16 BTC for $1: The Ultimate HODL

Greetings,

Rizzo, the Bitcoin Historian here, with a look back at the most memorable moments from the week that was. 

From an epic Simpsons prediction to a true believer selling his house to buy more Bitcoin, this week in history was jam-packed with interesting tidbits.

But, before we take a trip into the past, let’s make sure your Bitcoin is safe today. Imagine you lose your seed phrase to that generational wealth you’ve been quietly stacking… Have you done enough to prepare for the worst?

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OK, let’s dive in. 

$47,000 l The Simpsons predict it

In 2021, The Simpsons aired a price prediction so bullish even Michael Saylor had to gasp. Indeed, in a brief snippet on the show, a news program listed Bitcoin’s price at infinity per coin.

We all know that The Simpsons like to joke around, but they’ve made some weirdly accurate predictions over the years. 

In 2000, on Season 11, they predicted that Donald J. Trump would become president of the U.S. A decade later, Milhouse bet that Finnish economist Bengt R. Holmstrom would win the Nobel Prize in Economics – which he really did, 6 years later…

Then, in 2019, when Fox acquired Disney for $71 billion, it was a shock to the world. Except for Simpsons fans. The series predicted a Fox-Disney merger as far back as 1998. 

Now, is infinity even a price target? Well, just remember, fiat is programmed to decline in value forever.

$11,400 l Sold the house to buy more Bitcoin

It’s gotta take true belief to sell your house to buy Bitcoin. 

Well, this bitcoiner did exactly that – not long after an expensive mistake. In 2015, he had sold 800 BTC at an average price of $430 to buy himself a property (which cost him around $344,000). 

He realized his mistake a few years later, and sold it to buy back 50 BTC. 

This should be a lesson to anyone thinking about selling their Bitcoin to buy something like a property, a car, or any other worldly items. As Capitan Bitcoin says himself, his only regret is selling his BTC. 

$44,400 l Wrong about Bitcoin

Loads of people continue to think Ethereum will “flippen” Bitcoin. 

But the honey badger doesn’t care, and it continues to shut them down time and time again. Case in point: the BTC/ETH trading pair hasn’t hit a new high since 2017. Now, its taking some of the world’s most famous investors with it. 

Paul Graham is one of the most esteemed computer scientists in Silicon Valley.

He’s known for the programming language Arc, the startup Viaweb (later renamed Yahoo! Store), and co-founding perhaps the most important startup incubator in the world, YCombinator. 

His essays are also quite legendary, with some personal favorites including “How to think for yourself,” “How to write usefully,” and “A way to detect a bias.”

That said, he fell under the unfortunate fate of fading Bitcoin – and favoring Ethereum. He could have used a better review of the fundamentals that make Bitcoin unable to be replaced.

$0.06 l A rare Bitcoin order book

There’s a lot to be said about the UX/UI in Bitcoin, but imagine being there back in 2010.

Some of the earliest Bitcoiners not only had to travail the internet in search of understanding how it all worked (without the help of Bitcoin Twitter, mind you), but they also had to jump on some archaic and very Web2-y website to stack their sats. Those who did, however, were well rewarded.

Here we see how believers were buying 16 Bitcoin for $1. That purchase, if HODLed until today, would be worth $1 million. 

$1 then = retirement today. And you’re telling me that you’re not bearish fiat?

Nixon ends the gold standard

Exactly 53 years ago this week, on August 15, 1971, the U.S. officially abandoned the gold standard.

In what’s known as the Nixon Shock, then president of the U.S.A, Richard Nixon, went on national television and in a three minute speech changed the course of history. 

The Nixon shock was the effect of a series of economic measures, including wage and price freezes, surcharges on imports, and the unilateral cancellation of the direct international convertibility of the United States dollar to gold

Ever since the Nixon Shock, the value of the dollar has plummeted. Not just that, our entire economic system seems to have gone out of whack.

If you need the facts to back that up, it’s time to head over to https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/.

Extra posts:

• Jack Mallers is a Bitcoin legend

• Saifedean Ammous is a Bitcoin legend

• Adam Back completes Hal Finney’s SSL challenge

See you Friday,
Rizzo