Pizza & Bitcoin

My introduction to Bitcoin as an investment and a system

Last year, my husband asked if I wanted to go to a “Bitcoin information dinner” with him, hosted by a tech entrepreneur who was also a life-long family friend. 

Beyond “Bitcoin information dinner” sounding like a remake of the old multi-level marketing horror story, I was the wife who thought bitcoin was crazy and I was smart for sticking with cold hard cash, and maybe gold.

I purchased my first ounce of gold when I was about 15-years-old and grew up with a family who invested in land and real estate. I like real things that I could feel and hold and, preferably, lock up in a fire-proof safe box.

I didn’t understand bitcoin, I didn’t know what it was or how it worked. I only knew it wasn’t real and, therefore, I wasn’t interested.

Up until a conversation about creating new countries a few months before.

At a family event, I met the family-friend-tech-entrepreneur. He mentioned bitcoin once and I told him I wasn’t interested. I didn’t want to be involved with something I didn’t understand.

What I was interested in, and very much wanted to understand, was a project he was involved in that I’d heard bits and pieces about. Word on the streets was that he built a new, small country in Central America.

Word on the streets is rarely the full story. In a nutshell, turns out he was part of building a sort of charter-city or jurisdiction on an island off of Honduras, with independent rules, regulations, and private governance structure. In all, they created the freest place on earth. 

I grew up playing “countries” with my friends and siblings. We all ruled our own countries with our stick forts, and we traveled around and visited each other. As an adult, I have plenty of opinions about the rules and government of the country I live in and every adult I know has their own opinions about these things too. 

But Joel Bomgar was the first person I’d ever met who had the idea of a new country, and then created the closest version possible to it, in real life with a few other people. 

I asked him what they did when it came time to create their own rules, laws, and governing structures. He explained that they took what they considered to be the best parts from the countries that already have frameworks for freedom and personal liberty as the starting point. 

It’s one thing to talk about what you’d do if you ever had the power to make the rules but it’s different when you’ve had power and choose to create a place where people have the most amount of freedom possible.

So when my husband asked if I wanted to go eat pizza and listen to Joel Bomgar talk about bitcoin, I was interested. 

Also, I was confused. Why was someone who was so invested in personal freedom and liberty around the world also buying pizza and serving up presentations to share bitcoin with as many people as possible?

The pizza at Sal & Mookie’s was great, as expected. The presentation was nothing like what I expected.

Joel Bomgar talked about the current fiat system and compared it to the Bitcoin system in a talk he called “A Tale of Two Systems.”

As I listened to his simple breakdown of inflation and the current monetary system (a system that is breaking down), I realized I was already using an entire system that I didn’t understand. 

My ignorance of the US financial system was both feeding it and keeping me stuck in a knot of financial circumstances that I didn’t actually like.

Whether I chose to buy, hold, and use bitcoin, I was faced with a choice that I couldn’t avoid:

Either avoid understanding the system I was part of and spend my life feeding the machine, or start taking steps to understand it.

The presentation ended and Joel Bomgar made what I thought was quite the putting-his-money-where-his-mouth-is” offer. For anyone new, who didn’t hold bitcoin, he’d send you $30 worth of bitcoin on the spot. With my phone on 5 percent battery, I got on it.

He paid for everyone’s pizza and offered to fund our first bitcoin transactions simply because he believed in the potential that the Bitcoin system offered. I’ve always respected people who were invested and even obsessed with their areas of interest, but this was next level. 

That’s a level of conviction and commitment I’m willing to hear out.

The notification that I received bitcoin came through at 3 percent battery, and as the conversations wrapped up, the last question caught my attention. It was about bitcoin as an investment compared to other investment opportunities like real estate.

Joel Bomgar’s response was that every other market, especially real estate, was overvalued at the moment. Bitcoin, from his perspective, was the only significant market that was undervalued and had all of the qualities that indicated it would continue to be valued more and more until it was an item that most people used regularly, perhaps alongside other currencies. 

That was the first time I realized that a good investment required seeing the value of something early, and then getting it and holding onto it until the rest of the world comes to see its value also.

Up to that point, I thought about investments simply as giving up resources in the moment, like effort, time, and money, to get something that would provide a return over a long period of time.

On that note, I thought that investments were also proven over a long period of time. 

How could I know, for myself, if an investment that didn’t have hundreds of years of history actually be a good investment?

The presentation made sense to me. The old system was broken. The Bitcoin system couldn’t be broken, but had the volatility potential of sea sickness and a rollercoaster ride mashed up together (and I hate riding rollercoasters).

The problems check out. I felt the issue of prices going up. We spend roughly the same amount of money on groceries each month now that my parents spent feeding nine kiddos 15-to-20-years ago.

I felt the stress of personal debt, and I knew I could not depend on social security to float us down the road when we’re old.

There’s a gap between my current margin of resources now and what I want to be able to give to my community. Things felt tight.

Joel Bomgar’s perspective was interesting. There was a possibility available that seemed like it could change my future for the long haul.

I sensed he saw the potential for people to begin using this system early enough to also benefit from it as an investment before large machines like Wall Street beat them to it.

He seemed to believe that this choice gave common sense, everyday Americans the opportunity to adopt a new system on whatever timeline, and at whatever entry point made sense for them on an individual basis.

It was a perspective that I wanted to understand for myself. 

What would it take for me to see from that perspective and decide for myself?

Staying in the same broken system felt easy but seemed futile. A new system that required more self-responsibility seemed a little overwhelming but also exciting and interesting.

Regardless of what I decided to do, I could no longer claim that I didn’t have a choice when it came to money.

DISCLAIMER:

What I share here is based on my own experiences and opinions about money, finances, and the Bitcoin system. These views are mine alone and don’t represent the beliefs or opinions of my family, household, or anyone around me. I do appreciate their support as I share my personal experience.

Nothing shared here should be taken as financial, investment, or legal advice.