The last time I really bugged anyone to buy bitcoin — and I mean in that “risking an uncomfortable conversation kind of way” — it was my younger brother.
I don’t really see my immediate family except on certain holidays, as I’m a transplant, so I visit them out of state when possible. However, as some readers may know from personal experience, having a visiting bitcoiner family member at the dinner table can be … interesting. Challenging, perhaps. Maybe kind of tense at times.
In fact, see my popular “Bitcoin Lingo” holiday vocabulary guide printed in the Daily Record Nov. 3, 2024, which I wrote to try to smooth things out for us all.
After a couple of Thanksgiving visits following my own introduction to bitcoin and my initial journeys down the rabbit hole of learning, you could say my family knew that I was “enthusiastic” about the topic — wanting to share and willing to overshare at the slightest provocation.
But I’m not pushy. I’m a teacher, more so than an evangelist. I’ll tell you all I think you need to know about a topic to make the decision that’s right for you, and then I’m done. Do what you will. I obtain satisfaction by delivering the message in all its glory, yet I remain somewhat detached from the results.
I can tell you what colors it comes in and more about the extended warranty that you’ll probably ever need to know. I can tell you where the beef is sourced from, what it ate, what wine pairs best with it and why — even how many calories every dessert on the tray has. But I won’t lie, or even joke, that the calories “don’t count on weekends,” just to close a sale.
But if you’re “full,” I could make dessert “to go.” That’s not being pushy, it’s just useful information, right?
I also won’t hold back on politics or religion either, among friends and with permission to “speak freakily,” but at the end of the day I’m here to inform, not to convert. To show the light, but not burn you with it.
That said, sometimes it’s hard to watch close friends and family miss out. Call it drowning or burning, whatever; it gets hard to just watch.
X user @ronin21btc posted this week, “I’m genuinely starting to get a bit concerned for people with no #Bitcoin. Like, in a sincere loving way.. It’s like knowing somebody doesn’t have a space on a lifeboat..”
Sometimes, you do need to get a little pushy on the really important things. Well, whether we need to or not, at times we do so anyway.
Do with this information what you will, Roswell, but at $100,000 bitcoin now serving as our base, I’m giving you the same letter I gave my flesh-and-blood brother years ago, just before bitcoin’s U.S. dollar valuation reached $10,000 for the first time, because I was certain then that it had more zeros still to add. And in my humble opinion, it still does.
Not financial advice — brotherly love advice.
From: Guy Malone
Date: Sun, May 19, 2019, 3:02 p.m.
Subject: “We’re in the End Game now … “
(Note: This email has been edited mildly for improved readability, from more informal email language.)
Hey, bitcoin is breaking $8,000 this week. You remember how recently I told you it went from 4 to $5,000 in a single day.
It’s now entering a period of huge bull surges; everybody in the industry knows it. So this is my personal recommendation and one-time-only official brotherly pester. Now — as in right now, this week — is the time to buy 1/10th of a bitcoin if you can afford it (approx. $800) or set up a $100 weekly automatically recurring purchase until you get there.
This is the email you will cuss about and break things 5 years from now if ignored, haha.
There are way too many news articles I could forward to you, but you won’t read them. But with Fidelity offering bitcoin now to their HNW clients, the mainstream money is starting to flow in hugely, and it will not stop until after we’re both dead. All these big firms and names are making people feel safe that bitcoin/digital currencies really are the future and feeling that they’re safe enough and regulated enough already to invest in. There are a dozen other points I could make but won’t.
I did post this video to the 16,000-memberFB (Facebook) group I run, though — it makes a decent argument for owning either 0.28 or 1/10th while one still can. No hype, boring voice; you don’t have to watch; just play in the background while driving if you have no time right now. (YouTube video, “How Many Bitcoin Should You Own?” by YouTube’s “The Modern Investor,” May, 2019.)
Now is the time, though. Start even with $25 per week now if you have to. 2019 and 2020 are going to see amazing parabolic J-curves in price. You probably won’t be able to afford 1/10 or 1/4 of a btc after 2021.
Okay, this is the only time I’ll pester about it.
Love ya and hi to the missus!
GB
-g-
Narrator: “And in the fullness of time, the other Malone did indeed buy some bitcoin.”
But how much? And does he have any regrets? Answering for Daily Record readers, he replied via text,
“Bitcoin is like a shed. It’s nice and great — just wish I would have gone BIGGER.”
— the other Malone
Guy Malone, a certified bitcoin professional, holds three certifications in digital currencies and has written and edited for publications such as Bitcoin Magazine, Bitcoin News and Cointelegraph. Reader input for future columns is welcome. Contact Malone via copyedit@rdrnews.com and/or @RichNFrenz on X. The views expressed in this column are those of the author.
