Same question. Exactly the same question. More specifically, I have gold, silver, a few high quality dividend equities, a few pure speculative mining equities, a few oil/gas related. Those are all 5yr minimum holds, no matter what. I have a lot of cash, having exited all general equities or index funds Nov 2021. Some of it I’m keeping in cash, some of it I’m rolling 3 and 6 month T bills.
I own a tiny amount of Ethereum and Bitcoin held on Coinbase. Only because I needed them to facilitate transactions with merchants overseas.
So to Mary’s question. Move forward how. Buy more Bitcoin? Buy more Ethereum? Buy it where? Not Coinbase I assume.
I’ve never been convinced on the “alt coin” theory or model as an investment vehicle. To me it acts more like a Ponzi scheme. What has happened to BC (and many many other) just reinforces that belief. Get in early and get rich. Get in the middle and profit. Get in late and get crushed. How is that not a Pyramid or Ponzi scheme?
Blockchain in the future for a variety of uses? Absolutely. As a widely adopted alternative to “money” as opposed to a occasionally used transactional currency? Maybe I lack vision at age 67, but I don’t see it.
With that said, I’ve always been a contrarian and believed that if you don’t speculate you can’t compensate. Hence, I’m not unwilling to put a new theory to the test.
Understand that. So a general question then. For those of us in the generation that looks at BTC, NFTs, and other assorted and similar items as perhaps Enron on steroids, but who are curious enough to not totally dismiss an opportunity, the question is; where to start. You have written much about BTC (this is not criticism) but most of your writings on the subject are what I would term; philosophical and not practical. So where do we go for the practical that is unbiased and possibly actionable. Sure, I can find a 1000 articles, websites, sub stacks on BTC, Ethereum, XRP, XLM, etc. But most of them have something to sell. That’s not helpful. As I said, I have dipped my toe into both BTC and Ethereum not for investment but for transactions via Coinbase. But everything I read says if one is going to invest, avoid Coinbase and other similar platforms. Ok fine.
This is where I think the entire alt coin movement misses the boat. If I want to invest in an equity, or a sector, or an ETF there is virtually no end to the amount of info, both free and paid, that one can find to aid them in making decisions. Maybe I just haven’t looked hard enough. But it seems with BTC and other similar ventures you are either on the train and you get it. Or you are not on the train and too bad for you. Maybe the true aficionados don’t really want mass adoption and this is by design. But if mass adoption is a goal, and will ultimately drive the price, the proponents need to do a much better job of providing actionable information to those who might be willing, but are unsure how or where to start.
"For those of us in the generation that looks at BTC, NFTs, and other assorted and similar items as perhaps Enron on steroids"
The education is tough, but also simple in a sense.
Most of cryptocurrency is a scam.
NFTs will have a place, but for most people it won't be in utterly subjective art priced high from the start. There will be "baseball card" level hobbies. There will also be NFTs bought for $50 as vanity art serving as a phone background. Let the rich people sort out multi-thousand dollar NFTs.
By far the largest value proposition in cryptocurrency is self-banking with a currency that cannot be inflated away to the tune of trillions at a time. That money props up a ruling class and their Mandarins at the expense of the rest of the world. It even gives them enough money to waste on media preaching down on us all, telling us we are to blame for their mistakes and poisonous attitudes. Didn't you know that you---you personally are the institutional racism that keeps black people from the ranks of Harvard professors. Rinse and repeat.
Otherwise, think simple: land and the basics. People without the money to get a few acres on their own might join in with larger communities. Such is the educational project of the Freedom Cells guys.
Excellent. Thanks my friend. I got some great input from a couple subscribers and now this from you. Lots to research this weekend if I can convince my wife this is more important than waxing the boat. Just love your work!
Sep 16, 2022·edited Sep 16, 2022Liked by Mathew Crawford
I've found the articles at Swan's blog[1] to be of help, and their founder has a daily email "The Daily Bitcoiner" [3] with good information as well. I've also watched a couple videos of "The Bitcoin Boomer" [2] (where I first saw Swan's founder interviewed).
Avoid other coins…just stick to Bitcoin. The rest is noise.
