tl;dr: People are herd animals.

One of the things that has fascinated me about the recent Bitcoin bull run is the way people have responded to it.

I saw a cartoon recently that summed it up quite nicely. I tried valiantly to find it, but couldn’t.

Basically, there were 2 booths at a tradeshow. One of them said “Bitcoin at $4k.” The other said “Bitcoin at $30k.”

There was no one at the first one and a long line at the 2nd one.

This tweet captures the same sentiment.

There’s something really interesting about watching herd psychology form as “social proof” gets stronger and stronger.

Bitcoin, like any money or religion, is a belief system.

You either believe it will be valuable or you don’t.

But it’s easier to believe as more and more people “like you” start to believe it.

Eventually, everyone believes it.

In marketing we say, “people buy emotionally and they justify logically.”

You don’t need to “understand” how Bitcoin/public blockchains work (though it’s endlessly fascinating). What you need to understand is that more and more people believe that it works.

And belief, not logic, drives adoption.

If logic was responsible for adoption, the lines in the first cartoon would be reversed.