Crypto News
Why I Bitcoin

Readers of my blog know that I started dabbling in buying Bitcoin in late 2022.
In fact, it was the best performing asset out of any of the names I wrote that I was watching for 2023. Similarly, and not to give away the suspense, I added Bitcoin exposure once again to my list of 24 stocks I’m watching for 2024.
So, it may not have been that much of a surprise when my subscribers saw me on X yesterday proclaim that my days of disparaging Bitcoin were over. However, given that I have about 210,000 more Twitter followers than I do Substack subscribers, it is safe to say there were still plenty of people who were caught off guard by my mea culpa, and, somewhat alarmingly, even more people who were voraciously willing to immediately sing my praises and welcome me to the community.
As far as the welcome goes, all I can say is, I genuinely appreciate it. I’d be lying if I said that a large group of people proclaiming me to be making an intelligent decision didn’t make me somewhat nervous. However, as I said in my post on X yesterday, I know I am also surrounded by people who are much smarter than I am.
As I also said in my post yesterday, I have been watching people that I know are much smarter than I am, specifically those in the sound money community, sing the praises of having exposure to bitcoin for years now. For me, that was the hardest thing to ignore. I felt like if I was looking to people like Lawrence Lepard, Luke Gromen and Lyn Alden for their incredible insights on the broken monetary system, why couldn’t I at least try to take them semi-seriously when it came to their take on Bitcoin? I knew deep down there was work they had done and an understanding they had achieved with Bitcoin that I wasn’t close to, despite understanding some of the basics.
I started to get a taste of this understanding while listening to my friend Lawrence Lepard describe Bitcoin as an invention all its own on this December 2022 podcast – comparing it as a parallel to the Internet, instead of just another Internet software application. This video is queued up to the first moment I changed my thinking about Bitcoin – Larry’s explanation starts at 36:00:
He referred to it in this interview as “the invention of digital scarcity”. Honestly, I had no idea what that meant, and the idea of “digital scarcity” didn’t seem too novel to me. I just shrugged and thought, “If Bitcoin can do it, other cryptocurrencies can do the same.” I asked myself, “How can something be scarce when it doesn’t exist tangibly and definitely didn’t exist 15 years ago?”
Of course, like a key uses multiple teeth in concert to open a physical lock, Bitcoin only started to make sense to me once I understood it in the context of how the network works – all of the teeth of the key (the ideology, the network, the cryptographic invention) line up together, helping unlock its understanding. First, I had to understand how the cryptography of Bitcoin worked and why it is essentially unhackable and about as secure as something can be for the time being. I did that by watching this video:
Next, I had to understand the system of checks and balances that the network creates to ensure the integrity of itself. Sure, I understood the idea of a decentralized ledger that everybody could check – that was relatively simple. What I didn’t really understand was how having a majority of the nodes on the network, running the same code, essentially kept Bitcoin sacrosanct for as long as people decided they wanted it to be. I had heard about forks in the network, but now I understood them. They are points in time where people thought they knew best and should rewrite Bitcoin code. The majority of nodes rejected those ideas, in doing so protected the sanctity of the original Bitcoin code.
Once I understood the cryptography and the security of the network, it then became self-evident that the larger the network gets and the more adoption it gets, the more secure and indestructible it becomes. The idea of people “banning it” or, as my one friend put it, “Satoshi just coming back to change the supply of coins whenever he wants” simply doesn’t hold much water once you understand how it works. If the people want the Bitcoin network, and they have power and an Internet connection, they’re going to get it. The network is like a slippery fish someone tries to hold onto — the harder you hold it and the more you try to control it, the quicker it slips from your grasp. If Canada bans it, it will drift to Mexico. If Mexico bans it, nodes will drift to Mauritius. If Mauritius bans it, nodes will drift to Russia. There’s always going to be somewhere on the globe – at least for the short to mid-term right now – that is going to embrace Bitcoin.
