Why OG bitcoiners are rare and have the strongest diamond hands of anyone you will ever meet.

If bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, then we early adopters are behaving irrationally because we plan to hold onto the asset no matter what. Want proof? We already did.

Those of us who were early in Bitcoin have lived through a unique kind of financial trauma. We've watched ourselves spend what would now be millions of dollars on trivial purchases. I personally spent 2 BTC on Valentine's Day flowers. I know someone who spent 250 BTC on a pound of coffee. We're talking about millions in today's value, gone on items we barely remember consuming.

This experience fundamentally changes your relationship with Bitcoin. But here's the crucial point - it's not about getting in early. Plenty of people did that. What mattered was never selling everything. And I've learned over 13 years in Bitcoin that this is incredibly rare. The vast majority of early adopters, at some point along the journey, sold their entire position. Those of us who held onto even a portion of our stack through every bull and bear market are few and far between.

Now, those of us who remain hold our surviving Bitcoin stack with an iron grip born from hard-learned lessons. Each Bitcoin feels irreplaceable because we've learned, through painful experience, that it is. Once sold, that Bitcoin is gone forever. The market moves on, prices rise, and you can never recover your position.

This is why early adopters who still hold Bitcoin are probably its most diamond-handed holders. We're not theorizing about Bitcoin's potential - we've lived it. We've watched it grow from worthless to priceless. And we've learned, through expensive lessons, that selling Bitcoin is a one-way door you walk through with extreme reluctance.

So yes, those who've been in Bitcoin the longest are often the least likely to sell. Not because we're wealthy or careless, but precisely because we understand, at a visceral level, the true cost of letting it go.