Hide In The Bushes And Watch
Back in 2013 at a Conference in San Jose, a man was giving a presentation on Bitcoin Neutrality to a small handful of attendees. When he began talking, some of these folks started to walk out, leaving rows and rows of chairs unoccupied, which for many of us, would be a humiliating experience.
While continuing to talk as though there were hundreds of intent listeners to his topic, the reality is that there were only about 5 people casually taking in the message. Yes, it was early days for Bitcoin, and thus, the belief level was not at a fever pitch during this time when BTC was at about $100. However, the fundamentals and decentralized nature of Bitcoin has not changed since Andreas Antonopoulos gave that speech... only the value.
Lost Opportunity
The true value placed on an asset, crypto or otherwise, is grounded in belief and fact... both of which need to be considered if there is to be any chance of success. Many other attributes fall into either of these two criteria, with risk being one of them, but this is not a guiding principle... rather just par for the course. If you have no belief, even though the facts are not in dispute, no possible solution can ever reach the boiling point, and in contrast, with belief but no sense of the facts, you may appreciate Bitcoin, but not participate.
Whether a spectator, or player in the realm of digital assets, being one or the other doesn't make us better or worse than anyone else, but if your goal is to use crypto as a vehicle to transport your financial outcome, there comes a time when you must cross the chasm and become a stakeholder by getting on the front lines.
Cloak And Dagger
Over the years since the dawn of Bitcoin in 2009, many have speculated on the price of where the true value could cap-out at. In the first couple of years, BTC was going through the 'acceptance' phase with only a small number of people understanding the vision and possibilities which Bitcoin offered. When trying to explain the decentralized nature of this new form of money, most of us could not fathom how this new technology could alter the future via its underlying technology, the Blockchain, as it was a concept that was completely unfamiliar.
Taking into account the notion of how scarce Bitcoin is compared to other asset classes which can be created at will, coming to the realization of this has motivated many to take a position. While the validity of Bitcoin has long since passed as being a true asset-class with clear evidence from enterprises, banks and, most recently, ETF's issued by household financial names such as Blackrock and Fidelity, the vast majority are still pondering on whether to add it to their portfolio. Perhaps it's the media not giving BTC it's due, or the continued message from officials professing the fear of Bitcoin as a so-called nefarious asset (though in reality this has long been debunked).
Make no mistake, there has been a well-organized campaign of confusion for many years from those we hold in high regard (in the financial sense), which by now has been painfully obvious for those of us who have our eyes wide open and seen the truth first-hand. Add to this the ambiguity of the regulators, who have intentionally put a cloud over the space and dismissed it at every corner, and you have additional ammunition of fear in the minds of the consumer who otherwise have the most to gain from the promise of where Bitcoin is heading.
Putting this all in perspective, we have seen many contradictions from major institutional investors who proclaimed years ago that they would not touch Bitcoin only to discover years later that they were buying the whole time. Taking a lesson from their irresistible tendency to brag and say one thing, and mean another, we can use this as clear evidence in which to make calculated decisions based on what they do, and not what they say.
Someday Never Comes
Bitcoin is going to 1 Million per coin. To some, this may sound like Looney-Tunes, where for others it's an inevitability. The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter what we think or feel about the price of Bitcoin because Bitcoin doesn't care… it just keeps on appreciating.
For some, no decision will be the decision, regardless of the price, either due to fear or ignorance (or both). Looking back over time, there are those who knew Bitcoin when it was at $100, which was far too expensive even at the time, and the notion of it going to $1000 seemed like a mirage in the desert. When it did reach $1000, the next statement was "I'll just wait until it goes down again", but in all likelihood, if it did go back to the $100 level, they would still wait for it to go lower, and thus miss out again when the price rises again proving once again that it's always better to have time IN the market instead of timING the market.
With Bitcoin now at $100,000, this may seem out of reach for some folks, but this is only because they don't realize the divisibility to 8 decimal places, allowing them to invest small amounts, and in this case, regardless of the amount speculated, the price appreciation will still be the same… only the amount will be different. For those of us who realize the macro-economic insight and clear evidence from far too many sources, it is just a matter of time when a $1M Bitcoin will be realized (and with it, the upsurge of the alt-coins), and those same individuals who were too cautious to invest when BTC was $100 will once again wish they had bought BTC when it was only $100,000, so as to realize a 10x return, regardless the denomination.
If all of the evidence is clear (endowments, hedge funds, major banks, governments and so on), this leaves only the removal of so-called 'experts' who are telling us that this asset-class is not to be trusted. Again, these same individuals are buying and fooling you by playing their confidence-trickster games to keep you out of the market, and if you keep believing them, you are willingly letting them win… by choice. The alternative (yet still low-risk) option is to ignore the 'noise' and decide to be part of the new system of value so that in the years to come, you won't be saying "if only… I knew it all along".
__________________________________________________________________________________________ Title image by Eli Roth, Cabin Fever | Quote by John Fogerty / Creedence Clearwater Revival
