The Ten Commandments of Bitcoin

Follow the Ten Commandments of Bitcoin to the letter to take full advantage of the Bitcoin revolution.

The Bitcoin revolution will succeed. It is inevitable. Bitcoin has been progressing since its creation, following the path that all revolutions that end up triumphing take.

Remember that famous quote frequently attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

In reality, it is an apocryphal quote. This means that it is wrongly attributed to Gandhi. The latter took this quote from a speech in 1914 by the union leader Nicholas Klein.

In any case, you understand well what this quote means.

Revolutions are always ignored at their beginning. This was the case with Bitcoin when it was officially launched on January 3, 2009, by Satoshi Nakamoto in complete anonymity. In the early 2010s, Bitcoin began to make a name for itself.

Nevertheless, the powerful people at the head of the current monetary and financial system looked at it with disdain and mocked Bitcoin. For them, Bitcoin was nothing more than the amusement of a few geeks.

When Bitcoin price surpassed $1,000 for the first time in 2013, Bitcoin began to make these politicians, central bankers, and other economists laugh less. The battle against Bitcoin became even more intense during the Bull Run at the end of 2017 when its price quadrupled in a few weeks to almost $20K.

A speculative bubble was created around Bitcoin price. Its explosion was inevitable. It caused a bear market that lasted throughout 2018 and plunged the Bitcoin price just above $3K. Many of Bitcoin’s opponents took the opportunity to announce once again the impending death of Bitcoin.

As always, Bitcoin rose even stronger. At the end of the first quarter of 2019, the Bitcoin price started to rise again, approaching $14K at the end of June 2019. Despite this, the opponents continued to resist by fighting Bitcoin.

The year 2020 was marked by a pandemic of a magnitude not seen in decades. The economic crisis that was triggered by this pandemic was so sudden that a liquidity crisis followed in March 2020. All liquid markets around the world were heavily impacted.

As the only truly free market in the world, Bitcoin was necessarily more impacted than the others. In a few hours, its price dropped by more than 50% from $8K to less than $4K.

This was the moment of glory for the opponents of Bitcoin, but also for the Bitcoiners who were able to accumulate even more BTC. The Bitcoiners knew that the Bitcoin price was bound to rebound afterward with the third Bitcoin Halving approaching. That’s what happened.

As expected, the Bitcoin price rebounded. The rebound has been incredibly strong as Bitcoin price has risen +400% since March 2020 to allow Bitcoin to beat its All-Time High just below $20K on December 1, 2020.

Throughout this rise in Bitcoin price, a growing number of major players have changed their mindset about Bitcoin. Many have realized that there is no point in fighting the Bitcoin revolution. Its success would be inevitable. Bitcoin is currently the best hedge against monetary inflation.

This has motivated institutional investors, great companies, and even PayPal to come to this world.

They all want to take advantage of the Bitcoin revolution. They need Bitcoin more than ever. Faced with such a monetary revolution, those who choose to stay along the path always end up being overwhelmed. This is what history has always taught us.

If the Bull Run we have just experienced since October 2020 were supported by smart money, retail investors will soon be flocking to the Bitcoin world throughout 2021. Indeed, the Bitcoin price is promised to rise sharply. I see the Bitcoin price able to reach $100K at the end of 2021.

The arrival of many retail investors in the coming months seems to me to be the right time to remind the Ten Commandments of Bitcoin. For those already present in the Bitcoin world, it will also be an opportunity for a reminder that is never superfluous.

I. Not your Keys, Not Your Bitcoin

Bitcoin is P2P money. When you see written that someone has Bitcoin, it is an abuse of language. In reality, that person owns a portion of the Bitcoin Blockchain.

To access this portion of the Bitcoin Blockchain, this person must have the associated private key. Without this private key, you will not be able to use that portion containing a certain amount of BTC.

When you decide to purchase Bitcoin, you must understand that the most important thing is to have the associated private keys in your possession. Without this, you will not be in complete control.

Therefore, third-party platforms such as PayPal that allow you to buy Bitcoin lock you into the same risks as with the current monetary and financial system.

Those who purchase Bitcoin via PayPal do not have the private keys associated with their BTC. They can therefore be banned by PayPal at any time, and this has already happened to one user at the end of November 2020. PayPal may also decide to censor some of your transactions for arbitrary reasons.

Bitcoin aims to give you back the power regarding money. Without your private keys, you will not be able to regain that power. Some people say that the only thing that interests them about Bitcoin is the fact that it is the best hedge against monetary inflation.

This is what we hear from most institutional investors. As an individual, you would be making a mistake if you reasoned that way. If you buy Bitcoin, choose to enter completely into its revolution. To do so, you must have the private keys to your Bitcoins. Period.

II. Do not reveal what you own in BTC

Some people love to tell everyone how much money they make. They even go so far as to reveal all the details of what they have in their bank account.

People who flaunt their wealth in front of everyone justify themselves by saying that they have nothing to hide because they earn that money by working hard.

There is nothing wrong with being proud of what you earn. However, this is clearly not the mentality you need to have if you want to be a member of the Bitcoin Club.

To be a member of the Bitcoin Club, you need to embrace its first essential rule, and apply it no matter what:

You must never reveal what you own in Bitcoin to anyone.

Being a true Bitcoiner requires humility to be willing to learn more and more about Bitcoin and money in general. The humility you develop will cause you to be discreet about what you own in Bitcoin.

Never revealing to anyone what you own in Bitcoin is also a matter of security.

From the moment you reveal what you own in Bitcoin, you can jeopardize your own security. Bitcoin price is set to rise sharply in the years to come. So it will be tempting for ill-intentioned people trying to steal your BTC.

It would be a shame if you were to miss out on the Bitcoin revolution in the future for breaking this commandment.

In the future, if someone asks you what you own in Bitcoin, you will only have to answer that you are forbidden to say. This is part of the Bitcoin Club rules.

