Bitcoin is Experiential

At my Bitcoin meetup, I’ve seen it happen dozens of times. Someone downloads a Lightning wallet, I send them a few sats, and their eyes light up.

In that moment, Bitcoin stops being an abstract idea and becomes something real. They instantly see the possibilities. That is the power of experience.

I hear people say almost every day:

“Bitcoin is too complicated.”

“Bitcoin is a scam.”

“Bitcoin wastes too much energy.”

“Won’t the government ban it?”

“What if Satoshi comes back?”

“But… quantum computing.”

Fear is sticky. It gets warped and replayed in our minds until it drowns out everything else. Most people live in fear of the unknown, trapped and paralyzed by it. But what if the unknown could become... known? What if there were simple, clear answers to your questions?

A little knowledge goes a long way, but knowledge alone is not enough. With Bitcoin, experience is the real teacher.

Reading about Bitcoin can help you understand the history of money and the basics of the protocol. But to truly grasp it, you have to use it.

Buy some. Send it. Take self-custody.

That direct experience will push you to learn more, not just about Bitcoin, but the very systems that shape our world.

We’re in the early stages of a massive cultural shift. Information is instantly accessible, and AI is accelerating our ability to learn and build better systems. It is on us to question the systems that are failing and choose a better path forward. (I discuss our broken financial and healthcare systems at length in my new book.)

Curiosity, adaptability, and a growth mindset may be the most valuable skills for the future. They help us stay resilient and navigate the unknown.

Bitcoin often feels abstract because there is nothing else to compare it to. Learning something entirely new is challenging, but the more you push past that first layer of fear, the simpler it becomes. Entire worlds open up. Possibilities become endless. Knowledge is our superpower. Learning is addictive.

The Lightning Network (Layer 2 of Bitcoin) didn’t fully make sense to me until I ran a node. Bitcoin mining was just theory until I bought an ASIC, took it apart, connected it to a pool, and saw it in action. I heated my home and even my hot tub with that miner (see Hot Tub Mine Machine), using its waste heat while earning bitcoin to offset my electric bill. That one experience led me to deep dive into wasted and stranded energy, and discover how Bitcoin can help strengthen electric grids around the world.

Self-custody seemed complicated until I bought a hardware wallet and went through the process of securing my bitcoin. I realized I alone held the keys to my funds. If I needed to, I could memorize 12 words and cross a border with my wealth intact. No bank. No government printing away my savings. No one to ask for permission.

I began to experience how Bitcoin could give me back my time. When money cannot be inflated, it preserves its purchasing power. The hours I spend earning bitcoin today are hours I can claim back in the future. I’ve lived through its purchasing power increasing, turning effort from years past into greater value today.

Even holding Bitcoin over a four-year window greatly outperforms holding dollars. While the value of the dollar steadily erodes, Bitcoin’s purchasing power has consistently risen.

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If you haven’t already, go download a Lightning wallet: Strike, Aqua, Primal, Zeus, or Wallet of Satoshi (if outside the US). This is for sending small amounts of bitcoin. Treat it like the cash in your pocket. It is for small, everyday payments, not for long-term storage.

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I once had someone at a meetup ask, “I understand Bitcoin is a store of value, but what else can I use it for?”

I sent them 1,000 sats from my phone to theirs in one second, for free, using my Zeus wallet connected to my home node. I told them they could send that bitcoin anywhere in the world instantly, for free or fractions of a penny, with no intermediaries, no borders, no banks, no governments, no permission, and no manipulation.

That instant, global, final settlement is what made Bitcoin resonate with me. Bitcoin is math. Rules without rulers. It removes human error from the system. Seeing Lightning in action convinced me to sell the last of my altcoins in 2020 and fully commit to Bitcoin. Lightning replaced the “use cases” that other tokens claimed to have. Everything else looked like a centralized copy of the same broken monetary system we already have.

Think of Bitcoin’s base layer as an ultra-secure digital vault. It verifies and permanently records all transactions, creating the foundation for everything built on top, like Lightning and financial applications. Without that secure base, nothing above it would work, just as the internet relies on its core protocols to keep everything running securely. Bitcoin’s simplicity and open-source design make it resilient, and unlike every other project in the crypto space, it was released anonymously with no pre-mine or insider advantage. Bitcoin’s origin was an immaculate conception, with code that is open-source, verified and secured by everyone.

Experiencing Bitcoin helps you shift your mindset toward growth. It forces us to look behind the curtain and question our existing systems. Our monetary system, healthcare system, and government structures increasingly show their inherent flaws. It can be hard to question the world and everything we’ve known. Going against the status quo is never easy. But sometimes that’s where true growth and progress lie.

If Bitcoin seems overwhelming, scary, complex, or risky, my advice is simple:

Go buy some Bitcoin. Even $5 worth. You don’t need much to start.

Learn about it by using it. Download a free Lightning wallet. Send some sats to a friend.

Check out all my recommendations for exchanges and hardware here: https://www.erinemalone.com/bitcoin-knowledge

I dive deeper into the ideas of resilience, adaptability, growth mindset, and continuous learning in my new book, Future Proof: The Intersection of Bitcoin and Longevity. It’s full of actionable steps you can take from self-custody, to home mining, to running a node, to future-proofing your health and wealth.

Get the book here: https://amzn.to/45DJopQ

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think of this post and any other topics you’d like to see more of.