The Bitcoiner Next Door

The concept of “The Bitcoiner Next Door” pulls from the “Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, published in 1996. The Millionaire Next Door discussed the realities of what it looked like to be “wealthy” in America and identified common traits of millionaires in America.

In understanding common traits of “millionaires,” I see many similarities with the habits portrayed by “bitcoiners.” While the rest of this piece focuses on habits I believe “bitcoiners” have, I do believe that these habits have overlap not only with “millionaires” or successful people, but most commonly, people who think about and plan for the future. With this, there is also extreme overlap between the relative monetary success of people and their outlook on the future. In the case of finance and largely life, the more priority you put toward the future, the better off you will be.

Bitcoiners live below their means. Every purchase, and especially the “meaningless” purchases, is weighed against the opportunity cost of just buying bitcoin instead. This means they aren’t spending their whole paycheck on eating food at restaurants or buying new wardrobes for every season. They live minimalist lives with a focus on maximizing their bitcoin stack so that their future will be better off as the bitcoin thesis continues to play out. Ultimately, this habit reflects a deferment of present consumption with the deferment of future payoff. This habit is not unique to bitcoiners, yet highly reflective of people who are bitcoiners.

Bitcoiners focus on wealth-building activities rather than status-building activities. This point does go hand in hand with the prior point, but more specifically, bitcoiners are not buying the new cars, designer items, the next tech item, or other luxury “status symbols.” They are focused on increasing their salaries and wages so they can invest more money into bitcoin and other assets that enhance their future payoffs. They believe financial independence is more important than whatever the new luxury item can display, and their habits of today provide a higher likelihood of reaching this goal in the future.

Bitcoiners think in long terms. While the overarching theme of this piece is that bitcoiners have low time preferences, this is specifically true as it relates to their specific investments. They are not interested in “get rich quick” schemes; they know that bitcoin has historically operated in 4-year cycles and oftentimes use 4 years as their basis of operation. Many use decades as their basis and trust that bitcoin purchased today will have monumental, if not generational, impacts over the course of their lives.

Bitcoiners are curious and have a hunger for learning. The bitcoin rabbit hole requires 15 to 20 hours of dedicated learning to have a strong understanding of the asset. Many bitcoiners go well beyond this to dive down the rabbit hole and learn enough about bitcoin, economics, world history, money, and financial instruments (looking at all of the people who tune into Strategy’s shareholder calls and know the whole perpetual stack they offer) to have garnered their personal MBAs. They have a quest for knowledge and continue looking at ways to refine their arguments while also cultivating new perspectives, all in the push for growth and evolution.

Ultimately, bitcoiners know the value of the asset they are holding, and they prioritize what they hold and growing the amount they own, over anything else that is “trivial” and not important in comparison.

You can remove the term “bitcoiners” from above and largely apply it to any type of person who cares about the future, and you can see the similarities. If you care about the future, you may be closer to being a “bitcoiner” than you realize.

Bitcoiners care about the future and understand that their actions today can and do have a large impact on the lives they want to live.

The future is determined by the actions and choices of today.

Focus on the future, and your actions will morph to help build the life you want to live.

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. 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.