Monthly Archives: January 2022

Robinhoods chief financial officer has revealed the popular trading platforms crypto priority and the potential of listing more cryptocurrencies. Were a highly regulated company in a highly regulated industry, and we think its important that we get a bit more clarity from regulators, he emphasized.

The chief financial officer (CFO) of Robinhood, Jason Warnick, talked about cryptocurrency during The Wall Street Journals virtual CFO Network Summit last week.

Commenting on retail investors high demand for Robinhood to list more cryptocurrencies, particularly the meme crypto shiba inu (SHIB), Warnick emphasized, Its not lost on us that our customers and others would like to see us add more coins. However, the Robinhood executive stressed:

Were a highly regulated company in a highly regulated industry, and we think its important that we get a bit more clarity from regulators.

Compliance is a top priority at Robinhood. In December last year, the company partnered with blockchain data platform Chainalysis to meet compliance requirements.

Supporters of the shiba inu cryptocurrency have been petitioning on Change.org for Robinhood to list SHIB. At the time of writing, 555,811 people have signed the petition.

Christine Brown, Robinhood Cryptos chief operating officer and VP of Product Operations, said in November that the platform is in no hurry to list any additional cryptocurrencies. Her statement was in response to a question about when SHIB will be listed.

Robinhood Crypto currently supports the buying, selling, and real-time market data for bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), bitcoin sv (BSV), dogecoin (DOGE), ethereum (ETH), ethereum classic (ETC), and litecoin (LTC).

Warnick also clarified at the summit that Robinhood will not be buying cryptocurrency for its corporate treasury like some companies have done, such as Microstrategy and Tesla. He explained:

There arent compelling reasons strategically for our business to put any meaningful amount of our corporate cash into cryptocurrencies.

In December last year, Robinhood launched a cryptocurrency gift program. The company also announced the upcoming beta launch of its cryptocurrency wallets, which has a waitlist of 1.6 million people.

What do you think about the Robinhood executives comments? Let us know in the comments section below.

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Robinhood on Listing More Cryptocurrencies: 'It's Important That We Get a Bit More Clarity From Regulators' Regulation Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

The U.S. Congress will hold a hearing on the energy use and environmental impact of bitcoin mining on January 20, its Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee announced on Thursday.

The move was prompted by a letter sent to the House in October by a cohort of national and international climate organizations that argued against the energy usage of Bitcoin and its Proof of Work (PoW) system.

We, the more than 70 climate, economic, racial justice, business and local organizations, write to you today to urge Congress to take steps to mitigate the considerable contribution portions of the cryptocurrency markets are making to climate change and the resulting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, environmental, and climate justice impacts it will have, the letter read.

A rebuttal to the letter was published this week by the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI), an interdisciplinary cohort of economists, coders, lawyers, climate scientists, philosophers, and policy analysts providing research, fact-checking, and commentary on Bitcoin.

The group argues in its fact-checking paper that the letter sent to Congress contains plenty of inaccuracies about the bitcoin mining industry, a gap its policy work is trying to bridge. The BPI, which will send its paper to Congress, says that the House should indeed consider Bitcoins power consumption, but warrants a more careful and factual approach.

Such considerations must be based on an accurate understanding of the Bitcoin protocol, a proper review of the scientific literature, and up-to-date information about the mining industry, the paper said. Unfortunately, the coalitions letter is not. Instead, it reiterates debunked myths about Bitcoin emissions, e-waste, and energy markets. Our aim is to clarify the record and ensure that policy discussion around Bitcoin is grounded in science and fact.

Some of the misconceptions and myths clarified by the paper relate to climate change, electronic waste, and the common but misleading comparisons between Bitcoins energy usage and that of countries like Argentina and Norway. The BPI also disputes the organizations claims that Bitcoins use of power is unnecessary, an argument that doesnt take into account the fact that BTC is legal tender in El Salvador and the many people currently leveraging the peer-to-peer monetary network to enjoy financial freedom.

