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      "title": "CRYPTOCURRENCY AND THE NATURE OF MODERN MONEY",
      "body": "Originally published at [FreeTheAnimal.com](https://freetheanimal.com/2017/09/cryptocurrency-nature-modern.html)\n\n![cryptocurrency-for-hackers-part-1-introduction.1280x600.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdHQDorYekFJCzBRwtmP8pvn5MXu2FFHRxjnUxJyxbfvF/cryptocurrency-for-hackers-part-1-introduction.1280x600.jpg)\n\n**[The following is a public post to my new [Patreon Presence](https://www.patreon.com/posts/cryptocurrency-14283885), from where I’ll be doing all my cryptocurrency writing.]**\n\n*This is my first post to this new medium of information exchange, Patreon. As a prelude to what I’ll be creating in exchange for your patronage in the days and months to come, let me introduce myself.*\n\n*I’m Richard Nikoley. I live in the Sierras at 4,200 feet of elevation. I Graduated from Oregon State University in 1984. I was a US Navy officer. I was a financial services entrepreneur for a long time. I also traded options full time. My [full bio is here](https://freetheanimal.com/about).*\n\n*I’ve also been a blog writer for a long time. My blog, [FreeTheAnimal.com](https://freetheanimal.com/), began in November of 2003 and I just never stopped writing stuff for very long. That was 4,600 posts ago. It comes out to 330 posts per year out of a possible 365. On average, of course. Oh, and readers have, for the most part, graced me with 105,000 comments along the way.*\n\n*What do I blog about? Almost a little bit of everything with various interests and diversions along the way. At various times, pretty heavy on politics, philosophy, social concerns, diet, health, low-carb, paleo, keto, weight loss (including my own), money, and trading.*\n\n*So let’s delve into what this is going to be about…*\n\n**It’s my intention to get people thinking about money in a whole new way,** and I mean *to its very core.* This knowledge, then, facilitates engaging in *rational asymmetric risk taking* with a view towards downright crazy, lottery-like, life-changing payoffs.\n\nWhen you think about the modern manifestation of money, a couple of things ought to come to mind. To some extent, it’s a supposed store of value. To a far greater extent, it’s a medium of exchange.\n\nWhy?\n\nIt’s a supposed store of value because it’s supposed to be relatively scarce and hard to get. This easily applies to something like gold. Has to be mined, literally, right out of the ground. That’s not easy to do or everyone would do it. On the other hand, gold is not a particularly great medium of exchange. Everyone would have to lug around clipping tools and gram scales just to transact business. Plus, it can get heavy, the more you amass. How would you go on an extended 1st Class vacation to Europe lugging around your gold and the tools you’d need to trade with it?\n\nCurrency—like cash, bank accounts, financial ledger balances and so forth—solves this problem. And with plasic…credit and debit cards…it’s hyper-solved. It’s as though ***it’s too easy to spend.***\n\nThe thing to understand, however, is that the transactional ease by which modern money can be exchanged or spent is by a design that’s somewhat nefarious at its root. Have you ever wondered why it’s so necessary to have a “financial sector” in the first place? I’m speaking in broad terms here, encompassing everything from central banking, securities exchanges, stocks, bonds, options, and futures to a passbook savings account or certificate of deposit issued by your local branch office.\n\nWhy?\n\n**It’s because of inflation,** which is that thing that makes modern money everything from an awful store of value to a downright disaster of value erosion and destruction. Let’s look. Suppose you were alive in 1900 and had $1,000. You held it. What would it be “worth” today, in terms of purchasing power? But let’s look at it the opposite way.\n\n![Screen Shot 2017-09-08 at 8.39.32 AM.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPWJ98jF6mDXHdf8ZvECtU9zwfLDEdbWiUaBKiag8NHUe/Screen%20Shot%202017-09-08%20at%208.39.32%20AM.png)\n\nYou can run various scenarios yourself [here])https://www.measuringworth.com/ppowerus/). How about gold? $1,000 would have bought you 50 ounces of gold in 1900 at $20 per ounce. Today, gold is trading at $1,350 per ounce, making that 50 ounces worth **$67,500.**\n\nAre you convinced, now, that government *fiat* currency (“fiat” meaning: it’s money ’cause we say it is and everyone agrees) is not a store of value at all? Modern fiat money, while very efficient in terms of ease of use and credit comes at a pretty hefty price when you consider how much wealth—as a store of value—dwindles away over time.\n\nHere’s the circularity that’s baked into the whole cake: we have enormous “financial sectors” to “manage inflation.” So why just not inflate the currency as a matter of monetary policy in the first place? Well, because, you see, we have enormous “financial sectors” to keep busy and well fed. We also have this thing called “the economy” and the fear from all on high is that The Economy must *grow, or stagnate and die.