In fact, that is my answer to those who frequently ask me this question when I publish stories online. They take it as a joke and ask me again, but my answer is always the same: I never break this commandment. I would advise you to do the same.

III. HODL Bitcoin no matter what

Many people buy Bitcoin without being totally convinced by the Bitcoin revolution. It may seem trivial to you, but in reality, it’s a big problem that puts their money at risk.

These people don’t understand that Bitcoin’s price volatility is a feature, not a bug. You must make this volatility your greatest ally rather than your worst enemy.

So, when you buy Bitcoin, you should be aware that its price can fluctuate significantly up and down. For upward fluctuations, you will need to be able to manage them more easily. On the other hand, you should be prepared to control your emotions when the Bitcoin price drops sharply.

This happened in March 2020 during the liquidity crisis I mentioned earlier. In a few hours, the Bitcoin price went from $8K to less than $4K. Many panicked and sold their BTC at a loss.

At that time, I was talking about the sale season in the Bitcoin world. This allowed all Bitcoiners to accumulate even more BTC. It was a perfect opportunity. But to do that, you have to have complete confidence in Bitcoin. To gain this confidence, there is no secret: you must deepen your knowledge of Bitcoin.

Since the Bitcoin price fell in March 2020, the Bitcoin price has increased by +400%.

With the current price of Bitcoin between $18K and $19K, HODLing Bitcoin has been a profitable strategy more than 99.6% of the time:

This should make you feel confident that to fully enjoy the Bitcoin revolution, you need to HODL Bitcoin no matter what. Don’t make the mistake of playing the trader, when trading is an activity in its own right that requires specific skills that a majority of people don’t possess.

The best strategy with Bitcoin is also the simplest:

Buy Bitcoin automatically with a Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) approach. Many applications exist for this.
Program the automatic sending of these Bitcoins to your hardware wallet using one of the applications you will buy.
HODL Bitcoin no matter what.
Iterate from step 1.

No need to look for complex strategies to take full advantage of Bitcoin. Simply apply the KISS principle.

IV. Only Bitcoin matters

Bitcoin is a true monetary revolution aimed at creating a better world for as many people as possible in the future. Bitcoin is the money of the people supported by the people.

10 Quotes That Will Open Your Eyes to the Importance of Bitcoin for the World of the Future

The electronic money created by Satoshi Nakamoto is the hardest money in the world.

The consequences of a currency like Bitcoin are countless. One point too often overlooked with Bitcoin is that it promotes freedom by allowing millions of people to protect their wealth in a way that is resistant to censorship.

In countries under authoritarian or emerging regimes, Bitcoin is already a Plan A. If you have any doubts, just look at what is already happening in Nigeria, Venezuela, Iran, Lebanon, or Argentina. Bitcoin is already helping millions of people daily.

Bitcoin is a unique invention that differs from the cryptocurrencies that were created later, not in terms of technology, but rather in terms of monetary attributes. The monetary attributes of Bitcoin are unique.

The secret of Bitcoin’s future dominance lies not in its technology, but rather in its monetary attributes.

Some will try to make you believe that their cryptocurrency has better technology than Bitcoin. They will tell you that their cryptocurrency can handle more TPS (Transactions per Second). However, they will fail to tell you that this is at the expense of decentralization which is an incredible advantage of Bitcoin.

Don’t be blinded by the empty rhetoric of the founders or supporters of these cryptocurrency projects.

In the long run, only Bitcoin really matters. Moreover, we will stop giving too much importance to these cryptocurrencies by showing that Bitcoin is special. There is Bitcoin and there are cryptocurrencies. Everybody gets it sooner or later.

Some later than others, which will have cost them a lot of time, and even worse, a lot of money often.

V. Your seed is your key

The first of the Ten Commandments of Bitcoin is to always have the private keys associated with your Bitcoins in your possession. Under these conditions, you should not leave your Bitcoins on trading platforms longer than necessary.

A good way to store your Bitcoins is to send them on a hardware wallet. Your wallet will initially generate a seed phrase and ask you to write it down on paper.

A seed phrase, also called a backup seed phrase, is a list of words that stores all the information you need to retrieve access to your BTC stored on the Bitcoin Blockchain. A seed phrase with 24 words is now the standard, as it provides better security.

So you absolutely need to secure your seed phrase because your seed is your key.

If one day you lose your hardware wallet or it doesn’t work anymore, your seed will be your life insurance. You will be able to regain access to your Bitcoins thanks to it. It also means that anyone who manages to access your seed phrase will be able to take all your Bitcoins from you.

Store it in a safe place, but not in a file on your computer or smartphone. Paper is a better solution, but it can deteriorate over time. The solution is to use a metal backup. Several companies offer perfect products for this.

It costs more than a piece of paper but ensuring the security of your Bitcoins is well worth spending a few dozen dollars.

The last solution is to memorize your seed phrase.

VI. If it looks like a scam, It is a scam

Bitcoin is more than just a financial investment. However, its performance since its inception has fueled the greed of hundreds of thousands of people. In the future, it will grow to hundreds of millions of people.

It is worth mentioning that the Bitcoin price has shown a performance of +28,000,000% since 2010. Bitcoin has been the best performing asset of the 2010s, transforming $1 invested in 2010 into $90K at the end of 2019.

For the next decade, Bitcoin should still be the best performing asset. The Winklevoss twins see a 25x gain from here for the Bitcoin price. Currently, the Bitcoin price is at $18.5K.

Their reasoning is based on more than solid assumptions:

The law of supply and demand.
The gold market cap.
The endless inflation of the U.S. dollar.

I often say that the number one enemy in the Bitcoin world is greed.

Some people only think about money and therefore fall into this trap. Out of greed, but also out of gullibility, these people end up believing all the promises that some people make to earn more Bitcoin.

