Dear Readers,Bitcoin has been hailed across the industry as “freedom money” that is resistant to both censorship and confiscation. The importance of these characteristics is growing stronger as governments seek to control more of their citizens’ lives and livelihoods. Money is an essential tool in life, since it allows us to convert our time with relative ease into goods and services that we need to survive. Do we really want such an important tool in the hands of biased and power-hungry intermediaries? I think not.That said, there are those in the government and on Wall Street who are actively trying to limit Bitcoin’s appeal as stateless money. And one of their more frequently used attacks is against privacy and fungibility on the Bitcoin blockchain.One of your fellow Readers recently shared an article (here) with me that spoke at length about the idea that Bitcoin are supposedly not as fungible as most people believe. To summarize the relevant facts, the author indicated that Bitcoin may not be fungible because of the following reasons:The Bitcoin blockchain is completely public and transparent. All transactions are visible forever, which means a Bitcoin’s history, “good” or “bad”, sticks around until the end of time.Exchanges and miners are being pressured by governments to blacklist Bitcoin transactions and addresses who engage in privacy-enhancing behavior like using CoinJoins (as if privacy were somehow illegal).“Dirty” Bitcoin can’t always be easily used on certain exchanges, meaning that, for all intents and purposes, they aren’t fungible with “clean” Bitcoin on those exchanges.We can begin to understand the gravity of this situation since having two classes of Bitcoin severely limits its ability to serve as Freedom Money for the whole world. Privacy is definitely of paramount importance, but mostly to people who actually want or need it.Counterpoints On Bitcoin’s FungibilityBitcoin Is More Private Than You’ve Been Led To BelieveRest assured, privacy is available on the Bitcoin blockchain for those who want it. In fact, the majority of Bitcoin transactions aren’t actually public at all.How so? Well, most Bitcoin transactions don’t take place on the layer-1 blockchain. They take place inside layer-2 solutions like the Lightning Network and within crypto banks and cryptocurrency exchanges.Crypto banks and exchanges aren’t exactly publishing transactions that happen inside their ecosystems to the internet. And even though governments may be able to peel back the layers of secrecy on certain transactions, it’s not a given that they’ll be able to do that for all transactions.The Lightning Network is even more private and secure since there’s typically not a centralized intermediary involved. Two participants are simply sending Bitcoin back and forth amongst themselves, or perhaps routing their Bitcoin across a few Lightning nodes to loop someone else into a transaction. Participants and node operators have some visibility into the transactions, but no one else typically does.Long story short, with most Bitcoin transactions happening off-chain, it’s going to be a lot harder to impact Bitcoin fungibility than critics want you to believe.Most People Don’t Care About Transaction HistoryThe article identified two main chokepoints for “dirty” Bitcoin: miners and exchanges.First off, miners are hardly a chokepoint at all. The article mentions a handful of miners who have refused to process transactions that they believe include “dirty” Bitcoin. But that’s irrelevant because it leaves aside the fact that anyone can confirm transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. Someone is going to process the “undesired” transaction sooner rather than later for the simple reason that they just want to earn the associated transaction fees.Next up are exchanges, which are really only chokepoints until people stop using them. And people will stop using them, or at least will stop using them as frequently, once Bitcoin assumes its rightful place as the primary money used around the world. Once Bitcoin is accepted as money rather than being used purely for speculation by so many people, there will be a lot fewer people trying to trade out of Bitcoin into fiat currencies or altcoins.The most important thing to remember is that most people simply don’t care about a Bitcoin’s transaction history. They just want to pay or be paid. And they’ll accept your Bitcoin without a second thought, no matter what the government says about it.Do you have a question about Bitcoin that you wish I would write about? Post it on The HiFi Crypto Letters Community Blackboard to receive an answer:Like What You See, But Not A Subscriber Yet?Consider subscribing for two weekly emails about Bitcoin, subscriber giveaways, real-time community discussions and more!Support The HiFi Crypto LettersBitcoin is my passion and my mission is to give as many people as possible the chance to learn how it can change their lives for the better. You can help by using my affiliate links:Robinhood offers access to Bitcoin to help you create your financial future. Go to robinhood.com and receive a free stock worth up to $200 just for signing up and linking your bank account.Betterment will soon offer access to Bitcoin portfolios “managed by experts for long-term investing”. Go to betterment.com and get your entire balance managed free for the first 90 days.Publish0x is the go-to platform for Bitcoin writers and content creators. Go to publish0x.com to get paid to read and write about the latest news across the Bitcoin space.Wish You Could Easily Take The Podcast With You?Can’t Get Enough Bitcoin In Your Life? Follow Me On Social Media:Special: Podcast AppearanceI enjoyed the opportunity to speak on the Muhammad Bana Podcast recently about Bitcoin as the cure to currency inflation. Check out the exclusive below:YouTubeSpotifyBlockchain Word Of The DayWant to learn more Blockchain words?This is not financial advice. This newsletter and related content are for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets can be risky. Always do your own research before making any sort of investment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehificrypto.substack.com

