I don’t need to predict price when I can perceive the policy. Price is the shadow; policy is the hand casting it. If the structural forces at play persist, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bitcoin’s future cycles tilt toward more boom and less bust. That shift wouldn’t be magic; it would be the inevitable consequence of tightening supply meeting increasingly desperate monetary easing. The market currently gives a 94% chance the Fed will cut rates at their next meeting. That’s fine, but I’d still take the 6% odds against it, not out of contrarianism, but because true asymmetry lies where the crowd refuses to look. I like NGU, but I don’t depend on it. That detachment has allowed me to see more than I ever expected, because my focus isn’t on a single fleeting price spike, but on a lasting completeness that can’t be printed, paused, or revoked.

Thanks to Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin, you can now use Bitcoin…and, unfortunately, some hype fueled altcoins…to pay for a trip to space. The idea is exciting in theory: a piece of hard money funding a literal escape from Earth, but when I look closer, I can’t help thinking the joyride isn’t worth the sats. To each their own, of course, but if we’re talking about value, the real leap forward wouldn’t be suborbital tourism. It would be Amazon itself finally accepting Bitcoin for everyday purchases. Imagine being able to shop on the internet with internet money. That’s not some luxury for the ultra rich: it’s a practical, scalable, and truly transformative integration, and it’s not like Amazon would be taking a loss doing it. Instead, we get a novelty: less than 21 minutes of spaceflight, a short burst of weightlessness, and a bragging right that fades faster than the experience itself. To me, that’s absurd. I suspect most people will read that Bitcoin can now be used for a Blue Origin ticket and think, so what? In this case, I think that reaction is justified.

Today, the fiat mines had no claim on me. The stillness made room for the sound of my late-70s/early-80s Stihl 041AV, 4.1 horsepower, 61cc, “anti-vibration”, calling my name. I’ve postponed answering before, but today felt like the right time to pick up the conversation again. This saw isn’t just a tool, it’s a lineage. Passed down across four generations and through the hands of two previous owners, it carries more than steel and screws. It carries the fingerprints of those who used it before me. That’s the kind of inheritance I value, the sort that deepens with time and use, yet it’s become increasingly rare in a disposable, consumerist world that builds to replace rather than repair. The 041AV is from an era when money was backed by gold and products were built with the assumption that they’d be repaired, not discarded. This one’s been run over by a tractor, and shrugged it off. It’s over 40 years old now, and I have no doubt that once dialed in, it could last another 40 without breaking a sweat. It has the muscle to match today’s top-of-the-line saws, and I’d stake sats on it outlasting anything you can buy new. Yes, it’s heavier, thirstier, louder, and entirely lacking in safety features. But those are complaints only a modern “man” would make. Today’s physiques…and maybe our spirits, could benefit from heavier tools. The weight isn’t a flaw; it’s a challenge. Don’t be soft. Build yourself to match the work, not the other way around. I’m no small engine mechanic, just a pleb with curiosity, but there’s only so much mystery in a machine like this. Given enough time, I could keep it running indefinitely. Right now, I suspect the carb just needs some adjustment to clear its throat and sing like it used to. Worst case, I come out with more skill than I went in with. Today’s progress: it wouldn’t idle when I started, but now it does. It bogs a bit on full throttle, which might be solved with a few minor tweaks. I also discovered the chain tensioner is bent, so I ordered a replacement. Until it arrives, I’ll resist the urge to keep tinkering; better to pause than to press forward and cause harm. Tools like this remind me: longevity is a choice. It’s in how we build, how we maintain, and how we value what lasts. And maybe, in the process of keeping it alive, we remember how to do the same for ourselves.

Is volatility behind us? I doubt it. The price feels more suppressed than ever, because it’s still trying to reconcile two forces moving in opposite directions: an increasingly deflationary money being measured in an increasingly inflationary currency. That tension doesn’t resolve into stability; it compounds into greater volatility the longer it’s ignored. Adoption means little without discipline. Unless your monetary policy outlasts Bitcoin’s in strength and credibility, it will siphon away your premium: slowly at first, then all at once. That’s a standard no state has ever met, and fewer still are willing to even attempt. Bitcoin may be closer to maturity than ever, but the dollar is nowhere near the end of its decline. This is a problem you can’t kick down the road forever; a trolley problem where the choice isn’t between strangers on a track, but between yourself and the generations that follow. Bitcoin was born in the wild and raised free range. It has manners now, and we’ve invited it inside, but if the walls of the house become a cage, it will break free as easily as it once slipped through the cracks, and those with sense will follow it out.

