lock down bitcoin transactions, with a reward of a chance at receiving a “block” in the chain. “I remember the first time I downloaded the blockchain. It took hours. And now it takes days, because it’s so big. And I remember looking at it and thinking, ‘What the hell have I gotten myself into?’” Wade declines to say how much bitcoin he mined, but in 2011 to 2012, it was possible to mine 100 to 250 bitcoins in a few days with a regular home personal computer... worth between $75,000 and $200,000 today. But the monetary reward was at a secondary level. “You have that eye-opening moment of, ‘Wait a minute, I’m downloading every transaction ever.’ That’s the value of the blockchain,” says Wade. “I think that’s probably why some of the early adopters of this just have it in their DNA now. It’s because we had to go through that learning stage of why it’s important that it’s built that way.” As Don and Alex Tapscott put it in their book, Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World ... Imagine a technology that could preserve our freedom to choose for ourselves and our families, to express these choices in the world, and to control our own destiny, no matter where we lived or were born. What new tools and new jobs could we create with those capabilities? What new business and services? How should we think about the opportunities? The answers were right in front of us, compliments of Satoshi Nakamoto.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR CRYPTO? Wade is watching three macro waves for cryptocurrency... 1. The first wave is simply overcoming new difficulties in buying and selling tokens. Many exchanges are now limiting the ability of Americans to access them, thanks to new federal regulations. Wade wrote us a “Crypto Dark Age” article in the August issue of American Consequences ... Exchanges must now balance two opposing forces: the need to make money and attract customers, and the need to avoid regulatory trouble with the SEC. It’s a balance between risk and reward. Playing it safe by only listing a handful of cryptos makes it hard to attract new customers. But listing a questionable crypto – and attracting new customers – could get an exchange in trouble with the SEC. So many popular exchanges are choosing to limit the cryptos they offer. However, the good news here is that bitcoin will likely be king... It’s the oldest and the original cryptocurrency. And it’s not in jeopardy of being removed from exchanges. “Bitcoin, you should think of it as buy and hold forever. There may be some macro times that you can take advantage of price irrationalities,” says Wade. “You still have to have the common sense. If I woke up tomorrow and bitcoin was $1, that’s irrationally low, and I would buy the daylights out of it. And likewise, if I woke up tomorrow and it went from $8,000 to $100,000, I would say that’s irrationally high.
American Consequences
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