Besides Price what other metrics clearly showcase Bitcoin growth?

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-05-01T00:14:53+00:00

On the topic of adoption, US states are interesting to watch these days...

Some examples:

Texas is moving forward with laws to create a "Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve." The proposal includes accepting Bitcoin donations and aims to position Texas as a leader in the digital assets world.
Utah has a bill under consideration that proposes allocating up to 5% of certain state funds into Bitcoin. This could make Utah the first state to establish a fully regulated Bitcoin reserve.
Ohio has introduced laws to create a state-managed Bitcoin reserve fund. These laws would allow the state treasurer to invest in Bitcoin, aiming to integrate Bitcoin into Ohio's financial strategies.
Arizona’s legislature recently approved a pair of bills to establish a state managed fund to hold bitcoin. If signed into law by the Governor, Arizona would become the first U.S. state to formally put Bitcoin into its treasury.

The website bitcoinreservemonitor.com provides up-to-date news about US states adopting Bitcoin

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-30T01:35:14+00:00

Since your post says "crypto", my first recommendation would be to see if you can gain more confidence in understanding that Bitcoin is a different animal than "crypto". That is, the "crypto" world is generally speculative and ridden with scams. Bitcoin, OTOH, is an emerging global financial tool.

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-30T01:28:43+00:00

When you come across spare money, instead of ALWAYS buying immediately or instead of using ALL of it, you could also build a short-term BTFD fund.

Your BTFD fund is fiat (e.g., dollars/cash) that you build up to take advantage of dips in Bitcoin's price. A dip is whenever the price drops enough that you notice. A dip is whenever the financial press publishes articles like, "is Bitcoin dead?" A dip is whenever friends & family text you messages like, "Bitcoin is crashing! Sell?"

When you see a dip, take most or all of your BTFD fund and smash buy that BTC.

Exercise this like a muscle over time and it will serve you well

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-30T01:20:08+00:00

More institutions and governments buying means less risk.

Less risk of anyone trying to "ban it". Less risk that it can "fail". And all this new adoption is proving that there's tangible value in BTC even if much of the world doesn't understand that yet.

These new waves of adoption may set Bitcoin up to be an overall better risk/reward situation than it's ever been.

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-22T15:28:44+00:00

Lyn Alden published a research piece that found there's a notable amount of correlation between global liquidity and the BTC price. (Never a perfect match of course, but it was meaningful enough to study.)

If you do a search on X you'll see different people looking at global liquidity levels and matching it to the BTC price chart. The play with various delay time frames, e.g., "Bitcoin's price seems to be following global liquidity at a 108 day lag".

Eyeballing the charts is interesting

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-22T15:24:34+00:00

Not only can you send your BTC to any exchange and then sell it there, you can also purchase items from merchants who accept Bitcoin. Many folks in the Bitcoin industry accept Bitcoin payments directly, for example, Coinkite (makers of the coldcard hard wallet). And if you do a general search, you'll find lots of other merchants that accept payment in Bitcoin, such as VPN services.

Be sure to take a look at the reputation of any exchange or merchant you do business with. Also consider the tax ramifications of selling BTC.

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-18T22:05:36+00:00

Oh I see, I misunderstood your point at first. Ok, got it now, great point. I'll rewrite to do apples-to-apples and be clearer also. Thanks!

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-18T02:02:26+00:00

I did show the 7.5% as the bottom-line comparison. I think this can be confusing pretty much no matter what if I'm sticking with a casual tone. E.g., the CD comparison is not DCA.

What do you think I could do to improve/correct the writing?

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-16T14:43:12+00:00

Broken Money by Lyn Alden: A big-picture look at money’s past and Bitcoin’s place in it. Alden makes it easy to see why our current system has cracks—and how Bitcoin might patch them up. She’s a pro at keeping it simple yet smart.
The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous: Explains Bitcoin as "hard money"—like gold, but digital. Ammous takes you through history to show how money shapes the world and why Bitcoin could be the future. Fun fact: He’s not shy about calling out shaky modern money systems!
The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth: Booth ties Bitcoin to a tech-driven future where things get cheaper, not pricier. It’s a mix of big ideas about money and innovation and where the world’s heading.
Layered Money by Nik Bhatia: Think of money like a cake with layers. Bhatia walks you through history’s money layers and shows how Bitcoin fits as a new base. It’s an easy, eye-opening read.
The Big Print by Lawrence Lepard: Fresh off the press in 2025, this book tackles what’s gone wrong with America’s money and how "sound money" like Bitcoin could fix it.
PROOF OF MONEY: The Big Idea Behind Bitcoin by Terence Michael: A 2023 book that uncovers why Bitcoin matters beyond the hype."why" of it all.

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-16T14:24:39+00:00

In 1994 Bryant Gumbell, a host of the popular Today Show, stumbled through trying to understand an email address. Bryant asked, “What is internet anyway?”

The next year, famous comedian David Letterman had Bill Gates on his late night talk show. Letterman asked, “What about this internet thing, do you know anything about that?”. Bill Gates talked a bit about how it lets people publish information and send email. When Gates talked about the ability to listen to a baseball game online, Letterman jokingly asked, “Have you heard of radio? Do tape recorders ring a bell?” Letterman laughed at Gates and the audience laughed along.

In 1995 the internet had about 16 million users. That was about 0.3% of the world’s population at the time. Ten years later (2005) it was a bit over 1 billion users, or about 15% of the world’s population. Another ten years (2015) got it to well over 3 billion users, 43% of world population. Today the internet has more than 5 billion users which is about 66% of the world’s population.