2025 has been a banner year for hard money: gold and its digital counterpart, Bitcoin. When the going gets hard, hard money doesn’t just get going, it pulls the world’s wealth along with it. For the first time in history, gold and Bitcoin sit together at the top of the annual asset class performance rankings. This isn’t just a market anomaly; it’s a quiet confession. Confidence in fiat is fraying at the edges, and the world is beginning to chart its exits; some through ancient metal, others through incorruptible code.

A million dollars today won’t buy what $133,000 could in 1961. That isn’t progress; it’s erosion. This is the inheritance you’ve been handed: a currency that rots in your pocket. #Bitcoin is the gift you give yourself: the one thing they can’t quietly take from you.

I’m still just a pleb, but I know someday I’ll be something more; not because the world will recognize it, but because I’ll have earned it. I’ve watched Bitcoin rise from an obscure curiosity whispered in corners to a subject dissected in Ivy League lecture halls. I’ve seen the same voices that once shaped the opinions of those around me, turning friends into skeptics with their rhetoric and hate…quietly pivot, now holding more bitcoin than I could fathom in a lifetime. It’s humbling. It’s maddening. It’s motivating. My care for Bitcoin will never be measured by my stack size, but that’s no reason to stop stacking harder. I’m open to direction, but only from those walking the same path: the plebs, the homies, the peers who get it. I need to go harder, but which way? DM me. Comment. Whatever comes to mind. I’ve never once regretted connecting with a fellow Bitcoiner, and maybe I need to do it a whole lot more.

Bitcoin doesn’t feel risky to me, but staking your retirement on a coin spun from thin air does. My fear isn’t just for those bets gone wrong, but for a future where Bitcoin’s credibility is used as camouflage for fraud. When everything gets normalized under its banner, the rug pulls will multiply, and the saddest part is, most won’t see them coming. I can’t control that future, only myself. My attention is my most expensive asset, and I won’t lend it to someone who treats it like pocket change. I trust your judgment, but trust is a scarce currency. In a world ripe with scams, I search for what’s genuine, but when deception saturates the air, even authenticity can lose its appeal. In a world fueled by hype, I test for real world impact, yet hype has a way of dulling every sense. In a world increasingly disconnected, I still hope for unity and fair competition, even if both feel like endangered species.

Bitcoin doesn’t choose its allies. It grants access without bias, allegiance, or memory: the purest form of permissionlessness, but that very neutrality is a double edged sword. What cannot discriminate also cannot defend. Bitcoin will be used by the righteous and the predatory alike, and it won’t lift a block to stop either. Its silence will be exploited. Scammers, marketers, and corporates will wrap themselves in its flag, hoping the brand of incorruptibility rubs off on their grift. The more they succeed, the more blurred the line between Bitcoin and its shadows becomes. Paper Bitcoin will flood markets like counterfeit scriptures; indistinguishable from the real thing to the uninitiated. Unless you’re cold, sovereign, and offline…you won’t know what you hold. Bitcoin integrates with code, not character. If there’s a line of integration, Bitcoin flows through it, indifferent to the motives behind the merge. This makes it fertile ground not just for innovation, but infiltration. Some parasites will attach themselves not just to Bitcoin’s rails, but to its narrative: using its ethos as a marketing tool, while building private networks that serve opposite ends. They will ride the back of freedom to repackage control. And if these systems begin to divert energy from Bitcoin, literal or ideological, the protocol can’t stop them. Only we can. So ask: Can a tool of liberation serve a corporate empire without being co opted? Or is permissionless freedom, by nature, neutral to capture? In a world where anyone can say Bitcoin, discernment becomes the final layer of security. Be wary of those who borrow Bitcoin’s image to sell trust. They may not be building alongside it; they may be building beneath it.

Be cautious of what’s spoken unprovoked; unsolicited words often reveal rehearsed intentions. When someone volunteers a disclaimer, especially one that hints at evading responsibility, it’s rarely just a casual comment. It’s often a quiet confession of what’s to come. Transparency isn’t fragile, it’s not some high wire act that collapses under imperfection. It’s the foundation of trust, not the reward, yet those who’ve done the most to strip away our privacy are the ones who’d be destroyed by even a glimpse into their own operations. That’s not a failure of transparency; that’s an indictment of their integrity. What is truth without trust? What is proof without the work that earns it? We’ve dreamed of an ideological shift; one rooted in verifiability, sovereignty, and voluntary consensus. That dream is no longer abstract. It’s forming, block by block, peer by peer. The race isn’t coming…it’s already begun, and it’s global. I tossed my caution to the wind a long time ago. I surrendered the illusion of control but not the responsibility of conviction. It’s in God’s hands now, and my hands are on the keys. All that’s left is to hodl like my life depends on it, because in some ways, it does.