Were you one of the fortunate individuals who got involved in Bitcoin when it was worth ten pence? Perhaps you learned about Bitcoin when it was worth 25p? No? How about when it was worth a pound or ten pounds?

If you recognised Bitcoin’s potential back then, and happened to have a few thousand quid lying around waiting for a punt – and let’s be honest Bitcoin was quite a punt back then – you would currently be a made man.

Your faith humanity, and the itrational decision to sending £1,000 to a complete stranger in return for some magic internet money would have netted you thousands of BTC. It may have seemed like a crazy idea at the time, but anyone with strong enough hodling convictions would be currently sitting on a share of the Bitcoin Blockchain worth between £20m and £50m at today’s prices. That is the reason that some felt a very strong impulse to throw caution to the wind and follow their gut. They sensed the benefit that lay ahead. Do you?

In life, the big answers are only apparent to those who are asking the big questions

There’s always a danger, when reading such tales, to feel despondent; rejecting anything more to do with Bitcoin. The bitcoin sore loser syndrome if you will, involves jeering from the sidelines wishing Bitcoin’s rapid demise, and cheering each time the price falls. Or saying the price is too high to buy in at 60, then 600 then 6,000. Will they still be saying the same when the price is 60,000, or 600,000?

The Answers Come in Response to Questions

Personally, I could have seen the potential of Bitcoin back in 2009, but I wasn’t ready for it, just as many aren’t ready for Bitcoin even today. In life, the big answers are only apparent to those who are asking the big questions.

For example, if you wanted to know, like Satoshi, “How can we make a form of un-seizable, sound money, fit for the 21st Century, which works for rather than against the individual?” If you had asked this question, or even had reason to ask it, having understood the shortcomings of centrally planned economies, you would have realised the problem that Bitcoin is trying to solve, and why it might have significant future value.

If you speak with people who work in banking and finance; those who derive huge financial benefit from the current status quo, most of them see Bitcoin as a curiosity, rather than the emergent replacement to large parts of their industry. They don’t see the point at all, and why should they? Things are working out very nicely for them. They aren’t asking how things can be any better.

Back in 2007, I was reading books about banking, the monetary system, and the housing market boom (tied to speculation in land prices). I was learning about inflation, fractional reserve banking and the reason I was living in a shared house at age 30, despite having a good job.

It’s Government Stupid

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) I came to the misguided conclusion that bankers are just evil, and that free-market capitalism had failed and something needed to be done (probably by government) to prevent the same thing from ever happening in the future.

But I was also furious at the government for its no strings attached bail outs of reckless banks. I had unknowingly fallen into the exact same trap that spawned the Federal Reserve in the aftermath of the 1929 crash; that government is necessary to quell an immoral and dysfunctional free-market economy.

I’ve since come to understand that what ails the western economies of Great Britain and the United States (among others) is too much government, rather than too little, and that the Wild-West capitalist banking system is really nothing of the sort. Banking and finance is the most heavily regulated business there is, to the extent that bankers are effectively our highest paid civil servants, and banks an arm of government.

Thats right colks, the GFC of 2008/9 was encouraged and signed off by government civil servants. In order to absolve themselves of any blame in the fallout, government officials pointed the finger of blame at greedy bankers and the inherent weakness of capitalism as they increased their power and reach further into our lives. The bankers naturally played along with the ruse because they got to keep their shirts and were spared jail time (ever wonder why no-one has gone to prison?), while the taxpayer picked up the bill, and voted for more government, the very thing which had caused the problem in the first place.

Since 2009 nothing much has been introduced to improve this situation. Banks are bigger and more heavily regulated than ever, having even less need to take any responsibility for their actions.

Left alone to operate in a truly free market – one where bankrupt businesses fail - banks would never have lent money to un-creditworthy individuals in the first place. But when government programmes – designed to encourage home ownership and the corresponding wealth effect – forced banks to relax their lending standards, they came up with clever ways to try to manage their exposure to the junk bonds they had created.

CDO’s CDS’s MBS’s were all clever products banks used to shift risk away from themselves onto others, risk they would never have taken on in the first place had they been made wholly responsible for the consequences of their actions. Yes folks, Bitcoin has come along as a response to all of this government fiat money sponsored CRAP!

Fomo?

And if you fear that you’ve missed the Bitcoin boat, you couldn’t be farther from the truth. You’ve not missed the boat at all. If you’re reading this, you are in a very small minority who has any idea about the value proposition of Bitcoin (the bitcoin 1% if you will), about why it has legs, how to buy it and HODL it.

Bitcoin is still in a bear market – although it does seems to have stabilised as of October 2018 - which means that buying opportunities still exist, albeit not the sort that will allow you to comfortably retire as you could have when buying Bitcoin in 2009/10.

