Source: Liu Jie Chain
Overnight, BTC once retreated from near $90,000 to $84,000. BTC has "collapsed" again. Over the past decade, BTC has been constantly collapsing upwards, which is really a touch of black humor like the US military's "retreat forward" on the Korean Peninsula.
Afraid of heights? That's right. When BTC was $100, we were also afraid of heights. After seeing it a lot, getting used to it, we're not afraid of heights anymore. Even when it's $1 million in the future, looking back at the current $90,000, it will be insignificant, right?
The Chain says, holding coins is a spiritual practice.
BTC is constantly refreshing our cognition and transforming our worldview. So that we can reflect on the "common sense" we have acquired over the past decades and boldly break through the old common sense to open up new wisdom.
In that moment, it dawns on us, like opening our third eye.
Super Diamond Hand, Micro Strategy founder Michael Saylor once shared "Bitcoin's '21 Rules'" (Chain article on 2024.7.17). One of them, the 9th one, says:
> Only buy Bitcoin with the money you can't afford to lose.
Translated, it means:
> Only use the money you can't afford to lose to buy BTC.
Many Chinese media in the crypto circle have mistranslated it as "Only use the money you can afford to lose to buy BTC", and explained that this is a warning to people that investing has risks and one must be cautious when entering the market.
Obviously, the editor who has not successfully held BTC cannot understand Michael Saylor's words. So he rewrote it according to the usual investment common sense.
But what Michael Saylor said is actually a "counterintuitive" idea, a breakthrough and enlightenment of common sense.
Common sense is of course correct. This is the principle. But counterintuitive thinking is a reverse thinking that breaks free from the constraints of principles and enters the realm of the Tao.
You use the money you can afford to lose to invest in BTC, and I use the money I can't afford to lose to invest in BTC. This itself is a kind of enlightenment in thinking. It needs to be thought of in reverse. Once you understand it, you can't help but applaud.
The entropy of the universe increases. Nature is dangerous. The world is difficult. Risks are everywhere. Living itself is a constant struggle against unpredictable risks. Natural disasters, man-made disasters, wars, epidemics, crimes, diseases, inflation, scams... A lifetime of peace and safety is the highest blessing.
It is commonly said that wealth does not last more than three generations. Money, money, is not the specific, tangible currency, but the abstract, intangible value. The dissipation of wealth is the law of nature, and the storage of value is human desire.
Where can money be placed without being lost? Keeping it in cash will be eroded by inflation, frozen or confiscated. Investing in physical assets will be divided and robbed. Investing in equity assets will be cut by major shareholders. Investing in altcoins, you have to watch the faces of the project parties and major institutions. Speculating on meme coins is purely buying lottery tickets. As for leveraged trading and futures, that is no different from gambling.
In short, there are a thousand ways to lose money, but no one will tell you the way not to lose.
Why? If you don't lose, how can they win?
There is some money that is my living expenses, retirement money, life-saving money, money that I can't afford to lose. Where can I put this money to ensure safety?
Many people have taken lightly the heavy weight of the four words "value storage". These four words are as heavy as Mount Tai. Many KOLs have talked nonsense, hyping that this altcoin or that on-chain meme can also be used as "value storage". That's just bullshit.
After going around in circles, I found BTC. I found that putting money in BTC is the safest.
The money is in BTC, the money has become BTC. BTC has also become money, money that I can't afford to lose.
BTC is money that I can't afford to lose.
So, an eternal principle is that I will never use BTC to do anything that might lose - for example, using BTC to speculate on altcoins, which is extremely stupid.
The bull market is coming. Some people have already started thinking about taking profits and escaping the top. Friends also ask the Chain: Shouldn't we consider escaping the top in the big bull market?
The Chain always replies: No.
To elaborate a bit more: No plans to take profits for now.
What does taking profits mean? Taking profits has two meanings:
One, no longer holding BTC, but holding fiat currency (possibly in the form of a fiat stablecoin). This means that from not being able to lose, it has become possible to lose (due to inflation, etc.). You may say that after escaping the top, it's not long-term holding of fiat currency, but wanting to wait for a dip and then buy back more. This is speculation.
Two, speculative profit-taking. The goal is to sell high and buy low to increase the amount of BTC held. Is there a possibility of losing in speculation? Of course there is. This means that from not being able to lose, it has become possible to lose. You say I'm definitely 100% not going to lose. Then it's easy to refute this using reductio ad absurdum: repeated operations can take away all your BTC. This is obviously impossible. One accidental success, tasting the sweetness, will inevitably lead to a second, third... until you lose it all.
Not taking profits is not because I don't want to earn more BTC, but because I can't afford to lose.
If you think you can afford to lose, and you don't mind losing the little BTC you've painstakingly accumulated, then you can boldly go ahead on the premise of being responsible for your own actions and accepting the consequences.
But remember: BTC will not let down anyone who does not let it down. But if someone betrays it, it will definitely bury them.
Not taking profits does not mean not reducing holdings. When increasing BTC holdings, I raise BTC; when reducing BTC holdings, BTC raises me. Reducing holdings is always for necessary expenses, not for holding fiat currency or speculation.
People who do not understand the true meaning of BTC often criticize holding BTC as just for the purpose of selling it to the next buyer in the future. It seems that this is a very terrible and evil thing.
They don't understand that the human community is built through mutual support. When I was young, I worked hard and shouldered the burden of society. When I'm old, I become the burden of society, needing the young to shoulder it. In times of prosperity, I contribute my strength to society and create value for society. In times of adversity, I consume the value of society and need others to contribute their strength to help me.
When I add to my BTC holdings today, the value represented by this BTC is transmitted through the BTC network to someone, somewhere in the world. It may be a programmer who needs living expenses, or a father who urgently needs funds to treat his daughter's illness, or logistics in a country at war...
BTC does not make value judgments. It has a noble internationalist spirit, embracing the needs of all people. Its only criterion is whether the need is urgent.
BTC is borderless. It is only responsible for transmitting the value I have saved today at the speed of light to another person far away, or even distributing it to many people, to meet their immediate needs.
Regardless of the motives of those who add to their BTC holdings, BTC has turned them into the happy prince in the fairy tale who gives away all his jewels to the poor.
When I reduce my BTC holdings in the future, whether it is for my living expenses for the next year, to pay my child's tuition, to urgently need funds for medical treatment, or to donate to the country to defend the homeland, there will be strangers far away, scattered all over the world, who do not know me at all, do not make any value judgments or evaluations of my needs, like an insurance company's harsh scrutiny of my policy, but will immediately transmit the value I need at the speed of light to my hands, so that I can immediately meet my needs.
At that moment, they all become the benevolent and generous happy prince. They are my benefactors.
When I put my money in an asset under the regulation of a country, my confidence that I won't lose comes from believing that this country won't lose.
When I put my money in BTC, my confidence that I won't lose comes from believing that all of humanity won't lose.
BTC won't lose, because China won't lose, the US won't lose, El Salvador won't lose, Micro Strategy won't lose, Tesla won't lose, BlackRock won't lose, the hundreds of millions of BTC holders scattered around the world won't lose, the community of human destiny won't lose...
Money that I can't afford to lose, of course, should be placed where it won't be lost.
The above is the Chain's reflection and understanding of that sentence by Michael Saylor.
