In my opinion, the main message of "HODL" is not to hoard your money and never spend it. Instead, the message is "use Bitcoin with LOW time preference".

For an inflationary currency like USD, it makes sense to spend as soon as possible, since years later the same money will buy you less.

For a deflationary currency like BTC, it makes sense to hold as long as possible, since years later the same money will buy you more.

Take a few friends out. Buy them a few drinks. Years later they will always remember how baller you were spending a house to treat them. Worth it.

The fact that you wrote this emotional text kind of implies that you haven't left fiat mindset fully yet either ;)

Using Bitcoin as the currency its meant to be is okay. Many of us spend sats on this awesome site after all. However, there's nothing wrong with saving as purchasing power temporarily drops.

I see my savings as a financial battery that gets more efficient if I use Bitcoin as the power source. I just try to use way less power than I receive. I also try to increase my battery's capacity when its cheap to do so.

Weak handed fiat minds have this acronym for HODL.

Hold On for Dear Life

It shows a lack of conviction. It reveals someone as weak and fearful.

I prefer a strong handed psychopathic acronym for HODL.

Hard Money (Nothing harder than BTC) On-Chain (self custody only) Don't Sell (Never sell. Only spend.) Long Term (You're in it for the long haul)

The circular economy is growing and I wish I had a way to stack non-KYC sats so I could spend and replenish easily but it's hard to find that flow of clean coin.

Duy the Bip!

Thanks for clicking on my clickbait title. Now hear me out.

Damn you.

If you spread "Hodl" or "buy the dip" now that Moscow time is falling: stop it. You are spreading fiat mindset because it implies that the Dollar value had any significance whatsoever - which is has not.

People will eventually spend bitcoins more and more, the fact is now we are transitioning away from a system to another and it there's little to none incentive to actually spend something that you know is going parabolic in price appreciation against the legacy system is substituting, holding makes more sense now as we are still not yet to the point where we are pricing things in bitcoin (or better sats).

I'm forcing myself to price things in sats already, it has been like this for years, and i'm to the point where I actually pay stuff in sats for example my VPN, my hosting provider or my Email service but there's still a long way ahead before we can actually use bitcoin as proper money

Dollar value DOES have significance. The Dollar is the most important currency in the world, and it is RIGHTLY the unit of account for everyone in the US and many people across the globe. It will be dethroned, but this has not happened yet. Bitcoin's price appreciation in dollar terms is not irrelevant, it is an important part of the process.

Yes, I know that the two pizzas story is funny

It's always been just dumb, to me. The only situation in which you need to not spend bitcoin in case it's worth more later, is exactly the situation where bitcoin doesn't work - that you can't buy it (with labor or other currencies), which means its liquidity is failing. In the realistic situation, where you can, it isn't of too much consequence which chunk of your wealth/assets you use to buy something; you can rebalance your fiat vs btc holding when it seems needed. Put another way, when bitcoin was worth $50 it was actually worth that - there was a market of sellers and buyers you could access, any time.

And using bitcoin for casual payments of smallish amounts has several advantages:

• privacy - it's heretical to say so nowadays, but it is better than using fiat, in this use case. the important thing here is that the bureaucratic state which thinks it has a right to tell you how and when you can spend your money, is generally not aware of this payment, and cannot stop it like it can your fiat payments. Related, you can make bitcoin payments without an account; the receiver doesn't have to trust you (as long as you trust them enough to pay before receiving the goods), so they don't have to carefully vet you (emails, phone numbers, etc).
• merchant reduces fees (as per above about less trust). in some circumstances this ends up creating more opportunities like tiny payments with Lightning.
• security is vastly superior - with credit cards you literally hand over the equivalent of a private key. If people perceive it as not good security wise, I get it, there is meaningful risk of loss, but you just need to be educated enough not to do stupid things (note here, again, small casual payments, where common sense measures are enough). And this risk element is never removed if you're using it properly because it's just the fact that you actually own this thing, so you can actually lose it.
• practicing using bitcoin is really helpful in educating you on how this stuff works. not just listening to wiseacring about "hodl" and economics theory, actually doing things concretely. You get a much better understanding which can feed into your investment decisions, too.

I think you can add to this list.

If someone says 'but i can't use it because every payment has tax implications' I would not hugely disagree but (a) that is basically because governments choose to persecute bitcoin users, not the fault of the protocol - they may end up persecuting 'hodl' too, and (b) tiny coffee level payments, nobody really gives a shit that you forgot to add it to your tax form, let's be real (again, note the context of my post casual payments only).

Using it for really large payments probably is impractical, almost always, but that's just because of said government persecution.

No, Hodl. Buy the dip, too.

Calling it a "currency" is a bit misleading too. It's meant to be far better than a mere currency; it's designed to be Hard Money, which has value no matter if the state says it does. Currencies are issued by states.

If you want to use it as money then go right ahead. I'm 100% in and have been for half a decade so I can't pay any bills at all without spending some at the time. This is just how you have to live while adopting a saving mindset.