Dear Readers,Bitcoin adoption around the world is accelerating. Tens of millions of people are coming to understand the power of decentralized money that can’t be controlled, inflated, censored, or stolen. And billions more will learn that truth over the coming decades.But the road to hyperbitcoinization is anything but smooth. Uninformed critics abound and are doing everything in their power to sow fear and misunderstanding about the true role that Bitcoin was built to play in society and economies. Many of them will grasp onto any half-truth or outright lie if they think it will scare people away from Bitcoin usage.We unfortunately witnessed another example of such fearmongering just last week when lawmakers in the state of New York within the U.S. passed a far-reaching moratorium that will likely have lasting impacts on the state’s receptiveness to Bitcoin and the Proof of Work algorithm that enables its existence.Limits, But Not Elimination…YetA lot of people in the Bitcoin space have misunderstood exactly what New York’s bill stipulates. While the tenor of the bill certainly doesn’t cast a positive light on Bitcoin, nor does it elicit feelings of hope for Bitcoin mining’s future in the state, the bill doesn’t actually ban Bitcoin mining. But it does rather severely cap the potential growth of Bitcoin mining within New York.How so? The bill eliminates any chance for new Bitcoin mining operations that utilize “fossil fuels” to be created. It also limits the ability of existing mining operations that utilize those energy sources from expanding. Both limitations are in effect for at least for two years while the state’s legislators perform additional research on the topic.Many environmentalists are likely cheering the move since it seems targeted towards reducing the use of fossil fuels in the generation of energy. However, there are genuine reasons to be concerned about how the bill has been structured:Renewables Are A Work In ProgressFirstly, fossil fuels still produce the vast majority of energy the world needs to power homes, businesses, economies, and more.The idea that our world can run entirely on “renewables” is currently just a pipe dream. Battery technology is nowhere close to being able to satisfy worldwide energy demand around the clock. And many sources of renewable energy are located too far away from cities to actually provide energy supply in the moment they’re needed.Renewable energy sources and related technologies are not able at all to power widespread energy consumption, no matter the use case. Demanding that Bitcoin run entirely on renewable energy while the whole world still relies heavily on fossil fuels is distorted thinking to say the least.Banning Use Cases Rather Than Banning Energy SourcesPerhaps the worst part of New York’s bill is that it isn’t really as postured against fossil fuels as the bill’s supporters would have people believe. After all, it doesn’t outright ban the creation of all new power generating sites that rely on fossil fuels. Just those used for Bitcoin mining.I would say the move to ban use cases rather than ban energy sources is unprecedented, but it’s not. China moved to outright block Bitcoin mining nationwide last year, with questionable success. But it is a concerning move nonetheless.Energy usage is key to the growth of societies and economies. It’s no coincidence that humanity’s technologies have advanced with leaps and bounds over the past several hundred years as we’ve learned to harness large amounts of electricity. If governments put themselves in a position to choose how their citizens can and can’t use electricity, those societies stand to lose out on far more than just Bitcoin’s killer app. How many people must suffer as a result of governments’ poor choices?Education Is KeyThere are people in the world who might be bearish on Bitcoin for life. Warren Buffett and Peter Schiff are two such people who come to mind. But not everyone is irredeemable. Most people in the world are still in a place where they can come to appreciate Bitcoin if they only take the time to understand its innovation.Education holds the key to a future in which those who want to can interact freely with Bitcoin at any time. It’s up to those of us who understand Bitcoin to help teach people who are willing to learn. And it’s up to all of us to elect officials who care more about their citizens than they do about their biases, at least if we live in a place that allows us to choose our leaders.Like What You See, But Not A Subscriber Yet?Consider subscribing for two weekly emails about Bitcoin, subscriber giveaways, real-time community discussions and more!Support The HiFi Crypto LettersBitcoin is my passion and my mission is to give as many people as possible the chance to learn how it can change their lives for the better. You can help by using my affiliate links:Robinhood offers access to Bitcoin to help you create your financial future. Go to robinhood.com and receive a free stock worth up to $200 just for signing up and linking your bank account.Betterment will soon offer access to Bitcoin portfolios “managed by experts for long-term investing”. Go to betterment.com and get your entire balance managed free for the first 90 days.Publish0x is the go-to platform for Bitcoin writers and content creators. Go to publish0x.com to get paid to read and write about the latest news across the Bitcoin space.Wish You Could Easily Take The Podcast With You?Can’t Get Enough Bitcoin In Your Life? Follow Me On Social Media:Blockchain Word Of The DayWant to learn more Blockchain words?🙋🏽‍♂️Did You Enjoy This Edition Of The HiFi Crypto Letters?This 3-question survey is your chance to tell me how I can improve the newsletter for you.This is not financial advice. This newsletter and related content are for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets can be risky. Always do your own research before making any sort of investment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehificrypto.substack.com

Dear Readers,Inflation is the #1 driver of financial inequality around the world. But governments and the economists they sponsor certainly won’t tell you that. Why would they? They profit too much from the inflation they cause.But inflation does its damage:Inflation causes purchasing power to decrease, because the cost of goods and services tends to increase far faster for most people than their wages do.Inflation causes people to save less because they’re aware, even if only subconsciously, that the fiat currencies sitting in their wallets and bank accounts buy less the more that time passes.Inflation incentivizes people to get into debt, even bad debts, because it tends to become cheaper to manage as inflation takes its toll.Most people aren’t oblivious to the evils of inflation. They see them every day. So governments have to kick their fear mongering into overdrive in order to convince people that other systems are worse than their own.The Lie: A Deflationary System Like Bitcoin Isn’t Sustainable Because People Won’t Spend Their Bitcoin“Hodling” has became a key concept within the Bitcoin community. In a nutshell, it’s driven by an understanding by veterans in the space that short-term fluctuations in Bitcoin’s exchange rates with other currencies have limited impact on the long-term trajectory of the growth in Bitcoin’s value. Looking at Bitcoin price charts, it’s not hard to see why that long-term growth is so tantalizing:Even though Bitcoin is more than 50% off its all-time highs, Bitcoin’s value per coin has increased from mere pennies to tens of thousands of dollars in the course of just over a decade. And only a fraction of global wealth is currently denominated in Bitcoin, meaning it still has an exponential amount of growth ahead of it if bulls like me turn out to be right.What this all means is that a lot of people aren’t actually spending their Bitcoin right now. They’re hodling it, day after day, year after year. Since one of money’s primary roles is to be a medium of exchange, critics have claimed