A scam as old as the Internet was used again in the summer of 2020 on Twitter by hackers. They took control of celebrity accounts by sending out tweets basically saying that if you sent them Bitcoin, they would then send you back double the amount of Bitcoin.

Unfortunately, some people have still fallen into the trap.

So this command is there to remind you of something very important: if it looks like a scam from near or far, it is a scam. If it looks too good to be true, it is a scam. Anything that promises to win Bitcoin without doing anything is a scam.

Bitcoin is the hardest money in the world. No one will give you Bitcoins against nothing in 2020. Understand this, and avoid being tricked. If you want to get Bitcoin without any initial investment, offer your services by asking to be paid in BTC.

VII. Check addresses several times

Transactions on the Bitcoin network occur between the address of a sender and the address of a recipient. An address on the Bitcoin network is an alphanumeric identifier of 26 to 35 characters.

An address on the Bitcoin network should be considered as an invoice that can be generated free of charge. There are three types of address formats currently in use:

P2PKH that starts with a 1.
P2SH that starts with a 3.
Bech32 beginning with bc1. Bech32 is a bitcoin address that is fully compatible with SegWit.

When you wish to receive Bitcoin, you will create an address on the Bitcoin network that you will send to your contact. If you wish to send Bitcoin to someone, you will need to ask your contact to send you the address they have created on the Bitcoin network.

If a transaction is made on the Bitcoin network with the wrong address, you risk losing the BTC transmitted during that transaction.

Given the valuable nature of Bitcoin, it would be a shame to lose money for a character input error. This command is there to remind you that you have to check each address of a transaction several times.

Not once, not twice, not three times, but at least four times. This will give you additional guarantees that your transaction will go through the Bitcoin network correctly.

VIII. Buy BTC with money you can afford to lose

In the world of traditional finance, there is one golden rule:

Never Invest Money That You Can’t Afford To Lose.

This rule also applies to the Bitcoin world. You should only buy Bitcoin with money you can afford to lose.

Don’t put yourself in an uncomfortable financial position to buy even more Bitcoins. You could be trapped afterward into making bad choices. To be able to sustain the Bitcoin revolution, in the long run, you need to be smart with your Bitcoin buying strategy.

A good solution is to smooth out your costs by adopting a Dollar Cost Averaging strategy as I told you at commandment III.

This means buying Bitcoin regularly, month after month, for example.

IX. Make your own decisions

When you enter a new field, you will quickly be tempted to follow the most well-known influencers in that field. This is not a bad thing as long as you remain aware of one essential reality :

Influencers, and other experts, give their opinions, but in the end, it is up to you to make your own investment decisions.

In the Bitcoin world, you will notice that a lot of people share their opinions on social networks or forums. I, myself, share my opinions on Bitcoin with you.

Nevertheless, I always take care to tell you that it is not investment advice that I am giving you, but simply my opinion. My goal is to help you educate yourself properly about Bitcoin, money, and economics.

With what I share with you, you will then be able to make your own decisions in a more informed manner. You will therefore maximize your chances of making the best choices for you and your future.

As such, you should keep in mind the following proverb:

“The counselors are not payers.”

People who pretend to give you investment advice without telling you that it is only their personal opinions are not the ones who will risk losing everything if they make a mistake.

This should alert you to the need to make your own investment decisions.

At the end of the day, you will always be alone with your choices. Take as much information as you can, think about your personal strategy, and then act according to your convictions.

This way, you will not fall into the trap of those who blindly follow the advice of Bitcoin’s influencers.

X. Use Bitcoin divisibility to accumulate more

Many people think that the current Bitcoin price is too expensive for them to buy it. The Bitcoin price is indeed beyond $18K at the time of writing.

These people probably don’t know that Bitcoin has an incredible advantage over gold: Bitcoin is divisible up to eight digits after the decimal point.

The smallest unit of Bitcoin is called the Satoshi. We have the following equivalences:

1 BTC = 100,000,000 Satoshis
1 Satoshi = 0.00000001 BTC

Born in mid-2019, the #StackSats movement is there to remind everyone of the importance of accumulating as many Satoshis as possible. Each Satoshi accumulated will make a fundamental difference in the future.

You must use the divisibility of Bitcoin to your advantage. The race to own 1 entire BTC may seem impossible if you only think about buying one in its entirety. If you are patient and buy small amounts of BTC for $50 or $100 regularly, you will eventually reach your goal sooner or later.

Besides, I would advise you to make the volatility of Bitcoin your greatest ally rather than your worst enemy. When Bitcoin price undergoes strong corrections like the one experienced in March 2020 for example, you should take advantage of it to accumulate more BTC.

All this can only be done if you have total confidence in Bitcoin.

Conclusion

The bull rally that the Bitcoin price has just experienced at the end of this year 2020 is nothing compared to what awaits us in 2021. A much more phenomenal Bull Run is expected, which will see hundreds of thousands of retail investors flocking in droves.

To ensure that this Bull Run does not end as badly as it did at the end of 2017, it seems essential to remind new entrants of some basic principles. The Ten Commandments of Bitcoin that I have just detailed will enable new entrants to this world to take full advantage of Bitcoin in complete security.

Provided, of course, that the Ten Commandments of Bitcoin are applied to the letter.

10 Quotes That Will Open Your Eyes to the Importance of Bitcoin for the World of the Future

Bitcoin is a monetary revolution that will change the world of the future.

Bitcoin is a monetary revolution that will change the world of the future in terms of money. Bitcoin’s unique monetary attributes are supported by Blockchain technology, which, combined with Bitcoin, becomes a technological disruption.

The consequences of a system such as Bitcoin on the world of the future will be numerous and will go beyond money.

By offering the same opportunities to all the inhabitants of the Earth, Bitcoin will change the game by allowing a redistribution of the cards that the current monetary and financial system does not allow for. This system is flawed and not fixable.