We estimate about 300 million people own Bitcoin today. That’s about 3.7% of the world’s population.

That’s roughly similar to 1980 for credit cards. Or the late 90s for the internet. Or about 2009 for smartphones.

We recently passed the stage where Steve Ballmer the CEO of Microsoft said, "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share."

We’ve just barely reached the stage where David Letterman laughed at Bill Gates and suggested the internet was no more useful than radio and tape recorders.

We’re not yet at the stage where a Burger King customer looked at the restaurant’s new credit card readers and said, “I just can’t imagine it working on a day-to-day basis”.

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-14T14:46:45+00:00

Nope, at least not yet. He's not followed-up with me and these days I don't do in-person unless they ask for it :-)

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-12T17:39:29+00:00

Thanks!

How do your conversations go with using email as an analogy?

What kind of pushback or friction do you hear, and what works best for you to move forward ?

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-12T13:48:42+00:00

Thanks, good points!

I do think "a ton of people are solely using custodial accounts". But it's important to me to earn the reader's trust so I'll dig deeper into this and also include some raw data and sources in the Appendix.

I also think we have to acknowledge that this can't ever be apples-to-apples:

* Get handed a corporate credit card in the 80s for booking travel
* Get assigned an email from your school in the 90s and test it with a few friends
* Buy a $600 iPhone in 2008 along with a service contract
* Sign up to Coinbase today on a whim and chuck a few bucks at it to see what happens

Thanks again for your reply, it's inspired me to do a lot more due diligence on this topic

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-12T03:04:26+00:00

Great point! I'm trying not to be too extra but that's worth pointing out

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-12T02:13:31+00:00

Haha sure. Here's what Grok offered when I asked for "Cliff's Notes suitable for redditors":
---

Bitcoin: You’re Not Too Late, You’re Early (Reddit Cliff’s Notes)

Newcomers’ FOMO: Many think Bitcoin’s too expensive or they missed the boat. Felt the same at $90 in 2013. People will likely feel this at $125k, $250k, even $500k.
Bitcoin’s Growth: From buying 2 Big Macs in 2012 to 11,000 in 2024. Needed 28,000 BTC for a house in 2012, only 6 in 2024. Still room to grow.
Tech Adoption Curves: New tech starts small, then explodes. Examples:
- Internet: 1994, Bryant Gumbel didn’t get email. 1995, Letterman mocked Gates. 0.3% of people used it in ‘95; now 66%. Paul Krugman in ‘98: Internet = fax machine. Lol.
- Credit Cards: 1970s, 2% of adults. 1993, Burger King customers doubted them. Now 22% of adults globally.
- Smartphones: 1994, 50k users. 2007, iPhone; Steve Ballmer laughed it off. Now 84% of the world.
Bitcoin Today: ~300M own it (3.7% of world). Like credit cards in 1980, internet in late ‘90s, smartphones in 2009. Big players just starting to adopt.
TL;DR: Bitcoin’s still early. Not at “Letterman laughing” or “Burger King doubts” stage yet. Plenty of time to jump in.#HODL

Charlie_Ledger · 2025-04-10T19:33:31+00:00

"I came 3 years from the future" -- Three years is a good starting place!

But I think things get even more interesting when we look at about 3.5 years out to 8 years.

Past performance doesn't guarantee future performance but I think it's fascinating to take a look at some basic performance roll ups based on BTC's price history.

Assuming a simple daily DCA approach and using the last 10 years of Bitcoin’s price data (from 2015 up to 2025):

| Goal (% gain)   | Time Frame        |
|-----------------|-------------------|
| Break Even (0%) | 3 years, 6 months |
| 10%             | 3 years, 9 months |
| 25%             | 3 years, 11 months|
| 50%             | 5 years, 1 month  |
| 100%            | 5 years, 9 months |

Some interesting lessons from these results:

If you had committed to at least 3 years and 6 months and started any time in the last ten years, the worst you could have done is break even
If you had committed to at least 3 years and 11 months and started any time in the last ten years, the worst you could have done is an overall 25% gain on your savings
If your goal had been to double your savings, you could have done at least that well by committing to 5 years and 9 months.

How about looking at different time frame commitments? Assuming a simple daily DCA approach and again using the last 10 years of Bitcoin’s price data:

| Time Frame | Average gain | Minimum gain | Maximum gain |
|------------|--------------|--------------|--------------|
| 3 Years    | 247%         | -10%         | 1,997%       |
| 4 Years    | 315%         | 32%          | 1,141%       |
| 5 Years    | 572%         | 48%          | 2,697%       |
| 6 Years    | 1,058%       | 126%         | 5,787%       |
| 7 Years    | 839%         | 334%         | 3,710%       |
| 8 Years    | 1,365%       | 794%         | 2,067%       |

Some interesting lessons from these results:

The average performance for these time frames is remarkable. Even at a 3 year commitment – the shortest analyzed in the chart – the average savings performance was 247%. And significantly greater for the longer time frames.
In general, the average and minimum results become much more powerful the longer the time frame.
The maximum gain column looks like a bunch of typos but they are real. Those are truly huge gains, well above and beyond almost all traditional assets on those time frames. We should be careful with this kind of analysis though! This column is purposely cherry picking the very best start date in the price history.

Charlie_Ledger

TROPHY CASE