Hi everyone! It's good to be back on here. I doubt that anyone will remember a little stacker like this, but I haven't been on stacker.news in two years and it feels good to be back. I was serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and decided to go essentially off-grid during that time to focus on the Lord.

Now that I'm back, I figured that I would take some time to express some musings after a two year hiatus.

1. Bitcoin is truly stable1. Bitcoin is truly stable

That isn't meant in any stablecoin sort of sense, where people value attachment to a dollar over true value. What I mean is that Bitcoin is a honeybadger, in a way I hadn't realized before going off-grid.

My stack sat untouched for two straight years. A friend told me about BTC hitting $100k at one point and told me to sell some, but I just kept hodling and didn't even look at it. Now that I'm back, I've found that not a sat was lost.

2. Don't leave sats on 3rd party wallets2. Don't leave sats on 3rd party wallets

That last line was something of a lie. I did lose some sats. About 40k to be precise. There was an Alby wallet I had left sitting, assuming that it would be there when I returned. Alby as a wallet provider is still going strong, but they made some updates that required user management to avoid losing coins. I wasn't there, so the sats got lost. Not sure if they were burned or if Alby took them. All I know is that I will be more careful about 3rd party hosted wallets in the future.

3. Investment grows, acceptance grows slower3. Investment grows, acceptance grows slower

A friend of mine who I hadn't talked to much during my mission came up to me and wanted nothing more than to talk about Bitcoin. He was very excited about the price increase and about all the gains that he'd made on Robinhood.

I told him that he really ought to self-host all those sats, but he said doing so was too complicated for him, and he was more interested in USD returns than anything.

In contrast, checking btcmap showed a meaningful increase in the number of businesses accepting Bitcoin in my area. The growth of business acceptance, however, seemed to have grown far less than the level of investment acceptance.

ConclusionConclusion

Some things have changed, but much is still the same. Bitcoin continues its steady march into the future. What is our role in it? To help our local communities understand, accept, and use this alternative money for all it is worth. I tip my hat to you, my fellow plebs. Let's get to work 🤠