“A person who does not believe in the Bitcoin revolution will find no interest in becoming a Bitcoin HODLer. That’s why the “Have fun staying poor” meme has emerged in the Bitcoin world. ”

I have to say, often when you read the promoters and profiteers of the crypto world, there is no mistaking what is its most prominent characteristic: BELIEF.

Those of us raised in the western liberal democratic tradition see knowledge and empirical methods as the central approach to anything but our emotional or religious lives. Science, reason, data, experience are what have achieved the highest quality standards of living in history.

BELIEF has been always the province of religion, superstition, Ponzi schemes, and political and economic chicanery.

BELIEF is what make people go to a casino (unless it permits card-counting) to solve their economic problems.

BELIEF is what makes hordes of poor people buy lottery tickets even when they can’t afford them.

Like all “belief” systems, there has to be some holy text or some rationale that can be exploited and offered as evidence. For this, the Crypto world has seized on pseudo-economics and created an entire parallel universe with all sorts of dire predictions and self-serving selected events that foreshadow terrible things to come. These terrible things can only be avoided by …. BITCOIN! And other crypto.

And you know you are way into the cult or religion or scheme when you are told something like this:

“… buying Bitcoin is not an end in itself. It is only the first step in a long journey that will change your life forever.”