* A growing economy is simply assumed to be a good thing.\n\nWhy?\n\nWe can assume that wealth and value creation is a good thing. It doesn’t automatically follow that inflating and eroding the medium of exchange we use to trade values is a good thing. It’s probably a bad thing.\n\nWe can understand why all governments inflate the national currency on purpose. An inflating currency motivates people to “buy it now” and this is a fundamental necessity for a growing and robust economy, or so it’s believed. Spend, spend, and spend some more.\n\nBefore I move onto how cryptocurrency is different in theory—plus, I believe, in practice now, owing to Bitcoin—perhaps read this primer: *[Deflation Is Always Good for the Economy](https://mises.org/blog/deflation-always-good-economy).* A quote:\n\n> According to most experts, a little bit of inflation can actually be a good thing. Mainstream thinkers are of the view that inflation of 2% is not harmful to economic growth, but that inflation of 10% could be bad news. (Indeed the Fed’s inflation target is 2%.)\n\n> Thus, we can conclude that at a rate of inflation of 10%, it is likely that consumers are going to form rising inflation expectations.\n\n> According to popular thinking, in response to a high rate of inflation, consumers will speed up their expenditure on goods at present, which should boost economic growth.\n\n> So why then is a rate of inflation of 10% or higher regarded by experts as a bad thing?\n\n> Clearly there is a problem with the popular definitions of inflation and deflation.\n\n**Cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, is inherently deflationary.**\n\nWhy?\n\nBecause it’s limited. In the case of Bitcoin, there will never be more than 21 million bitcoins, a limit that will be reached in 2140 when there will be no more coins to mine. (Each bitcoin is divisible by 100 million units, or *Satoshis.*) Even gold doesn’t have that feature since we don’t know how much of it there is, whether or not some enormous cache that could dilute the whole market is yet to be found, or what the future of mining technical and cost efficiency has in store. All we know is that so far it has been a reliable store of value and is inherently deflationary because of it—*the limitation of supply.*\n\nA store of value that can also serve as a medium of exchange, whose supply is limited, is inherently deflationary because in order to secure some of it yourself you have to produce some value someone else wants more than whatever unit of that thing you’ve agreed to in exchange. So, and this is very important, over time, *people will have to produce more and greater relative values for the same unit of the thing.*\n\nThis is **the exact opposite** of what we tend to think makes and grows The Economy. In fiat currency land, everyone is obsessed with “making money.”\n\nWhy?\n\nBecause each unit is worth less and less in exchange for the things we need and want, to live and prosper (inflation). And, since we like the idea of prospering, we tend to desire more and better things as we progress through life, so everyone is waging two battles: get more and more money to get more and better stuff, and also get more and more money because it takes more and more money just to buy the “crappy” stuff we already have.\n\nThere’s the essence of your so-called *growing and vibrant economy* right there.\n\nIn gold or crypto land, it’s the opposite. Your money gets more valuable relative to stuff you may want over time because people are creating valuable stuff just to get a chunk of it so that they can sit back and watch it appreciate over time, such that they can buy more and better stuff with the money they already have.\n\nDo you see the difference in fundamental motivations? It’s the difference between the drive to make more [increasingly valueless] money vs. the drive to create more and greater tangible values to trade for a sound store of value that can then be used to exchange for something else and will become more valuable while you wait.\n\nPretty nifty, and cryptocurrency is our path to that ([how I became a believer](https://freetheanimal.com/2017/09/cant-afford-cryptocurrency.html)). All of the foregoing is the basic theory. Of course, there are still problems to work out as we take the theory to practice and that’s what this space will be all about. Here’s a list of some of the issues, in no particular order.\n\n* Bitcoin is more of a store of value than it is an efficient medium of exchange, currently, especially for micro-transactions.\n* Easier and cheaper to exchange than gold, but not up to fiat-money debit-card standards in terms of speed and transaction cost.\n* Securing Bitcoin and other cryptos. It’s just like gold or physical cash in this regard. It can be lost or stolen.\n* Volatility is far too high relative to the fiat currencies that still run the “growing and robust economy,” so moving fully to crypto is not yet a practical reality for most.