When you first encounter Bitcoin, there is usually a mixture of feelings, actions, and thoughts. They may feel empowered to have money to control completely or they may be content because they have secured a piece of the limited amount of Bitcoin that will ever exist. But you can also feel both, and a wide variety of other feelings often find a new home in the now bitcoiner. However, every person who buys Bitcoin feels that they are too late – that a Bitcoin is too expensive now and the number is increasing (NgU) will not work in the future.
The “I missed the bus” bias
When a bitcoiner looks back, they determine how much a bitcoin has already appreciated in value compared to the dollar or other fiat currencies. The first recorded Bitcoin transaction for US dollars took place in 2009 through New Liberty Standard, a primitive bitcoin exchange created by a BitcoinTalk online forum user of the same name. In this transaction, 5050 BTC was purchased in exchange for $ 5.02 paid through PayPal, bringing the first recorded Bitcoin price to $ 0.00099.
By 2010, Bitcoin had become more widespread and 1 BTC cost around $ 0.07. This year, Bitcoin was also exchanged for everyday goods for the first time. BitcoinTalk member Laszlo offered, “I’m going to pay 10,000 Bitcoins for a couple of pizzas … like 2 big ones so I have some left over for the next day.” After the transaction, Bitcoin Pizza Day was launched and is widely celebrated to this day. But perhaps one of the most iconic BitcoinTalk posts back in 2010 came from a user, ichi, who said he felt he was late for the party and didn’t have enough bitcoin.
That’s right – I thought they were already too late and 600 Bitcoin wasn’t a lot. But in terms of dollars, it wasn’t a huge pile indeed; 600 BTC would cost you less than $ 50. However, over the past 11 years, Bitcoin price has increased over 700,000% to its current level of $ 50,000. Well, this 600 bitcoin stack is a huge stack without a doubt. Furthermore, it may seem absurd to believe that such an asset could be further valued in the future, and equally plausible to believe that if you bought BTC in 2021, you are too late.
But you may be seeing it from the wrong angle. It’s important to consider the appreciation of Bitcoin since that forum post, but more importantly to realize that ichi really felt that Bitcoin was already overvalued, which made them feel like they’d missed the bus to have. In hindsight, however, we see that ichi actually didn’t miss the bus and that her “small” bitcoin stack turned into a huge one about a decade later. So if you think you are late now, you might end up walking through Ichi’s steps.
Pay attention to your perspective
Something that may be counter-intuitive to newbies, but can be very helpful in the process, is thinking about bitcoin in bitcoin terms. We could look back now and conclude that maybe ichi was naive to believe that 600 bitcoin wasn’t enough in 2010, but you see, we do that because that 600 bitcoin in dollars has increased. They haven’t risen in bitcoin terms. Expressed in Bitcoin, which alone makes up the total fixed supply of 21 million BTC, 600 Bitcoin were and will always be the same amount. The mindset is all divided by 21 million.
Although Bitcoin is expected to become more widespread over time and more and more people will recognize its distinctive properties and superiority as a store of value and a medium of exchange, it cannot be said with certainty. In 2010, when much fewer people knew and used Bitcoin, 600 BTC was easier to come by, compared to 2021 when 1 BTC cost nearly $ 50,000 and it seems that most of the world is already running a node, CoinJoins regularly and pays for her haircut with Sats through the Lightning Network. But that is not the case; we need to take a step back and evaluate the adoption.
We are still early
In bitcoin circles, we can often forget that most of the earth’s inhabitants are still clueless when it comes to bitcoin. And you don’t need fancy statistics to see that; Note that the mainstream media regularly say that Bitcoin has no use as money, citing the already too old arguments of volatility and scalability. Bitcoiners already know that as adoption increases, volatility will take care of itself, and the Lightning Network is already solving scalability. the rest of the world does not.
With that in mind, a recent Gallup poll found that only 6% of U.S. investors – defined as adults with $ 10,000 or more invested in stocks, bonds, or mutual funds – own bitcoin. That’s less than 10 percent of an already constrained sampling universe – that of one of the world’s most developed economies, in which a significant amount of money has also been invested. In other countries, however, adoption may be more important. In Singapore, for example, 40% of citizens said they owned Bitcoin and there is a high level of awareness there.
But when we step back, we find that Bitcoin is only a little over a decade old. It is money in the making that is still finding its way into a complex world with diverse cultures, backgrounds and needs. Bitcoiners who have worked to understand the network, economic incentives, game theory, social and political implications, as well as the technical side of the protocol and its nuances, believe that Bitcoin is already fully known to the entire world. However, this is not the case.
Most people, businesses, and countries will adopt Bitcoin as a result of a domino effect. And of course, it takes time for newbies to fully understand what Bitcoin is, how it can improve humanity, and what it can and can’t fix. But as more people fall into the rabbit hole of Bitcoin, society will understand the benefits of clinging to the best form of money ever created.
Think in bitcoin terms and stack sats
The bottom line is, beware of the “I missed the bus,” change your financial perspective to value anything in Bitcoin or Satoshis, and enjoy that global adoption is still very low for cheap sats too stack. We may not be as early as 2010, but we are certainly not too late. There are over 7 billion people on earth, of whom over 50 million are millionaires, but there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin. The more companies include Bitcoin on their balance sheets, the more billionaires notice the uniqueness of Bitcoin and the more education about Bitcoin is spread, the more acceptance will increase and the less Bitcoin will be available to interested parties.
Remember when the internet wasn’t widespread in the home and mainstream economists saw little value in it, just that suddenly everyone and every place had an internet connection, which led us to where we are today? Bitcoin isn’t widespread yet, and mainstream economists see no value in it, but it’s being adopted faster than the internet. Maybe the next time you feel like you’ve missed the bus, it will help you think about it.