"You got lucky"

Ask any Bitcoiner where the value of bitcoin is going, and you’ll most certainly be given a single answer: “up.”

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And, despite our collective inability to ever stop talking about Bitcoin, many people will still be surprised when it continues its relentless march to higher and higher heights. At some future level of buying power for bitcoin, perhaps $500,000 or $1M or $10M (yes, we believe it’s going there… in today’s dollars), we anticipate being met with the “you-got-lucky” crowd.

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This will certainly include all of Bitcoin’s vocal, online haters. It will include the talking heads of the mainstream media who have spent a decade or more vilifying Bitcoin for its energy consumption, criminal use cases, and on and on.

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And it will, of course, include your family and friends. Some may have been openly hostile to Bitcoin over the years, and others who always needed to “look into it some more” but failed to log even a minute of research into the subject.

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When we as Bitcoiners are derided for “being lucky” in the somewhat near future, what are accusers will fail to recognize are a few things.

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First, being in Bitcoin takes immense patience. In fact, you could argue that saving in bitcoin is like a masterclass in learning how to wait. We zoom out and see the massive growth in bitcoin’s value, but the reality is that it mostly feels like “Groundhog Day” - the same modest price action day in and day out.

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If you’ve held your bitcoin for any real length of time without panicking, selling, or otherwise losing the faith, here is the good news: you weren’t luck, you passed the exam.

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Now, here is the bad news: you must take the same exam each and every day for the rest of your life. Holding onto bitcoin, awaiting its near-inevitable rise requires daily discipline. But there is more good news, too: you acquired the art of patience by saving in the hardest money and asset ever to exist. The tradeoff is a good one.

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Another lesson learned by way of Bitcoin is that of conviction in the face of intense scrutiny and doubt. We’ve been told by the “crypto” community that Bitcoin is too slow. We’ve been told by politicians that Bitcoin is evil. We’ve been told by the world’s most successful investors that Bitcoin is rat poison. We’ve been told by nearly everyone with a keyboard and Twitter account that Bitcoin is a Ponzi. We’ve even been told that Bitcoin is worthless and going to zero by fellow small-government-libertarian-goldbug-types.

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At times, doubt may creep in. Could all these people really be wrong?

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Of course, the answer is “yes.” They just haven’t done the work.

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They haven’t read The Bitcoin Standard or The Bullish Case for Bitcoin. They haven’t read Atlas Shrugged or The Creature from Jekyll Island. They haven’t listened to two Bitcoin podcasts each day for a year straight. They haven’t read Lyn Alden or James Lavish’s weekly newsletters to start finally learning the basics of finance and economics. They haven’t taken the time to research Bitcoin wallets or node hardware or the Lightning network or how to best manage and consolidate UTXOs.

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But you have. You’ve put in the time, taken a chance, and held the line.

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When our day of reckoning comes, ignore the “you-got-lucky” crowd and be grateful. You put in the work when the rest of the world ignored the cracks in the foundation of our monetary system and the solution that was right before them.

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We didn’t get lucky; we took the time to get Bitcoin.