\n* The wild west aspect. There are hundreds of coins now, most worthless, some fraudulent pyramid schemes, and some outright con and theft schemes.\n* The tools aren’t fully integrated yet. You have to exchange with fiat currency in one of a number of places (who do you trust?). Then you have to buy other coins you might want in many other places. Then you have to secure them in still many other places. It’s a jungle out there.\n\nIn a nutshell, navigating all of that and more will be the prime mission of this space and above all, ***to do so rationally.*** It’s not often that an opportunity comes along for such potential *asymmetrical rewards for such little risk.* We’re not going to mess up on that.\n\n…So, the traditional way this sales pitch is done is that I’m to create a few “Reports” and “How-To” guides and offer those free (“$349 value”). To get them for free, you subscribe to my publication…anything from a monthly newsletter to email alerts, or both. That normally sells for $149, but if you act now, it’s yours for only $69. Oh, and it’s guaranteed. You can receive a 100% refund at any time over the year and you get to keep all past issues and alerts, as well as the freebies.\n\n*But I said we’re going to start by being rational, we’re going to stay being rational, and we’re going to profit by being and staying rational at all times.*\n\n**So here’s the deal: $5 per month, access to everything. You can cancel it on a whim and a couple of clicks any time.**\n\nThat’s it. No gimmicks, no hype, no undercutting the core message of sanity and rationality at all times. Here’s what I’ll be putting up here:\n\n1. A living Resources Page that’s regularly updated, where patrons can go for links, instructions, videos, etc. that are the nuts and bolts about where to go to do what in terms of crypto. It will grow to be a long list, but v1.0 will be up within a few days.\n\n1. I’ll be posting one to two posts per week covering the general crypto environment, news, victories, defeats, economics, policy, monetary philosophy (kinda like the foregoing in this post).\n\n1. All of my crypto trades, in and out, and price. Initially, I’ll be putting up a post that covers all of my current positions.\n\n1. Heavy engagement with all patrons in the comments. And I will ensure that the best of those exchanges get delivered to patrons as a whole regularly. This creates a community of patronage.\n\n1. A monthly summary of everything that was very, very important over the month. Part newsletter, part index of the past month with links and commentary.\n\n1. Not immediately, but at some near point in the future, I’ll also begin addressing other ways to participate in crypto as a business sector. We’re talking about various technologies, both hardware and software, that service the sector. There are probably some excellent micro-cap stocks to look into.\n\n1. Anything else that comes to mind that I want to do.\n\nIn closing, let me emphasize just one thing that this will not be: **a market timing service.** First of all, I don’t think they’ve ever really worked out who’s better at timing the markets, expert market-timers or screeching monkeys.\n\nSo we’ll leave market timing to the screeching monkeys.\n\nThe nature of this game is to view cryptocurrency as a store of value that, due to its limited nature, tends to be deflationary relative to fiat money, goods, and services and as such, we are looking to **take small positions over time, increasing them by small amounts when warranted, and to hold for as long as it takes.**\n\nI hope you will [give serious consideration to becoming a patron of this creative endeavor](https://www.patreon.com/DigiCash).",
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      "author": "rnikoley",
      "permlink": "you-can-t-afford-not-to-jump-into-cryptocurrency",
      "title": "YOU CAN’T AFFORD NOT TO JUMP INTO CRYPTOCURRENCY",
      "body": "![Screen Shot 2017-09-05 at 1.50.16 PM.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmUQxfSb7XezQE5n8MRwrjHXAw6zzpwm4cvhJXtWTopNtB/Screen%20Shot%202017-09-05%20at%201.50.16%20PM.png)\n\nIn March of 2014, I bought my first Bitcoin. $618.\n\nCan you guess why? The chart should be a clue. It was just a few months prior when it actually did something I found notable. It began attracting more and more interest, rising in price as more and more dollars began chasing fewer and fewer Bitcoin. Ah, there’s a market, now. There’s bid, ask, and the spread. Well, of course, there always was these things, but now it looked real and active. The price got bid up until the point where holders became sellers.\n\nI began reading white papers on “digital cash” back in the early 1990s. Back then, it was all theory. I understood it conceptually, especially its features—foremost of which was its decentralized nature. It’s not “run” by anyone, especially not a central bank or any governmental body. