Last year BTC Inc set off on a mission to make Bitcoin fun again. We refocused our entire business on Bitcoin and Bitcoin content, relaunched Bitcoin Magazine in print, revamped our digital property, launched the Bitcoin Magazine podcast and put together the Bitcoin 2019 conference, where around 2,000 Bitcoiners, 70 companies and 100 speakers joined us on this journey. Now we’re ready for part two: Today, we are officially launching Bitcoin 2020!

We’re at the precipice now. With Bitcoin poised to make a run at all-time highs once again, a truth has emerged; this time the world is watching. If the first 10 years of Bitcoin can be dubbed the “development phase,” this next decade might well be the “adoption phase.” In the adoption phase, we go mainstream, and the masses will clamor over the final ~3 million bitcoin left to be mined, along with however many bitcoin people feel compelled to trade in for fiat fortunes.

While some people may get “hilariously rich” over the next few years, we must remember as a collective that we didn’t join the movement just to get rich quick. Bitcoin isn’t about any one person benefiting from the system, but the system realigning its incentives to benefit all people. It’s about living life peer to peer. It’s about the fundamental rights of freedom, privacy and self-determination.

Those three tenets form the foundation on which the sovereign individual may stand. In a society so interconnected that words and actions can be amplified around the world, sovereign individuals must reign supreme, and do so with maximally aligned incentives. Without power in the hands of the masses, humankind is left to grovel at the feet of a few overlords and hope for their benevolence. How many of the most powerful leaders in the world today would you blindly trust with everything you care about?

You, the reader, don’t have to answer that question, because you’re already deep in this rabbit hole with us. Many of you have ridden the market cycles through the highest of highs and the troughs of disillusionment. Many of you have been heralded and berated by your friends and family who discounted your advice, joined the frenzy phase, then blamed their losses squarely on you — all within a few months.

While we’re each individually battling our way through the path of maximum pain that Bitcoin takes, sometimes it’s comforting, perhaps even invigorating, to know that we’re all battling in parallel. That’s why one of the most valuable platforms that can be created is the one where we can each connect, face to face, peer to peer, and discuss why this game-changing decentralized system called Bitcoin still manifests itself at the forefront of our attention.

There’s one more thing to keep in mind as we enter the next bull phase; we are, collectively, stewards of Bitcoin. In the next cycle, we will endure countless more people who “know exactly what Bitcoin needs in order to be successful.” The fact of the matter is that Bitcoin doesn’t need them to be successful — they need Bitcoin. This is a reminder to not change what Bitcoin means to each of us just because new hands have entered the system hellbent on molding it to their own desired form. We will remain, unapologetically, who we are.