Read now to learn how no money is more available when you need it than Bitcoin you custody yourself, if you protect it well.
This issue of The HiFi Bitcoin Letters is free for everyone. To receive Bitcoin insights and analysis more frequently, consider upgrading to premium membership:
Thank you to those of you who have chosen to financially support my mission to provide honest Bitcoin education with a paid membership!
We live in tumultuous times. The COVID pandemic is still taking its toll in countries around the world, senseless wars brought on by unfeeling governments rage on, and inflation is destroying whatever sense of financial normalcy economies had been able to achieve. Stories abound of people whose lives are quite literally being irrevocably destroyed.
One such story comes out of recent developments within the Chinese banking system, where half a dozen rural banks have seemingly gone under and have denied their depositors’ ability to access their own funds. A tough real estate market seems partly to blame, coupled with possible corruption within the ranks of the banks’ shareholders. But whatever the underlying cause, the true victims are those people whose life savings have been stolen from them with little hope of getting them back unscathed.
Banking isn’t supposed to be like that. The purpose of banks is to protect our funds and help us grow them if we choose to open ourselves up to a bit of risk. Instead, banking itself is a risk and people are hardly rewarded at all even in cases where their funds don’t inexplicably go missing.
The victims of the Chinese bank failures, and indeed all of us, deserve better. We deserve a system that allows us to keep control of our savings no matter what. We deserve a system that allows us to protect our earnings with ease. We deserve a system that rewards, not robs, us.
We deserve Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Is The Pinnacle Of Economics and Finance
As Chinese depositors are unfortunately finding out, the global banking system is built on an ever-growing pile of IOUs. Thanks to rehypothecation of deposits and significant over-leveraging on loans, there is exponentially less money to go around than what’s needed to service the mountain of debt in the world. When times get tough, a lot of unfortunate people find out that IOUs aren’t worth anything at all.
Bitcoin offers us a better way. Bitcoin in your wallet is a bearer asset, meaning that it has value in and of itself. It isn’t someone else’s liability. Contrast that with fiat currencies, where even fiat in your wallet or under your mattress is really nothing more than an IOU from the government that issues it.
Why does Bitcoin’s status as a bearer asset matter? It means that your Bitcoin will never lose its value because of someone else’s broken promises. Credit cards may get frozen, banks can go bankrupt, and governments can implode. But Bitcoin’s intrinsic value will remain and you’ll always be able to use it for earning, saving, and spending.
On top of Bitcoin’s intrinsic value, it is also incredibly easy to store when compared to other money like fiat and gold. For example, you may find it easy to keep $100 in fiat or an ounce of gold at home, but you’d find it infinitely more difficult to safely store $1 million of either yourself. On the other hand, any amount of Bitcoin can be stored quite easily in your own wallet without any need to entrust your money to a bank or custodian.
Bitcoin is revolutionary for savers. No longer do we have any incentive at all to leave large sums of money sitting with banks that will predatorily lend it out and keep almost nothing on hand for us to recover. Instead we can keep our money with the person we trust most in the world, ourselves, and can know with relative certainty that our money will be there when we need it.
I believe that anyone can benefit from custodying their own Bitcoin. If nothing else, the number of people losing their deposits to failed banks will drop dramatically.
If you’ve heard that custodying your own Bitcoin is risky or if you’re just looking to learn more about it, I’d like to help you research whether it’s the appropriate path for you. I wrote a series of primers on custodying your own Bitcoin that I believe will help you get off on the right foot. Check it out and see for yourself:
Self-Custody Can Be The Best Way To Bitcoin
Like What You See, But Not A Subscriber Yet?
Consider subscribing for weekly emails about Bitcoin, real-time community discussions, and more!
Wish You Could Listen To This Post As A Podcast?
Can’t Get Enough Bitcoin In Your Life? Follow Me On Social Media:

🙋🏽♂️Did You Enjoy This Edition Of The HiFi Bitcoin Letters?
This 3-question survey is your chance to tell me how I can improve the newsletter for you.
This is not financial or business advice. This newsletter and related content are for informational purposes only. Cryptocurrencies and digital assets can be risky. Always do your own research before making any sort of investment.