Bitcoin

Bitcoin is both an amazing solution and an instant trap for the laymen…

That’s what I feel like right now on it. I myself am not a money hustler, but I am pretty frugal and do take some strides in ensuring I am secure. I was fortunate enough to have an upbringing where saving money and not needlessly spending was a important rule to live by, so when I got my first job in the latter end of 2021 I accumulated a safety net by the time I decided to pivot in mid 2025.

What I’ve learned is that there’s a ton of knowledge that can be applied in a simple manner to your life and a ton of rabbitholes that can potentially blind you from unintended consequences. Most tips are honestly very basic and if you only follow them, you can at least get by without having a difficult issue. In fact, it seems there was a surprising number of people I knew who’s finances were seemingly in dire straits which always put things in perspective for me. I will likey write a financial tip note in the future, but I am trying to say that money isn’t necessarily as complicated to manage for most people.

Now, enter Bitcoin. Crypto felt like a taboo thing for me in my mind. It seemed to be an attractor for gamblers (not the beautiful kind like Usogui) and desparate people looking for wealth. I opted for researching how to set up a Roth IRA and even looked into dividends without ever considering crypto as an option.

I can tell you without a doubt, that this is the most rabbithole infested space imaginable. It feels like every single person making a video on this subject seemed to be profiting over clueless people or are part of this weird techno financinal cult. I’ll admit, even I am not immune to falling down into rabbitholes like this. I may or may not have had a weird political brain shift for a couple months during 2016 where I had channels like Stephen Crowder and John Doyle in my recommendations every week. The crypto space is I think dangerous for anyone either too open minded or those with “nothing to lose”.

However, in my current knowledge of this space, Bitcoin is the one that stands above the rest. Perhaps it was just it being the early versions of crypto that carried its status. In all honesty, after hearing some of the points for what makes it unique, I became throughly convinced that it really is as revolutionary as those fanatics make it seem. I want to emphasize, an important thing to do when thinking you’re throughly convinced on a certain thing is to try to disprove and see differing perspectives on that thing. And let me tell you, I can’t blame anyone for getting lost in this space.

As I talked about earlier, there are so many influencers that talk about Bitcoin and give you wildly differing opinions on it. It was very difficult to discern if what they were saying was true, and if it was, what sort of context was their truth applied to. “Do your own research” is certainly a very true thing, but I myself haven’t read any books on this. So take what I say with a grain of salt, but also consider I wouldn’t just spend my money if I did not consider the risks.

Best way I can quickly explain Bitcoin to another person or someone like me is that it operates like gold, but with the ability to be divided and transmitted online. The additional propery to add is that there is a set finite supply that cannot be messed with unless there was some sort of mass mind control that affected the majority of Bitcoin nodes. This description would be the simplest way for me to depict this, but there are a lot of things that make this technology a reality. What really convinced me on this was how much I could abstractly understand the key parts to Bitcoin. Being a Computer Science graduate myself, I am no stranger to conceptual ideas and new technology.

Smart contracts and how Bitcoin nodes verify each transaction was a big thing for me. Decentralization is a cool concept, but often is under appreciated in today’s age when everyone just uses whatevers convient. But for money, being able to have it not be affected by inflation and isn’t locked behind a singular institution are properties that are sought for. Fiat, or any physical currency, does not have these properties. The country can decide to print more money when they need it and banks can delay you access from your money (since they make money from using your money to give out to loans and their own investments).

If you plan to look into Bitcoin, I highly suggest to pull information from various perspectives. Afterwards, obtain a way to self custody the Bitcoin yourself because without it, you are incurring some risk having some external entity managing your money. Granted, holding money yourself can be nerve racking as all of the security depends on your ability to not get duped or forget where you place things. That’s just a trade off you will need to accept and account for when looking into products and exchanges to reach the goal of owning some Bitcoin. I may update this note in the future to further research and explain more specifics.

Upon some quick research, there’s a Reddit post that seems to provide a lot of references and info on Bitcoin itself. I still need to do a deep dive and look through the stuff in this post, but this seems pretty legit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/s/wshRUsFeFE

Regardless, this is a technology that should be looked into early in your financial journey. Even if you don’t plan to invest in it, additional knowledge can help you further analyze other potential investments with more awareness.