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In this episode of Bitcoin Magazine’s “Meet The Taco Plebs,” I sat down with Bull Bitcoin’s newest head of marketing, Pleb.Hodl (@btcplebeian on Twitter) to discuss his unique Bitcoin rabbit hole story, his new position at Bull Bitcoin, the effect Bitcoin has on one’s mindset and much more.
Pleb.Hodl went into detail about his experience being “fiat pilled” coming out of university and the awakening that he had after being around people that advocated for bigger government. Along with this, we discussed the effects that believing in the ideals around Bitcoin has on individuals and society in general.
To finish, we delved into his new position at Bull Bitcoin and the excitement he has for the opportunity to work with the team there and build a phenomenal platform for true Bitcoiners.
Below are some more insights from Pleb.Hodl about his Bitcoin journey.
What’s your Bitcoin rabbit hole story?
My story starts with studying monetary economics at university and getting completely fiat pilled. It’s embarrassing to admit being that lazy, ignorant and/or gullible now, but I bought it all. By the time I finished university, I very much believed in the idea of enlightened government by experts. When I first heard about Bitcoin, I was still under this spell and thought it was a suboptimal solution to our problems. I always thought the focus should be on making the government less corrupt and more competent. I would say the beginning of my path to Bitcoin was when I joined the board for the liberal party in my local riding. Being around people who believed in bigger governmentt, I got to see how they think and how hopelessly flawed my views were. That was 2015 and was the beginning of my red pill journey, which was a necessary precursor for my orange pill.
In 2016 to 2017, I started becoming more open to Bitcoin but still wasn’t taking it seriously. I was also held back by my commitment to only investing in my own businesses… I was pretty cocky and didn’t believe any investment had a better risk/return. By early 2018, a couple of things had happened:
One, bitcoin had crushed my returns over the previous year, even after a 60% drop from its all-time high. And two, something like five to 10 people that I respected were telling me I was wrong about Bitcoin.
One day, I just decided that, at least as an exercise in critical thinking, I needed to steelman my argument. Obviously, as anyone who has ever undertaken that task knows, I failed. I fell down the rabbit hole and didn’t do much other than read about Bitcoin and listen to podcasts for the next year.
How has Bitcoin changed your life?
I mean, the most obvious way it has changed my life was by shifting my investment philosophy 180 degrees… I went from only investing in myself to committing my wealth and future savings exclusively to bitcoin.
It’s a nearly impossible benchmark to beat unless you’re starting a Bitcoin business, and I didn’t have the financial or technical background to pursue anything like that. I’ve never known how to describe myself but it would be something like “analog entrepreneur”… I like building brick-and-mortar businesses where you get to interact with people and communities. As an entrepreneur, that made it difficult to expand my business or start new ones because they needed to be entirely funded by someone else. Investor discussions were always kind of awkward too because — although not explicitly — implicitly the discussion always rests on the investor asking the question “if you were me, would you make this investment?” and the entrepreneur answering “YES!” whereas my answer was, “No, you should put it all in bitcoin but you won’t, so yes.”
Beneath the surface my heart was in Bitcoin and in hindsight it was inevitable that my path would lead me to working in Bitcoin.
This is a really obvious and basic way that it’s changed me but obviously, Bitcoin has this ability to change the way you see everything in life. It’s been far more all encompassing than investing, too.
What is the most amazing thing about Bitcoin to you?
By far, the most interesting thing about bitcoin is its capacity to completely change individuals. A significant part of my worldview is that life is psychedelic. Everything from books to conversations to everyday experiences alters our consciousness… who we are and how we see the world. I’ve become obsessed with “Bitcoin as psychedelic” — I think it’s inevitable that everyone in the world will be orange pilled. Whether it’s consciously or subconsciously, Bitcoin will transform human consciousness on an individual level. This ability to shift all of humanity toward all of the values associated with low-time preference and away from high-time preference fiat values is what makes me completely obsessed… I really believe it’s the most hopeful thing humanity has ever seen.
What are you most looking forward to in the Bitcoin space?
Bitcoin has consumed most of my time and energy since it first clicked for me in 2018. I guess the thing I’m most looking forward to (beyond the shift in human consciousness) — though it’s already begun — is having an outlet for all of that energy… having started at Bull Bitcoin last month as the new head of marketing, I’m unbelievably excited to have the resources to start orange pilling on a large scale. One obvious thing we’re focused on is customer acquisition, i.e., orange pilling no coiners. But Bull is such a unique company in terms of its commitment to using Bitcoin in the right ways… I’m really excited about being able to not just pursue surface-level orange pilling for bitcoin as an investment but deeper orange pilling with bitcoin as censorship-resistant money, freedom tech, etc. We have lots of projects in the works that will allow us to better educate our existing clients on self custody and privacy best practices that will hopefully nudge them further down the rabbit hole. It really feels like a unique opportunity for me to contribute to the Bitcoin project in a meaningful way.
Price prediction for the end of 2021, and the end of 2030?
For 2021, I’m going to be super boring and guess the middle of the range I have in mind… $85,000. I think anything can happen short term, especially if we see another round of lockdowns in the fall which I fully expect. With that being said, I think the ten-year bull run is far from over and I wouldn’t be surprised to see $500,000 within 12 months.
For 2030, I would be surprised if we’re still under $5 million. At that point, nominal predictions are kind of useless so let’s say $5 million in 2020 purchasing power.