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Congress Announces Hearing On Bitcoins Energy Use - Bitcoin Magazine

Yahoo Finance's David Hollerith breaks down how bitcoin continues to fall as stocks sink.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

- The bearishness persists in crypto land. Bitcoin fell below 40,000 this morning with some now pointing to a death cross for the crypto forming on the charts is one reason for the decline. Yahoo Finance's cryptocurrency reporter David Hollerith is here with the details. David, ugly starts the week, but really it's been an ugly few weeks for Bitcoin. David, I think you're on mute.

DAVID HOLLERITH: Since November, when we saw all the prices of crypto assets peak, you know, it's been a general drawdown. One interesting trend that we've also seen concurrently with the drawdown in cryptocurrency prices has been sort of an increase in the supply of stablecoins. For example, USDC, the second largest stablecoin has increased by about almost 700% in the last week. So what we're seeing right now is a lot of investors, crypto investors are moving into stablecoins as a way to hedge out some of the volatility that's going on right now.

The Bitcoin price is testing around $40,000. Ethereum tests at the $3,000 level. So, again, the top two cryptocurrencies are trading even lower this week, and they're following sort of a more risk-on story that is what we're seeing in the stock market more generally.

- And, David, you know, what are the crypto faithful kind of saying about this latest downdraft, right, because no matter what happens with, with Bitcoin, with Ethereum, with the rest, you really have a pretty sizable core of people who are bulls out there, who will say this too shall pass?

DAVID HOLLERITH: Yeah, you know, I think that the realistic crypto faithful are sort of thinking of this as a sort of a time to hold out. You know, people have even-- you know, they're acknowledging the fact that cryptocurrencies have traded risk on since the pandemic. And one trend that was kind of interesting was the relationship between the Bitcoin price and the 10-year Treasury yield. Now they were sort of moving in a lockstep fashion for the past year. And as of January 3, so at the beginning of last week, they sort of diverged.

And so a lot of cryptocurrency investors were sort of hoping that this was some sort of signal. An analyst I spoke to is indicated that it's probably been a reflection of the fact that the 10-year yield, up to this point, hasn't really signaled Federal Reserve movements as much as just the heating of the economy without Federal Reserve sort of signaling concerns over inflation. So now that's changed, I think that we're expecting over the short-term and near-term and most crypto investors who are taking these drawdowns seriously are saying, in the near-term and short-term they expect to continue drawdown, but nothing like 2018 is sort of the going word. So they're not expecting you know, a multi-length or year long bear market at this point.

- Point well-taken. Yahoo Finance's David Hollerith, good to see you.

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Crypto: Why the price of bitcoin is falling - Yahoo Finance

This is not an introductory article explaining what bitcoin is and why other so-called cryptocurrencies cannot compete with its properties and network effects. There has been enough written about this already and bitcoin is the victor. What I will contend is that bitcoin can be considered the worlds best store of value by having superior characteristics to real estate the largest store of value presently. I will look at this briefly through each important characteristic that contributes to an asset retaining its value over time.

I think the epiphany comes when you realize that bitcoin is the dominant digital property network, and digital property is better than physical property in every way conceivable. If I theoretically designed digital property to store a billion dollars, I would want to hold it in the palm of my hand, move it at the speed of light, vibrate it one thousand times per second. I want it to last forever. I want immortal, indestructible, infinite, all powerful, programmable energy. Michael Saylor, founder and CEO of MicroStrategy

Scarcity is almost certainly the most important feature of a good store of value. Some real estate is scarce, a Sydney Harbour, waterfront mansion for example. But most real estate is not. Cities can expand upward through increased density or outward by extending their boundaries. Vacant or underutilized land can be rezoned or redeveloped. Land can be reclaimed from the ocean. Much of the scarcity associated with real estate is driven by government policy rather than true scarcity. Bitcoin is the scarcest asset ever known, because by design, there will only ever be 21 million bitcoin.

Even assuming there is no lost bitcoin (where people have lost or died with their private keys), which we know is not the case, a maximum of 0.26% of the worlds 8 billion people will be able to own a whole bitcoin. For context, there are over 56 million U.S. dollar millionaires globally; the majority of them will never be able to own a whole bitcoin despite most owning substantial amounts of real estate. Finally, bitcoins future supply schedule is perfectly known. Just over 90% of all bitcoin that will ever exist has already been mined (created) and 99% will be mined by 2035. An asset with a perfectly scarce supply schedule has never existed before.

