The belief foundation of Bitcoin's value

At the end of yesterday's article, there was a comment:

"So this year I realized a truth: there are only two types of people who can make money in the crypto world, true believers and mindless fools who buy recklessly."

Seeing this sentence, I felt a lot.

Mindless fools who buy recklessly are not normal people, so we won't discuss them.

Let's talk about true believers.

A person's belief must come from their inner values; without the support of values, belief cannot even be discussed.

In my view, crypto assets are the most value-laden assets among all financial assets. Investors without underlying values as support find it hard to understand the value, core, and drivers of this ecosystem, and it's even harder to see the truly promising directions and ecosystems in crypto, let alone seize the wealth opportunities brought by crypto assets.

Bitcoin has experienced countless crashes since its birth, even having multiple drops of over 50%, but after each crash, it always manages to rise again and break previous highs continuously.

So what drives it to recover from the bottom every time and keep its price rising?

I believe the fundamental reason is faith—this is precisely the key dividing line that distinguishes believers from the general public.

For ordinary financial assets, such as stocks, if they can rise again after a crash, we can easily understand it. They either have a revival in performance, develop a new business model, or open up new business scenarios.

But what about Bitcoin?

It doesn't generate interest, doesn't produce goods, has no centralized credit, and has no practical use… We can list a whole bunch of points showing its lack of value and find no "useful" points.

These doubts and dangers were particularly evident in its early development.

Therefore, we can provide a thousand reasons to prove that it has no possibility of rising again.

The general public absolutely lacks the motivation and incentive to drive it to rise from the bottom each time; only its believers are the core driving force that pulls it up from the bottom and pushes it forward.

Every time it falls to the bottom, due to the persistence of existing believers and the entry of new believers, its core strength increases, its consensus continues to strengthen, ultimately leading to qualitative changes from quantitative changes, and the price reaches new highs.

Why do people develop such faith? Why do believers increase?

Because anyone who has seriously read the Bitcoin white paper and is willing to understand its spiritual core cannot help but be inspired by that core and cannot help but hope to see the future envisioned in that white paper.

However, there are not many who have truly read the Bitcoin white paper. I believe that to this day, at least 60% of users participating in the crypto ecosystem have not read the Bitcoin white paper seriously and completely.

Users in the crypto ecosystem are like this, let alone users outside the ecosystem.

Once, when writing an article, I shared a piece by an author of a stock commentary I often read. That author is very smart, has read many ancient texts, understands various data well, and has many insightful views; he is also a guest at several securities firms.

But in one of his rare comments on Bitcoin, his understanding of "decentralization" was completely a popular understanding. His understanding of "decentralization" was the elimination of centralized institutions, concluding that this is impossible.

In fact, if he had read the Bitcoin white paper, he could not have reached such a conclusion, because this is not what Satoshi Nakamoto defined as "decentralization."

I, who am highly vigilant about blockchain "centralization," have publicly shared my views when writing articles, especially about Ethereum: the development and promotion of Ethereum must be "centralized," led by someone like Vitalik to push the progress of Ethereum.

Centralized institutions certainly cannot and should not be eliminated.

So what is "decentralization"?

Reading the Bitcoin white paper, the Ethereum white paper, and Vitalik's articles will provide a different understanding from the general public.

Such a smart author has such a basic understanding of this core concept; one can only imagine how much less the ordinary public understands.

So over the years, we have seen many people who were early adopters of Bitcoin get off the train early for various reasons.

Why?

It's because those previous bottoms have ruthlessly thrown them off. And the only ones who can stay on during the bottom are the believers and the "fools."

Some pioneers in the crypto ecosystem are like this, let alone those who have been watching Bitcoin reach new highs for over a decade but still do not understand and remain bystanders.

Of course, one day the public will also "believe" that Bitcoin has value, but that won't be because they truly think Bitcoin has value; it will be because centralized institutions tell them Bitcoin has value—Bitcoin has become a reserve asset of the United States, the French government has started mining Bitcoin, XX country has begun to legalize Bitcoin, …

But before that, it is better not to try to "convince" and "educate" the public.

So I often advise our audience during online exchanges:

In daily life, do not casually introduce crypto assets to those around you, and do not actively promote crypto assets.

First, respect others' destined fate; second, the public itself has many misunderstandings, and these misunderstandings cannot be truly eliminated without reading, researching, and trying to understand.

In this situation, introducing and popularizing is meaningless; even discussing such topics with friends should be done with moderation—do not correct them, and do not argue.

For ourselves, if we can understand the core of this ecosystem and understand that its values are a kind of luck, we should cherish this luck; the rest is about whether we can act in accordance with our words and deeds.