For me, it was only once I understood how the cryptography worked and how the network functioned together, in tandem, that I started to assign the all-important intrinsic value to Bitcoin. I was, and in some degree still am, in the camp that sees gold as having intrinsic value that Bitcoin does not, because of its commodity bid and far superior and longer record as a store of value. This is why, despite coming around to the idea of Bitcoin, my gold position is still larger than my Bitcoin position.
But Bitcoin advocates make compelling arguments when they point out that Bitcoin is easier to transport and easier to verify than gold. I always found myself stuck when somebody would ask me how I would take $1 billion worth of gold over the border. You just can’t. With Bitcoin, you just can. Even as exchanges are subjected to more AML and KYC regulation, the Bitcoin itself still remains an offramp from having your wealth centralized. The idea, coupled with the transmissibility and the ability to verify it anywhere in the world at any time with just an internet connection and power really do make it truly unlike anything that has ever existed before.
For me, as I said in my tweet thread yesterday, I couldn’t always figure out exactly what I was buying when I was buying Bitcoin. I’ve had to talk myself into understanding it by describing to myself it as purchasing a spot on a bedrock decentralized ledger with the highest adoption worldwide, that will potentially – not definitively – serve as the foundation for a new way to think about money. In other words, it’s as much reserving a spot on the ledger as it is an investment in the invention of Bitcoin itself. It’s a really big idea — and my brain is really small — which is why it has taken me this long to wrap my head around it. But, as they say, “once you see it, you can’t unsee it”.
And, like any other investment I make in something new that has not been fully adopted, I accept the fact that there are significant risks, and that the value of Bitcoin could go much lower, or eventually, to zero. The thing is, I just don’t see that happening anytime soon. Even in a worst-case scenario where Bitcoin doesn’t make it 100 years from now, I think its adoption over the next 5 to 10 years is already a foregone conclusion.
Specifically, listening to Michael Saylor helped open my eyes to the fact that I was buying digital property. This interview was a lengthy, comprehensive listen that I enjoyed. Whether Saylor turns out to be Bitcoin Jesus or the most misguided person in history, it’s tough to argue that he’s not exceptionally intelligent and well spoken:
This is another another lengthy, complex interview I listened to in full and at length, which helped me understand the web of all components working together that make up the Bitcoin ecosystem:
And so, when Saylor asks a question like, “How long do you think it’ll be before all cell phones and computers are bundled with Bitcoin wallets?” the answer to me simply seems to be obvious: it won’t be long. So, from an adoption standpoint, whether or not it is around 100 years from now is, for the most part, beside the point right now. It’s like the potential impact of quantum computing—I’ve heard both sides of that case and have pretty much acquiesced to the position that it’s a bridge we will have to cross when we get to it. And hey, if that reasoning is good enough for Janet Yellen watching our debt/GDP explode toward some unknown breaking point of no return for the dollar, it’s good enough for me.
But the fact that regulatory agencies have blessed Bitcoin by allowing the spot ETFs, and that I can go on Twitter and literally see commercials from super serious asset managers like Franklin Templeton and Fidelity, talking about Bitcoin as a sound money hedge, and a way to step outside of the central bank-run global monetary system, is stunning.
It’s funny how, once there are fees involved, people are happy to make what I always thought to be the morally just case for railing against central banks — the case that I have been waiting for people to publicly make for gold for a long time. Regardless, I don’t really care about your motivation when you’re making great points.
Just last week, I heard somebody say that all Bitcoin buyers are speculators, not people looking to seriously opt out of the monetary system as it exists today for the long term — and I simply don’t think that’s the truth. I think there are a lot of people out there, like me, that are just looking to diversify their way out of a broken fiat system, and Bitcoin is just one of several ways to do that.
There’s no doubt there are going to be innumerable speculators and traders. There’s no doubt there is going to be scammers and endless shitty altcoins. There’s no doubt there’s going to be fraud and money laundering, just as there is with US dollars and registered securities. But to say that’s all there is in Bitcoin is a mistake, in my opinion.
