An open letter to the confused and dismissive.
by Gigi https://dergigi.com/2022/11/19/dear-crypto-fiat-bros/
It should be obvious by now, but I’m afraid I’ll have to spell it out anyway: Bitcoin, not blockchain. Bitcoin, not crypto. Bitcoin, not distributed ledger technology. Bitcoin, not DeFi. Bitcoin, not Web3. Bitcoin, not CBDCs. Bitcoin, not yield farming. Bitcoin, not centralized neo-banks that sell you fractional-reserve paper bitcoin. Bitcoin.
If you think that Bitcoin is dead, you’ve been fooled by fiat journalists. If you think that Bitcoin is slow, or old tech, or MySpace, or the Model T, you’ve been fooled by snake-oil salesmen.
In the former case, you are probably feeling smug: “I knew that it was all a Ponzi scheme! Good thing I didn’t invest in bitcoin. I told ya’ll that it will go to zero!”
In the latter case, you are probably still in shock because the likelihood is high that you just lost all your money. Maybe you are still in denial. Maybe you are angry or even depressed. Maybe your pre-mined world-computer coins are locked up in a centrally controlled staking system, and you have no way of getting them out again.1 Unfortunately, there is no way to fast-track the five stages of grief. You have to slouch through it all until you finally arrive at acceptance: “I never had bitcoin in the first place, I only had IOUs and paper bitcoin. I was the yield that was being farmed.”
Admitting that you’ve been fooled is one of the hardest things there is. It takes humility, strength, self-reflection, and the swallowing of pride to acknowledge that you’ve been had. It’s easier to blame someone else and double down—or to throw your hands in the air and walk away. It’s a harsh truth, and at some point in the future, you will be able to hear it:
You have been fooled, and you have no one to blame but yourself.
If that’s too painful right now, fine. Step back. Do something else for a while. Spend some time with your family, or in the woods, or go fishing or something. And once you come back, try to wrap your head around the following: Bitcoin is the signal, and the rest is noise. All of it.
I am not writing this to kick you while you’re down. I am writing this because I believe that nobody is beyond redemption. I am writing this in the hopes that some of you, dear crypto bros, will only have to touch the shitcoin stove once. I am writing this in the hopes that some of you, dear fiat bros, will finally understand that bitcoin is not only different from all of “crypto,” but that it is different from all other currencies, your beloved government-issued shitcoins included. My message to you is the same:
There Is Bitcoin, and There’s Everything Else
Continue readying..