I used to explain Bitcoin. Now I mostly stay quiet. Some questions aren’t curiosity, they’re extraction. open.substack.com/pub/thephilo...

Most people don’t lose money in Bitcoin. They lose confidence. Usually right before they would have been right.

Bitcoin has a way of revealing something uncomfortable. Most people don’t struggle with volatility, they struggle with being alone in their conviction. It’s not the price swings that break them, it’s the silence when everyone else disagrees.

“You were lucky, not smart.” I still hear those words. They ended a 15-year friendship. Full story: open.substack.com/pub/thephilo...

Interesting watching the UK move toward formal crypto regulation. The pattern is familiar: institutions arrive at the point where individuals have already taken the risk, made the mistakes, and paid the social cost. Conviction is always early and lonely. Legitimacy always comes late and crowded.

People talk about how hard it is to change your life. But the decision isn’t the hard part. The hard part is noticing who doesn’t come with you. The people who preferred the earlier version of you. Change has a social cost nobody prepares you for.

Something I’ve realised over the years, you can recover from being wrong. But it’s hard to recover from not trusting yourself. Most people don’t fear loss, they fear responsibility. Bitcoin makes that very visible.

What Seneca Got Wrong About Money (And What Bitcoin Gets Right) Stoicism taught me that wealth was indifferent. Bitcoin taught me that the type of money matters. Some money makes you fragile. Some makes you free. Read: open.substack.com/pub/thephilo...

Black Friday makes one thing clear. We buy things to feel in control, but every purchase is another dependency. Bitcoin flips the equation. Less stuff, more time, more autonomy. Feels like a better deal.

Volatility isn’t the hard part of Bitcoin, uncertainty is. The quiet fear, What if I’m wrong? Selling gives closure. Holding gives doubt. Which one is harder for you?

At the Eagle pub in Cambridge having a beer with friends tonight. Bitcoin somehow ended up on the table too. A friend said, I sold 2 BTC at £15k in 2017. Felt smart, now it stings. Not because of the missed gains, but because he didn’t trust himself. Ever felt that?

I’ve been thinking how my grandfather grew up in real scarcity. We grew up in manufactured abundance. We assume the system will always work because we’ve never seen it break. He had. Bitcoin was the first thing that made me question that assumption.

Something I realised reading yesterday’s comments. Every family had a “foil washer” someone shaped by real scarcity. We rolled our eyes at them. But the older I get, the more I think they were the only ones who truly understood risk.

My grandfather washed aluminum foil. We mocked it for years. Then Bitcoin taught me why he did it, he’d lived through real scarcity. Abundance is temporary. Bitcoin is the reminder. Read - open.substack.com/pub/thephilo...

If you find yourself checking the Bitcoin price too often, ask. What feeling am I chasing? Control? Reassurance? Relief? Checking never gives it. It only makes the urge stronger. Sitting with the feeling is harder, but that’s the real skill.

Over coffee moment today. A guy tried explaining Bitcoin. Digital gold. But why is it valuable? …uh… scarcity? Five years ago I would’ve jumped in. Now I realise, people only understand Bitcoin when they’re ready to accept uncertainty. Explaining it early never works. Ever tried explaining it?

4 Bitcoin cycles. 4 different lessons. Here’s what each taught me.

Wealth isn’t about doing more. It’s about tolerating discomfort. Most people can’t sit still when uncertainty rises. So they act. React. Adjust. Optimise. But almost every great outcome in life comes from resisting the urge to fix the moment. Wealth = the ability to wait.

The part I didn’t include in yesterday’s essay. Checking the price has nothing to do with information.You already know the trend.It’s about trying to feel in control of something that can’t be controlled. Every check teaches your brain that uncertainty, danger. That’s the loop we all need to break.

Why the Anxious Never Get Rich. It’s about the version of you who checks the price at 3am… not because the market changed, but because uncertainty feels unbearable. Bitcoin reveals your time preference.Anxiety shortens it. Full essay: open.substack.com/pub/thephilo...

The market is moving. What interests me more is what it exposes, your patience,your fear, your time preference. Most people aren’t shaken out by price,but by what they feel. If today feels tense, pay attention. That’s the real lesson.

The market moves in waves, but the real movement is internal. Most people aren’t losing money to volatility, they’re losing it to impatience. If today felt slow or frustrating, that’s the work. Staying still when your mind wants to sprint.

Every Bitcoin cycle punishes impatience and rewards silence. The 2013 crowd mocked the 2011 holders. The 2017 crowd mocked the 2013 holders. The 2021 crowd mocked the 2017 holders. The pattern never changes. Just the price. Time is undefeated. Early is luck. Holding is character.

Everyone talks about getting in early. Almost no one talks about staying in long enough. Most losses weren’t from buying high, but from not being able to hold low. Early is luck. Holding is character.

Everyone romanticizes conviction, until they live it. It doesn’t feel like power. It feels like holding your breath while the world insists you’re wrong. And even when you’re proven right, you don’t celebrate. You exhale. Because conviction was never about winning. It was about staying intact.