that Bitcoin can’t possibly be money if most people don’t spend it.Critics also argue that Bitcoin will somehow be an innately unfair system, because people who don’t have Bitcoin supposedly will be unable to get some to use as money because hodlers won’t be spending their Bitcoin.I believe that both criticisms can rather easily be debunked:Bitcoin Are Being Spent EverydayCase in point: remittances. Global remittances are big business. Every year, people send hundreds of billions of dollars across borders to friends and family who are in desperate need of those funds. Most remittances are currently denominated in fiat, and those transactions extract massive fees. Enter Bitcoin. The Bitcoin blockchain is global and is open to any individual or business that wants to send money across borders. While it’s true that only a small fraction of global annual remittances are sent in Bitcoin, it’s an absolute certainty that the majority of Bitcoin remittances are being spent rather than hodled. After all, most people value things like food, shelter, and clothing more than they value any type of money.Bitcoin Will Be Transferred To Those Who Produce True ValueThe idea that people value some things more than they value money is exactly how we debunk the criticism that Bitcoin won’t flow freely out of hodlers’ wallets at a certain point. After all, even the best money (i.e., Bitcoin) is really only good if you can buy the things you need with it.People are incentivized to trade their time for money because it can buy them things. As we discussed before, inflatable currencies like fiat incentivize people to buy as much as possible now before their money loses its purchasing power. But people using hard money like Bitcoin still have to buy the necessities of life, and will also be incentivized to buy discretionary goods and services that they value more in the moment than their Bitcoin.In other words, people who don’t have Bitcoin or who want to have more Bitcoin than they possess at any given time can acquire it by selling things that hodlers want or need to spend their money on. People will always spend money. Good money just makes them spend it on worthwhile purchases.Next time you hear someone trying to scare you away from Bitcoin with half-truths and outright lies, ask yourself if they’d need to do it if the fiat system they’re trying to protect were halfway decent to begin with.Like What You See, But Not A Subscriber Yet?Consider subscribing for two weekly emails about Bitcoin, subscriber giveaways, real-time community discussions and more!Support The HiFi Crypto LettersBitcoin is my passion and my mission is to give as many people as possible the chance to learn how it can change their lives for the better. You can help by using my affiliate links:Robinhood offers access to Bitcoin to help you create your financial future. Go to robinhood.com and receive a free stock worth up to $200 just for signing up and linking your bank account.Betterment will soon offer access to Bitcoin portfolios “managed by experts for long-term investing”. Go to betterment.com and get your entire balance managed free for the first 90 days.Publish0x is the go-to platform for Bitcoin writers and content creators. Go to publish0x.com to get paid to read and write about the latest news across the Bitcoin space.Wish You Could Easily Take The Podcast With You?Can’t Get Enough Bitcoin In Your Life? Follow Me On Social Media:Blockchain Word Of The DayWant to learn more Blockchain words?🙋🏽‍♂️Did You Enjoy This Edition Of The HiFi Crypto Letters?This 3-question survey is your chance to tell me how I can improve the newsletter for you.This is not financial advice. This newsletter and related content are for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets can be risky. Always do your own research before making any sort of investment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehificrypto.substack.com

Dear Readers,One of Bitcoin’s most important features is its resistance to interference and control. Powerful governments, corporations, and individuals are completely powerless when it comes to bending the Bitcoin blockchain to their will. They’ve tried in the past and will certainly try again in the future. They’ll fail every time.While Bitcoin will continue to operate with or without the blessing of the world’s governments, one of you Readers recently posed an interesting question to me: How do we get governments to trust Bitcoin?I appreciated the question and I look forward to exploring this topic together. For obvious reasons, governments have set themselves up as one of the biggest barriers to worldwide Bitcoin adoption. They have everything to gain by accepting Bitcoin, at least in terms of granting financial freedom to their constituents. And they have everything to lose by giving up the awful power they have over currencies, economies, and market participants.What will they do?A Tale Of Two PerspectivesFor me, there are two primary ways of viewing the question of Bitcoin and governments, and they both come down to what humanity needs: do we need governments to accept Bitcoin? Or not?We Don’t Need Governments To Accept BitcoinIf there’s one thing that seems certain in this day and age, it’s that governments want to control everything about their citizens’ lives. Your financial accounts are overseen by government regulators, your children’s education is curated by government bureaucrats, and your rights are dictated to you based on the whims of people in distant ivory towers.With that in mind, do we really want or need governments to accept Bitcoin? As the Reader who posed this question astutely observed, all governments don’t like to give up control once their people have given it to them. Since Bitcoin is a tool for removing government and corporate interference from finance, we can rest assured that governments coming to accept Bitcoin will entail some level of governments attempting to assert their control over Bitcoin.But Bitcoin can’t be controlled, right? It can’t, but businesses building on top of the Bitcoin blockchain can be forced to comply with government mandates and Bitcoin users can be manipulated into working against their own best wishes. If governments want to control Bitcoin, they won’t go after the blockchain itself. They’ll go after the community.With that in mind, perhaps our focus as members of the Bitcoin community should be less on how we can make Bitcoin appeal to governments and more on how we can make ourselves more resistant to government control and subterfuge.We Do Need Governments To Accept BitcoinI suppose the theme of this discussion is that Bitcoin will move forward, block after block, no matter what you, I, or the most powerful governments in the world think or do. I certainly keep coming back to it.The fact remains though that governments wield an inordinate amount of influence in the minds of many people. Simply put, there are a lot of people in the world who sincerely believe that their government has their best interest at heart, no matter how many times history has proven the exact opposite to be the truth.Many