Unfortunately, the people that most need to hear and understand this message are not getting it.

But this is a very interesting observation – that truly "saving" has not actually been possible, and that as a consequence, everyone has been forced to become an "investor".

I remember reading about Apple issuing massive amounts of debt to fund dividends and buybacks when it was sitting on a huge pile of cash and thinking how stupid and irresponsible this was. It went against what I'd been raised to believe – that debt is bad.

That was before I understood the ramifications of the fed "targeting" 2% inflation – the joke's on me.

The amazing thing is that this idea is what's been taught for decades at universities, and it goes largely unquestioned.

That volatility = risk.

Bitcoin shows that volatility and risk can (and should) be evaluated separately.

Conventional wisdom is that the US dollar, being quite stable, is not risky, and that Bitcoin is highly volatile and therefore risky.

The dollar is indeed stable, but has nearly a one hundred-year track record of consistent inflation because fundamentally, the government can't resist itself. This is beyond "risky"; it's near-certain loss.

Bitcoin is volatile, but fundamentally represents a better (and sane) method of accounting. The best ideas don't always win, but I think Bitcoin has crossed the Rubicon already. If one's time horizon is greater than a few years, Bitcoin does not seem risky at all.

Got it. In that case, why bother to take the time to write such a long reply to them? It sounds like you're trying to convince them of something, but I'm not sure what or why. Depending on what the purpose was, it would affect how I critique your post. But obviously I agree with your overarching point, which is that this article is filled with misleading half-truths.

Another side note – I'm genuinely curious if the author is purposely trying to mislead, or if this is really the way he sees things. Quotes like this:

"Fol­low­ing Hamas’s attack on Israel, more than 100 law­makers from both major polit­ical parties in the US signed a let­ter urging the Biden admin­is­tra­tion to out­line the steps it is tak­ing to mit­ig­ate crypto­cur­ren­cies being used as a means of fin­an­cing ter­ror­ism."

show that we're living in two different realities. He cites "more than 100 lawmakers" as if that should be an impressive statistic, an appeal to authority. But we know these are just a bunch of grifting ignoramuses pursuing the Current Thing.

Thank you!

What's your approach to learning? What would you advise to somebody starting from scratch that wants to contribute to projects like the ones you've worked on?

Very nice, thank you.

Good point. But I'd say it fixes it partially. Ideally, I would still like to see dollars per BTC, and I was wondering if something clever happens when the number of digits expands.

Did you mean to reply to #315637 ?

To be clear, I was asking about the person that sent you the article, not the journalist. Sorry for the confusion.

I'd like to know more about the "non-Bitcoiner" and the context of the discussion. For example, do you think they linked this article to you in good faith? Are they seriously considering purchasing some Bitcoin?

On a side note, the guy's X profile background image is spot-on 😂

Can the clock accommodate seven (or eight 😅) digit prices? What would it look like?

Interesting that the personal wealth milestone is mentioned in dollars ;)

Nope, sorry. The title is misinformation. Precision is important here. The portion shown in the screenshot is about Swan's partners, not Swan itself. In fact, Swan goes on to say:

"Please be advised that depositing directly from, or withdrawing directly to, a mixing wallet may result in the termination of your account with our banking and custodial partners."

In other words, we're not going to try and stop you – but you do so at your own risk, because our partners may cancel you.

You can of course argue that practically speaking, there's no difference. I don't have strong opinions on that. But let the reader decide for themselves.

And here's a relevant tweet: https://twitter.com/BitPaine/status/1723383480715821263

Is there a way to unflag something? I accidentally flagged the wrong comment. Even if it was not possible to undo, it would be nice if I could "undo" by zapping with the same amount of sats I used to flag.

This is extremely niche, but I wanted to buy a t-shirt with this tweet:

I searched and found a few companies printing tweets on t-shirts, but none of them seemed to handle this particular case, where the tweet is a reply and not a standalone tweet.

That says a lot though, that he was actually open-minded enough to listen to you.

I've only been through one bull-bear cycle, and now I am much more careful about exactly what I tell people. I once was so certain that BTC would never dip below $30k again. How stupid that was!

Let me guess, he's never sent you any links to bullish articles on Bitcoin before.

A great example of confirmation bias (and if my premise is wrong, this comment becomes an excellent example of confirmation bias :P). I wonder if he's ever considered that his friend who can write an 1800+ word article on Bitcoin cryptography might know something about Bitcoin that he doesn't. Ego is a bitch.

It sounds like you've tried to orange-pill him in the past. What happened? Is there enough material for another article? :D

I have no suggestions, but one thing to keep in mind when evaluating other countries, including ones that look like Bitcoin paradises: things can change. E.g. what if the rulers of that paradise suddenly decide to raise taxes?