Here's Hoping 2024 will be your best year ever!
Hey Maverick,
So.
How was your 2023?
Was it everything you hoped for? Did you accomplish everything you set out to?
I hope you did.
But the reality of business and life is we don't always get what we want done. There are always disappointments mixed in with the triumphs. Sometimes the losses even outnumber the wins.
I've got some good news for you. It doesn't matter where you are right now. 2023 is in the past. The question you should be asking yourself right now is...
What will I do to make 2024 better?
Whatever "a better 2024" means to you, what will you do to achieve it?
Well, I want to give you a little help in that area.
A new year and all its potential for profit and success is waiting for you in the wings. What will you do? Will you be ready for it?
I'd like to share some ideas about how you can really make sure that 2024 is your best year yet.
To higher profits and beyond,
Winson,
ThinkMaverick.com
So as my new years gift to you, here's my best ideas for making 2024 your best year...
Breaking News: SEC on the verge of approving a Spot Bitcoin ETF in the United States.
This will lead to every wealth manager and financial advisor that cumulatively advise trillions and previously had zero incentive to recommend $BTC will have all the commission incentives they could possibly ask for to sell the BTC ETF products to their clients. Their bosses will have it as their number one mission!
Some of the biggest asset managers on the entire planet are going to release a BTC ETF.
Blackrock $9.3 Trillion
Fidelity $4.5 Trillion
Franklin Templeton $1.53 trillion
Invesco $1.5 Trillion
Also others like Bitwise, WisdomTree, Hashdex, Ark Invest, and VanEck
And this is just the beginning.
The floodgates are open.
When people ask me about bitcoin, first I ask them...
...to ponder this for one moment.
What is the single greatest resource on this planet?
You. Your time.
Time is the only constant that remains scarce
Money is just a measuring stick to measure how much time you saved for your future.
Unfortunately, governments and central banks today brandish money as their magic wand to redistribute wealth.
They can always print more money, but they cannot print more of your time.
Like all measuring sticks, sound money or good money must have an anchor in the supply of what it measures.
Bitcoin was created to act as an alternative to fiat (paper) money.
Two frequent questions we get are why would anyone buy bitcoin that's backed by nothing and can be created by anyone.
These aren't only fair questions, but smart ones.
Here's the thing to remember about money: It's whatever people mutually agree it is.
In the past, beads, cowrie shells, silver, gold, and of course paper, have all been used as money.
You'll notice that none of them have any intrinsic value.
At the end of the day, a sack of flour has more practical value than a $100 bill or even a bar of gold.
And yet, we value both far more than a sack of flour. That's the mutual agreement we've all come to.
When you think about it, it's not that rational.
How does a piece of green paper or a bar of yellow metal hold more value to a human than a sack of flour that can be used to feed a family for weeks?
Because we all agree it does.
In my opinion, paper currency may be the most irrational form of money in human history. At least you can decorate yourself with gold, silver, beads, and cowrie shells.
Not only that... There's a limit to how much gold, silver, and shells that can be found. There's no limit on the amount of paper money that can be created.
The closest thing to true money (outside of food) is gold. Gold meets several historical rules that we use to judge value.
It's prized for its beauty. It's difficult to find. It's expensive to extract. It's also a scarce resource.
But there are problems with gold, too.
We have to trust that the refineries that certify the gold's purity are telling the truth.
Gold is also difficult to transfer (think of carrying around bags of gold coins or chests of gold bars).
And that makes it virtually useless as a practical medium of exchange in daily life.
What I mean is you can't buy a new car, house, or even a book with gold bars.
Why Bitcoin Has Value...
Bitcoin is a culmination of thousands' of years of human progress and evolution.
Math, tech, finance, economics, forex, crypto, security, payments, data science, Peer-to-peer, law, regulatory, politics, startups, history, game theory, trust...
It truly is an interdisciplinary field that has many features that humans look for when securing and measuring value. That's what makes it both so fascinating and so difficult for many to fully understand.
I don't claim to fully understand it either... but just enough to truly grasp its significance just as the internet did for us decades ago.
Pre-Programed Scarcity
Bitcoin is pre-programmed to create a set amount of coins. Once this limit is reached, no new coins will be created. This creates scarcity.
For instance, the algorithm that governs Bitcoin will create no more than 21 million Bitcoins.
Think about this... There are 35 million millionaires in the world. That means if every millionaire wanted to own an entire Bitcoin, they wouldn't be able to.
There literally is not enough to go around.
Contrast that with paper money.
With paper money, there's no limit to how much can be created. However, gold is finite. That limits how much new gold can be refined each year.
You can see that bitcoins actually have more in common with gold than with paper money.
Impossible to Counterfeit
Bitcoin uses the blockchain and proof-of-work to ensure that it cannot be hacked or faked.
This blockchain makes tampering impossible without anyone noticing. It makes transactions transparent.
While proof-of-work expends a lot of energy to secure transactions for the physical world to validate something in the digital world. Or else anything digital, especially money can simply to copied or duplicated infinitely.
Just as the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids for posterity to admire. It took a lot of energy and cost to built. And therefore it would take the same amount of energy over time to tear it down.
This is called "unforgeable costliness" or the law of thermodynamics.
Now, compare that to cash.
It's estimated that almost a quarter-billion dollars of counterfeit paper money sloshes around the U.S. every year.
What about gold?
Fake gold will never fool an expert. But counterfeit gold could be passed off to someone with an untrained eye.