Bitcoin must be seen as the Great Reset of the current system that the International Monetary Fund is beginning to call for.

In what follows, I propose you to discover 10 famous quotes that will help you to open your eyes to the why of Bitcoin, but also the importance it will have in the world of the future.

Satoshi Nakamoto on trust problem with central banks and banks that Bitcoin addresses

“The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts.”
Satoshi Nakamoto, Founder of Bitcoin

The current monetary and financial system was unilaterally introduced by Richard Nixon in August 1971 when he ended the convertibility of the U.S. dollar into gold.

This system was then officially legalized by the Jamaica Accords in January 1976. It is based on a blind trust that citizens should be able to have in central bankers and private bankers.

Unfortunately, history has shown us that it is impossible to have this level of trust in the men at the head of the current system. The central bankers, who are not representative of the people, can print thousands of billions of dollars out of thin air in a snap of the fingers.

This is the only response that the Fed and other central banks seem to know to all the ills of the economy. To do so would be like treating the ailments of an alcoholic by giving him a little more alcohol every day. You understand that this can only get worse over time.

Private banks are at the center of an opaque banking system that favors the natural inclination of humans for corruption. Money laundering scandals multiply year after year without sanctions commensurate with the crimes committed.

I’m not even talking about the waves of credit bubbles that the unscrupulous attitude of these private banks creates, or the little respect they show for the privacy of citizens.

To respond to these problems that will sooner or later cause the end of the current monetary and financial system, Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin. He then offered it to all the inhabitants of the Earth as a magnificent gift that would allow them to change their destiny in terms of money.

Friedrich Hayek on the need to take money out of the hands of governments

“I don’t believe we shall ever have good money again before we take it out the hands of governments.”
Friedrich Hayek

Born in 1899 in Vienna, Austria, Friedrich Hayek is an economist and philosopher recognized as one of the most important thinkers of liberalism in the 20th century.

Friedrich Hayek worked in the field of the information economy, analyzing, in particular, the causes of economic crises, especially the 1929 crisis. He developed a theory of entrepreneurship, the role of political institutions, and the reforms he believed were necessary for the modern monetary system.

He belongs to the Austrian School which advocates different liberalism from the majority neoclassical liberalism which consists of challenging the mathematization of the economy, in considering that economic crises are caused by speculative bubbles.

In this respect, Friedrich Hayek thus separates himself from the dominant model embodied in particular by Milton Friedman.

Friedrich Hayek knew during his life different monetary systems. He knew the gold standard system set up at Bretton Woods at the end of the Second World War, then the current system set up unilaterally by Richard Nixon in August 1971.

Friedrich Hayek has spent his life alerting people to the dangers of the current system.

He has always been very critical of this system. For Friedrich Hayek, it was essential to have competitive money outside the control of the States. This would be the best protection against the risks of inflation.

For Friedrich Hayek, it was obvious that inflation decided by governments has always been carried out solely for the benefit of the governments themselves:

“I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.”

Today, many people think that money should absolutely be a prerogative of the States. In his book “The denationalization of money” published in 1976, Friedrich Hayek argued for a money market outside the monopoly of the States.

According to him, it is essential to move away from the dogma that money should be the responsibility of the States.

The emergence of Bitcoin is thus the realization of Friedrich Hayek’s dream.

Indeed, Bitcoin exists in limited quantities. There will never be more than 21 million BTC in circulation. The monetary policy of Bitcoin does not depend on any arbitrary decision of humans.

Written into Bitcoin’s source code, Bitcoin’s monetary policy is programmatic. Everything is inevitable with Bitcoin.

Milton Friedman on the role that an e-cash will play in reducing the role of governments

“I think the internet is going to be one of the major forces for reducing the role of government. The one thing that’s missing but that will soon be developed, is a reliable e-cash.”
Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman is an American economist, considered one of the most influential in the 20th century. An ardent defender of liberalism, he was awarded the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory, and the complexity of stabilization policy.

He works in both theoretical and applied fields of research, being at the origin of the monetarist movement, and the founder of the Chicago School.

In the latter part of his life, Milton Friedman witnessed the emergence of the Internet. Fascinated by this invention, Milton Friedman considered that the Internet would be one of the main factors in reducing the role of governments in money matters.

The prerequisite for this was the existence of reliable e-cash.

The Bitcoin created by Satoshi Nakamoto meets this pre-requisite once stated by Milton Friedman. It is the first step in the separation of money from the hands of the State. In the years to come, Bitcoin will continue to grow in importance in societies around the world.

Satoshi Nakamoto on why Bitcoin is different from the previous e-cash failed attempts

“A lot of people automatically dismiss e-currency as a lost cause because of all the companies that failed since the 1990’s. I hope it’s obvious it was only the centrally controlled nature of those systems that doomed them. I think this is the first time we’re trying a decentralized, non-trust-based system.”
Satoshi Nakamoto, Founder of Bitcoin

Since the creation of Bitcoin by Satoshi Nakamoto, many people have been reticent about its chances of success with the general public.

As early as the early 2010s, Satoshi Nakamoto explained to Bitcoin’s critics why his invention was different. All the e-cash systems that failed in the early 1990s had one thing in common: they were all centralized.

Bitcoin is the first attempt at an e-cash based on a decentralized system. The Bitcoin Blockchain is permissionless and trustless. That makes all the difference.

More than eleven and a half years after the official launch of Bitcoin, everyone will easily agree that Bitcoin is an incredible success that has been able to surpass the $200 billion market cap.

And yet, this is nothing compared to what Bitcoin is expected to achieve in the future. The Bitcoin price has a real chance of reaching the million-dollar mark in the next 20 to 30 years.

Bitcoin is an essential lesson for all startup founders to remember. When a product meets the needs of the market and is launched in perfect timing, you don’t need millions of dollars to be successful.

