Oddbean

The Somali pirates wanted a single Bitcoin in a ransomware attack on my company's server back when a Bitcoin was $500 bucks. Our IT guy said he could not do anything, so I first had to figure out how to buy a Bitcoin by listening to a [Modern Survival Podcast](https://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/) I listened to on dog walks to learn about permaculture and homesteading ideas for our lake house. So, I bought a Bitcoin in a Satoshi paper wallet and learned enough how to exchange Fiat and send BTC to pay off the pirates. I remember my wife asking if I had purchased 2 of them; of course, the answer was NO. Fast forward to April 2021, when the BTC had run up to the mid-$50Ks. The paper wallet in my desk drawer kept calling out to me, and I wondered if there was any change from my single Bitcoin pirate payoff. After figuring out I needed the Wallet of Satoshi application on my phone, I shot the QR code. To my amazement, the change from a 2015 Bitcoin was worth a few thousand dollars. At that point, I became very interested and started down the traditional rabbit hole, listening to the entire Michael Saylor/ Breedlove What is Money series, other random crypto podcasts, and YouTube crypto videos. I tried to figure out what the best practices were for this stuff and ended up keeping a diversified portfolio of 80% Bitcoin and 20% shitcoins. By the end of 2021, I made a big bet with Bitcoin and other shit coins with my end-of-the-year bonus to attempt to get a bump to pay for the world's coolest dock at our lake house. We are going to $100K for sure, RIGHT? With full-on FOMO and greed at the party, 2022 was very educational in a living through-your-mistakes kind of way. I had to start selling assets as draws occurred on the dock construction. I had learned each trade was a taxable event to report on taxes late in 2021. As the payment requests were coming in from my Dock Contractor, I was selling TSLA gains (different dock story) and BTC to balance out gains. I was pissed at the time, but I was selling on the way down first, starting with the shitcoins after observing how fast they were cratering. I observed the bears jumping on BTC at a slower rate, from $50K at the beginning of January to $25K at the beginning of June 2022. The results and my BTC progression: The dock is our favorite place and an asset to our lives worthy of trading some hard assets. I was thankful I did not leverage for the "certain" run-up and had assets to trade to my dock personal architecture. During the bear market in 2022, I realized that I was a good architect but a lousy trader. It seems easier to use DCA and HODL to reduce the time and effort of figuring out which shiny object to speculate on. In 2022, I learned there is at least one benefit to being older, especially if you are over 59.5. I worked with our office's 401K administrator to modify our plan to allow in-service Roth rollovers. 59.5+ year olds can also roll over Traditional IRAs. I even sold some Google shares from the original Dutch Auction to roll into a BTC IRA account. In 2023, we worked with our business tax accountants and attorney to revise our business partnership agreement and corporate structure to allow the partner's autonomy to decide where to hold firm equity. I could retain our studio profit in a business account. My studio's equity has now been moved from a bank business account to a business BTC account without causing a capital gain tax event. In 2024, our business is working to figure out how to use this stuff to behold a corporate treasury. We have been working with Jon Gordon at [Satoshi Health Advisors](http://www.satoshihealth.com/) to set up Bitcoin systems to receive and make payments. We are paying for those consulting services with lighting through business accounts. This sounds like a small step, but involves jumping through some flaming hoops for a small business. 2025, my goals are to start receiving initial payments, consultation payments, and selling a product on our website in Lighting or BTC. I want to use experience for clients sending us initial project payments to let them see the utility, lower cost, and ease of network use. I see these small initial moves as stepping stones toward using BTC as our unit of account. For the first time in my business life, there is a simple pattern to follow: do the work we believe in and our clients value, design your business systems to make a profit, and then retain profits in BTC accounts. We are not a public company, so the MicroStrategy convertible bond strategy won't work for us. However, for small business owners in the design and building industry, holding BTC on your balance sheet should make us stronger and more resilient as assets shift from real estate and bonds to BTC. The next steps could be self-actualizing. HODL on Bryan