Also, get your own Bitcoin wallet and manage your own private keys instead of letting a custodial service do that for you. "Not your keys, not your bitcoin" as the saying goes, since anybody with access to the private key can do what they want with the bitcoin in the account. And services can freeze assets where they hold the private key.
At this point why should I count on something that takes electricity to even exist? One major difference between the Great Depression and now is that the generation of the Great Depression knew which end of the broom points to the ground.
Get out of major metro areas and get serious about food and water storage.
How far along is this parallel economy and community?
Have you ever read "The day they killed the cows?". That is the scenario that I worry about. This parallel world is running along fine and then they bring the tanks out and run over your garden or kill thousands of cattle because when people are starving because "price supports".
Thank you for everything, you give me knowledge that is much needed and I very much respect your problem solving skills.
"How far along is this parallel economy and community?"
I don't know, honestly. What I do know is that when I went to the Freedom Cell community's Greater Reset conference in January, there were 30,000 people in that community alone, which had tripled in a year.
Do you know why/how South Africa added to the BRICS monogram? What did they have to offer so early on before other countries, say, Argentina?
Can bitcoin be gamed if governments decide to buy up all the current supply (maybe by manipulating the markets) on the cheap, driving the value up and leaving the citizenry to fight over Satoshis or has that boat already sailed? Or because not all the supply has been mined, so that is an impossible scenario? I’m missing lots of lessons on basic economics so this might not be applicable, in which case, forget I said anything.
I can't speak much on South Africa aside to pointing out that rounding Africa means passing by South Africa, so it has historically played a role in trade routes. I think that apartheid was as much about that as anything, but again...I don't get extremely deep on that history.
This is so far over my head all I can say is I look forward to reading and learning more. Thank-you!
I do wonder how China's shutting down bitcoin/mining fits in. They are obviously a leading BRICS participant. Did they anticipate a competition between Bitcoin and Tina-D? Is that why they did it? If so, where does Russia fit into the equation, if they are using Bitcoin to bypass sanctions?
The Roosevelt admin stripped citizens of gold. By making it illegal, it was risky to hold it, and what could you do with it anyway? How will Bitcoin holders fare any differently if the U.S. chooses to follow in China's footsteps? If they make holding or trading Bitcoin or converting it to/from dollars illegal, what could the average American, rooted to place and family here, do?
Great point about the gold. I may or may not have written about that in an article (honestly can't recall), but I warn people about it all the time: do not keep your Bitcoin on an exchange. If you do, it can and likely will be confiscated by a desperate government. In fact, people should worry that the exchanges have even been pre-selected for that event. When I researched Heather Podesta's lobbying firm the other day, I saw Kraken listed among her clients.
I understand. But suppose they make it a felony to own or use Bitcoin? At that point, do you defy government and try to hide it? Some of us would prefer not to have our wealth in illegal assets with severe consequences if discovered (if one didn't care about such things, or ethics, one could probably store wealth in fentanyl!). And how confident would one be that governments couldn't find such holders in the blockchain? And even if they couldn't, what could you do with the Bitcoin? You couldn't pay the mortgage, buy groceries, gas, medical care, or any other daily necessities. Wouldn't it be better to find a store of value that is unlikely to be made illegal, and that can be more readily converted into daily necessities? I'm not sure what that would be. Maybe copper pennies!
Hiding the ownership of Bitcoin is perhaps the easiest crime to get away with, ever. If the surveillance state that view that level of information and activity, then the game is over---it can control your brain.
I believe strongly that we are very far from that point.
It would not shock me if a black market economy develops in which young people act as "runners" for people making exchanges for physical goods via Bitcoin. But I'm not sure that will last very long because I believe that the government will go bankrupt not having the ability to tax that economy that it pushes people into---particularly with the rest of the world finding out how much wealthier they are without the dollar.
Maybe. I'm still skeptical. Maybe for people able to get away to some island or other refuge. But for the average Joe? One of the things we have seen in other places like Yugoslavia or Rwanda is how quickly and savagely neighbors and friends can turn on other neighbors and friends. We got a taste of that with COVID and vaccines. I suspect many of us have lost friends and even family members over it. I know we have. Some hateful things were said because we were exposing all of them to death and destruction by not being vaccinated. When everyone is starving and I am not, I don't think they'll take kindly to it.