Paul Buchheit who explains that Bitcoin is the TCP/IP layer of money

“Bitcoin may be the TCP/IP of money.”
Paul Buchheit, Creator of Gmail

Bitcoin is a unique invention in the history of mankind. There can only be one Bitcoin. Many people have been trying to launch competing cryptocurrencies for the past decade claiming to be able to supplant Bitcoin.

These founders of Altcoins claim loud and clear that their technology is superior to Bitcoin. Their cryptocurrency would have more potential than Bitcoin for the world of the future when you listen to them.

The beautiful words of these people make some people believe that it is useful to look for the next Bitcoin. In reality, it is a misunderstanding of things that will waste a lot of time and money for those who fall into this trap.

Bitcoin should be seen as the money protocol for the Internet. As Paul Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, said, Bitcoin is the equivalent of the TCP/IP layer of the Internet.

While the Internet has evolved since its launch in the 1990s, it has never been replaced. Web giants such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, or Apple have not created a new Internet. Instead, they have relied on the Internet to build products and services worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

With Bitcoin, it will be the same. The Bitcoin protocol will evolve, and these products will be built on the Bitcoin Blockchain in the years to come.

Bitcoin is here to stay, and looking for the next Bitcoin is as useless as looking for the next Internet. Forget about Altcoins so that you can fully concentrate on Bitcoin being the true signal.

Marc Andreessen on Bitcoin’s incredible network effect

“In fact, Bitcoin is a four-sided network effect. There are four constituencies that participate in expanding the value of Bitcoin as a consequence of their own self-interested participation. Those constituencies are (1) consumers who pay with Bitcoin, (2) merchants who accept Bitcoin, (3) “miners” who run the computers that process and validate all the transactions and enable the distributed trust network to exist, and (4) developers and entrepreneurs who are building new products and services with and on top of Bitcoin.”
Marc Andreessen

Marc Andreessen is an American entrepreneur and investor, but also a software developer famous for creating Mosaic. As a reminder, Mosaic was the first popular web browser in the world.

He then co-founded Netscape. He is now a general partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

In addition to these activities, Marc Andreessen has been a strong supporter of Bitcoin since its early days. He has been explaining for a very long time that Bitcoin is the future regarding money. When asked in the past why Bitcoin was going to be a resounding success, Marc Andreessen emphasized the four-sided network effect of Bitcoin.

Consumers will pay for Bitcoin through merchants who will accept Bitcoin as a means of payment. Then, the Bitcoin miners will make their computing power available to the network so that blocks can be mined and transactions can be executed correctly.

Finally, the developers and entrepreneurs who will be encouraged to build new products and services on top of the Bitcoin Blockchain.

This network effect will only increase the utility of Bitcoin over time. Bitcoin should be seen as a monetary network that can change the world in terms of money.

Erik Voorhees on the two reasons why Bitcoin is so valuable

“Economists and journalists often get caught up in this question: Why does Bitcoin have value? And the answer is very easy. Because it is useful and scarce.”
Erik Voorhees

Opponents of Bitcoin, be they politicians, bankers, or economists, often argue that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. These people do not seem to understand that the value of something is totally subjective.

For those people who are interested, I invite them to read this excellent Wikipedia article on the subject of the “Subjective theory of value”.

The supporters of this theory explain globally this:

“The value of a good is not determined by any inherent property of the good, nor by the amount of labor necessary to produce the good, but instead value is determined by the importance an acting individual places on a good for the achievement of his desired ends.”

Thus, the U.S. dollar is only valuable because a majority of people decide it is. It is the same for gold. For Bitcoin, it is the same.

Bitcoin users are convinced by the monetary revolution that Bitcoin embodies. They want to believe in the better world that Bitcoin builds for everyone in the future.

Erik Voorhees already gives two main reasons why Bitcoin is so valuable. This is due to its usefulness and its scarcity.

The latest is one of the 6 main reasons I often give to all those who tell me that Bitcoin is worthless:

Bitcoin is scarce. Bitcoin is the hardest money in the world. There will never be more than 21 million BTC in circulation. Bitcoin’s programmatic monetary policy is there to abstract it from the corruption inherent in humans. It is a great advantage to finally have good money at our disposal.
Bitcoin is transparent. The transparency of the Bitcoin network is to be contrasted with the opacity of the current banking system. Nobody knows what is going on at the heart of this system. Nevertheless, the tip of the iceberg is chilling with fines for money laundering or manipulation that keep falling against the world’s major banks. The people deserve better.
Bitcoin has no leader. Bitcoin belongs to all its users. Its goal is to give power back to the people by removing the control of money from the hands of governments. This is the number one prerequisite for us to have good money available again, as Friedrich Hayek said in 1984.
Bitcoin is decentralized. Rather than a system with a single point of failure, Bitcoin relies on a decentralized system based on its users. They are the ones who ensure the operation and security of the Bitcoin network by providing their computing power. This works perfectly because Bitcoin has never been hacked in more than eleven years of existence.
Bitcoin is borderless. Bitcoin transcends national borders. It allows you to make transactions halfway around the world in a matter of minutes without the risk of censorship by a third party. Bitcoin remains the best solution to transfer money around the world safely and quickly.
Bitcoin is synonymous with freedom. Bitcoin protects 5 fundamental human rights. It gives you the freedom to live your life on your own terms. In a world where governments and web giants threaten your freedoms, Bitcoin is your best money weapon to keep control.

Janet Yellen who admits the Fed’s inability to regulate or supervise Bitcoin

“The Federal Reserve simply does not have authority to supervise or regulate bitcoin in any way.”
Janet Yellen, Chair of the US Federal Reserve, Feb 27, 2014

For all defenders of a world where the money is taken out of the hands of governments, Bitcoin is great hope. Bitcoin is our best chance to have a weapon to protect our privacy when it comes to money in the future.