Ideally, a store of value should be easy to divide into smaller parts to maximize its transactional potential. Physical real estate has obvious divisibility constraints. This has improved over time with the advent of real estate investment trusts (REITs), funds and other fractional ownership models. These allow you to own a security, which gives you a share of the property with certain legal rights attached but rarely any control. It often comes with significant compromises such as constraints on liquidity or fees that drag on returns. With bitcoin, you almost always buy the actual asset itself (unless buying a futures contract, or leaving coins on an exchange the equivalent of an IOU for bitcoin approaches I would not recommend). A bitcoin can be divided into 100,000,000 units called satoshis. Today, a single satoshi costs approximately $0.0005. In other words, $1 buys approximately 2,000 satoshis. Even setting aside the inferior legal structure of real estates divisibility, it is still impossible to buy $0.0005 worth of real estate.

To be a good store of value, it must be simple to verify authenticity, providing confidence to all parties in a transaction. Physical real estate generally performs very well on this measure you can see, touch and feel it. However, verifying ownership is less perfect, varies substantially globally and is not always possible without a professional experts assistance. Generally, centralized registers or title systems record ownership, but these can still be subject to rare cases of fraud or human error. Bitcoins public blockchain is able to be verified by anybody, anywhere, instantly, with no reliance on third parties and with mathematical certainty.

When two or more things are interchangeable and can be substituted for one another, they can be described as fungible. Fungibility solves the problems that arise in a bartering economy where people trade without a monetary medium. Real estate is not fungible: An acre of beachfront land in the Hamptons cannot be substituted for an acre of frozen land in Siberia. Bitcoins fungibility is superior. Every bitcoin or satoshi can be treated the same. Its fungibility is not perfect though, as the blockchain is public and traceable, so particular satoshis could be marked by regulators as being contaminated or unacceptable, in the very rare event they were used for illegal activities for example. Network development continues to improve the privacy of users and reduce this problem over time, but more work needs to be done. Nevertheless, bitcoin still triumphs over real estate on this measure.

The ability to be transported and stored easily facilitates global trade and protects against theft or loss. Real estate fails miserably on this measure: Clearly an office building in Manhattan cannot be transported to central Tokyo. Bitcoin is the obvious winner here, being the most portable store of value humans have discovered. It can literally be stored in your head by memorizing a 12- or 24-word private key (or password, which can also be kept safe on the equivalent of a small flash drive and transported in your pocket). A bitcoin transaction enables billions of dollars of value to be sent globally, instantly and at an extremely low cost.

To be a good store of value, an asset must not degrade or be easily destroyed. Vacant land can meet this criteria, however, developed property falls short as its materials cannot last forever and in rare circumstances can be destroyed substantially or entirely by natural disasters or war. Bitcoin is a decentralized digital record with no issuing authority or controlling individual. Ultimately, it may be considered durable provided the network that secures it survives. It is still early, however, the signs of bitcoins durability grow consistently whether it be attacks by hackers in its infancy that are now a thing of the past or countries unsuccessfully attempting to regulate or ban it. However, neither real estate or bitcoin can conclusively claim victory on this measure, yet.

The ability of a good to withstand a government or corporations control, confiscation or censorship is an increasingly important factor in qualifying as a reliable store of value. Real estate is not immune from confiscation, whether that be through compulsory acquisition or eminent domain laws or communist regimes seizing private property. It is also controlled through planning and zoning regulations and can be impaired by political decisions such as the moratoriums on rental evictions that happened in many countries globally during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, not all real estate tenure is created equal; freehold is the most desirable but still subject to the aforementioned risks. Also, in many jurisdictions, you cannot actually own real estate in perpetuity. Rather, you acquire a long-term leasehold or in some cases, such as in China, land use rights. Bitcoin excels in its censorship resistance. It is permission-less in that no external intervention can prevent a transaction being allowed by the distributed peer-to-peer network. Confiscating a 12- or 24-word private key which could be kept in somebodys head is also very difficult and inefficient at scale.