of those people aren’t going to adopt Bitcoin until one of two things happens: their government accepts Bitcoin or their government succeeds in losing their trust. It’s for that very reason that so many people are bullish about Bitcoin spot ETFs being approved around the world and, maybe someday, in the U.S.: Many potential Bitcoin users are staying on the fence until their government gives them the green light to participate.So, for the sake of argument, can we afford to keep governments at arm’s length if we know that their involvement will usher in a new wave of Bitcoin adoption?The Truth Comes Into ViewCall me a pessimist, but the idea of government oversight being welcomed into Bitcoin with open arms doesn’t instill much hope in me. Our world needs a return to financial freedom, not a continuation of the financial serfdom we’ve labored under for decades.Perhaps it’s true that some people will come into the Bitcoin space later than they would have if governments bestowed their blessing on the blockchain. But there’s a common saying in Bitcoin that I believe conveys the appropriate sentiment perfectly: Everyone gets Bitcoin at the price they deserve.In other words, your decision to engage with or distance yourself from Bitcoin is completely on you. And that’s exactly the way it should be.Do you have a question about Bitcoin that you wish I would write about? Post it on The HiFi Crypto Letters Community Blackboard to receive an answer:Like What You See, But Not A Subscriber Yet?Consider subscribing for two weekly emails about Bitcoin, subscriber giveaways, real-time community discussions and more!Support The HiFi Crypto LettersBitcoin is my passion and my mission is to give as many people as possible the chance to learn how it can change their lives for the better. You can help by using my affiliate links:Robinhood offers access to Bitcoin to help you create your financial future. Go to robinhood.com and receive a free stock worth up to $200 just for signing up and linking your bank account.Betterment will soon offer access to Bitcoin portfolios “managed by experts for long-term investing”. Go to betterment.com and get your entire balance managed free for the first 90 days.Publish0x is the go-to platform for Bitcoin writers and content creators. Go to publish0x.com to get paid to read and write about the latest news across the Bitcoin space.Wish You Could Easily Take The Podcast With You?Can’t Get Enough Bitcoin In Your Life? Follow Me On Social Media:Blockchain Word Of The DayWant to learn more Blockchain words?This is not financial advice. This newsletter and related content are for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets can be risky. Always do your own research before making any sort of investment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehificrypto.substack.com

It couldn’t be true. It didn’t make sense. Sal had spent weeks researching Bitcoin Savings & Trust before investing and had found nothing but positive reviews. In retrospect, that honestly wasn’t really surprising though. People were receiving the massive daily returns the scheme’s pseudonymous operator had promised. What’s not to like when the money is flowing?But now the music had stopped. The well had run dry. And she, along with countless others probably, was left holding the bag. Turned out that Bitcoin Savings & Trust was nothing more than a Ponzi, and she was nothing more than a sucker for it…The above account is a fictionalized dramatization that is loosely based on the reported events surrounding the Bitcoin Savings & Trust Ponzi scheme that unraveled in 2012. As such, it should not be taken as factual.Dear Readers,Humanity is driven to make money. For some, it stems from a drive to succeed. For others, it comes from a desire to achieve a life of ease, where one is no longer required to labor endlessly to afford the necessities of life. No matter what our motivations may be, the vast majority of us are chasing money from sunup to sundown.Converting your time and your work into money isn’t easy. No matter where you live or what you do for a living, making money is one of the more challenging aspects of the human experience. With that in mind, it’s not overly surprising to see so many people falling for “get rich quick” scams of one type or another, year after year.Beware of promises of easy money. Learn from the past to know how to protect yourself for the future…A Ponzi Here And A Ponzi TherePonzi schemes are the epitome of “too good to be true” investments. Ponzi operators promise massive returns in exchange for little to no work, and they only manage to deliver for as long as they can keep new “investors” walking through the door.Ponzis may operate for a long time. For example, the most infamous Ponzi in history, run by Bernie Madoff, operated for decades before the Great Recession took its toll and the truth came out. But eventually the easy money runs out and people find out that it was never really there to begin with. Such was the case for Bitcoin Savings & Trust, a Bitcoin-themed Ponzi scheme operated by a Texas-based man for about a year in 2011 and 2012.Bitcoin Savings & Trust had many of the classic hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme: its operator was shrouded in mystery, known for most of the Ponzi’s short existence by only a pseudonym, pirateat40, and he refused to provide anything more than the most limited information on how he made his money. On top of that, Bitcoin Savings & Trust “guaranteed” its users a gaudy 1% daily interest rate that, in retrospect, should have made it apparent that things were far too good to be true.While the Ponzi’s operations were secretive, the results of its downfall are not: users lost hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin, valued at several million dollars based on average Bitcoin exchange rates at the time. Meanwhile, the wider Bitcoin community was impacted by a severe loss of confidence and the Bitcoin exchange rate dropped by about half over the course of just three days.Anchor: A Modern-Day Ponzi?With the benefit of hindsight, it can seem easy to dismiss both the perpetrators and victims of Ponzi schemes like Bitcoin Savings & Trust. But never forget that real people are harmed and lose fortunes and more when Ponzis go belly up.Just take the recent implosion of the TerraUSD and Luna cryptocurrencies, in which users and investors lost billions of dollars. The crash was preceded by the breakdown of the Anchor protocol, a DeFi platform tailor made for those cryptocurrencies that had been widely regarded as a Ponzi due to the fact that it offered nearly 20% annual returns on deposits while banks worldwide offer around 1% or less for the same deposits.What’s the lesson to be learned from all this? Learn to do your own research and how to protect yourself, because Ponzis and other scams are unfortunately not a thing of the past.Like What You See, But Not A Subscriber Yet?Consider subscribing for two weekly emails about Bitcoin, subscriber giveaways, real-time community discussions and more!Support The HiFi Crypto LettersBitcoin is my passion and my mission is to give as many people as possible the chance to learn how it can change their lives for the better. You can help by using my affiliate links:Robinhood offers access to Bitcoin to help you create your financial future. Go to robinhood.com and receive a free stock worth up to $200 just for signing up and linking your bank account.Betterment will soon offer access to Bitcoin portfolios “managed by experts for long-term investing”. Go to betterment.com and get your entire balance managed free for the first 90 days.Publish0x is the go-to platform for Bitcoin writers and content creators. Go to publish0x.com to get paid to read and write about the latest news across the Bitcoin space.Wish You Could Easily Take The Podcast With You?Can’t Get Enough Bitcoin In Your Life? Follow Me On Social Media:Blockchain Word Of The DayWant to learn more Blockchain words?