With the future rise of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) or the digital currencies of companies such as Facebook’s Libra, Bitcoin will be the only alternative for people around the world.

Former Chair of the Fed, Janet Yellen had confessed in early 2014 that the U.S. central bank had no authority to supervise or regulate Bitcoin.

Since that statement, the situation has not changed. Bitcoin remains out of control of the central banks and governments. It has no leader and belongs to all its users. Now that it can work even without the Internet, Bitcoin is truly unstoppable.

Chris Dixon explaining that Bitcoin brings us into the era of math-based currencies

“There are 3 eras of currency: Commodity based, politically based, and now, math based.”
Chris Dixon

Founder of Hunch, which was later acquired by eBay, Chris Dixon put his finger on what Bitcoin was all about: entering the era of mathematically based currency.

Previous eras had been those of commodity-based currencies, and those of politically based currencies.

5 Thought Patterns Holding You Back to Buy Bitcoin

These currencies have shown many significant drawbacks, and mankind is ready to move towards a better solution for the many with Bitcoin. Bitcoin abstracts the people from the risks of corruption inherent in the humans who run the current system.

The transparency of Bitcoin allows everyone to verify everything that happens on the network. Everyone is free to form their own opinion of what the truth is at any given moment. This is one of the essential reasons for Bitcoin’s success.

Despite what politicians repeat falsely all the time, it is much more difficult to use Bitcoin for illegal activities than the U.S. dollar.

Bitcoin does not depend on any human. Its programmatic monetary policy is irremediable. The SHA-256 algorithm that is at the heart of Bitcoin’s consensus algorithm gives you more guarantees that no bank will ever be able to do so.

This new era will benefit the greatest number of people and help build a fairer world.

Tyler Winklevoss on Bitcoin that protects us from human error

“We have elected to put our money and faith in a mathematical framework that is free of politics and human error.”
Tyler Winklevoss

The Winklevoss twins are famous American entrepreneurs in more ways than one. They are at the origin of the idea that led to the creation of Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg then stole the idea from them and made Facebook an incredible success.

After winning their battle in court against Mark Zuckerberg for the theft of their idea, the Winklevoss twins used the millions of dollars they received in compensation to buy BTC in large quantities in the early 2010s.

They also took advantage of the opportunity to create the Gemini trading platform, which is one of the most widely used in the United States.

With more than 150,000 BTC owned, the Winklevoss twins are among the largest known Bitcoin owners at the time of writing, according to the latest news on the current distribution of Bitcoin circulating supply.

They are Bitcoin billionaires who explained their bold choice at the time by the fact that they wanted to believe in a currency that could abstract humanity from human error. In fact, Bitcoin is based on a mathematical model that does not depend on political decisions or the inclination for human corruption.

Bitcoin responds to the great emerging need for the coming years: to be able to protect its wealth over time in a way that is resistant to censorship.

The intrinsic characteristics of Bitcoin have incredible consequences since it allows Bitcoin to preserve 5 fundamental human rights:

The right to privacy
The right to basic banking services
The right to security through encryption
The right to freedom of speech
The right to save your money

Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention holds out the hope of building a fairer, and therefore better, world for as many people as possible in the future.

Conclusion

Bitcoin has been evolving at its own pace day after day since its official launch on January 3, 2009. This is something essential to ensure that the Bitcoin revolution can be carried out safely.

A lot has been said about Bitcoin since its creation. In this story, I have listed 10 quotes that will help you better understand the importance of Bitcoin for the world of the future. The secret is not to listen to what the powerful at the head of the current system say, but to do your own research.

That way you will find out how money works, and then why the current system is flawed and not fixable. Then you will be able to understand why Bitcoin is the answer to these flaws. This will give you a chance to become aware of the monetary revolution that has been progressing block by block for more than eleven years.

This monetary revolution aims to build a better world for all in the future, and you absolutely have to open your eyes to get on board. If you don’t, you may bitterly regret it in the future.

(Disclaimer: This story contains an affiliate link for the book “The denationalization of money”. If you choose to purchase after clicking this link I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support!)

There Are Two Types of Decisions Worth Focusing on, and Buying Bitcoin Is Part of the Easy Ones

It is time to open your eyes on the real signal.

Buying Bitcoin is an easy decision — Illustration by Sylvain Saurel

You make decisions constantly in life. Every day, you have to decide things that will impact your day, your week, and even a few months ahead. Some decisions are so obvious that you don’t even realize you are making a choice.

Yet you make many choices all the time.

If you take the time to analyze the situation, you realize that there are basically two types of decisions in life:

The hard ones.
The easy ones.

Examples of hard decisions related to the current system

Some decisions are difficult because you know that there is a wrong choice among the options available to you. The decision you make will therefore have potentially negative impacts.

When such decisions are presented to you, it is probably a sign that the system in which you are operating is not stable. For example, a decision you made previously may no longer be the right one.

As conditions change, you must constantly analyze the situation to make the right decision. The risk of error is therefore great.

With the current monetary and financial system, you are a perfect example of an unstable system. You make decisions with your fiat money, and then conditions are constantly changing because of decisions made by a minority of people.

The decisions you made were good a few months ago, and then the Fed decides to pursue an aggressive monetary policy. On the program, interest rates are lowered to zero, then unlimited printing of U.S. dollars out of thin air.

The result is catastrophic since the M2 Money Stock reached $19T this year. 20% of all U.S. dollars in circulation were printed in 2020.

The decision you could have made yesterday with your money is no longer valid almost overnight. You constantly have to make new decisions with your fiat money to know how best to preserve your wealth over time.

A revolutionary system shows you what an easy decision is

An easy decision is one that you know exactly what the outcome will be. While buying Bitcoin might have been a difficult decision in 2010 as Bitcoin’s chances of success were not guaranteed, the situation has clearly changed in 2020.