An ideal store of value should not need to be professionally managed by expert individuals or corporations and be accessible to everybody. Whether it be a single family home or a 1 million square foot office building, almost all forms of real estate require ongoing intervention to ensure operations are maximized and value preserved. Bitcoin does not demand this from its users. Once acquired and properly secured, the owner has absolutely nothing to do until they spend, sell or pass it to their descendants. Bitcoin isnt burdened by recalcitrant tenants or blocked toilets. It is not management intensive and is an open monetary network that anybody with an internet connection or phone can access. Its U.S. dollar price currently means the barrier to entry is extremely low, with $1 buying approximately 2,000 satoshis (there are 100,000,000 satoshis in a single bitcoin). In contrast, as the majority of first home buyers around the world will attest, real estate is increasingly inaccessible. The 15 most expensive cities in America have a home price-to-income ratio in the 714 times range and affordability is decreasing over time. Data shows that, while median household income has grown from $63,292 to $67,521 over the past 20 years, median house prices have grown from $227,600 to $403,900.

A good store of value should not be costly to hold. Real estate is burdened by maintenance costs and capital expenditure in order to retain its value. Billions of dollars of bitcoin can be stored virtually for free in a fully self-sovereign manner in perpetuity. Different owners will choose to adopt different security models that may involve trusted third parties; this comes with a slightly higher cost and other trade-offs but still costs less than the fees of third-party real estate funds or property managers.

The ability for an asset to be converted into another quickly, without losing any value, is a key attribute of a good store of value. Real estate is widely acknowledged as an illiquid asset, taking weeks, months or years to transact and being exposed to price fluctuations (for many reasons outside of the owners control) during a typical sale process. The depth of the buyer market is also extremely variable based on its lack of fungibility. REITs and some funds partially solve the liquidity trap, but come with their own compromises. Bitcoin does not suffer from these weaknesses, with approximately half a trillion U.S. dollars of value being transacted on the Bitcoin network each quarter and the ability to liquidate substantial quantities near instantly.

As the worlds largest store of value presently, real estate is famed for its ability to act as collateral and provide owners with the benefits (and risks) of leverage. Arguably global real estate prices have been the biggest beneficiary of a secular, multi-decade downtrend in interest rates, continual expansion of the money supply and more recent unprecedented central bank interventions. Globally, there are various government schemes that provide incentives to borrowers to maximize leverage (such as Australias negative gearing rules), supercharging returns over the long term, even though volatility occasionally liquidates weaker borrowers. Despite recent murmurs of QE tapering and interest rate rises, many argue that such moves would collapse currencies or bankrupt governments, so leveraged real estate is likely to remain an attractive store of value for some time to come.

Bitcoin flips this model. Its characteristics as a store of value are enhanced when held without leverage. Relatedly, the market for fiat currency loans with bitcoin as collateral is extremely immature, with four main risks. The first is the counterparty risk: Most loans are provided by early stage, VC-backed startups with balance sheets of unknown strength (or individuals in peer-to-peer structures). The second is the cost: Interest rates are high. The third is the security model: It is difficult to reliably hold bitcoin in a way that appropriately allocates risk between lender and borrower. The fourth is bitcoins price volatility, causing covenant breaches triggering loss of bitcoin through automatic liquidation (even if it were possible for additional collateral to be posted). For most borrowers, it may be possible to de-risk one or two, but not all four of these areas. Consequently, real estate currently provides superior leverage benefits, particularly on a risk-adjusted basis. This contrast will likely change in line with bitcoins maturation. Some macro investors already argue it is the most pristine form of collateral possible, but the product ecosystem needs to catch up.

A common critique of bitcoin is that it is too volatile. This might not be surprising given its short history. While volatility remains a factor today, it continues to trend down slightly over the long term as the asset matures. The bitcoin market trades 24/7 and never closes, so the ability to smooth out volatility either artificially through arbitrary quarterly or annual valuation cycles and an appraisal process subject to human frailties and manipulation doesnt exist like it does in the real estate market. It is difficult to see this dynamic changing much in the short to medium term, but it is reasonable to expect the trend of gradually lower volatility continues in line with bitcoins maturity. Individual circumstances such as forecast holding periods and portfolio allocations are also considerations when analyzing bitcoins volatility. While 30%-plus drawdowns in short periods of time might never be seen in real estate, bitcoin can also claim that its 200-week moving average price has never fallen a testament to its consistent growth trajectory over 12 years. Nevertheless, at a headline level, real estate appears to be much less volatile than bitcoin. But it is worth noting the impact of high leverage on short to medium time frames when markets turn, which can cause significant volatility, particularly in more liquid real estate assets such as REITs or those regularly marked to market.

