Buy Bitcoin or Learn the Why of Bitcoin: What Must People Do First?
By: Sylvain Saurel
Tags: Bitcoin, Investing, Money, Cryptocurrency, Btc

Buy Bitcoin or Learn the Why of Bitcoin: What Must People Do First?

Illustration by Sylvain Saurel

I’m going to start this article with a question that should surprise you:

Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg?

You thought you were reading an article on Bitcoin, and I’ll start by asking you an age-old question that has almost become a running gag, both scientific and philosophical. As always, this type of seemingly innocuous question leaves no one indifferent.

There are clearly the pro-Chicken and the pro-Egg.

Some will swear to you that the Chicken came first, while others will be ready to fight anyone who won’t admit that it was the Egg that came first. This question unleashes passions.

I am going to disappoint you, but I don’t want to decide on this issue. I just wanted to start my article by pointing out that some questions are difficult to answer with a consensus.

In the Bitcoin world, there is one question that I see coming up frequently:

Should a person first buy Bitcoin and then try to understand the why of Bitcoin? Or should one first find out why Bitcoin is a true monetary revolution before buying Bitcoin?

I don’t have a clear answer to this question as I find arguments in favor of one or the other.

Buying Bitcoin forces you to be really involved

Buying Bitcoin for the first time is something essential to really make your first step in the Bitcoin revolution. Indeed, once you put money into Bitcoin, you will feel really involved. You won’t be able to put off important things until tomorrow.

I often say that the best time to take action in life is now. This obviously applies to the purchase of Bitcoin. Rather than thinking for months and months about your strategy and then about the best time to get into Bitcoin based on its price, it makes sense to buy it now.

The divisibility of Bitcoin is a huge advantage here since you can buy simply for $50 of BTC. The risk is more than limited, and you’ll understand how many concepts that might seem too complex to you work. You will then see that the complexity of Bitcoin is a legend that is constantly being amplified by the opponents of Bitcoin.

What is also true is that people who buy Bitcoin without having understood what is at stake in the Bitcoin revolution will tend to panic more easily when its volatility returns.

Buying Bitcoin without understanding the why of Bitcoin push some people panicking at the slightest drop in price

At the slightest very significant drop in the Bitcoin price, such as the one we experienced in March 2020, for example, these people end up cracking up selling their BTC at a loss. Not understanding that Bitcoin’s volatility can be their greatest ally, they make it their worst enemy.

People who first choose to understand the why of Bitcoin usually do not have this problem.

In fact, they choose to truly understand how money works by going beyond what the education system has always taught them. They then discover that the current monetary and financial system is flawed and not fixable. They discover with joy that Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin to address these issues.

Bitcoin is a unique invention that represents our only real alternative to the flaws of the current monetary and financial system.

Understanding Bitcoin gives you confidence in its revolution

Once you understand the power that Bitcoin will have over the world in the years to come, you cannot help but become a Bitcoiner forever. It takes time, of course, but it is the only way out I can imagine. Once you have entered this path to becoming a Bitcoiner, you will understand how valuable your BTC are.

Instead of panicking every time the Bitcoin price drops, you will make the winning choice to accumulate more and more. Every drop in the Bitcoin price will be an opportunity to increase the total amount of BTC you own.

People who buy Bitcoin directly without having bothered to understand why they buy Bitcoin often make a fundamental mistake: they think that Bitcoin is a financial investment like any other.

These people understand that Bitcoin is the best hedge against monetary inflation. They buy Bitcoin to protect themselves against the endless increase in the money supply of the U.S. dollar. This is indeed part of Bitcoin’s biggest value proposition in 2020 and for the years to come.

Bitcoin is more than just the best hedge against monetary inflation

However, Bitcoin is not only the best hedge against monetary inflation that exists, Bitcoin is also and above all the best way to protect your wealth in a way that is resistant to censorship.

Those who do not make the effort to fully understand Bitcoin do not perceive the liberating power of Bitcoin. De facto, they tell themselves that buying Bitcoin via PayPal or any other third party is a good thing. They don’t know that you don’t own any BTC if you don’t have the associated private keys.

If you make this mistake, you will get stuck in a system with the same risks as the current banking system. By letting third parties own the private keys of the BTC you bought, you are letting one entity have control over your wealth.

Just a few days after its entry into the Bitcoin world, PayPal has already shown that this risk is real. A PayPal user who had purchased Bitcoin via the online payment giant’s service had his account banned for a completely arbitrary reason. This user made too many transactions in cryptocurrencies in the eyes of PayPal.

Since this user did not have the private keys to his BTC, PayPal was able to confiscate them.

Understanding Bitcoin will help you take total control

A person who chooses to understand the why of Bitcoin will never make this mistake. He or she will have understood that to take full advantage of the Bitcoin revolution, he or she must take responsibility for the security of his or her Bitcoins. Under these circumstances, you will never see a Bitcoiner accept that someone else has the private keys to his or her Bitcoins.

Remember the first of the Ten Commandments of Bitcoin:

Not your Keys, Not your Bitcoin.

If you don’t have the keys associated with your Bitcoins, you don’t really own any Bitcoin. This is something that more and more people seem to be taking lightly in recent weeks.

This puts at risk the Bitcoin revolution as initiated by Satoshi Nakamoto. Indeed, there is a real risk that you will let third-parties come and steal the Bitcoin revolution by locking you into a centralized system with the same flaws as the current system.

To protect yourself from this problem, don’t make the mistake of buying Bitcoin through a third party such as PayPal or American banks for example.

Final thoughts

It is difficult for me to say what is the best way to enter the Bitcoin world. Buying Bitcoin directly has advantages but also disadvantages if those who do so don’t make the effort afterward to build their skills in understanding the why of Bitcoin properly.

Those who seek to understand the why of Bitcoin in the first place risk getting lost in theory and being afraid to take action.

Nothing in life is ever all black and white. The best solutions are usually found in shades of gray. The best thing for me is to take a mixed approach.

What I generally advise is to take action by buying Bitcoin while learning more about the money, the current system, and why Bitcoin. Doing both in parallel will allow you to combine theory and practice. Eventually, you will probably end up making the only choice you need to make for a better future in terms of money: becoming a Bitcoiner.

Feel free to share with me in comments your feelings on this issue. I look forward to hearing what you think is the best approach for beginners to start in the Bitcoin world.