Living on a Bitcoin Standard

In my last newsletter, I spoke about recent occurrences in the world of spending your Bitcoin. This world is the world that ultimately leads to a circular economy forming and ends with a self-fulfilling cycle that entrenches Bitcoin as the reserve currency of the world. I believe when the Square tablets turn on Bitcoin Lightning functionality, millions of small to medium businesses will see the benefits of using Lightning as payment finality. I also believe that as more and more national or large-scale enterprises adopt Lightning, like Steak ’N Shake, using Bitcoin as a payment settlement will become a societal norm.

If what I just said does not make sense, I encourage you to read my previous newsletter if you have not!

The thoughts above are future-looking because Square has yet to turn on Lightning functionality—that is slated to begin toward the later parts of 2025 and because no other national chain has announced Lightning acceptance like Steak ’N Shake. However, that does not mean you cannot individually begin to put more of your life onto a Bitcoin Standard. You do not need to wait until Lightning is accepted at all businesses to move more of your dirty fiat currency (dollars) into the apex asset of the world, Bitcoin.

The preface to these ideas is that Bitcoin is still in its infancy and does have a characteristic of being volatile. I maintain that the volatility Bitcoin possesses is a “feature, not a bug.” But for certain people and certain portfolios, this volatility detracts from the investment objective and therefore, may not be suitable. Regardless of this preface, I maintain with 100% complete and utter conviction that over a long enough time horizon everything trends toward zero against Bitcoin, and if you can afford to stretch out your timeline, holding more Bitcoin compared to more dollars is the winning scenario.

That being said, if I cannot currently pay for my groceries with Bitcoin or other daily expenditures, how and why, would I move most of my dollar bills to Bitcoin?

For the long answer, please watch Jack Mallers’ presentation on Strike’s “Bill Pay” service that they offer.

For the short answer, keep reading.

The quick answer to “How would I live on a Bitcoin Standard?” Is that you would take your dollars and buy Bitcoin and then live your life on credit cards. Once your credit card bill is due, you sell some Bitcoin to pay off the bill, and you buy more Bitcoin to replace what you spent on the bill. Then you repeat.

Strike and their “Bill Pay” service is a quality product because you can automatically link your Strike account to pay your credit card bill off. However, you could use cold-storage Bitcoin, transfer it to an exchange, sell the Bitcoin, and then use the dollars to pay off your credit card bill if you wanted as well. Strike removes some of the friction with this whole process.

The quick answer to “Why would I live on a Bitcoin Standard?” Is over the long run, and referring to Jack’s video above, you moving your “savings account” from dollars to Bitcoin actually means that life becomes cheaper. In Jack’s case, and the case of anyone who did this from 2024 to 2025, life essentially became half off because Bitcoin doubled in price. I believe this is a trend that continues as Bitcoin becomes more mature and more widely adopted.

The example is as follows: Imagine you had $20 in Bitcoin to start the year and wanted to buy a $20 sandwich. At the start of the year, you would have spent the $20 and had nothing left. At the end of the year, your $20 in Bitcoin would have been worth over $40 and you could spend $20 of it, buy the sandwich, and still have Bitcoin left over. If you saved in cash, you spent all your money on the sandwich at any point in the year.

Now apply this example to any other expense or item you desire in your life. That was the reality for people like Jack who lived on a Bitcoin Standard in 2024.

Overall, life becomes cheaper as you hold more Bitcoin and fewer dollars because of the effects of inflation. Five dollars today is worth more than five dollars next year for this exact reason. With Bitcoin, the opposite is true. Bitcoin is largely worth less today than it will be in the future. As Bitcoin appreciates in value and the dollar depreciates because of the grips of inflation, everything you look to buy has suddenly become cheaper.

The main thesis you need to adopt to perform this in your own life is that Bitcoin gains value over time and the dollar loses value over time. With this belief, Bitcoin becomes a true store of value and you can preserve your purchasing power into the future. With a method of savings established, you can effectively partition your desires in the “now” and defer them for “future” consumption when your capital has appreciated.

The point of this piece is not to beg anyone to spend all of their dollars on Bitcoin. I do believe having an emergency fund built up in dollars is the safe thing to do over a short-term horizon. I also believe no one should go all-in, or massively increase their allocation to Bitcoin without spending 20-30 hours learning about what Bitcoin is and the competitive advantages it has compared to Bitcoin. Knowledge is power.

The point of this piece was to give more insight into the reality of how it’s possible to live on a Bitcoin Standard and why it makes sense to do so. After reading this information, you may realize you have too many dollars just sitting in a checking account or in a savings account yielding 4% and opt to partition more of those dollars into Bitcoin. If you are rational in your allocation and measured in your time horizon, I 100% support this move.

Again, I do not recommend this move if you act irresponsibly or with a short time horizon. If you need $5,000 for a down payment on a car in 3 weeks, it would be rash to put that $5,000 into Bitcoin and sell it in 3 weeks. In the short term, anything could happen because of Bitcoin’s volatile nature. If you need $5,000 for a car in 5 years, I believe it makes more sense to hold that $5,000 in Bitcoin than in a savings account. Those are the different lenses I apply in my own life and encourage you to do as well.

Think critically about your decisions.

Know your time horizon.

Act accordingly.

Stack SATs.

The views and opinions expressed here are for entertainment purposes only and should, in no way, be interpreted as financial or investment advice. Always conduct your own research when making an investment or trading decision, as each such move involves risk. I am not a financial advisor and do not claim to be qualified to convey information or advice that a registered financial advisor would convey to clients as guidance. Nothing contained in this e-mail/article constitutes, or shall be construed as, an offering of financial instruments, investment advice, or recommendations of an investment strategy. If you are seeking financial advice, find a professional who is right for you.