There only needs to be a small group of people who continually buy and hold going forward to eventually whittle away at and reduce the space on the ledger. If the network’s collective hash rate or adoption was falling, that’d be a concern. But for now, it isn’t. And you can’t tell me that a country like El Salvador adopting bitcoin as legal tender is “speculation.” To me, that falls closer to “adoption.” There’s a big difference between a couple of kids in a chat room trying to daytrade shitcoins and some of the world’s largest asset managers, and even some nation-states making the case for parking their digital property spot on the ledger, while millions of people globally are buying bitcoin simply to own it. The notion that everybody involved is a scammer or is trying to get rich is, in my opinion, misguided. To me, there’s a massive difference between “trying to get rich quick” and “trying to preserve wealth over the long-term”. Regardless of what Bitcoin does, my motivation will always be the latter.
The price will continue to be volatile, but it’s also pretty easy to make a case for why it will go up. If I pay $200,000 for a house tomorrow and do nothing to it, and there is no increase demand for it, but the purchasing power of the dollar falls 99% over the next 50 years, the price in dollars is still going to go up. With bitcoin, there is the tailwind of global adoption, the benefit of a limited supply, and a growing ideological awakening that supports its moral and ethical existence.
It’s been funny, listening to podcasts about bitcoin for the last few months, because everybody starts their explanation by laying out the horrors of the fiat money system. I was lucky in the sense that I already understand how the money system is, like the tides, ebbing and flowing, naturally eroding away at people’s purchasing power and transferring it to the state. This has been one of my long-held arguments for owning gold. As bitcoin continues to be adopted, it becomes a great reason for owning bitcoin, too, in my opinion. One thing I have always said about bitcoin is that I appreciate how much it has opened the eyes of people who normally would not have understood the horrors of modern monetary theory and global monetary policy.
What will be even cooler to witness, in my opinion, is the FOMO when, and if, the price once again breaches all-time highs. If bitcoin’s price continues to perform well, asset managers who now have precisely no excuse not to buy bitcoin (since there are now spot ETFs that work within the system they are allowed to play in) will be inundated with calls from their clients wondering why they don’t have any exposure to the asset, even if they don’t understand it.
And this isn’t GameStop, meaning that once price FOMO starts, there is no at-the-money equity offering to come in and dilute at higher prices. If a rush to grab “all you can eat” on the ledger starts in earnest, there will be no new supply magically coming out of nowhere to meet it. With bitcoin’s total market cap still under $1 trillion, to me, it just seems to make sense that super-rich Middle Eastern countries will likely be the next to adopt it and put it on their sovereign balance sheets.
A lot of the podcasts I’ve listened to talk about nation-states that are mining bitcoin but won’t talk about it. I believe this is happening. At some point, the lights are likely going to flip on globally and everybody’s going to see what everybody else is holding. My guess is that some oil-rich countries in the Middle East, even if they see it as simply a call option with the potential to go to zero, will dabble in putting bitcoin on their sovereign balance sheets to try and diversify themselves and make a bet on the future of money. These people drive Bugattis to work and keep tigers as pets. To say that they don’t have enough money to “speculate” on the potential future of money is laughable.
And then, once again, we fall back to the shuffle between bitcoin and the network, and how they fall into place and work in tandem together. The more major adoption it sees, the more secure it becomes, the more people want to invest in it, the more it becomes viable and mainstream. Bitcoin, to me, essentially looks like the open-source code equivalent to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The way it functions, as I said yesterday, essentially makes it a freedom-money virus. It has been unleashed, and it has become big enough that it is near impossible to stop over a short or even medium-term period of time. I thought Michael Saylor’s analogies of the network essentially being a swarm of wasps was apt. How do you stop a swarm? You may kill one or two wasps, but at the end of the day, you’re simply outnumbered. And with bitcoin, the ideology, plus the network, plus the redundancy, plus the fact that anybody can adopt it, nearly ensures that it is going to overpower its critics both in nodes and in computing horsepower.