Now, Bitcoin is more likely to reach the million dollar mark within 20 years than to drop to zero.

Mindset concerning Bitcoin have been constantly changing since the creation of Bitcoin. More and more institutional investors are choosing Bitcoin over gold as a hedge against the great monetary inflation we are currently experiencing.

Large companies like MicroStrategy and Square are making Bitcoin their reserve asset. PayPal is entered in the Bitcoin world and will offer a buy/hold/use Bitcoin service to its 346 million users starting in early 2021.

All signals are green for the mass adoption of Bitcoin as a store of value to be boosted as never before in the months and years to come.

Buying Bitcoin is now an easy decision

Buying Bitcoin is an easy decision above all because it is a stable system. Bitcoin has very clear rules of the game that cannot be changed by the arbitrary decisions of a corrupt human minority.

When buying Bitcoin, you know two essential things:

The maximum supply of Bitcoin is 21 million units. This will never change because no one has an interest in changing that rule.
Bitcoin’s monetary policy is programmatic. The schedule of the issuance of new Bitcoins is predictable.

You can already predict how many Bitcoins will be in circulation at the next Halving, and then the next. You know that all Bitcoins will be in circulation around 2140.

When you buy Bitcoin, you have guarantees, which makes your choice easier. You know that 1 BTC of 2020 will still represent 1 BTC out of 21 million BTC in 2050 or 2100.

The first decade of Bitcoin’s existence has only confirmed the advantages of this system

What makes your decision to buy Bitcoin even easier is to see what the benefits of this system produce in real life conditions. While the endless monetary inflation of the U.S. dollar has continuously devalued its value for decades, Bitcoin has steadily increased over the last decade:

Bitcoin price evolution over the past decade

While the Bitcoin price was $0.07 in August 2010, it approached (or broke) a new All-Time High on November 30, 2020 with a price of $19,749.

In just over ten years, the Bitcoin price has increased by +28,000,000%.

This should make your decision whether or not to buy Bitcoin easier. Although Bitcoin will not perform as phenomenally in the future, its upside potential is still impressive.

Choosing Bitcoin is an extremely easy decision once you realize that the current system is one of inevitable generalized impoverishment. Then you will understand that buying Bitcoin is the only solution.

It is the one that you will end up embracing sooner or later, even if you may not know it yet. If you’re still hesitating, you should probably review the thought patterns that are currently blocking your willingness to buy Bitcoin.

Who Will Be the Next to Enter Into the Bitcoin World? U.S. Banks, Amazon, Apple, Warren Buffett?

Bitcoin is a revolution that will take everything in its path. The big question now is to guess who will be the next big player to enter into the Bitcoin world.

Bitcoin is at a major turning point in its history. More and more big players decide to enter the Bitcoin world. The year 2020 has been marked by a coronavirus pandemic that will be recalled in a few years as the tipping point for Bitcoin.

If you are not familiar with the concept of the tipping point, it was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference” published in the early 2000s.

In his book, Malcolm Gladwell explains that once this tipping point is reached, everything becomes different afterward. The coronavirus pandemic was a major event that triggered an economic crisis on a scale not seen in decades.

Central banks and governments always apply the same ineffective policies

The responses of central banks and governments have been those employed consistently since the establishment of the current monetary and financial system in August 1971:

Lowering interest rates to zero.
Printing money fiat out of thin air ad infinitum.
Increase in public debt to finance stimulus plans to support the economy.

The problem is that crisis after crisis, the magnitude of the measures to be implemented keeps increasing. If billions of dollars were enough in the early 2000s, tens of billions of dollars were needed in 2008. And in 2020, we are talking in trillions of dollars.

The central banks of the major economic powers have printed more than $12 trillion since March 2020. Global debt has exploded to $277 trillion.

As the world’s leading economic power, the United States is obviously at the top of this ranking with a public debt that now exceeds $27.300 billion. The ratio of public debt to GDP has reached a record level in the United States:

U.S. Federal Debt: Total Public Debt as Percent of GDP

Globally, the norm is now to have a public debt-to-GDP ratio well above 100 or even 110% in most of the world’s major economic powers.

The current situation is unsustainable, and a Bretton Woods 2.0 will not be enough

The current economic situation is clearly unsustainable over time. For many, the seven deadly sins of the current monetary and financial system will sooner or later lead to its collapse.

Well aware of this, many economists and politicians now call for a Great Reset of the current system. A kind of Bretton Woods 2.0 to put the world back on the right track by taking into account the new challenges of the 21st century.

What these economists do not understand is that the great monetary inflation we are currently experiencing cannot be stopped as long as central banks have such unlimited power in monetary creation.

As early as the 1980s, Friedrich Hayek called for taking control of money out of the hands of the States:

“I don’t believe we shall ever have good money again before we take it out the hands of governments.”

Friedrich Hayek has spent his life alerting people to the dangers of the current system

For Friedrich Hayek, it was obvious that inflation decided by governments has always been carried out solely for the benefit of the governments themselves:

“I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.”

According to him, it is essential to move away from the dogma that money should be the responsibility of the States.

Friedrich Hayek considered that money should not be the prerogative of the States

This conception, which seems obvious to us today, is very recent. In the Middle Ages and until late in history, the control of money by the royal power was limited to certifying that a gold coin was equal to one gram of gold.

Kings did not have the power to act on the money supply in circulation as central banks do today.

Friedrich Hayek, who died in 1992, must be turning over in his grave after seeing central banks print more than $10 trillion out of thin air since March 2020. Friedrich Hayek was already concerned about all this in the mid-1970s.

For him, the big culprit was the English economist Keynes. He was guilty of pushing strongly the idea of control of currencies by governments and central banks.

