In celebration of a major price milestone, here’s my Bitcoin story. I’m sure many will find it corny, but the time I’ve dedicated to this asset class makes it worth sharing to me. My fiancé even forced me to acknowledge: “so you’re writing a piece exclusively about your experience with the price changes of money"?”. Yes, I am, but it’s because the asset class is more than money, or the price of that money. The discussion really centers around technology that I think is increasing economic freedom and economic empowerment across the globe. If that statement sounds hyperbolic, I would suggest reading some of my research pertaining to peer to peer crypto transaction rates in countries with high inflation or unstable governments.
This was once a problem I didn’t spend much time thinking about, and now I think it’s THE problem we need to be solving for in order to make the world a better place: How do we enable people to participate in an economy that they are currently excluded from?
I first heard of Bitcoin in 2015. There was a Twitter account with a profile picture of a Guy Faux mask that was talking about how it was the future of money. Bitcoin was about $300 at the time, and I was a sophomore in high school that had 0 idea how to acquire such an asset anyways. I’m not sure where the guy who ran that account ended up, but he was a left-anarchist that identified with the anonymous/occupy wall street crowds. This was right before politics became super loaded, so while I didn’t agree with all of his posts, I appreciated the sentiments of freedom, justice, and equality. The Guy Faux mask twitter profile was a fitting introduction to Bitcoin, I can think of 10 V for Vendetta quotes that fit the narrative behind this entire asset class. I hope he’s doing well, and I hope he kept his Bitcoin.
The next time people started talking about Bitcoin often was Q4 of 2017. At that point, I had very little conversations of substance about how Bitcoin actually worked. I was interested in monetary economics, but I was completely ignorant, and conflated Bitcoin with any other magic internet coin out there. At the time, Bitcoin, Dogecoin, or any others were all the same to me: different names for the same underlying technology. I did try to buy some near the top, and in hindsight I’m thankful that Comerica Bank blocked me from doing so (Rare W from my tradfi bank). It wasn’t 3 months later that it was down over 70%, and I felt like I dodged a bullet investing into a hype-driven asset bubble.
In October of 2019, I attended a conference hosted by the Cato Institute in Washington, DC. I met a very bright individual by the name of Martin, who proceeded to tell me how he was bullish on Bitcoin. I was a lot more savvy to economics and finance at this point, yet I scoffed at him. I recall confidently telling him something along the lines of “It’s never coming back”. I thought he was just another smart person caught up in an asset bubble. I’m incredibly glad he defended his stance. We talked about Bitcoin’s proof of work system, CBDCs, fiat currency, and all the technical mechanics that I was woefully ignorant on. It was my first proper Bitcoin education, albeit many have tried before (looking at you, Jota).
Like an idiot, and not uncommon, the first crypto I ever bought was Dogecoin in late 2019. It was summer of 2020 that I finally made my first significant Bitcoin purchase. By that point, we were deep in lockdowns and I was sending applications to attend George Mason University for an MA in Economics the following year. I hosted livestreams talking about economics, I was super concerned about inflation, and I finally boarded the Bitcoin hype train, like many of us did around this time. Interest in Bitcoin turned into obsession. I taught myself technical analysis, I ate up every piece of content you could find, and sought to educate myself as much as possible on Bitcoin and the rest of the cryptocurrency asset class. I made a ton of mistakes and was surely suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect, but I was trying hard to make up for lost time as well. I really owe a lot of credit to my mentor, Jota (alias). In the midst of my poor decision making, he gracefully and patiently taught me how to trade. They weren’t really lessons, more like “here’s what I do, you’re smart enough, try to keep up”. Frankly, I’d argue a trial by fire in that vein is the only tried and true method into getting into trading. You don’t have to be a trader to purchase Bitcoin, of course, but man am I happy it’s a skill that I’ve added to my toolkit.
In 2021, I started my first semester at George Mason. I was temporarily embarrassed about this, but now I am not, I was THE resident crypto bro at George Mason. Any former classmates reading this will probably chuckle, because they’re well aware that I was SO annoying. I really couldn’t shut up about it. I was so bullish on Bitcoin, that I put laser eyes on my Twitter profile, and announced to the world I would not be removing them until Bitcoin hit $100,000 in price.
I thought we would hit $100,000 that year. Then came the bear market, then came Terra/Luna, Voyager, and FTX. Through all of that, I was just as passionate about the space as I was previously. I wrote multiple papers that I am still quite proud of on the asset class. I studied under the great Lawrence White, who was the first person to ever mention Bitcoin in congress. The entire way, I sat around and chucked some spare cash into Bitcoin each month. As much as I was late to DCA’ing Bitcoin from when I first invested, 2022 was a great time to pick up the habit. The bear market got so bad that people on Twitter would tease me for posting my TA charts. My super supportive fiancé once asked me if I thought Bitcoin was ever going to go up again. There were probably moments that she thought I was setting our money on fire along the way, which was totally valid, I would’ve said the same thing to someone not 3 years earlier. Throughout all of it, I kept my laser eyes on. I outlasted Tom Brady, Anthony Pompliano, and all the other influencers that spent the 2021 bullmarket touting their support for the crypto asset class. They all took their laser eyes off. I’m not sure if they were embarrassed or lacked conviction, or maybe it was just a bad look for how much capital they got wrapped up in the wrong stuff. While they were moving on to other topics to chase, I was releasing Bitcoin themed music in the depths of the bear market. Conviction strong, I released “Laser Eyes ‘Til $100K” in April of 2022.
Now, we’re finally here, Bitcoin is at $100,000. This post was meant to summarize my crypto journey for myself, while also noting just how much education, conviction, and time on task it took for it to “pay off”. It seems like a silly concept to start, and then the more you look into it the more you realize what significant potential it has to create positive change in the world. I’m now the first to tell my friends, this industry isn’t for the faint of heart, and frankly I’m not sure that I openly recommend it for most. I’d rather people understood it as a concept rather than had an interest in putting their money towards it.
Despite the price volatility, though, I very strongly believe that Bitcoin is an innovation that points to a better monetary future. My interest in it has continued to grow as I see potential for economic empowerment at a scale we don’t even fully realize yet. People across the globe will no longer be bound by the economy they are born into, the government that sets the rules they live under, or the foundation their local currencies are built on. Most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about how their money works, and when questioned on it they don’t often have articulate answers. This is exactly why Bitcoin has taken over 16 years for people to start to take seriously. The problems Bitcoin solves for aren’t widely understood problems, but they are still problems people feel every day. They feel it with inflated currency, they feel it with interest rates, they feel it when there are barriers to transacting with people. They feel it when on the phone with their bank, dealing with exchange rates, or trying to do business with someone far away. They feel spied on, over taxed, and over regulated. To assume this is the best we can do with our money and banking isn’t thinking big enough. Money is an eternally evolving technology, and we might be on the verge of a major breakthrough.
The anon on Twitter that I followed in 2015 wasn’t worried about the price, he was interested in the technology that had the potential to free people from a dated and centralized monetary system. If that use case spikes your interest, maybe do some research. If the research is compelling, consider forgoing pizza delivery once per month to buy some Bitcoin.
“It might make sense just to get some in case in catches on”.
