What’s up fellas, this is TheDankSeer, back with another video It seems like we’re about to graduate a new class
Shout out to the Bitcoin class of 2017-2019 This bear market’s not over, and frankly, I don’t care Apparently, neither did you Well, I got a few words for my cohorts Just wanted to share my journey so far
Everyone’s got a Bitcoin story Here’s mine I’m a dentist When I don’t know something, I turn to the scientific literature if I want to deliver accurate information Scientific literature is expensive to access
My university ID expired, and it hurt to pay for articles This was 2015, I was chippin’ away at my $200k student loan Publication paywalls suck Go #OpenScience Not saying that I’ve ever used the service, but I can see how sites like Sci-Hub were useful
I could also imagine how users would want to support the project, but Sci-Hub only took bitcoin donations Like most others, I was skeptical, curious I assumed Sci-Hub had to compromise to take bitcoin instead of dollars Little did I know, bitcoin was showcasing one of its strongest use-cases: censorship-resistance So that was the first I’ve heard of bitcoin
Early 2016 in Canada, there was no Quadriga, there was no Shakepay, Coinbase didn’t take Canadian dollarinos, so my first experience with Bitcoin was OTC through localbitcoins I met the guy, whipped out my phone, downloaded the Mycelium wallet, handed over the cash, and waited 6 confirmations The seller was a Cantonese speaking dude Said he was in the mining biz The dude was gracious enough to stick around and answer my basic questions
I was intrigued by what he had to say In this meeting, I had my first whiff of Cypherpunk, and I loved it I went home, and immediately proceeded to fuck things up I transferred my bitcoin to an electrum wallet on my desktop and thought multi-sig was the same as 2 factor authentification I had no idea what I was doing
I got myself locked out from spending my own bitcoin I took my noob-ass straight to bitcointalkorg, and some nice people helped me through My first successful transaction was tipping Then I took a tour of the sub-forums, and that’s when I fell into rabbit hole # 1: Austrian economics
First taste had me foaming at the mouth, god damn Like, I’ve always had the intuition that markets and price signals were distorted in some way Austrian economics revealed to me, the economic fallacies that are so prevalent today Moreso, how people in power abuse those fallacies for personal gain In context of today’s roided-up, twisted markets, the world started making more sense to me
Mechanisms within it revealed Human Action, Mises Man, Economy, and State, Rothbard The Road to Serfdom, Hayek Pieces of Eight, Dr
Vieira This Dr Vieira dude has 4 Harvard degrees and practices before the US Supreme Court He starts this piece with, “Inflation is contemporary America's most pressing economic, social, and political problem” Of course I’m gonna find out what he had to say
For the first time, I had an inkling of insight about the nature of societal dysfunction brought on by central banking I observed how loose credit creation was used as a tool to control the dental industry, and I could see how that was true for many others Even if inflation by itself isn’t the problem, the crux of the issue is: who gets to decide the allocation of new capital? Over time, I understood the value of neutral, hard money But still, I used all my bitcoin before the end of 2016 I was convinced that a contentious hard fork would compromise Bitcoin’s scarcity proposition
I also thought programmable money on the base layer was cool Nevertheless, I picked up some more bitcoins This time off Kraken Waited 2-3 weeks for my wire transfer to clear somewhere in Japan Right at that point in time, I had my first taste of a bull market, bam
I was thrilled to check the price everyday I remember wanting to sell some bitcoins for a new PC All was good, then Segwit2x came along The noise on Twitter mid-to-late 2017 Woah
The tribalism, deception, and arrogance was crazy I needed to filter out the noise That’s when I found Jameson Lopp’s Bitcoin Resources page And I’m so glad I did I loaded up a Let’s Talk Bitcoin podcast
I was hooked Instantly The episode was about Segwit2x and ASICBoost As I was learning, I witnessed the failure of Segwit2x, despite the fact that it had overwhelming miner support The users proved that they control the network consensus, not the miners
And there it was, empirical evidence of Bitcoin’s antifragility Inspired, I set up my own fully validating node Wasn’t hard And further down the rabbit hole I went Now I’m chuggin’ podcasts left, right, and centre
Bitcoin Knowledge podcast, Epicentre, Tales from the Crypt, Noded, What Bitcoin Did, Unchained, Stephan Livera’s podcast I’m so glad to be around during the golden era of podcasts I appreciate all of them, I really do Got really into Reddit and Twitter discussions The mindfuck, is that they had the exact same arguments on bitcointalk
org in the first 2 years of existing I eventually realized that all roads lead back to Bitcoin Bullish as I was, I kept buying all the way to the top I remember thinking to myself Yes, Bitcoin did it
It’s mainstream this time People understand the value proposition of this new ecosystem Had some friends come out from nowhere, excited to tell me about IOTA, EOS, and TRON Whoops I even helped my own brother buy near the top
Double whoops Sorry, I’m not a trader But I am today And then came the bear market On-chain fees were hot
RBC banned buying crypto Some bad actors lost their cool The trolls were out on 24/7 patrol Salt levels were through the roof I had a front row seat to the greatest shit-show being played out online
It was mentally taxing So I took a step back, and I started checking out the community in meatspace Here’s me with Jimmy Song and Paul Storcz when they came to Toronto Saifedean, I gave you my water bottle Not gonna lie, I felt special giving it up
Nicolas, I wasn’t sleeping I just had laser eye surgery, and I’m sorry if you thought I was dozing off The veterans don’t stop, bull or bear Caitlin Long helped pass 5 pro-blockchain bills in Wyoming CZ is beasting it up with regulators
Venezuela’s bitcoin trading volumes are at all time highs John Newberry helping exchanges use best practices with Bitcoin Optech Pierre Rochard helped me set up my own full lighting node Thanks brah GoTenna mesh networks
Blockstream bootstrapping the world via satellite Bisq transitioning to full DAO, Wasabi making CoinJoin easy The fall of the once-mighty Bitmain, and the corresponding dumping of bitcoin cash A strong narrative is emerging: Bitcoin subsidizes the development of renewable energy I wonder if Satoshi saw that one coming
What I’m trying to say, is that Bitcoin’s fundamentals are stronger than ever, and where I am now, that’s all I focus on The price became irrelevant The school of Bitcoin was well worth its tuition fee Bitcoin was the best teacher I’ve ever had Skin in the Game is one hell of a drug
To the class of 2018, I look forward to holding the front lines with all of you In the words of Jack Mallers, there’s more to do than there is to say And with that, I’m gonna try honeybadgering my way into using Bitcoin to break the North American dental oligopoly I’m also playing around with ideas for competing with dental insurance Fuck Dentacoin, building on Bitcoin is where it’s at
Thanks for watching, let’s build solutions, please subscribe, and peace out!
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