I'm interested to learn how others think through the issues and how they envision actually using Bitcoin under such circumstances. Feel free to explore the topic further in future articles! :-)
In reality, I don't believe there was any significant enforcement of that act. People still held gold, still traded it when necessary.
We're talking about a country that has made Weed illegal for decades and it's still widely used.
A country that tried to ban alcohol and was forced to abandon that action decades later when it was obvious everyone in the nation was simply disobeying.
I haven't studied it in any detail, but it was punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine. (Plus confiscation). Several prosecutions are described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
I think it's notable that all of the cited enforcement involved people dealing with banks, people selling jewelry, and people mining gold.
I also do not believe the current supreme court would so easily side with the federal government on such an order. The country is currently gathering momentum to reject the government's civil-forfeiture crimes.
I started an umbrel server last week. Lord have mercy the blockchain has grown since I last had a full node running, my little raspi is barely picking up 2% of the blockchain per day trying to download the full chain.
I did get into Bitcoin early, but stopped paying attention to it after a while. Getting back into it now, at what truly feels like a major world turn, feels like starting a new life. Anyone have any links to educate myself on getting into being part of the lightning networks and making money that way?
I'm on my phone atm, so it's harder for me to track down articles. One is on how to build an umbrel node. I doubt we will make money on it. It is for education. Lightning is not a big income generator.
Move forward how? What does the average citizen with average investments do in this situation? Or are we helpless, to follow your 12-step analogy?
Same question. Exactly the same question. More specifically, I have gold, silver, a few high quality dividend equities, a few pure speculative mining equities, a few oil/gas related. Those are all 5yr minimum holds, no matter what. I have a lot of cash, having exited all general equities or index funds Nov 2021. Some of it I’m keeping in cash, some of it I’m rolling 3 and 6 month T bills.
I own a tiny amount of Ethereum and Bitcoin held on Coinbase. Only because I needed them to facilitate transactions with merchants overseas.
So to Mary’s question. Move forward how. Buy more Bitcoin? Buy more Ethereum? Buy it where? Not Coinbase I assume.
I’ve never been convinced on the “alt coin” theory or model as an investment vehicle. To me it acts more like a Ponzi scheme. What has happened to BC (and many many other) just reinforces that belief. Get in early and get rich. Get in the middle and profit. Get in late and get crushed. How is that not a Pyramid or Ponzi scheme?
Blockchain in the future for a variety of uses? Absolutely. As a widely adopted alternative to “money” as opposed to a occasionally used transactional currency? Maybe I lack vision at age 67, but I don’t see it.
With that said, I’ve always been a contrarian and believed that if you don’t speculate you can’t compensate. Hence, I’m not unwilling to put a new theory to the test.
So back to Mary’s question. Move forward how?
I did not say we are all helpless. I just think we are helpless to stop the end of easy money.
There are infinitely many ways to handle it all. I can't tell anyone what their best options are.
Understand that. So a general question then. For those of us in the generation that looks at BTC, NFTs, and other assorted and similar items as perhaps Enron on steroids, but who are curious enough to not totally dismiss an opportunity, the question is; where to start. You have written much about BTC (this is not criticism) but most of your writings on the subject are what I would term; philosophical and not practical. So where do we go for the practical that is unbiased and possibly actionable. Sure, I can find a 1000 articles, websites, sub stacks on BTC, Ethereum, XRP, XLM, etc. But most of them have something to sell. That’s not helpful. As I said, I have dipped my toe into both BTC and Ethereum not for investment but for transactions via Coinbase. But everything I read says if one is going to invest, avoid Coinbase and other similar platforms. Ok fine.
This is where I think the entire alt coin movement misses the boat. If I want to invest in an equity, or a sector, or an ETF there is virtually no end to the amount of info, both free and paid, that one can find to aid them in making decisions. Maybe I just haven’t looked hard enough. But it seems with BTC and other similar ventures you are either on the train and you get it. Or you are not on the train and too bad for you. Maybe the true aficionados don’t really want mass adoption and this is by design. But if mass adoption is a goal, and will ultimately drive the price, the proponents need to do a much better job of providing actionable information to those who might be willing, but are unsure how or where to start.