Bitcoin share two important criteria that give value to traditional assets: scarcity and irreproducibility (hard to counterfeit).
These are necessary to create value. But you need something else, too...
A Final Criterion
For a thing to have value, it needs one final thing: Some form of utility.
Even art (which some will argue is worth little more than the sum of its parts), creates massive utility by stirring deep emotions in the hearts of people that can appreciate it.
That emotional response is a very valuable form of utility. It's the reason people spend billions on art annually.
So, what type of utility do Btcoin provide?
Rapid Transfer of Funds
Unlike the transfer of gold or even cash, Bitcoin can transfer value almost instantly. And they can do it at very low costs.
On the Bitcoin network, you can send $50,000 for about $15-$30 depending on how congested the network is currently. The receiver will get it in about 10 minutes.
Compare that to a traditional wire transfer.
The fastest I've seen a wire hit is 24 hours. The cost to send a domestic wire can vary from $35 to $70.
International wires can eat up 1%-15% of the total amount of money sent.
As far as sending gold, it takes 3-14 days domestically and is very expensive.
So, being able to quickly send money anywhere in the world is a very valuable utility that Bitcoin possess.
Free from Government Control
Over the years, both gold and cash have been either confiscated or severely restricted through capital controls.
Capital controls are government restrictions on your ability to access or move your money.
Even here in the U.S., we have capital controls. For instance, you can't just stroll through airport security with more than $10,000 in cash.
Unless you declare it, you're breaking the law.
Even though it's our money, the government insists we report when and where we're moving it. This is an outrageous demand that we accept because there are no alternatives.
That is until Bitcoin came around.
Now we are in complete control of our own money. We can store them on our own devices free from government intervention.
If you store your bitcoins properly, it is impossible for the government to confiscate or control them.
This is a truly liberating utility that is very valuable.
Highly Secure Decentralized Payment Network
One common criticism of cryptocurrencies is that anyone can make one. How can something have value if you can create a currency with just a few lines of code?
This criticism is spot on.
But remember, anyone can buy a printing press and start making his or her own paper money. What stops people is that no one would use it. The same is true in crypto. Only currencies that gain widespread adoption actually take off.
One of the ways we measure this widespread adoption is by looking at the number of computers that are in a cryptocurrency network. For instance, more than 9,000 separate computers are running the Bitcoin blockchain.
That widespread adoption is a vote of confidence by the market. It's a way for us to objectively identify "good" cryptocurrencies from bad ones.
As the network of users grows, so does the volume of cryptocurrency being transacted. This in turn creates a network effect that snowballs.
For instance, $143 million per day of Bitcoin changed hands in 2016. Today, it's over tens of billions per day.
The widespread use of this currency is giving it value. Thousands of people are coming together and agreeing to exchange goods and services for Bitcoin.
That is the true test for any currency. Are people accepting it? The answer is a resounding yes.
For these reasons, I believe you'll see more people continue to buy and HODL Bitcoin.
They offer utility that neither cash nor gold can.
Bringing It All Together
Money is not just restricted to coins and bank notes.
It is anything that people are willing to use in order to represent systematically the value of other things for the purpose of exchanging goods and services.
Money gives you the power to compare and decide the value of different goods instantaneously and to store wealth conveniently.
It has existed long before the invention of gold coins or paper/plastic money.
Our economy today is run by the central bank cartels.
Fiat money is nothing but a tool to transfer wealth from the people to the more politically inclined.
Bitcoin is a silent revolution.
As more people look to take back control of their money, they'll turn to Bitcoin as an alternative.
But as with all great transitions, the great majority will always be left behind.
The world is full of people who want to control your money. That's why the economy is in peril.
As I track the developments in Bitcoin, I'm seeing more and more widespread adoption of institutions and the rich.
Make no mistake, the rich and powerful understand money better than the average Joe.
But remember: These are still very early days.
We'll see massive volatility ahead. It's unavoidable. The key to thriving in the chaos of the early days of a new technology is to remain rational.
Friends, hear me when I tell you that it is irrational to expect the market to be stable.
Any market this new is highly unstable. The way we manage and profit from that instability is to use small position sizes. With Bitcoin, you can rely on asymmetric risk.
With Bitcoin you can swing for the fences without putting the rest of your existing wealth at risk. This is a rare opportunity for ordinary people to make life-changing gains without having to take life-changing risk.
The best part is this trend is just beginning. Right now, the entire BTC market is valued at 0.8 trillion. With the potential Spot Bitcoin ETF approval very soon and the halving event later in April, I’m expecting at least 3X from here!
That means we have many more opportunities in front of us to make life-changing gains.
So get out there. At the very least, buy some Bitcoin to hedge against the stupidity of our politicians.
Remember, you don't have to own a whole Bitcoin. You can own just a fraction of a coin.
And as all these developments unfold – along with others like them – I'm confident that one day you'll be grateful you took action.
We’ve only just begun…
In the world of Bitcoin, there’s so much more to delve into. That’s why I created this Newsletter, that tells the story of Bitcoin - To demystify the digital gold rush, explore profitable online ventures, and take control of your finances; from every angle you can imagine.
There’s a lot of exciting stuff to read — I’ve selected a few of the articles, to start with, below.
You can also follow me on Twitter to read my latest insights:
https://twitter.com/winsonng12
Here are some special picks:
How to Get Rich Without Trading Bitcoin (or renting out your time)
The 7 Basic Tenets of Investing in Cryptocurrency – A Quick And Dirty Guide
Talk soon,
Winson
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