🙋🏽‍♂️Did You Enjoy This Edition Of The HiFi Crypto Letters?This 3-question survey is your chance to tell me how I can improve the newsletter for you.This is not financial advice. This newsletter and related content are for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets can be risky. Always do your own research before making any sort of investment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehificrypto.substack.com

Dear Readers,In today’s world there seems to be quite a bit of confusion around Bitcoin’s true use case. Some people see it as a speculative investment. Others focus only on the amount of energy used by the Bitcoin network. And there are even people who think Bitcoin has no use case at all. They’re all wrong.Bitcoin is money. Just like the fiat sitting in your pocket, but more secure. Just like the gold waiting to be pulled from the ground, but more portable. Just like the credit sitting with your card issuer, but decentralized. Without a doubt, Bitcoin is the best iteration of money humanity has ever seen.We probably all agree that money has a number of uses. For that very reason, it’s extremely surprising to see how many people try to argue that hodling Bitcoin somehow means you aren’t using Bitcoin. As if money is only useful during the brief moment that it’s used to buy something…Hodling Is Bitcoin’s #1 Use CaseThink I’m wrong? Think about how often you’re actually using your money for transactions, or in other words, as a medium of exchange. You might spend all day walking around a store or browsing on your favorite shopping app, but you’re still only actually using your money as a medium of exchange for the brief period of time you spend checking out. The rest of the time, your money is just sitting “unused” in your wallet, with your bank, or on the Bitcoin blockchain.But to think of your money as “unused” just because you’re not actively buying something with it is silly. After all, when not being used in transactions, money is serving its primary purpose of storing value across time and space. Why is storing value money’s primary purpose? Because if you can’t trust that it will have value to you and others in both the present and the future, then you’ll never be able to buy anything with it.Bitcoin users to a large extent trust Bitcoin to retain its value, especially over long time frames. In fact, the vast majority of Bitcoin on the network is currently being used for saving wealth through hodling rather than spending wealth. Naysayers who try to convince you that hodling Bitcoin isn’t using Bitcoin simply want to scare you into misunderstanding the holistic value proposition offered by Bitcoin. Don’t let them succeed.Bitcoin Is Better Than Its PeersIt’s a bit ironic that people focus so much on Bitcoin’s ability to satisfy all the requirements of good money, but don’t seem to question the abilities of Bitcoin’s two biggest competitors, fiat and gold, to do the same. Let’s take a look:Fiat Is A Terrible Store Of ValueFiat currencies, of which the U.S. Dollar is only one miserable example, do a terrible job of storing value. Over long time frames, every fiat in history has either lost the entirety of its purchasing power before collapsing, or is currently in the process of doing so. Fiat currencies as they exist today are no exception to this rule, nor will the Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) of tomorrow be an improvement in this regard.To be fair, fiat currencies didn’t have much of a chance to begin with. After all, fiat is controlled by centralized governments made up of self-interested people. The temptation to enrich oneself through wanton money printing is too great, and I don’t expect many of us would fare much better in that respect if we ourselves were in charge of our respective nations’ money printers.That is why Bitcoin is necessary. Bitcoin removes the human element out of monetary policy, or at least structures the blockchain’s monetary policy in such a way that users are unable to manipulate it for their own gain.Bitcoin’s hard cap of 21 million coins ensures that it will be inflation-proof as soon as that cap is reached. And once inflation is removed from the equation, Bitcoin’s value simply becomes a function of how much demand there is by people to save and transact with it. Personally, given the growth of Bitcoin usage over the last 13 years, I have high hopes for its continued growth over the coming decades.Gold Is Not A Medium Of ExchangeFor all its strengths as a store of value, gold cannot be taken seriously as a medium of exchange in this day and age. The idea that someone would heft a bar of gold to the supermarket and shave some off to buy their groceries is laughable. And forget about trying to make purchases over the internet with your gold.In the olden days, gold functioned adequately enough as a medium of exchange. But its limited portability and divisibility, coupled with the ease with which it could be confiscated, made it a prime target for assimilation into the more liquid and less resilient fiat financial system we suffer under today.It’s common to hear Bitcoin referred to as gold 2.0. And that moniker makes sense because Bitcoin manages to retain and even improve upon the premium store of value characteristics gold has exhibited for millennia, while also being exponentially more portable, divisible, and confiscation-resistant than gold can ever hope to be.Bitcoin Is Money On The Pathway To PerfectionNo matter how you choose to use your Bitcoin, you should feel confident knowing that you’re using the most advanced monetary system humanity has ever devised. I certainly feel that way.Like what you see, but not a subscriber yet?Consider subscribing for two weekly emails about Bitcoin, subscriber giveaways, real-time community discussions and more!Wish You Could Easily Take The Podcast With You?Can’t Get Enough Bitcoin In Your Life? Follow me on Social Media:Bitcoin is my passion and my mission is to give as many people as possible the chance to learn how it can change their lives for the better. You can help:Blockchain Word of the DayWant to learn more Blockchain words?🙋🏽‍♂️Did you enjoy this edition of The HiFi Crypto Letters?This 3-question survey is your chance to tell me how I can improve the newsletter for you.This is not financial advice. This newsletter and related content are for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets can be risky. Always do your own research before making any sort of investment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehificrypto.substack.com