Like gold and silver have done for thousands of years in performing the dual role of monetary asset and commodity, real estate provides its owners with value through utility. It can be lived in or used by owner-occupier businesses for production. Clearly this is not a feature bitcoin offers. However, it can be argued that the utility value of real estate is significantly less than its value as a financial asset. The trend of the utility value of real estate in relation to its value as a financial asset can be observed in its rental yield. It doesnt take much research to see how consistently rental yields have trended toward zero over a multi-decade horizon, vastly outstripping the growth in household incomes (e.g., it has become much less affordable to own your home) or growth in the income of businesses that occupy it for productive uses. The financialization of an asset whose number one feature is the ability to be occupied has been driven by the secular, multi-decade downtrend in interest rates and expansion of the money supply. If this driver were to change, the premium could dry up or reverse rapidly.

The longer real estate acts as the worlds largest store of value, the harder it will be for something else to replace it. Bitcoin was only conceived in 2008 but has already withstood substantial challenges to provide confidence that it will not go away. In the last two years, we have seen institutional adoption grow (for example, over $80 billion of bitcoin is known to be held in corporate treasuries), market capitalization exceeds $1 trillion in value, and countries are beginning to adopt bitcoin as legal tender and a reserve asset. Bitcoins trajectory continues unabated despite its critics, and the longer it not only survives but thrives, the greater the worlds confidence that it will continue to exist long into the future. Nevertheless, real estate obviously remains the leader on this measure.

A common critique from mainstream financial circles is that bitcoin has no intrinsic value because it produces no cash flow. In contrast, real estate produces generally reliable and consistent cash flows that can be forecasted and valued. Importantly, technical and financial innovation in bitcoin moves much faster than in the legacy system and its only a matter of time before reliable low-risk yield products hit the market. With investors starved for yield, this could be a further catalyst for rotation from traditional asset classes and real estate into bitcoin. Nevertheless, it has already been contended that bitcoin is more divisible, verifiable, fungible, portable, permissionless, accessible, liquid, has lower ownership costs and, critically, is set to be the scarcest major asset ever to exist in our lifetimes. The users that bitcoin provides value to are not looking for cash flows that can be discounted to a present value, but a better way to preserve their expended energy (savings) in perpetuity, as well as transfer potentially billions of dollars of value instantly across space and time.

The market opportunity for bitcoin is significant. Savills estimated the value of all of the worlds real estate was $327 trillion in 2020, with 79% of this being residential real estate. Real estate stores more value than all global equities and debt securities combined. The value of all gold in the world, which many have already argued will be imminently demonetized by bitcoin, is under $12 trillion. At the time of writing, bitcoins market capitalization is less than 10% of golds. If gold were to hold its U.S. dollar price, simply catching up would value one bitcoin at around $500,000.

Although the market is still developing and bitcoin can never provide physical utility, or for now the long track record of real estate, on every other measure it has the potential to become the worlds most sought-after store of value and in the process extract a significant amount of wealth from the real estate sector.

This is a guest post by James Santi. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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Bitcoin Is A Better Store Of Value Than Real Estate - Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Magazines YouTube channel was restored around three hours after being shut down, with the publication attributing the short ban to the YouTube algorithm flagging the word Kazakhstan.

In a Jan. 12 Twitter post, Bitcoin Magazine noted that its YouTube account with 56,600 followers was banned in the middle of a livestream with no prior warning from the platform.

The Livestream was focused on topics relating to Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, Bitcoin (BTC) mining and the recent internet blackout in Kazakhstan, whichwas reportedly initiated by the government in response to mass protests over surging fuel prices in the nation.