I really look forward to doing more research on the network’s potential uses and pathways for bitcoin adoption going forward. Don’t get me wrong, I still consider bitcoin a risk asset in the sense that if adoption slows or regresses, the network becomes weaker. But the trajectory that we’re on now doesn’t suggest that is going to be the case anytime soon. There are also significant risks if core developers decide to make drastic changes or if quantum computing eventually makes the cryptography easier to crack. There’s also a risk of major western countries trying to ban, regulate, or tax bitcoin to death, and there are simply tons of unknown risks that come with the ideological adoption of a brand-new standard.
My weighting in bitcoin is at a level where I am fine with losing it all. I expect the price to fall 90% at a time more than once going forward. As several people have said, if you’re worrying about it that much, your weighting is too big. I manage the risk on owning bitcoin like I do owning call options or walking into a casino. I won’t be surprised or devastated if and when I lose it all.
But for me, ideologically, what bitcoin sets out to solve simply makes sense. I look at things through an Austrian lens and truly believe the system and the global economy is broken. I’m always going to be a gold and silver bull, but to say that I’m advocating for a different monetary system and that there’s no room for the ideological call option of bitcoin at that table, simply no longer makes sense to me now that I understand it better.
One thing I used to ridicule but won’t anymore is the idea that bitcoin is digital freedom. The nice thing about being decentralized, and peer-to-peer is that while it may phase in and out in certain jurisdictions, bitcoin works if people want it to work. And, philosophically, I can’t think of too many things I’d rather bet on than giving power to the people.
This piece was originally published on Quoth the Raven’s Substack here.
This is a guest post by Quoth the Raven. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
Am I 13 years late or 13 years early on bitcoin? Deadass wrong or totally right? Who knows. It’s a risk, but one I now understand better and can’t ignore anymore.
Crypto News
Proton Wallet — Now Available To Everyone — Is A Great Starter Self-Custodial Bitcoin Wallet

In July of last year, Swiss privacy tech company Proton (makers of Proton Mail) announced it would be launching its own bitcoin wallet — Proton Wallet.
I (along with about 100,000 other users) was given early access to the wallet to test it out and was impressed with the wallet’s user interface. I particularly liked that it allows you to link a user’s email address to their bitcoin address so that you only need to input the email address when sending bitcoin.
You can read my review of the wallet here.
Now that the wallet is available to the general public, I will recommend it to anyone I know who’s finally ready to move their bitcoin out of the hands of an exchange and into their own custody. I’ll also recommend it to anyone looking to make semi-regular bitcoin payments on-chain with a relatively small amount of bitcoin.
My reasons for recommending the wallet are as follows:
- It’s free to use (users can create up to three wallets and have up to three accounts in each wallet, which is sufficient for most users — more on that here; to create more wallets or accounts, Proton charges a fee)
- It’s easy to set up (you aren’t required to write down the 12-word seed phrase when you set up the wallet; however, it’s good practice to do so!)
- Like Proton Mail, Proton has no access to Proton Wallet user data, nor does it have access to its users’ private bitcoin keys
- Using an email address (which doesn’t have to be a Proton Mail address) to send bitcoin reduces the likelihood of inputting the wrong bitcoin address into the recipient field of a transaction
- You can select the priority speed of a transaction when sending bitcoin
- You can purchase bitcoin via Ramp or Banxa using Proton Wallet, enabling the bitcoin you purchase to be transferred directly into your custody
The only downsides to the wallet is that it doesn’t support Lightning transactions (consider the Breez SDK, Proton team!), and it doesn’t let you manage your UTXOs (loose change from bitcoin transactions, in layperson’s terms).
The latter isn’t super important, though, as, again, I’d recommend this wallet to those new to bitcoin self custody. UTXO management is more of a practice for moderate to advanced Bitcoin users.
All in all, Proton has created yet another fine product here for its 100 million users and counting, and it’s one that I’ll be recommending to Bitcoin newbies moving forward.
This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
Proton Wallet is well-suited for anyone looking to begin their bitcoin self custody journey and/or anyone looking to make semi-frequent payments on-chain while managing a relatively small bitcoin stack.
Crypto News
El Salvador Is Still Bitcoin Country

El Salvador is still Bitcoin country, despite the fact that bitcoin is no longer legal tender in the country — at least from where I’m sitting.
Let’s start with some background on the matter.
