present day Bitcoin, and rightfully so. Both technologies are revolutionary, yet many people are skeptical prior to mainstream adoption. Now look at the internet. Other crypto assets like Ethereum exist because crypto can have many use cases, not limited to store of value, and a variety of use cases are not easily built with Bitcoin. I think more developers will soon realize that we shouldn’t take shortcuts when trying to build sustainable technologies. Ethereum and thousands of other altcoins have only one reason to exist — showing Bitcoin Developers what to build next!
Four years I’ve been buying bitcoin, and I’m still not rich. Many people expect to be rich in four months! I’m looking forward to the next four years. Patience and focus are determining factors separating the winners and losers in this industry, and ultimately in life. Mistakes are acceptable, but abandoning the plan is a no-go. Bitcoin was worth $3,324 four years ago. How much will bitcoin be worth in another four years? Only time will tell. In the meantime, I’m long BTC. Stack sats, and God bless!
Until next time,
Salvatore Norge
P.S. — I wrote about Congress & Bitcoin five days ago, and since then have come across another way to deal with our incompetent government leaders. Click here to call your Senator, and leave a voicemail. Don’t worry — a script is included, so you can simply read from your screen. Take five minutes, and call now to protect our right to use Bitcoin in America!