Dear Readers,The growth of the Bitcoin network over the past 13 years is staggering. Billions of dollars’ worth of wealth are stored on it and millions of people are using it to secure their financial freedom and future. But Bitcoin is not without its detractors.There are likely many people who genuinely misunderstand the need for Bitcoin, but certainly others whose misconduct stems from malintent rather than a sincere confusion about Bitcoin. While I won’t claim to be an expert on distinguishing the two, a number of people that observers believe are highly intelligent have recently come out against Bitcoin in stunningly uninformed ways.Take this quote from billionaire investor Warren Buffett for example:Whether [Bitcoin] goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don’t know. But the one thing I’m pretty sure of is that it doesn’t produce anything …Or this comment that billionaire founder Bill Gates made just a few days ago:I like investing in things that have valuable output. The value of companies is based on how they make great products. The value of crypto is just what some other person decides someone else will pay for it, so not adding to society like other investments.Both men are pillars of the business community, highly respected for the wealth they’ve created and the advice they’ve given. When they speak, including about Bitcoin, a lot of people listen. And therein lies the problem, because they and others like them have completely misunderstood the productive capacity of Bitcoin.What Does Bitcoin Produce?If you, like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, are thinking of productivity only in terms of companies producing computer software or farmland producing food, then you’re missing the point: production of value isn’t synonymous with the production of tangible goods and services. As examples, let’s look at a couple things that Bitcoin and its blockchain produce:Trustless MoneySatoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator(s) of Bitcoin, put Bitcoin’s most potent contribution into perspective quite poetically:The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work.It’s true. For decades, our money has been controlled by governments and manipulated by corporations. We’ve trusted them to do right by us, and they’ve repeatedly shown themselves incapable of doing that.Simply put, Bitcoin offers humanity the ability to use money that requires absolutely zero trust in any government, corporation, or network participant. The only way to use Bitcoin is to follow the rules that the entire community has agreed to and has the ability to easily verify. There’s no way to game the system for your advantage, which unfortunately wasn’t the case prior to the advent of Bitcoin.Freedom“Freedom” can be a tricky word, especially for those of us who live in the pseudo-democracies of the Western world. Our governments have lulled us into a false sense of security by making us think that we’re in control and that they’re duty-bound to serve us. Unfortunately, governments don’t offer us freedom. The reality is that they are censoring us, surveilling us, and robbing us more and more frequently.“Security” as enforced by governments is not freedom. In fact, in many ways, it is the opposite of freedom. As the Oxford Dictionary puts it, freedom is “the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.” How can what governments offer be called freedom when they restrict our rights and privileges based on the amoral whims of whoever happens to be in charge?Bitcoin offers true freedom, if for no other reason than that it allows us to have financial self-sovereignty, or inalienable control, over our money. No government can separate our Bitcoin from us unless we allow them to. And if we have the freedom to control our money no matter what, we can have the freedom to act and believe in a way that best represents who we are without fear of our lives and livelihoods being snatched from us.Bitcoin Produces What MattersOur civilization runs on money and we use it daily in every aspect of our lives. So the quality of our money, good or bad, impacts every facet of our societies. Good money incentivizes people to invest for the future, while bad money drives people to ruin, financial and otherwise.Humanity has suffered under the burden of bad money for many years. Don’t we deserve to have and use good money again?We deserve Bitcoin.Like what you see, but not a subscriber yet?Consider subscribing for two weekly emails about Bitcoin, subscriber giveaways, real-time community discussions and more!Wish You Could Easily Take The Podcast With You?Can’t Get Enough Bitcoin In Your Life? Follow me on Social Media:Bitcoin is my passion and my mission is to give as many people as possible the chance to learn how it can change their lives for the better. You can help:Blockchain Word of the DayWant to learn more Blockchain words?🙋🏽‍♂️Did you enjoy this edition of The HiFi Crypto Letters?This 3-question survey is your chance to tell me how I can improve the newsletter for you.This is not financial advice. This newsletter and related content are for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets can be risky. Always do your own research before making any sort of investment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehificrypto.substack.com

Dear Readers,Adoption in the Bitcoin space is a sight to behold. People from all walks of life are banding together to form a new Bitcoin economy that allows people to achieve the total financial self-sovereignty that many have dreamed about for decades. We stand on the precipice of a world in which financial success or ruin is no longer determined by a small group of elites in far-off government halls.Adoption is also accelerating. Bitcoin has been around for over thirteen years and its group of adherents has grown in that time from a limited number of cypherpunks on an obscure mailing list to tens of millions of users around the world. And the Bitcoin network may be on the cusp of welcoming tens of millions more people if President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador has his way:A couple years ago, most people would have laughed at the idea that entire countries would willingly choose to accept Bitcoin at the national level. But in today’s world, that reality is a foregone conclusion and the question simply revolves around not if there will be more nation-state adoption of Bitcoin, but who it will be and when they’ll make their move.Given the accelerating pace at which governments are adopting the Bitcoin standard, I’d like to discuss why they’re finding that Bitcoin is such a powerful tool for their citizens, and why it can be such a powerful tool for you too:Kicking The Powers That Be To The CurbThe world’s financial