There is some good news though. Even though the biggest gains have already been made, there is still a potential 2,000x upside to Bitcoin over the coming decades. Plus, now is a far better time to buy Bitcoin than in 2009. Had you thrown a grand of your hard earned wealth at a Bitcoin Miner back in 2010, the chances of you ever seeing that money again were pretty slim.

But for every year that passes, The Bitcoin Juggernaut gathers more momentum, and the longer it prevails, the safer it becomes. A Bitcoin purchase today may not make you into a potential trillionnaire, but it’s also far less likely to evaporate into thin air. The stakes are now lower, but so are the risks.

By the way, if you want to feel good about the potential upside of BTC, listen to Murad Mahmudov speaking about Bitcoin with Anthony Pompliano. Its hard to not get excited when hearing Murad’s enthusiasm for the Bitcoin project.

Murad thinks that Bitcoin could one day be worth $10m. If this is true, then why not forego that new suit, or camera, or winter coat, or new set of wheels for your car. Take the money you would have spent, buy yourself a hardware wallet and acquire yourself a piece of the Bitcoin blockchain. If Murad is right, £500 worth of Bitcoin purchased now will one day be worth £775,000 in today’s prices. Enough for a house, or a decent retirement pot, or a means to fund your children or grandchildrens’ education. Think of it as a punt on the future of money and don’t touch it for ten years.

I know Bitcoin is expensive, but it’s nowhere near as expensive as it will be in the coming years when user adoption really takes off and society realises the poor value they are getting from their governments’ money.

Just as the price of $100 looks amazing compared to today’s price, $6,000 is going to look like a bargain when bitcoin is going for $60,000.

What have you got to lose? A few hundred quid? Seriously. Buy a few hundred pounds worth of Bitcoin and stash it away on a hardware wallet (trezor, ledger, coldcard). If it all goes pear shaped – and We should say there is still a fair chance it could - at least you were along for the ride and had a chance to learn about something very important to society. Like a day at the races, you had some skin in the game and you had an exhilarating couple of years, where you got to fantasise about becoming truly wealthy.

If Bitcoin does fail, then it will be replaced by something else similar, and you will be uniquely positioned to profit from whatever that is. Detractors often miss the point about Bitcoin. The fiat money system is dying on its arse, and Bitcoin has come along to save the world from the repercussions of fiat money. It is the saviour of the world, the Jesus of money, and all they’re doing is crucifying it. Luckily there are a growing number of Bitcoin disciples.

Also, don’t fall into the shitcoin trap. Don’t believe the hype about The Next Bitcoin. The next Bitcoin is Bitcoin. Unless they’re talking about the new, revised and updated Bitcoin, they’re probably fraudsters trying to take your money or your Bitcoin in return for their worthless shitcoin. Don’t give it them! If you don’t give your Bitcoin up willingly, and you learn how to secure them, you can hold them for ever.

Bitcoin has never done an ICO, paid for any advertising, and yet it has come to be the biggest and most prestigious project in the crypto-sphere, and with a market cap far exceeding its would-be competitors. Why do you think that is? Bitcoin is a grass-roots cypherpunk crypto-anarchist movement which, if successful, will benefit hundreds of millions of people on the planet.

Bitcoin is for the Little Guy

Even if you never bought any cryptocurrency, the invention will still benefit you enormously as a working man or woman trying to get on with the business of living your life, buying a home, raising a family etc. Why?

Because the fiat money system is rigged most against those aspiring to improve their lot In life. Inflationary money benefits those with land, hard assets and stocks and bonds; the rich. Because money loses its value over time and must be invested to preserve wealth, the price of assets rises (houses, cars, stock investments) making life more expensive. The aspiring individual who holds his wealth in cash loses thanks to central bank inflation.

The invention of a decentralised, deflationary money automatically makes anyone else with a competing currency behave better. If they try any more QE buggery, people will drop their currency like a stone and find those with a better monetary policy.

At last the people have a choice. There’s no longer a need to use pounds or dollars or euros, which lose their value gradually over time, so your annual ‘pay rise’ is really just standing still. If you have a choice about which money you buy and hold, are you going to use the crappy ones?

Arguably, the increase in value of finite cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is a symptom of the money printing which has gone on over the last ten years. Rather than any bubble in crypto, it demonstrates the bubble in fiat money printing in which Bitcoin is priced.

The Bank of England has created nearly half a trillion pounds of new money to stimulate the economy. How have they fared? Well, by their own admission they’ve made the rich even richer, inflating asset prices, while the majority have been standing still for ten years. And those on fixed incomes have seen their purchasing power eroded by inflation. Sound fair? There must surely be another, better way?

There is, and if you’re one of the not so well off ones who has been impacted by this questionable behaviour, and you would like to participate in the biggest transfer of wealth the world has ever seen, now is the time to get involved.