Trust Me, Bro \ stacker news ~BooksAndArticles

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Trust Me, Bro allenfarrington.medium.com/trust-me-bro-fb5a25964634

1648 sats \ 23 comments \ @siggy47 17 Jan BooksAndArticles

This Farrington masterpiece was posted here before, but I just had to read it again after I heard the news tonight about ProShares filing for leveraged and inverse etfs: https://www.theblock.co/post/273014/proshares-files-for-five-leveraged-and-inverse-bitcoin-etfs

I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. If guys like Willie Woo and Bitcoin TINA got all upset about paper bitcoin futures and options a few years back, it looks like that was just a little taste. I thought we wouldn't be dealing with this crap for a while.

About 10 minutes before I saw the headline, an old friend texted me. I'm old, so my buddies are all boomers like me. We used to swap investment tips and ideas long before bitcoin was a thing. Over the years I picked my spots and brought up bitcoin discreetly in conversations. Let's say he had zero interest. He thought I was out of my mind even thinking about it. I stopped talking about it to preserve our friendship. Well, tonight he texts me to tell me he bought the Fidelity ETF and thinks I should too. We old guys have bad memories. It's obvious he doesn't recall our prior bitcoin talks.

Perhaps this is possibly a slightly positive silver lining to the ETF cloud? I don't know. I'm not sure I'm up for a full blown orange pill session with him. Maybe this little exposure will open the door. Who knows?

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266 sats \ 1 reply \ @jtwoodhouse 17 Jan

Take what the defense gives you.

I don’t think we have time to teach every retiree or would-be retiree about bitcoin the real way. It doesn’t scale. If they still trust these institutions after 2008 and 2020, they’re likely going to ride it out with their trusted relationships. Just a fact of life. Some people are just wired that way.

If they won’t go the self-custody route, the best they can do for bitcoin is use the ETF to monetize and supercharge the revolution for future generations.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 17 Jan

Take what the defense gives you.

I like that. I'll keep it in mind.

163 sats \ 1 reply \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 17 Jan

Investing is about understanding first principles. Step 1 read the white paper. Know what Bitcoin is and why it was created. This bad boy came out of a lack of trust for central banks after the 2008 financial crisis. Those same banks are now bigger than ever and you trust them holding your keys and your Bitcoin? Get a clue people they are not with you. They keep your fiat and you don’t even get a paper Bitcoin promise, you get a fiat promise. FEW!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 17 Jan

Can't argue with a word you wrote.

94 sats \ 3 replies \ @quark 17 Jan

It is time to sell to them and give thanks. Then buy it back at 12k. They need to experience Bitcoin drawdowns 😂

I am joking about selling bitcoin but serious about wanting the ETF speculators to experience some pain in their portfolios.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 17 Jan

Oh, they will feel the pain when we see the big draw downs after the halving. Can't wait to hear all the tradfi bros talking about fixing bitcoin.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @siggy47 OP 17 Jan

The consensus seems to be that institutional buyers will allocate a percentage to bitcoin as a more or less permanent position, unlike the retail guys we are talking about.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 17 Jan

Yeah, that's what I hear but I don't buy it. In the last bull run some of the big money guys from tradfi talked a big game but then sold their positions. Everyone has to learn what bitcoin has to teach.

92 sats \ 2 replies \ @DudeJLebowski 17 Jan

Most of the guys getting into the ETFs will never own Bitcoin directly, we just have to accept that, certainly for the short and medium terms. BUT, some will buy first and learn after, and we know that with added Bitcoin knowledge comes added conviction and self-custody etc.

45 sats \ 0 replies \ @dk 17 Jan

i like ETFs as they help more people get curious and get aligned with bitcoin’s success. some will graduate to owning the underlying asset when they start to ask “why does this thing keep going up relative to USD?”

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 17 Jan

Yeah, that's my optimistic take on this. It's probably going to be like a typical bull run where the low conviction guys sell on a crash while the lucky few get serious about learning.

61 sats \ 1 reply \ @JesseJames 17 Jan

Nice. I would say at least it warrants the conversation with your Bud. Open the door a little, it is already slightly ajar :-) But he has to walk through it. Ask him why he bought it. Does he get the concept? and take it from there (I like the defense reference also) . As you well know it is about the true ownership of the asset, not sure he does. As of now, he holds the promise and that is not an asset. Help him get the difference. Good luck and don't lose a friend in the process or do if he is annoying...lol

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 17 Jan

He is kind of a pain in the ass:)

61 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 17 Jan

There will be all kinds of "financial instruments" built around bitcoin if it succeeds. None of this bothers me any more. Its just gonna happen. People will have to learn their lessons. We will win. Bitcoin will win. Wall Street will not stop it. They won't take it over either.

61 sats \ 8 replies \ @kepford 17 Jan

That's hilarious! People have short memories. Especially about things they aren't interested in at the time.

I will know we are back in a bull market when people start contacting me about bitcoin. People that have made fun of me for the last few years.

33 sats \ 7 replies \ @siggy47 OP 17 Jan

I'm still shocked. I guess big picture it's a good thing. I think.

163 sats \ 6 replies \ @kepford 17 Jan

I've been thinking about this more and more lately as some bitcoiners seem to be triggered by new people looking at bitcoin and getting things so wrong. Or getting excited about things like the ETF vs. real bitcoin. Its inevitable. I'm gonna try to be gentle and open to listen to these people but point them toward the light :)

The average Joe doesn't even get why we need bitcoin. They have never heard of Austrian economics. They don't know what open source code is. They don't know any of this stuff that most of us already knew about before bitcoin crossed our radar. Really, we have an huge jump start mentally.

The tradfi folks will look at bitcoin through a completely different lens from how I see it. This is why I'm thankful for people like Saylor. I'm not from this world. I don't speak the lingo.

33 sats \ 5 replies \ @siggy47 OP 17 Jan

You have the right attitude. Like I said in the post, I'm pretty old, and I discovered the Austrian school way back in the late 1980s. I became a hard money gold bug almost immediately, like most guys did after being exposed to Von Mises, Hayek, et al. When the ETFs came in 2005, I think, everyone was excited. Gold did appreciate as a result, but as the years went by it became obvious that paper gold was controlling the price, like the fiat governments and big banks wanted. That's where my fear comes in. I know the arguments as to why this can't happen to bitcoin, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not apprehensive.

51 sats \ 4 replies \ @kepford 17 Jan

How did you hear about Mises and Hayek? It was... wait for it... Ron Paul for me.

33 sats \ 3 replies \ @siggy47 OP 17 Jan

Believe it or not, I went to a bookstore during my lunch break one day and found a paperback copy of Anarchy, State, And Utopia by Robert Nozick. That's all it took. Really turned my notion of the world upside down. Of course Ron Paul was and is THE MAN.