Bitcoin Magazine stated it wasnt entirely sure what grounds YouTube had used to ban its channel but did confirm that its account had been restored an hour after it had submitted an appeal, suggesting that Youtube had realized its error.

In a live broadcast after the reinstatement, host Alex Mcshane noted that the panel was discussing the internet blackouts effect on the BTC mining hash rate without saying anything controversial, but was using a set of algorithmically and politically charged words, which may have triggered the automated shutdown:

Bitcoin Magazine also shared a post earlier on Wednesday noting the initial response from YouTube regarding the ban, with the Google-owned platform stating that content that encourages illegal activities or incites users to violate YouTubes guidelines is not allowed.

We may allow depictions of such activities if they are educational or documentary in nature and dont help others imitate them, the response added.

Despite its content policy, current searches on YouTube still yield results showing multiple live streams using the identity and video content of popular figures such as MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor to promote dodgy websites and supposed crypto giveaway scams.

Related: Key on-chain metric shows Bitcoin miners in massive BTC accumulation mode

Commenting on the ban in the r/CryptoCurrency subreddit, user u/Setl1less highlighted the hypocrisy, arguing that Youtube has made it a habit of taking down prominent informative accounts while allowing scams to operate freely.

Originally posted here:
Dont mention K country: Bitcoin Magazine's YouTube restored after ban - Cointelegraph

As the title suggests, Ill go over what I believe makes a good Bitcoiner with the hope of persuading you that being a HODLer is actually an important job that entails certain responsibilities.

The outline roughly will be:

Lets go.

We have an important role as Bitcoiners to always be orange-pilling, but to do so in a way thats constructive, and that means being sensitive to the reality that not everyone is ready to hear what we have to say.

We recognize that becoming a Bitcoiner often results from a set of philosophical underpinnings or dependencies. Someone lacking in one or more of these prerequisites will likely face obstacles along their journey that make adoption difficult. The fact that not yet everyone is onboard with bitcoin is testament to this difficulty.

There are other impediments to adoption beyond a mere conceptual understanding that can usually be traced to conflicts of interest. We believe in time these too will give way to a more free and open financial system based on voluntary cooperation. Its our job to bring bitcoin to the world with the least number of casualties along the way and to remind people that bitcoin is available to everyone equally.

Studying bitcoin, I asked myself why some people arent profoundly astounded by it, or worse, feel an aversion to it at first glance. There are the usual FUD talking points that could scare you away if you dont know any better, but this fud doesnt seem to have a real effect on the HODLers. It soon became apparent that it is nearly impossible to have an appreciation for bitcoin if you dont already see the shortcomings of the existing financial system.

It is the distinguishing qualities of bitcoin HODLers that prompted them to break allegiance from the old system and led them to demand a new one. Interestingly, the gold bugs warned us that the loss of sound money would eventually end in catastrophe. In a sense we owe it to them for sounding the alarm. However, the sound money narrative had to evolve beyond precious metals to reflect a digitally connected world.

The gold bugs, the Austrian economists, and other sound money advocates grew accustomed to being quietly swept into the corner of public discourse because of their tendency to be critical of mainstream economics. To regular folks the path of least resistance is to embrace the fiat system, as weve been so assured that the system is in good hands. However, those who seek financial autonomy, who crave logical integrity, and who value saving may find the trade-offs made in the fiat world to be intolerable.

Lets dig a little deeper to see what sets apart a true Bitcoiner from the rest of the pack. As I alluded to, Bitcoiners not always but generally tend to lean libertarian, even anarchist in some cases. There is a tension between the concepts of personal liberty and state-granted permission. Bitcoiners tend to be skeptical of propaganda and corporate media which points to a fundamental divide in where we personally derive our human rights. Are we endowed with unalienable human rights, or are we granted rights by the state so long as were in good standing with the various bureaus, branches, and departments?

Skepticism when wielded properly is not just aimed at the media out of spite or for the heck of it. Rather it is a tool for reasoning that applies to all areas of life. It is simply the default m.o. when encountering new information. A rational person applies a healthy degree of skepticism whether dealing with science, business, or politics. Along the same lines is a need for logical consistency. Bitcoiners demand intellectual honesty and accountability from both our peers and our critics.