"For those of us in the generation that looks at BTC, NFTs, and other assorted and similar items as perhaps Enron on steroids"
The education is tough, but also simple in a sense.
Most of cryptocurrency is a scam.
NFTs will have a place, but for most people it won't be in utterly subjective art priced high from the start. There will be "baseball card" level hobbies. There will also be NFTs bought for $50 as vanity art serving as a phone background. Let the rich people sort out multi-thousand dollar NFTs.
By far the largest value proposition in cryptocurrency is self-banking with a currency that cannot be inflated away to the tune of trillions at a time. That money props up a ruling class and their Mandarins at the expense of the rest of the world. It even gives them enough money to waste on media preaching down on us all, telling us we are to blame for their mistakes and poisonous attitudes. Didn't you know that you---you personally are the institutional racism that keeps black people from the ranks of Harvard professors. Rinse and repeat.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/04/01/why_did_harvard_cancel_its_best_black_professor.html
Otherwise, think simple: land and the basics. People without the money to get a few acres on their own might join in with larger communities. Such is the educational project of the Freedom Cells guys.
https://www.freedomcells.com/
Excellent. Thanks my friend. I got some great input from a couple subscribers and now this from you. Lots to research this weekend if I can convince my wife this is more important than waxing the boat. Just love your work!
I've found the articles at Swan's blog[1] to be of help, and their founder has a daily email "The Daily Bitcoiner" [3] with good information as well. I've also watched a couple videos of "The Bitcoin Boomer" [2] (where I first saw Swan's founder interviewed).
Avoid other coins…just stick to Bitcoin. The rest is noise.
Also, get your own Bitcoin wallet and manage your own private keys instead of letting a custodial service do that for you. "Not your keys, not your bitcoin" as the saying goes, since anybody with access to the private key can do what they want with the bitcoin in the account. And services can freeze assets where they hold the private key.
Cheers
[1] https://www.swanbitcoin.com/signal/
[2] https://www.youtube.com/c/GaryLelandtheBitcoinBoomer
[3] https://cory.substack.com/
Sweet. This is exactly what I’m seeking. Greatly appreciate this info. Which I will dig into over the weekend.
(updated with a link to The Daily Bitcoiner here on Substack)
At this point why should I count on something that takes electricity to even exist? One major difference between the Great Depression and now is that the generation of the Great Depression knew which end of the broom points to the ground.
Get out of major metro areas and get serious about food and water storage.
Prepping matters for disaster.
Build parallel economy and community so that we never reach disaster.
Electricity is something that will follow the power to create and steer it.
How far along is this parallel economy and community?
Have you ever read "The day they killed the cows?". That is the scenario that I worry about. This parallel world is running along fine and then they bring the tanks out and run over your garden or kill thousands of cattle because when people are starving because "price supports".
Thank you for everything, you give me knowledge that is much needed and I very much respect your problem solving skills.
"How far along is this parallel economy and community?"
I don't know, honestly. What I do know is that when I went to the Freedom Cell community's Greater Reset conference in January, there were 30,000 people in that community alone, which had tripled in a year.
This is pretty heavy reading. I'll need another full pass at this one.
But you worked in "yellow BRICS road" here, I think that deserves a shout out.
Do you know why/how South Africa added to the BRICS monogram? What did they have to offer so early on before other countries, say, Argentina?
Can bitcoin be gamed if governments decide to buy up all the current supply (maybe by manipulating the markets) on the cheap, driving the value up and leaving the citizenry to fight over Satoshis or has that boat already sailed? Or because not all the supply has been mined, so that is an impossible scenario? I’m missing lots of lessons on basic economics so this might not be applicable, in which case, forget I said anything.
I can't speak much on South Africa aside to pointing out that rounding Africa means passing by South Africa, so it has historically played a role in trade routes. I think that apartheid was as much about that as anything, but again...I don't get extremely deep on that history.
Just read the article. Good Stuff. Thank you Mathew Crawford.
Also signed the petition https://www.rebelnews.com/usa_email_sign_up
Thanks for all you do. Now I will read the comments. Lots to learn.