The worst part of 2018 wasn’t Bitcoin at £2,500. It was 2 a.m. at the kitchen table, realising conviction has a price tag, and not knowing if I could afford it. Full story: open.substack.com/pub/thephilo...

The Bitcoin Funeral I Never Attended. 2018. £2,500. Everyone told me to sell. The hardest part wasn’t the price. Read: open.substack.com/pub/thephilo...

2018. Bitcoin at $3,200. Everyone said “sell.” I almost did. The hardest part wasn’t the price. It was wondering if they were right. Conviction isn’t confidence. It’s choosing your own uncertainty over everyone else’s certainty.

1971: Nixon closed the gold window. Those who understood bought gold. Those who didn’t kept their dollars. 2009: Satoshi opened the Bitcoin window. Those who understand stack sats. Those who don’t keep their time in fiat jobs. History doesn’t repeat. It rhymes in debasement.

15 years in Bitcoin. Still check the price too often. Still doubt myself some days. Still tempted by “maybe this time it’s different.” Conviction doesn’t arrive, it’s renewed. Every. Single. Day. What keeps you steady when the noise gets loud?

Bitcoin falling again, and every cycle proves the same thing: Price tests emotion, not fundamentals. Conviction compounds when volatility shakes weak hands.

Favorite comment from yesterday’s piece: “Newton’s silence says more than his loss. The smartest man alive learned he couldn’t outsmart emotion.” This is why I write here. Full piece: open.substack.com/pub/thephilo...

Isaac Newton could calculate the motion of planets, but not the madness of people. He lost £20M in 1720 to a bubble he saw coming. 300 years later, we still fall for the same traps. The Genius Who Couldn’t Price Madness: why Bitcoin is built for human psychology: open.substack.com/pub/thephilo...

17 years ago, Satoshi published the Bitcoin whitepaper. In just 9 pages, he redefined the idea of money, trust, and time. Bitcoin wasn’t created for speculation, it was created for memory. A quiet rebellion disguised as code.

Every generation thinks it can print prosperity. Every collapse proves it can’t. In 1720 it was John Law. In 2025 it’s us. The systems evolve. The psychology doesn’t.

In 1720, France tried to print prosperity. John Law’s paper money experiment collapsed. Voltaire warned: “Paper money always returns to its intrinsic value, zero.” 300 years later, central banks still try the same thing. Sunday’s piece: what Newton and Voltaire teach us about Bitcoin.

Intelligence can’t outsmart emotion. In 1720, Isaac Newton made and lost a fortune in the South Sea Bubble. He could calculate the motion of planets, but not the madness of people. Three centuries later, the same psychology drives every bubble. Only the tools have changed.

Real freedom doesn’t come from escaping responsibility. It comes from choosing which responsibilities to carry. Every time we give up responsibility, we give up freedom. The weight you choose to carry is the weight that sets you free. From Sunday’s reflection.

We talk a lot about freedom, but rarely about the weight it carries. Responsibility isn't a burden to escape. It's the proof you're free enough to choose it.

Freedom isn’t light. It’s heavy. The more responsibility you carry, the more sovereign you become. The Weight You Choose, new reflection now live: open.substack.com/pub/thephilo...

I’ve been thinking about how scarcity applies to relationships. A reader tried something simple: they listed everyone they interact with regularly,about 35 people, and kept only the 7 who genuinely added energy. Then they sat with what happened next.

I received couple of responses to The Scarcity Paradox yesterday. Common thread? “I cut back, but abundance always creeps back.” You didn’t fail. You just didn’t make the limit real yet. Write it down. Share it. Defend it. Scarcity without accountability isn’t scarcity. It’s delay.

I deleted 73 apps last month. Bitcoin’s 21 million cap taught me a strange truth: Scarcity doesn’t limit you. It clarifies you. The fewer signals you trust, the stronger your conviction becomes. New essay: The Scarcity Paradox – Why Having Less Makes You More open.substack.com/pub/thephilo...

When prices fall, markets become mirrors. The question: What does it show you about yourself? Conviction isn’t tested when things go up. It’s revealed when things go down.

Market down again. People panic. Algorithms amplify it. But volatility isn’t failure. It’s feedback. Bitcoin doesn’t just test your portfolio. It tests your framework, your ability to think clearly when the world loses it.

Markets shake. Narratives panic. But truth doesn’t cras. Illusionss do. Each cycle strips away the noise and reminds us: sound money doesn’t beg for belief, it earns it, block by block, year by year. The signal is still the same. The price is just the echo.

People rarely fail the framework by neglect. They fail it by preference. They love scarcity when it feels valuable. They avoid responsibility when it feels heavy. Real integration means embracing every side, even the ones that challenge you.

The framework doesn’t make decisions for you. It helps you make decisions as your best self. Four questions. One clarity loop. What matters? What can I control? What timeline? How does this strengthen me? Real clarity starts when you apply it

A framework is only useful if you can live inside it. Don’t memorize the four questions. Build systems that make them unavoidable. That’s how wisdom becomes habit.

Understanding is the first step. Living it is the transformation. The gap between knowing and doing is where growth begins.