The real challenge in crypto isn't identifying and buying an asset early. The true difficulty lies in having the conviction to hold that asset for over a decade through extreme volatility, regulatory threats, hard forks, and security risks. Most early buyers sell far too soon.

Holding cash is a losing strategy because governments consistently respond to economic crises by printing money. This devalues savings, effectively forcing individuals to invest in assets like stocks simply to protect their purchasing power against inflation.

Unlike stocks with varying degrees of success, Bitcoin's outcome is binary: it either succeeds in maintaining its fixed supply and becomes global money, or it fails and is worthless. This simplifies due diligence to a finite set of core questions.

Because fiat currency constantly loses value, people cannot simply save. They are forced to invest and speculate in markets they may not understand, diverting time and energy from their actual jobs, just to prevent their savings from eroding.

In an economic system with persistent currency debasement, holding cash in a savings account guarantees a loss of purchasing power. Prosperity is no longer achievable through simple saving; it requires actively "betting" on assets that can't be inflated, such as stocks, real estate, or crypto.

Bitcoin's core properties (fixed supply, perfect portability) make it a superior safe haven to gold. However, the market currently treats it as a volatile, risk-on asset. This perception gap represents a unique, transitional moment in financial history.

Technologies like AI and robotics create massive deflationary pressures. To counteract this, governments will be forced to print more fiat currency, debasing it. This macro environment makes a scarce, decentralized asset like Bitcoin a critical tool for corporations to preserve capital and protect their balance sheets from inflation.

An investor's Bitcoin thesis rests on three pillars: 1) as a self-custodied asset for debanking/borderless scenarios, 2) as an investment for pure price appreciation ("number go up"), and 3) as an ethical holding to support a better financial system. This framework clarifies why proxies like MSTR satisfy the latter two needs but never the first.

In an environment of extreme government intervention and currency debasement—the very problems it was created to solve—Bitcoin is not performing as expected. The asset feels "co-opted" by financial engineering, leading original believers ("OGs") to sell as they see the core vision straying.