Alignment
Sunday Ramble
Been a quick minute or two months since I wrote, eh? No excuses for the absence, but I’ve realized my rambles make more sense to write when inspiration strikes — and it finally did again.
It’s taken me a while to realize that my first principle in life is not widely shared: we’re spiritual beings. For me, everything else falls out of that belief. It’s why I’ve spent so much time developing my faith and healing spiritually through Amazonian plant traditions.
It’s also taken me a while to understand how my obsession with Bitcoin ties into spirituality. A recent conversation with my NFT-obsessed wife, who doesn’t get very excited about Bitcoin, helped me elucidate the connection. She skeptically asked me why I thought money was spiritual. Ever had the experience of being surprised at what tumbles out of your mouth? It doesn’t often happen to me, but it did that day.
To get there, allow me to digress a bit about money first. Historically, when humanity has a stable store of value, meaning that the medium used to store the value holds it across time, we tend to save more and spend less. If you’ve spent more than a quick moment around the Bitcoin community, you’ll come across people who are hyper-focused on keeping every last cent so they can stack sats, fractions of a Bitcoin. Objectively, this is the opposite of society at large which is indebting itself to its earballs to keep up with the Joneses. I’ve argued that as Bitcoin adoption spreads, we’ll see conspicuous consumption decrease. Why? Because if you’re convinced you’ll have more spending power in the future, you’ll save more today.
There’s a second-order effect of savings: our time horizons expand as we plan more for the future. This expansion of our time horizons leads to longer-term thinking. Anyone that has traveled to Europe has wondered in awe at the architecture and the time spent building it. It’s no coincidence that the period in which these buildings sprouted was when gold was the primary savings vehicle, i.e., pre-fiat currency. Today, I’ve watched housing developments built that didn’t look likely to stand the length of the 30-year mortgage underwriting the homeowner purchasing it. What a difference fiat makes!
Now, project with me a bit into the future and assume Bitcoin becomes the global store of value. Since the supply of Bitcoin will never increase, prices will likely decrease over time, leading everyone to withhold spending their Bitcoin until necessary. Purchases will only occur when an item is needed because why would anyone give up future spending power unless the thing was indeed required today? Given enough time in a Bitcoin monetary environment, I’m convinced humanity’s time horizon would be extended many centuries into the future. Why? Because it’s already happened.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Milan Cathedral, its construction started in 1386 and was completed in 1965. That’s right — it was a 6, six, SIX century construction process. And guess what the monetary medium was when it started: the florin, a gold coin that stayed precisely the same for 3, three, THREE centuries. Yeah, a little thing called the Renaissance also happened while the florin was around. Arguably, the savings enabled by the florin allowed European civilization to crawl out of the Middle Ages. Think it’s a coincidence that Italy was where the Renaissance started?
Here’s where I’m going: humanity operates at its finest when its time horizons are furthest. Why? Because the further our time horizons go, the closer we align ourselves with who we are: timeless spiritual beings.
So yeah, when I hear people accusing the Bitcoin community of having religious connotations, I don’t argue. Money is tied to spirituality just as religion is.
Rad Things on the Interwebs
Bitcoin Price Prediction
September Monthly Range: $12k - $29k
(I’m shifting gears to offer a monthly price prediction since I’m not writing frequently.)
August saw the price as high as $25k, but it is now trading near its 2017 peak price of $20k. The chart does not look pretty, and neither does the macro backdrop. I fully expect a highly-volatile month in September as the Federal Reserve looks set to raise rates again.
The most bearish case I can imagine would see a plunge through the $17.6k low set in June but closing September above $12k. I think it’s realistic to see buyers step in near $16.5k and hold the price if we come back to test the June lows. That’s both the most sensible and bullish case I can imagine at the moment. There’s not much to stimulate another bull run at the moment. That said, institutional players are buying up Bitcoin at these prices, and it’s why I don’t see the $12k lows likely occurring.
I’d be surprised if we see much more than sideways through the rest of the year for the longer term. Bitcoin’s price needs to stay stable amidst these uncertain times to entice more buyers back into the market…and I believe it will.
Bitcoin Q & A
Q: Can Bitcoin’s network help climate change?
A: Yes.
Many environmentalists, understandably worried about climate change, have conflated Bitcoin’s energy consumption with greenhouse gas emissions. However, looking at greenhouse gas emissions, it’s become clear that Bitcoin mining is the only economically viable solution to combusting methane in remote situations — and there are many. Since methane is an 84x more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, it would take just 6% of the Bitcoin network to be mining on methane flares to effectively make the entire Bitcoin network carbon negative, helping to mitigate climate change.
Not what you may be hearing in the media, but true.
Do you have questions or Ramble topics? Leave a comment or reply to the newsletter to reach me.
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