To stop this inflationary spiral, Friedrich Hayek saw two possibilities:

A return to the gold standard, which makes it possible by the scarcity of the precious metal to limit inconsiderate monetary creation.
Or a competition between currencies.

Bitcoin is the solution Friedrich Hayek dreamed of. The emergence of Bitcoin is thus the realization of Friedrich Hayek’s dream. Hayek’s vision is therefore gradually taking over from that of Keynes, which has been dominant since the middle of the twentieth century.

Attitudes are changing and Bitcoin is becoming the number one option against the GMI

In 2020, institutional investors understood that Bitcoin was the best possible weapon against the great monetary inflation (GMI) that we are experiencing. Paul Tudor Jones launched a movement in May 2020 that has not stopped growing since then.

Grayscale Investments’ Bitcoin fund now holds more than 509,000 BTC for its clients which are more than 90%, institutional investors. The major companies make Bitcoin their reserve asset. The move was initiated by MicroStrategy and CEO Michael J. Saylor in early August 2020.

A major player in the Bitcoin world with its ultra-popular CashApp application that facilitates the purchase of Bitcoin, Square then joined the movement in early October 2020.

At the end of October 2020, it was the turn of PayPal to announce its upcoming entry into the Bitcoin world. By early 2021 at the latest, PayPal will allow its 346 million users worldwide to buy/sell Bitcoin directly from its platform.

Even better, PayPal will offer payments in Bitcoin to the 26 million businesses in its network. However, this raises questions in terms of self-sovereignty, as shown by a first case that made a lot of noise about a user account that was banned for too many transactions in cryptocurrencies.

PayPal is not the best option to enter into the Bitcoin world

Only Warren Buffett and Ray Dalio are left not to believe in Bitcoin on Wall Street

More and more legendary Wall Street investors are embracing Bitcoin, explaining that it is a unique opportunity. Bitcoin is indeed the opportunity of a lifetime. In the end, only Ray Dalio and Warren Buffett are left to fiercely oppose Bitcoin. They can’t understand that Bitcoin is a paradigm shift, and they get stuck into thought patterns holding them back to buy Bitcoin.

Ray Dalio still believes, wrongly, that Bitcoin will be stopped by governments if it becomes too big. Ray Dalio is totally mistaken. Bitcoin can no longer be stopped, and above all, the trend is rather towards a better consideration of Bitcoin through more favorable regulations.

At least this is the hope that was born after the election of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.

Warren Buffett still thinks that Bitcoin is a “Rat poison squared”, but after all, at his age, it seems logical that he is not able to question himself to understand why Bitcoin is revolutionary. So I can hardly imagine that Warren Buffett will be one of the next to enter the Bitcoin world.

If Warren Buffett will not be among those who will enter the Bitcoin world in the coming months, the big question is who will be next.

The arrival of PayPal brings credibility with the general public

The entry of PayPal is important because it brings enormous credibility for Bitcoin. PayPal is a major and highly respected player in the online payment world. Those who were still hesitating to cross the pass because of Bitcoin’s bad public image will probably be reassured.

In the summer of 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which is the U.S. banking regulator, gave the green light to U.S. banks to buy and hold Bitcoin for their customers.

It is therefore easy to imagine that American banks will be the next to offer Bitcoin purchase/holding services to their customers.

If this is not a good thing from the point of view of the Bitcoin revolution, since banks are part of the problem that Bitcoin wants to solve, it is something that will greatly boost the adoption of Bitcoin by the general public.

U.S. banks will follow PayPal’s lead in the coming months

Jamie Dimon, who said in May 2020 that he regretted calling Bitcoin a fraud at the end of 2017, explains that he sees Bitcoin gaining a sustainable foothold. He nevertheless specifies that it is not his thing. He urges JPMorgan to enter the Bitcoin world to take advantage of it.

Since May 2020, JPMorgan has been offering its banking services to Coinbase or Gemini, for example.

In 2021, I imagine that JPMorgan will end up offering Bitcoin to its customers. In the wake of JPMorgan, other American banks will follow like Morgan Stanley or Citibank. Citibank has just published a report in which its analysts see Bitcoin capable of reaching a price of over $318K by the end of 2021.

This is even more optimistic than my forecast of a $100K Bitcoin by the end of 2021. But why not …

Apart from the American banks, what other players could come into the world of Bitcoin in 2021?

The GAFA, with Amazon and Apple in the lead, will eventually come to the Bitcoin world

I think immediately of Amazon, which could enter the Bitcoin world by accepting Bitcoin as a means of payment on its site. This would be something that would boost the credibility of Bitcoin, but also its use.

Besides Amazon, Apple would have a double interest in entering the Bitcoin world quickly. The first would be to use part of its $192 billion cash reserve to buy Bitcoin. This move could then be followed by many other major companies in the United States. They are sitting on mountains of cash that are suffering the effects of this great monetary inflation.

But Apple could also generate a lot of money if it integrated Bitcoin into Apple Pay, which is becoming more and more popular. Apple could build a secure crypto wallet directly into its iPhones.

While this might have seemed utopian a few months ago, the probability that these players will enter the Bitcoin world in the coming months and years is growing.

Conclusion

Bitcoin is a real revolution that is set to last. Faced with such a monetary revolution, there is only one choice: embrace it as soon as possible to get the most out of it. The GAFAM will be no exception to the rule, and they will have to enter in the Bitcoin world sooner or later.

It will be a matter of survival for them as well.

I have not even mentioned here the governments that are becoming more and more involved in Bitcoin to free themselves from the American yoke on the world. I am thinking of Iran or Venezuela, who see Bitcoin as a way to free themselves from the American sanctions.

In any case, the future looks bright for Bitcoin, and the best is yet to come. Don’t be surprised by the great announcements for Bitcoin that will multiply in the months and years to come. This is just the beginning.

(Disclaimer: This story contains affiliate links for some books. If you choose to make a purchase after clicking these links I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support!)