This is so far over my head all I can say is I look forward to reading and learning more. Thank-you!
I do wonder how China's shutting down bitcoin/mining fits in. They are obviously a leading BRICS participant. Did they anticipate a competition between Bitcoin and Tina-D? Is that why they did it? If so, where does Russia fit into the equation, if they are using Bitcoin to bypass sanctions?
The Roosevelt admin stripped citizens of gold. By making it illegal, it was risky to hold it, and what could you do with it anyway? How will Bitcoin holders fare any differently if the U.S. chooses to follow in China's footsteps? If they make holding or trading Bitcoin or converting it to/from dollars illegal, what could the average American, rooted to place and family here, do?
Great point about the gold. I may or may not have written about that in an article (honestly can't recall), but I warn people about it all the time: do not keep your Bitcoin on an exchange. If you do, it can and likely will be confiscated by a desperate government. In fact, people should worry that the exchanges have even been pre-selected for that event. When I researched Heather Podesta's lobbying firm the other day, I saw Kraken listed among her clients.
I understand. But suppose they make it a felony to own or use Bitcoin? At that point, do you defy government and try to hide it? Some of us would prefer not to have our wealth in illegal assets with severe consequences if discovered (if one didn't care about such things, or ethics, one could probably store wealth in fentanyl!). And how confident would one be that governments couldn't find such holders in the blockchain? And even if they couldn't, what could you do with the Bitcoin? You couldn't pay the mortgage, buy groceries, gas, medical care, or any other daily necessities. Wouldn't it be better to find a store of value that is unlikely to be made illegal, and that can be more readily converted into daily necessities? I'm not sure what that would be. Maybe copper pennies!
Hiding the ownership of Bitcoin is perhaps the easiest crime to get away with, ever. If the surveillance state that view that level of information and activity, then the game is over---it can control your brain.
I believe strongly that we are very far from that point.
It would not shock me if a black market economy develops in which young people act as "runners" for people making exchanges for physical goods via Bitcoin. But I'm not sure that will last very long because I believe that the government will go bankrupt not having the ability to tax that economy that it pushes people into---particularly with the rest of the world finding out how much wealthier they are without the dollar.
Maybe. I'm still skeptical. Maybe for people able to get away to some island or other refuge. But for the average Joe? One of the things we have seen in other places like Yugoslavia or Rwanda is how quickly and savagely neighbors and friends can turn on other neighbors and friends. We got a taste of that with COVID and vaccines. I suspect many of us have lost friends and even family members over it. I know we have. Some hateful things were said because we were exposing all of them to death and destruction by not being vaccinated. When everyone is starving and I am not, I don't think they'll take kindly to it.
You're right to think it through and to be prepared.
I'm interested to learn how others think through the issues and how they envision actually using Bitcoin under such circumstances. Feel free to explore the topic further in future articles! :-)
Yes, FDR "stripped citizens of gold" on paper.
In reality, I don't believe there was any significant enforcement of that act. People still held gold, still traded it when necessary.
We're talking about a country that has made Weed illegal for decades and it's still widely used.
A country that tried to ban alcohol and was forced to abandon that action decades later when it was obvious everyone in the nation was simply disobeying.
America is not a nation of rule-followers.
I haven't studied it in any detail, but it was punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine. (Plus confiscation). Several prosecutions are described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
I think it's notable that all of the cited enforcement involved people dealing with banks, people selling jewelry, and people mining gold.
I also do not believe the current supreme court would so easily side with the federal government on such an order. The country is currently gathering momentum to reject the government's civil-forfeiture crimes.
I started an umbrel server last week. Lord have mercy the blockchain has grown since I last had a full node running, my little raspi is barely picking up 2% of the blockchain per day trying to download the full chain.
I did get into Bitcoin early, but stopped paying attention to it after a while. Getting back into it now, at what truly feels like a major world turn, feels like starting a new life. Anyone have any links to educate myself on getting into being part of the lightning networks and making money that way?
I'm on my phone atm, so it's harder for me to track down articles. One is on how to build an umbrel node. I doubt we will make money on it. It is for education. Lightning is not a big income generator.
If Umbrel is like MyNode, it's beneficial to turn off Tor during the initial download.