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men have no more control or influence over cryptocurrency than any individual anywhere…which is exactly none. The only thing that has any influence is its market and the individual actions of the traders participating in the market. Buy, sell, or trade.\n\nAll the State could really do is outlaw its use, which of course always works so well… It can no more eradicate cryptocurrency than it could eradicate marijuana, poppy, or coca plants.\n\nIn its most basic nature, a cryptocurrency is an open, public ledger that can’t be hacked, controlled, forged, or changed in any way. Once a block is written (every 10 minutes in Bitcoin) it’s a permanent record forever and the chain of blocks (“blockchain”) ensures each individual block’s absolute integrity since they’re all “wired” together and each individual block since day 1 is integral to the entire chain up to and including the last block written within the last 10-minutes, 24/7/365.\n\n…I just held onto my Bitcoin, no intention to do anything with it. I never checked the price and had only the barest awareness that it was trading below my purchase price for most of the next two years. $500 appears to have been a big psychological barrier. It just didn’t want to stay above it for very long. Perhaps it was all the people who got in on Bitcoin for pennies or less. One guy bought 5,000 coins in 2009 for $27 (about a half cent each). That was worth $5 million when Bitcoin broke $1,000 for the first time in late 2013.\n\nThat was probably a critical price point for a whole lot of folk who got in early, then literally sitting on hundreds of thousands and millions for something many just did on a lark, out of curiosity, or even on a dare. At the time, Bitcoin was almost the only game in town and the upstarts weren’t going anywhere because Bitcoin itself was still unproven. For all anyone knew, once those early adopters began selling their coin for thousands and millions, it would return to its lowly state and that would be the end of it. So, I suspect that part of the reason for the lackluster market for three years was lots and lots of people wanting to take their miraculous, lottery-like profits.\n\nOne additional data point to check is trading volume.\n\n![Screen Shot 2017-09-05 at 3.52.06 PM.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmX3s2xgc8j6tN66eYH2i4H2mbprg6UYfT5xVJWAH33k6w/Screen%20Shot%202017-09-05%20at%203.52.06%20PM.png)\n\nThe vertical bars are trading volume.\n\nYep, the highest trading volume for Bitcoin ever was right after it broke $1,000 for the first time. You can safely bet that a great deal of it was plain old rational, mega-profit taking.\n\nA few days back, Bitcoin hit $5,000 for the first time, representing an 830% gain from my own original purchase price only 3 1/2 years ago. OK, so now I’m a believer. And I’ve put that belief into action by learning everything I can about the cryptocurrency markets, with a leg up. I used to be an options trader: some stocks and futures, but mostly short-term options on derivative instruments like the SPX.\n\nIt’s been a whirlwind of discovery. First, you have to find sources of information who aren’t morons. Check. Some of the guys I’m following have been in the investment research and trading game for decades and I’ve been aware of them since the early 90s. Second, you have to find the right tools. Check. This is one of the most daunting things for someone just jumping into crypto. It’s not like just opening an account with Fidelity or TD Ameritrade and point, click, confirm. There’s a number of moving parts. Third, you have to stay rational. Check.\n\nThere are now something like 830 cryptocurrencies. The vast majority are crap. Some are outright scams (you need to make sure the source code has been examined by responsible parties). Some, like Etherium and Litecoin, have pretty much proven themselves. There are a few others trading for pennies or a few dollars that meet certain criteria for making a grub stake in them, like $20, $50, maybe $100…basically the cost of a dinner out.\n\nOver the last several days I’ve taken micro stakes in seven additional cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin. The volatility is crazy. My portfolio is up 21.2%. No, not since the beginning of the year. No, not since the beginning of the quarter. Nope, not even since last week or even since I entered the positions over the last few days. No, none of those: since this morning. Sure, there’s going to be days where the exact opposite holds true, but we’re going to be looking for the big breakouts.\n\nStay tuned for my next post in a few days about my offer to show everyone how to do this and to do it rationally, patiently, and for very little money. Anyone and everyone has the financial wherewithal to participate and to do so only risking the equivalent of pocket change.\n\nIn the meantime, consider this: there are over 1.2 million Bitcoin addresses where the value of the held Bitcoin is greater than $1,000. There’s 340,000 addresses worth in excess of $10,000.",
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