Vaccinating Bitcoin Fever

Andrew M. Bailey

11 February 2021

Bitcoin fever has yet to grip the world. But it will. Thousands of new voices will cry for attention. Each will express a strong and urgent opinion. "Get rich! Sell! Bubble! Scam! Inflation! Energy!"

Here's the thing about bitcoin. It resists easy understanding. On the surface it's just some software. But more fundamentally, bitcoin is individual-empowering technology that intersects cryptography, philosophy, politics, economics, and yes, computer science. No one finds even passing acquaintance with these fields in just hours or days.

Here is a hypothesis: it is a fool who shares an opinion about bitcoin, good or bad, after just a few hours or weeks of study and reflection. Leibniz -- that rare and gifted polymath -- could have done it well in a day. But it took me a full year to find my way to well-founded views about the whole thing (I spent most of a sabbatical in 2015 in study and active market participation). I am still learning. We all are.

Back to those loud and urgent voices. Will they have put in the time? Did they study before picking a pro- or con- stance and writing that op-ed? Do they deserve your attention? In many cases, the answer is "no".

Here is some free advice, then: proportion your attention and credence accordingly.

You can often tell who hasn't put in the time -- who has not studied their way into a legitimate opinion on the topic -- by how they talk. For example:

Anyone who says these things -- and you'll note that there are both pro- and anti- bitcoin items on the list -- can be safely ignored until they stop. They probably haven't put in the time or done their homework.

The more public I am about my bitcoin research (here I work with Bradley Rettler and Craig Warmke), the more I get random notes from folks asking where to begin their own journey, or whether to panic in light of this alarming new anonymous post, or where the price will go tomorrow, or whether so-and-so is credible on the topic, and so on. I welcome these notes, and it is a great way to connect with old friends, students, and fellow travelers around the globe.

If you're reading, this is for you.

Patience and study will serve us well. Understanding and coming to a view here takes time. We are still early. So please, give yourself that time.

If you're a sensible person, you might well say: "Eh, sounds like a lot of work; maybe not for me". If that’s you, you may want to check that you don’t have bitcoin exposure unawares (by owning shares in a company that keeps bitcoin on the balance sheet, for example). But perhaps you'll say "Tell me more. Where should I go next before coming to a view?". If you're in this latter camp, here are three reading recommendations -- vaccines for bitcoin fever:

I recommend books over online resources (of which there are many) for this reason: if you’re at all like me, you’re more likely to actually think after reading a book than after watching a slick video or consulting a few blog posts or charts. And thinking is the best vaccine to the bitcoin fever to come.

Andrew M. Bailey (@resistancemoney) is an associate professor at Yale-NUS College and is, with Bradley Rettler (@rettlerb) and Craig Warmke (@craigwarmke), writing a book on bitcoin as a tool to resist corporate and state overreach.