On January 29, 2025, the Legislative Assembly in El Salvador voted to remove bitcoin’s status as legal tender.
This means that businesses in the country no longer have to accept bitcoin (not that this rule was ever strictly enforced while bitcoin was classified as legal currency, as far as I know; however, I have been told that big businesses that operate in the country (e.g., McDonalds, Walmart) may stop accepting bitcoin as payment now, which could have a detrimental effect on adoption).
This change occurred approximately one month after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) struck a deal with authorities in El Salvador that stipulated the following:
- El Salvador would receive a $1.4 billion loan to support the government’s “reform agenda”
- Bitcoin-related risks be mitigated; bitcoin acceptance in the private sector must be voluntary, while the public sector’s participation in Bitcoin-related activities would be “confined” (bitcoin can no longer be used to settle government debts or pay taxes)
- Operations for the government-created Bitcoin wallet, Chivo, would be “unwound”
While the news of the Salvadoran government’s reversing its policy on bitcoin as legal tender as a result of influence from the IMF feels like a gut punch even to me, someone who isn’t Salvadoran and doesn’t live in the country, I can’t help but believe that El Salvador is still Bitcoin country.
And this feeling has only grown stronger based on what I’ve seen Bitcoiners in El Salvador posting on X.
Evelyn Lemus, co-founder and Director of Education at Bitcoin Berlin, a Bitcoin circular economy within the country, doesn’t plan to stop teaching everyday Salvadorans about Bitcoin.
Just saying it out loud.
Bitcoiners will not stop teaching about Bitcoin and making the adoption happen just because Bitcoin is not legal tender anymore. This means we need to keep pushing harder and keep doing what we do 🇸🇻
LFG🙌
Bitcoin in the hands of people 🫡 pic.twitter.com/hnMpJmL5c7— Evelyn Lemus (@Evelynlemus2906) February 2, 2025
The team at Bit Driver don’t plan to change their business model — accepting bitcoin as taxi fare — any time soon.
We’re still a Bitcoin a company.
— Bitdriver (@bitdriver_sv) February 2, 2025
While John Dennehy, founder of Mi Primer Bitcoin, expressed concern about the government of El Salvador’s rolling back its policy on bitcoin as legal currency, he and the ever-growing team at Mi Primer Bitcoin plan to double down on the work they’re doing.
Good morning from El Salvador!
We are now in DAY NINE since the government rescinded Bitcoin as legal tender, at the request of the IMF (effective after 90 days)
This means grassroots, independent Bitcoin education is now MORE important than ever
In response, at… pic.twitter.com/iTXdf0gAoL
— John Dennehy (@jdennehy_writes) February 7, 2025
The legendary Max and Stacy haven’t publicly voiced any plans to give up on El Salvador anytime soon.
And El Salvador’s Bitcoin Office, run by Stacy, is still stacking bitcoin and helping to run Bitcoin education programs in the country.
🇸🇻EL SALVADOR STACKS ANOTHER 1 BTC TO STRATEGIC RESERVE
El Salvador is still stacking.
Every day.
➡️Total SBR Holdings: 6,071.18 BTC
➡️Total Added Today: +1 BTC
➡️Total Added Past 7 Days: +22 BTC
➡️Total Added Past 30 Days: +60 BTC… pic.twitter.com/y4kv2693BX— The Bitcoin Office (@bitcoinofficesv) February 7, 2025
The lesson here is that while the law around Bitcoin may have changed in El Salvador, the Bitcoiners on the ground in the country have hardly flinched.
Because we are Bitcoin, what matters most is that everyday Salvadorans and everyone else involved in the Bitcoin movement in El Salvador continues to push forward with the Bitcoin mission.
The IMF may have landed a blow, but Bitcoiners in El Salvador remain steadfast in their efforts to foster broader Bitcoin adoption.
El Salvador is still Bitcoin country.
This article is a Take. Opinions expressed are entirely the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
Bitcoin may no longer be legal tender in El Salvador, but Bitcoiners in the country haven’t given up on the mission.