Bitcoin tends to be popular among tinkerers, early adopters, and gamers. Bitcoiners are always trying to think two steps ahead, theyre good at reading between the lines, and analyzing the second and third order consequences.

Finally, to be a good HODLer one generally has to have a propensity to save money. That may go without saying, but it just cant be over emphasized. In a world entirely founded on credit, bitcoin challenges the conventional advice around debt and borrowing.

Theres a common denominator that ties together many of these characteristics which is what bitcoiners call low time preference. Put simply, it means they place little value on short-term gratification, opting instead to work toward long-term goals. To be fair, everyone has to put food on the table, so we cant pretend its realistic to delay gratification forever, but what we can do is make decisions about what will satisfy us today and what is worth waiting for. Bitcoin takes saving to a whole new level. We suddenly realize our everyday decisions to spend and consume carry a lot of weight when judged against the opportunity cost of owning bitcoin. Its common for Bitcoiners to undergo profound behavioral changes in the interest of saving. It might seem an excess of savings would lead to issues when it comes to stimulating the economy and the velocity of money, however the inflation/deflation debate and the mandate of perpetual growth are subjects that remain to be fully hashed out.

For these reasons bitcoin tends to resonate strongly with people who are motivated by things like math, economics, and game theory. But not everyone is wired that way; in fact, many people are not. People are motivated by all sorts of things, not the least of which are food, shelter, and love. Bitcoiners wouldnt have the luxury to opine on monetary sovereignty if their basic needs were not met, which sadly is not the reality of large groups of people in the world.

But assuming one has the bandwidth to begin to understand bitcoin, thats still no guarantee they will see any value in it if it doesnt quite scratch their itch. A mere lack of education is easily fixed, but they say its hard for a man to learn something if his job depends precisely on him not getting it.

Its hard to see the benefits of bitcoin if you dont already see the problems with centrally controlled currency. Not surprisingly people tend to feel safest knowing their dollars are in the bank and insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). What is interesting is that bitcoin HODLers feel the exact opposite they view using custodians as more risky than not, and thats what makes this topic so fascinating. Sure there will still be trusted third parties going forward, but the choice of whether to use custodians wasnt a choice we had before bitcoin.

The harsh truth is that the people who are most privileged by the financial system are the hardest to convert because they arguably have the most to lose from jumping ship. The persistence of the fiat machine relies heavily on the Cantillon class who are incentivized to bring ever more minions under their purview. And whats a more powerful tool of persuasion than the money printer itself?

This is why we see the most pushback from wealthy bankers and money managers, the likes of Jamie Dimon and Ray Dalio. Not surprisingly, the most fearful rhetoric comes from the upper echelons of central banking. Central banks are supranational entities that have subtly extracted themselves from nearly all oversight and so must express a distaste for anything they dont have a hand in. They then defend their position as the self-appointed arbiters of financial stability. The sentiments of central bankers toward bitcoin is rather telling of where their interest truly lies. Fortunately, bitcoin doesnt need the approval of the immovable incumbents; their competitors in rising economies will adopt a bitcoin standard, gradually then suddenly setting off a global fomo. One by one, they come to the light, or they go the way of the dinosaurs. In bitcoin we say everyone gets the price they deserve.

I can understand the conflicts of interest in a business sense. When you have a job to do, what you say at work doesnt necessarily reflect your personal views. Okay. But I have less sympathy for people that resort to attacking bitcoin because they believe theyre too late to invest (save) and think if they cant be the boss of it then it shouldnt exist. This is quite clearly an issue of human ego. Indeed one has to learn to subjugate the ego to appreciate what bitcoin has to offer which is at the same time freedom and solidarity.

Instead we end up in a situation of fiat nihilism where everyone wants to get in on the ground level of the next bitcoin. The irony is that altcoiners seem to live in a world where bitcoin can be taken for granted. Bitcoiners, on the other hand, are under no such pretense. Theyre the ones on the frontlines making sure we succeed in making that world a reality. Altcoiners are only succeeding at bringing about the rise of fiat 2.0 which is anathema to the bitcoin ethos. Be wary of anyone who claims to support bitcoin and in the same breath tries to pitch you on their new token. Its easy to tell if a bitcoiner has pure intentions because theyre the only ones without ulterior motives.

