Fellow humans,
Bitcoin is one step closer to becoming full-blown mainstream. One enormous step closer. What might full-blown mainstream look like in the future? You will want to be paid in bitcoin rather than US dollars. Your “sats” (bitcoin’s smallest unit — 0.00000001 BTC) will be on your phone, and that’s how you’ll buy things. You will finally realize and accept that bitcoin is the new global reserve currency.
Gradually, then suddenly.
On January 10, 2024, 11 Bitcoin spot ETFs were approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and began trading the following day. Below is a list of the ETFs and their fees. Follow me on X for my randomness.
What does this mean though? This means you (yes you) can add bitcoin, via an ETF, to your retirement account. This means bitcoin is now trading on US stock exchanges. This means that institutional capital floodgates have finally been unlocked and opened for trillions of dollars to flow into bitcoin’s market cap.
Note: buying bitcoin via an ETF will give you access to bitcoin’s price performance, but you will not have real ownership. Remember — not your keys, not your coins. You need a set of private keys to have true ownership.
Why hasn’t bitcoin’s price exploded then? Just because bitcoin has been authorized to enter some of the largest stock markets in the world does not mean everybody suddenly realizes bitcoin’s value. Most people still have no idea how Bitcoin can and will revolutionize money for us. Why? Intellectual laziness.
The first Bitcoin spot ETF application was submitted to the SEC almost 11 years ago as depicted below. I don’t know exactly why the SEC was so anti-bitcoin for so long, but last October the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the SEC during a dispute between the SEC and Grayscale, which led to the ETF approvals.
Hopefully Grayscale gets the credit they deserve for this win, because they are not only helping themselves, but the entire Bitcoin industry.
The perseverance of Bitcoiners is nothing short of relentless. Once you learn Bitcoin, your mind is opened to an endless waterfall of economic information, and all you want to do is go deeper into the rabbit hole. People mock you for investing in bitcoin, but you know they’re only laughing because of their own ignorance and arrogance. The old system is falling while the new one is rising.
Bitcoin is not my religion. I understand it’s just money. However, because I’ve been expressing my interest in Bitcoin since 2017, my conviction has become so strong as I’m consistently defending the legitimacy of Satoshi’s creation. The more you attack us, the harder we fight to push the orange coin into the hands of the masses. This month is absolutely huge for Bitcoin, yet the world is quiet.
Detach yourself from the crowds. Ignore the financial advisors and investment bankers (for the most part). They’re stuck in the old ways, and make no mistake, the world is changing. Everything that can be digitized, will be digitized. From snail mail to email, from blind dates to Tinder, and from paper money to Bitcoin. Think and act for yourself, and you will be rewarded handsomely.
Until next time,
Sal Norge
P.S. — The next Bitcoin Halving is <100 days away, so the daily incoming supply of new coins will decrease from 900 BTC to 450 BTC. Bitcoin has the best monetary policy and inflation mechanism in the world.
“Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.” -PROVERBS 30:8-9
I am not very wise. Never financial advice. Do your research!