Crypto News
Introducing the Bitcoin Everything Indicator

Wouldn’t it be great if we had one all-encompassing metric to guide our Bitcoin investing decisions? That’s precisely what has been created, the Bitcoin Everything Indicator. Recently added to Bitcoin Magazine Pro, this indicator aims to consolidate multiple metrics into a single framework, making Bitcoin analysis and investment decision-making more streamlined.
For a more in-depth look into this topic, check out a recent YouTube video here: The Official Bitcoin EVERYTHING Indicator
Why We Need a Comprehensive Indicator
Investors and analysts typically rely on various metrics, such as on-chain data, technical analysis, and derivative charts. However, focusing too much on one aspect can lead to an incomplete understanding of Bitcoin’s price movements. The Bitcoin Everything Indicator attempts to solve this by integrating key components into one clear metric.
The Core Components of the Bitcoin Everything Indicator
Bitcoin’s price action is deeply influenced by global liquidity cycles, making macroeconomic conditions a fundamental pillar of this indicator. The correlation between Bitcoin and broader financial markets, especially in terms of Global M2 money supply, is clear. When liquidity expands, Bitcoin typically appreciates.
Fundamental factors like Bitcoin’s halving cycles and miner strength play an essential role in its valuation. While halvings decrease new Bitcoin supply, their impact on price appreciation has diminished as over 94% of Bitcoin’s total supply is already in circulation. However, miner profitability remains crucial. The Puell Multiple, which measures miner revenue relative to historical averages, provides insights into market cycles. Historically, when miner profitability is strong, Bitcoin tends to be in a favorable position.
On-chain indicators help assess Bitcoin’s supply and demand dynamics. The MVRV Z-Score, for example, compares Bitcoin’s market cap to its realized cap (average purchase price of all coins). This metric identifies accumulation and distribution zones, highlighting when Bitcoin is overvalued or undervalued.
Another critical on-chain metric is the Spent Output Profit Ratio (SOPR), which examines the profitability of coins being spent. When Bitcoin holders realize massive profits, it often signals a market peak, whereas high losses indicate a market bottom.
The Bitcoin Crosby Ratio is a technical metric that assesses Bitcoin’s overextended or discounted conditions purely based on price action. This ensures that market sentiment and momentum are also accounted for in the Bitcoin Everything Indicator.
Network usage can offer vital clues about Bitcoin’s strength. The Active Address Sentiment Indicator measures the percentage change in active addresses over 28 days. A rise in active addresses generally confirms a bullish trend, while stagnation or decline may signal price weakness.
How the Bitcoin Everything Indicator Works
By blending these various metrics, the Bitcoin Everything Indicator ensures that no single factor is given undue weight. Unlike models that rely too heavily on specific signals, such as the MVRV Z-Score or the Pi Cycle Top, this indicator distributes influence equally across multiple categories. This prevents overfitting and allows the model to adapt to changing market conditions.
Historical Performance vs. Buy-and-Hold Strategy
One of the most striking findings is that the Bitcoin Everything Indicator has outperformed a simple buy-and-hold strategy since Bitcoin was valued at under $6. Using a strategy of accumulating Bitcoin during oversold conditions and gradually selling in overbought zones, investors using this model would have significantly increased their portfolio’s performance with lower drawdowns.
For instance, this model maintains a 20% drawdown compared to the 60-90% declines typically seen in Bitcoin’s history. This suggests that a well-balanced, data-driven approach can help investors make more informed decisions with reduced downside risk.
Conclusion
The Bitcoin Everything Indicator simplifies investing by merging the most critical aspects influencing Bitcoin’s price action into a single metric. It has historically outperformed buy-and-hold strategies while mitigating risk, making it a valuable tool for both retail and institutional investors.
For more detailed Bitcoin analysis and to access advanced features like live charts, personalized indicator alerts, and in-depth industry reports, check out Bitcoin Magazine Pro.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Always do your own research before making any investment decisions.
A Single Metric to Rule Them All – The Bitcoin Everything Indicator combines multiple key metrics into one comprehensive tool for better investment decisions.
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