system is pretty messed up. A handful of powerful governments and quasi-governments, like the United States, European Union, China, and International Monetary Fund, rule over the global economy with an iron fist. They more or less dictate who can participate in the system and whether or not they’ll participate on equal terms with everyone else.That setup is a real problem. For starters, it means that the majority of the world’s nations have to pander to the whims of their financial overlords instead of spending their time improving the lives and livelihoods of their citizens. But perhaps even worse than that is the fact that the current system enables the countries at the top to export the burdens created by their bad financial choices to the developing world through inflation of the “global” currencies simultaneously being forced on everyone.Under that context, we should not be surprised that the countries flocking to El Salvador are from the developing world. Nor should it be surprising that the countries profiting off of them are trying to scare them away from Bitcoin adoption. Developing nations are highly incentivized to break free from the financial system that has held them back for centuries, while the countries on top are scared about the ramifications of losing their financial monopoly over the world.Let them be scared.The Power To ChooseBitcoin is all about enabling each user to make their own choices. You can custody your own Bitcoin or you can let someone else hold them for you. You can run your own node or you can pay someone else to process your transactions. You can choose top-notch security on the base layer of the blockchain or you can prioritize transaction speed and cost by moving to a Layer 2 solution like the Lightning Network. Make your own choices, good or bad, basically.Isn’t that how life should be? Is there any reason why our ability to choose should be limited or outright taken away by a bunch of bureaucrats who claim to know what’s best for us, but really have no idea? The answer is that each of us should have the sole ability and responsibility to choose for ourselves, unless we choose to willingly give that up.Bitcoin makes that possible, especially in a financial context. The Bitcoin blockchain is open to all and the community behind it actively rejects interference from any gatekeeper. And that’s how money and finance should be: free from the biases of any one party at the expense of another.So why are dozens of countries around the world entertaining the idea of joining the Bitcoin economy? Perhaps they’ve finally realized that their duty is to protect the interests of their citizens. All of them. I believe that no tool serves that purpose more completely than Bitcoin.Time will tell whether the governments of the world agree. I think they will.Like what you see, but not a subscriber yet?Consider subscribing for two weekly emails about Bitcoin, subscriber giveaways, real-time community discussions and more!Wish You Could Easily Take The Podcast With You?Can’t Get Enough Bitcoin In Your Life? Follow me on Social Media:Bitcoin is my passion and my mission is to give as many people as possible the chance to learn how it can change their lives for the better. You can help:Blockchain Word of the DayWant to learn more Blockchain words?🙋🏽‍♂️Did you enjoy this edition of The HiFi Crypto Letters?This 3-question survey is your chance to tell me how I can improve the newsletter for you.This is not financial advice. This newsletter and related content are for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets can be risky. Always do your own research before making any sort of investment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehificrypto.substack.com

Dear Readers,For decades, the finances of everyday people have been tied up in the hands of governments and corporations, and have been manipulated or outright stolen by those same people. We as a society have arrived at the point where it’s next to impossible to believe that corporate CEOs and government bureaucrats have our best interests at heart. Our finances, economies, and money need to change.I’m a huge proponent of financial self-sovereignty. Since we can’t trust our finances to anyone else, we need the tools to be able to trust ourselves. I believe strongly that Bitcoin is the major step in the right direction that the world so desperately needs. For the first time in history, we have money that can be completely resistant to censorship, confiscation, and inflation. But whether it is or isn’t depends entirely on how we choose to manage, or not manage as it were, our Bitcoin.Wherefore Art Thou Bitcoin?Case in point: tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin are sitting in the treasuries and vaults of exchanges, crypto-banks, and custodians rather than being under the control of Bitcoin users themselves. That’s a lot of Bitcoin.Granted, a lot of those people are afraid of holding onto their own Bitcoin. They’ve heard too many stories about the guy who accidentally threw away the private key protecting his ~8,000 Bitcoin. But risk of loss aside, controlling the keys to one’s Bitcoin is an essential component of achieving true financial sovereignty as we’ll see below.By the way, if you’re afraid of self-custodying your Bitcoin or unsure where to start, I’ve got you covered. Check out the mini-series I wrote recently all about self-custody:On The Path To Self-CustodyWhy Bother With Self-Custody?What’s In Your (Bitcoin) Wallet?Self-Custody - Signatures Can Make All The DifferenceMy Bitcoin Are NOT Your BitcoinPeople choose to leave their Bitcoin with centralized custodians because those businesses have given them the impression that their assets are well-protected and will always be accessible. History has repeatedly shown that to not be the case, most recently in what was probably meant to be an obscure regulatory filing by Coinbase, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. But news around the filing has blown up courtesy of a particularly nefarious risk to Coinbase users that was disclosed:It would be natural for you to think that the money you transfer into Coinbase and the assets you purchase with that money would be yours and yours alone. After all, your employer recognizes it as your money when your paycheck gets sent out and the government recognizes it as yours when you get taxed. But somehow, through the contortions of bankruptcy proceedings, assets that are supposed to belong to you could be lumped in with any Coinbase’s actual creditors are entitled to if it goes under. You could lose everything, through absolutely no fault of your own.Don’t think this existential (for your financial self-sovereignty) risk is exclusive to Coinbase. It also exists with Celsius Network, one of the world’s largest crypto-banks, and likely with many other custodians, whether they admit it or not:Not Your Keys, Not Your CoinsIt’s very simple. If you don’t control the keys to your Bitcoin, you don’t actually have any Bitcoin. You have a promise from the person or company holding your Bitcoin that they’ll be delivered