Crypto the Currency.

Bitcoin was birthed out of the dire desperation of the 2008 financial crisis. If you do not know what I am talking about, stop reading, go ask your parents and then watch “The Big Short”. That being said, I want to start off by saying that I am in no way, shape or form qualified to write this post, save the fact that I inhale media at an ungodly rate, and my wife can attest to that. Now, if you are still interested, read on, because I believe that we are in the throes of another seismic shift in the financial realm, and this is truly the first shift that has occured since cryptocurrencies inception. Throughout the post, I will try to be as objective as possible, but this is difficult, considering that I am an avid cryptocurrency enthusiast, am financially invested, and find the technology incredibly fascinating, along with the financial freedom the asset itself can bring into any owners’ life. All of that between us, this is NOT financial advice.

Back to Bitcoin. Bitcoin, or (BTC) in shorthand, was first “mined” in early January 2009, by its anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi remains anonymous to this day, and has not moved the vast swathe of coins he is believed to possess from the early days of mining.

To give the basics on cryptocurrency, I will start by saying that there are many forms of the asset, most of which are hosted on blockchains, and aim at a decentralized financial freedom hosted entirely digitally. In addition to this, cryptocurrency allows for substantial privacy and anonymity in any given transaction. Bitcoin itself fulfills all of those descriptors, and more. The main points to understand about Bitcoin, specifically during a time like this (COVID-19) and the extreme financial uncertainity that it is causing, is that it acts as a deflationary asset. This means that there is both a finite amount of the cryptocurrency to ever exist, 21 million, and also the rate by which they are released on the public via miners selling the asset “halves” approximately ever four years. This comes as a direct foil to the current actions taken by the fed. in the United States, which I believe their current actions (namely printing trillions of dollars) will cause a large inflationary movement to the USD market.

To be more clear and precise in my explanation, Bitcoin currently relases 12.5 BTC for every block “mined” (and no you can’t mine bitcoin if you are the average person reading this blog post. You are way behind and it takes thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars in equipment and energy costs to mine the currency.) But early this May, that “block reward” is going to halve, meaning that miners will only be rewarded with 6.25 BTC from that time until the next halving approximately four years after that, in 2024. This is an inherently deflationary event, where if the demand continues to stay the same as current levels, and the supply is cut in half thence forth, it will create a supply shock in the market begetting a higher price ask. Now for those of you familiar with this concept, we can debate the merits of this argument, specifically based on the Litecoin (another cryptocurrency) halving that occured late summer of 2019 and whether or not the halving is already “priced in”.

All of this is to say, that throughout history, markets have traditionally followed, and even in moments of irrationality, (which markets iron out over time), a rule of supply and demand. And while there are 21 million BTC, and that can never change, myself and others like me are betting on the fact that finite supply with strong use cases will make for a secure and financially free opportunity unlike many others. There are of course merits to the stock market, precious metals and others, but BTC and the cryptocurrency market as a whole present an opportunity to be on a still mounting wave that melds two undefeated titans: the correct side of the supply and demand curve for the investor, and utility that solves real world problems.

If you liked this, or would like to learn more/suggest other topics, please subscribe or comment any questions or otherwise and I will get back to you asap. This was by no measure a complete descriptor of Bitcoin or the cryptocurrency platform as a whole, just a venture to introduce people to the world potentially for the first time. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.