Are You Here For The Pump Or For The Revolution?

During moments of extreme exuberance or pain, it’s easy to lose focus and forget why you got involved in the Bitcoin space. High prices make you forget about all the struggles which laid the foundations for the glorious moments, while dramatically-low dips might make you think that it’s all over.

But like the legend of the phoenix, Bitcoin has a long history of dying and coming back to life in the least expected moments. And it’s very likely that we’re going to $100.000 and beyond – given the irrationality of fiat inflation, bitcoin’s appreciation against the dollar is almost certain – though it’s impossible to time the market and figure out when something happens, you can look at the fundamentals and figure out why it will happen.

The problem is that humans are greedy and tend to act irrationally. This is how bubbles get formed and burst. This is why we switch from extreme bullishness to the anecdotal “blood on the streets” within a few days. This is why the volatility is so wild. And this is when the differentiation happens between the winners and the losers of the trading game – the winners always do their fundamental analysis and know WHY they are holding onto an asset.

Now that I’ve written a brief explanation of market psychology, it’s time to get to the subject matter of this article: conviction and a good understanding of what Bitcoin is. Because as soon as you figure out how the Bitcoin network works and what the bitcoin currency can do for the world, you will stop worrying about fiat evaluation and focus more on accelerating this goal.

And no, Bitcoin was not created to help corporate CEOs like Michael Saylor and Elon Musk get richer. They were only among the first of our current financial elites who understood the potential of a truly decentralized, uncensorable, unconfiscatable, and disinflationary form of money. But to their credit, they are most likely here for the revolution because they want to spearhead it – they already have all the fiat riches and may make even more from stock market investments, but it’s likely that they see something that the rest of us cannot or do not.

Bitcoin is not just a revolutionary tool, it is THE revolution. It’s the kind of system that cannot be stopped and benefits from every mistake of central banking. It’s a bearer asset which empowers every individual with all the virtues and advantages of self-custody. And it’s the kind of money whose supply anyone can verify and audit (aka run a node), while anyone can voluntarily participate in the process of inflating the supply according to the planned schedule (aka mine).

From a monetary point of view, bitcoin is a major step up from gold (better divisibility, portability, durability and scalability, as well as provable scarcity). Its Achilles’ heel is the reliance on electricity and the internet – though one could argue that modern banking is exactly the same, while also highlighting the efforts to make the Bitcoin network available via physical bearer assets, and through satellite, dish antennas, and even radio short waves.

It’s easy for shitcoin peddlers to point at Bitcoin’s apparent slowness and suggest that their new and very centralized currency network is better and handles more transactions. But they willingly ignore all the development that’s happening on top of Bitcoin via layers: the Lightning Network, as well as sidechains such as Liquid, Drivechain, Statechain, RSK, and more. Basically everything that exists in altcoins can be done on top of Bitcoin to benefit from a more solid monetary base and better network security.

The reason why it’s not happening faster is that bitcoiners demand rigorous testing before moving their hard money in one direction or the other. And the developers working on Bitcoin projects tend to be more honest than their altcoin counterparts: they wouldn’t recommend something unless they themselves are sure that it works as designed and is safe for everybody else to use.

But in the long-term, Bitcoin will deem altcoins pointless and also make fiat central banking undesirable and obsolete. This is the goal to which Satoshi Nakamoto hinted in the message that he wrote in the genesis block and this is why most old-time bitcoiners have stuck around the space. Most of them are already fiat wealthy and have moved past the speculative investment phase. The goal is not to be rich, but to be free and help the rest of the world achieve this civilizational goal.

So next time you feel like capitulating and get gloomy feelings about the state of the objectively volatile market, ask yourself once again: why are you here? If the answer is “for the pump”, then it’s all good: take your profits in fiat and return whenever you figure out what Bitcoin actually is.

On the other hand, if you’re here for the revolution, then you’re going to need to spend a little more time educating yourself and others than watching price charts. You need to be willing to learn beyond the qualifications written on your degree and outside of your comfort zone. Revolutions don’t happen because the people starting them are foolish and poorly educated – you can claim that their ideals are naive, but you can never question their intellects.

Donate to Bitcoin Takeover!

My purpose throughout this revolution is to empower others through education and encourage them to do the exact same with those whose understanding is poor. So if you would like to support me with a donation and encourage me to keep going, here are the ways in which you can do it.

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