to you when you ask, and you have a hope that the promise won’t be broken. If you’re still inclined to entrust your Bitcoin to a custodian, just ask users of Mt. Gox, Bitfinex, and Africrypt how that worked out for them.Don’t subject yourself, your financial self-sovereignty, or your Bitcoin to that risk. Many of the businesses in the space may be extremely well-intentioned. They may have top-notch security policies. They may have robust insurance policies. They may have all sorts of regulators peeking over their shoulders. But when it comes down to it, if they lose your Bitcoin private key or just refuse to give it back, there’s nothing you can do about it. You put the keys to your Bitcoin kingdom in someone else’s hands.Consider doing something now, before it’s forever too late.Like what you see, but not a subscriber yet?Consider subscribing for two weekly emails about Bitcoin, subscriber giveaways, real-time community discussions and more!Wish You Could Easily Take The Podcast With You?Can’t Get Enough Bitcoin In Your Life? Follow me on Social Media:Bitcoin is my passion and my mission is to give as many people as possible the chance to learn how it can change their lives for the better. You can help:Blockchain Word of the DayWant to learn more Blockchain words?🙋🏽‍♂️Did you enjoy this edition of The HiFi Crypto Letters?This 3-question survey is your chance to tell me how I can improve the newsletter for you.This is not financial advice. This newsletter and related content are for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets can be risky. Always do your own research before making any sort of investment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehificrypto.substack.com

Dear Readers,When I wrote earlier this week about how companies using Bitcoin as part of their investment strategy instead of as money is not ideal, I had no idea that the market would prove my point so quickly. Of course, most people probably didn’t anticipate this week’s chaos that hit the market for the Luna cryptocurrency and the TerraUSD stablecoin it was tailor-made to support.Coming Back Down To EarthTerraUSD was wildly popular over the past several months, with its market cap catapulting into the top ten cryptocurrencies as a result of its growing prominence.As a stablecoin, its goal is to maintain price parity with the U.S. dollar. But unlike collateralized stablecoins like USDC and Tether that maintain their peg by (supposedly) holding actual dollars and dollar equivalents, TerraUSD is an algorithmic stablecoin that attempts to hold its peg through a series of incentives built into the code. One TerraUSD is always supposed to be redeemable for one dollar’s worth of its sister cryptocurrency Luna. So if the value of TerraUSD falls below $1, market participants are supposed to be incentivized to buy a TerraUSD, redeem it for $1 worth of Luna, and then make a profit on the arbitrage.Unfortunately for holders of TerraUSD and Luna, the incentives system appears to have not held up. The markets for both cryptocurrencies have been rocked as TerraUSD has completely lost its peg, sitting at around $.12 as of this writing, and as Luna lost over 99% of its value in just the seven-day period leading up to Thursday evening. A rough time to be a “LUNAtic” (as they like to call themselves), to be sure.Call In The Bitcoin ReservesPerhaps in recognition that under-collateralized stablecoins are notoriously risky, the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), a nonprofit organization that seeks to support the Luna and TerraUSD ecosystems, announced several weeks ago that it would be purchasing as much as $10 billion dollars’ worth of Bitcoin as reserves backing TerraUSD’s peg. Many in the Bitcoin space were thrilled by the announcement since it added a significant amount of demand for Bitcoin. To a certain degree, it made sense as well given Bitcoin’s growing status as the world’s reserve currency. After all, if countries like El Salvador and The Central African Republic are using Bitcoin for their reserves, why wouldn’t we expect organizations inside and outside of crypto to do the same?LFG’s plan to use Bitcoin as a reserve asset for TerraUSD is a double-edged sword though. When times are good, the organization is a net buyer of Bitcoin, as it had been up until the past few days. But when times are bad, like when TerraUSD fell massively off its peg this week, LFG becomes a net seller of Bitcoin. And after acquiring several billion dollars’ worth of Bitcoin in just a few weeks’ time, LFG had a lot of Bitcoin to dump on the market.LFG and its founder Do Kwon have not been very transparent on the topic of Bitcoin liquidations though, in my opinion. Vague plans were recently announced on Twitter that large loans of Bitcoin would be made to “OTC trading firms to help protect [TerraUSD’s] peg”, but it was not made clear by any means that this course of action would directly lead to the sale of LFG’s Bitcoin. But after a bit of digging, we can see that’s exactly what the plan was all along. As Do Kwon explains in one of his tweets, LFG intends to buy TerraUSD by selling its Bitcoin anytime TerraUSD’s price drops below $1:If there’s anything we can learn from Bitcoin interactions from groups like LFG and people like Elon Musk, it’s this: there are no heroes in Bitcoin. Any supporter can quickly turn into a detractor if circumstances lead them down that path.But Bitcoin keeps chugging along, block after block.Stablecoins Are Anything But StableStablecoins have been hailed as revolutionary in many corners of the crypto space, but the reality often seems to be the opposite. After all, using the term “stable” to describe assets that track the price of fiat currencies that are perpetually declining in value thanks to inflation is a misnomer of epic proportions. And to top it off, it seems more and more likely that most, if not all, stablecoins will be regulated out of existence and replaced with central bank digital currencies that will be directly controlled by governments.When I look for a stable place to put my wealth, I continuously come back to Bitcoin. Through all the chaos of the past week, one Bitcoin still equals one Bitcoin.Like what you see, but not a subscriber yet?Consider subscribing for two weekly emails about Bitcoin, subscriber giveaways, real-time community discussions and more!Wish You Could Easily Take The Podcast With You?Can’t Get Enough Bitcoin In Your Life? Follow me on Social Media:Bitcoin is my passion and my mission is to give as many people as possible the chance to learn how it can change their lives for the better. You can help:Blockchain Word of the DayWant to learn more Blockchain words?🙋🏽‍♂️Did you enjoy this edition of The HiFi Crypto Letters?This 3-question survey is your chance to tell me how I can improve the newsletter for you.This is not financial advice. This newsletter and related content are for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets can be risky. Always do your own research before making any sort of investment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thehificrypto.substack.com