There are a large variety of reasons for why a person might first become interested into bitcoin, and then take action by investing in it. Perhaps they're interested in the technology and how it could change the world. Maybe by using bitcoin; this will give people their first opportunity to take custody of their own money and become their own bank. It could be a lifeline that saves people on remittance fees for sending money worldwide. Or, they could be interested in "number go up;" trying to change their own financial destiny. These are just a few examples of why people might first get into bitcoin, and lead them down the bitcoin rabbit hole. But once you do dive-deeply into bitcoin; it will change you, and in ways that you might not have been expecting.
Are these changes for the better, or for the worse? Let's unpack this idea.
I would wager that a majority of people got into bitcoin simply hoping to make some money. The USA is one of the highest-developed nations out there, but it is a nation full of debt. There have been startling studies that have been done where people were asked if they could put together a few hundred dollars to pay for an unexpected expense. Shockingly, most could not. While the USA isn't the only country in the world, it is important to note because of how important its role is in the financial and cryptocurrency markets. There are a large amount of people who are trying to find some way to make some money that could make their life a little less stressful, finally giving them some financial relief. It is the same type of people who were heavily investing into the Gamestop and AMC stocks on Robinhood app during the recent run-ups. While there are large whales in the bitcoin space, the majority of investors are these type of people.
While traditionally bitcoin has increased in value on a yearly basis at an average of 200%. It is safe to assume that while these "retail" investors may have made some very good money, but they haven't become rich from bitcoin yet.
So what is it that actually changed about people that go into bitcoin if it wasn't them becoming incredibly rich.
The answer to that is a large amount of people who invest into bitcoin will learn something that they never learned during their time in school, and never practiced this philosophy before. People finally gained financial education. Naturally if bitcoin were to go to the moon in price and reach $1 million per coin. That would change an extremely large amount of peoples lives. But that requires them to have accumulated a decent stack of bitcoin, which is difficult for many people to do.
I'm of the opinion that more lives will be changed by people getting into bitcoin and having gained financial education. I can't speak for the rest of the world, since I was born and lived in the USA for most of my life until recently. At least where I went to school, learning financial education was not something I ever learned. Yes there was an accounting class in my high school, but that didn't teach anything about how the real world operates. There was never any discussion about what is money, and what makes it valuables. Never any discussion about inflation, and how by just saving cash, you are actually losing money to inflation. There weren't any classes about learning how to invest, grow a portfolio and march towards retiring early.
If they actually taught all of these things in schools; people would be able to start doing all of these things from a very young age, and become very successful. Many of these people would be able to retire young or learn to live off an incredibly meager lifestyle and this would have high consequences for the economy. There wouldn't be enough people to work the jobs, and the economy would come to a halt. And that is why there is a famous phrases; "The government wants to keep people poor." The only way to get ahead is make more money than you spend and then invest, invest, invest. The name of the game is getting as many assets as possible that increase in value and bring in passive income to you over time.
Once you become a "real" bitcoiner, you will begin to appreciate your hard-earned money a whole lot more. Meaning that you will be much less willing to spend it on wasteful things. You probably will re-consider buying that expensive name brand clothing, when that money could instead be invested into bitcoin. Saving $2 over here, $5 over there, saving $50 a week may not see like a whole to people. But when you invest that saved money into bitcoin, it will become much, much more into the future. In March of 2020, if you had invest that $50 into bitcoin, that same money would be worth over $500 today. When bitcoin increases even more that number will go up as well. And this is how I often think about it.
That name brand clothing costs $50, but if I buy it, it is actually costing me at lest $500. As I see bitcoin doing a 10x in price in the not so far future. Then add in all of the extra income that I earn from lending out my BTC and that number increases even further. As you invest into bitcoin, you will begin to see that time is your friend, and the compound interest that you can earn has the power to make you rich.
As Albert Einstein was famous for saying, Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world.
At the end of the day, I do believe that you will become rich by investing heavily into bitcoin. But the thing that will change the most are people's financial mindsets. And that is perhaps what will truly help you become rich in the future. That is exactly what has happened for me.
So how about you? What has bitcoin changed for you? Did you gain a financial education and learn how to invest?!
As always, thank you for reading!