Critics point to the unyielding optimism of bitcoiners and attribute it to arrogance. This then becomes a block in their mind and they assume if you evangelize for bitcoin that means you are just pumping your own bag. While thats superficially true, a more accurate observation is that bitcoiners actually practice what they preach. Bitcoiners put their money where their mouth is, not the other way around.

It may sound toxic to hear Bitcoiners say things like, there is no alternative, but at the end of the day toxicity is in the eye of the beholder. If your opinion of bitcoin is that its toxic, then I would question where you choose to get your news from. We say, bitcoin fixes everything, not just to be cheeky but to point out that fiat in so many ways ruins everything, and bitcoin, for once, fixes the fatal flaws in money brought about by central planning. Bitcoin is information, and information seeks to be free. The internet hit a dead end under information dictators and walled gardens, and bitcoin erodes those walls allowing participation by simply plugging into the globally interoperable network.

If you genuinely go down the bitcoin rabbit hole, you find that the only logical conclusion is to go ALL the way down it. In other words you go all in if not financially, then at least philosophically. Youre not likely to encounter someone who claims to be a bitcoin moderate. You begin to see that bitcoin may just be the only way out of the hole weve dug and our best chance at living in a free society.

I believe our job going forward is to live up to the dream of the original cypherpunks by making a habit of the following:

Throughout bitcoins history anyone who was firmly down the rabbit hole would have appeared radical in the eyes of no-coiners; just look at Max Keiser. However its clear bitcoin has passed a tipping point as its network effect takes hold and feeds on itself. What started as a small group of tinfoil-hat crypto-anarchists has grown to include people from all walks of life who share in the values of hard money, as bitcoin doesnt discriminate among its users. It is beautiful to witness the people who have been most marginalized by fiat imperialism come to have the most conviction because they see the benefits of sound money in their own lives.

The end goal of course is a globally recognized reserve asset but also to make sure we get there with the least collateral damage. This may mean moving cautiously forward to make sure we do it right. This is difficult for the fiat world to understand where people are happy to get paid today and damned be the long term consequences. However, open-source development tends to be messy and thats the trade off we make for the sake of decentralization.

Bitcoin wasnt born out of a vacuum; we have to consider the context in which the seed was planted in order to navigate what lies ahead. Can bitcoin alone achieve the dream of a free and open financial system? What else may be needed, that without it, bitcoin may face substantial headwinds? I think El Salvador may have something to say about this as the birthplace of the first bitcoin bond issued by a sovereign nation. Bitcoin calls on us to rethink everything about finance and economics from securities law to energy infrastructure. El Salvador showed us that we cant wait to get permission before innovating. At times we have to be disruptive if we want to see change. And things are just heating up.

In the future bitcoin can be said to have been a success if it becomes so entrenched in the global economy that it finally is taken for granted. In some ways that day is already here and thats something to celebrate. The work ahead lies in improving education and user experience and making sure we dont go backwards along the evolution of human action.

This is a guest post by Tyler Parks. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

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The Habits Of Highly Effective HODLers - Bitcoin Magazine

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When Gerald Cotten died suddenly in 2018, he was only 30 years old, but fabulously wealthy thanks to founding Quadriga, one of the first cryptocurrency exchanges. Or at least, thats how it seemed. His death coincided with growing concerns about the legitimacy of Quadriga.

After investigating, the Ontario Securities Commission said Quadriga was run like a Ponzi scheme. More than Quadriga clients collectively lost more than $200-million.

Jennifer Kathleen Margaret Roberston was Cottens wife, and was there when he died. And despite being at the centre of a huge scandal, shes never spoken publicly about her husbands fraud or death or the suspicion it cast on her until now.

Telecom reporter Alexandra Posadzki and ROB reporter Joe Castaldo interviewed Robertson about her memoir, Bitcoin Widow: Love, Betrayal and the Missing Millions. They bring us that interview, and their expertise as journalists whove been covering this story from the beginning.

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Canada's 'Bitcoin widow' speaks - The Globe and Mail