F-U-D

Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. There are a lot of things in the life of a Jesus follower (and a Bitcoin hodler) that will cause these feelings.

For example, I recently learned that Abraham Piper, son of the famous pastor, John Piper, has over 750,000 followers on his Bible-bashing TikTok channel. John Piper has been very influential in both my life and the lives of many of my peers through his writings and messages. To see that his son is actively trying to undermine John’s life’s work is really sad and confusing. Through his eloquent TikTok rants, Abraham is casting fear, uncertainty, and doubt upon the Christian faith. FUD like this can both cause Christians to question their convictions and strengthen a non-Christian’s disbelief.

In Bitcoin, the term FUD is used to refer to news article, tweets and other forms of anti-Bitcoin communication. Whether it’s coming from Peter Schiff, Janet Yellen or Bill Gates, there are many famous detractors. The hottest FUD in the news today involves Bitcoin’s energy use and climate-change impact. For example, the BBC recently reported that Bitcoin uses more energy than Argentina! Rhetoric like this can cause people to think that Bitcoin proponents are exploiting the world’s resources for their own greed. Although there are some excellent counterpoints available, news reports like this can cause people to write off Bitcoin without thorough investigation.

So for those of us hodling either Jesus, Bitcoin or both, how do we deal with FUD?

There are probably a lot of ways to tackle this, but let me give you three simple ways to prevent FUD from convincing you to sell out early.

A. Turn off the FUD.

The world is a much simpler place when you turn down the noise coming from social media and your Google news feed. Fasting from Facebook, Instagram and even main stream media can do wonders. In late 2018 I went through a season of having anxiety to the point where I couldn’t sleep at night. They were generalized worries about the world – things that I had no control over. After listening to some wise counsel from Jordan Peterson, I made the resolution to focus on the things that I can change, and worry less about the things outside of my control. Along with this came a decision to restrict my social media use. It did wonders for my soul.

The average phone-addicted person could benefit from regular breaks. A great goal to shoot for is putting away your phone 1 hour per day, 1 day per week, and 1 week per year.

Author of the Bitcoin Standard, Saffadean Ammous was asked on a recent podcast to comment on how to he keeps his resolve for Bitcoin and he said the same thing: turn off main stream media. We must be careful with this, however. It’s important that we stay connected to the world and are aware of what’s happening so that we are not blind-sided by a major event. Additionally, we want to make sure that we are not simply accumulating voices around us that will tell us what we want to hear. This is something that we’ll address next.

B. Pause and breakdown the FUD.

Early on, when I was building my conviction towards Bitcoin, my brother-in-law and I would purposefully look for FUD in order to examine it and refute it. We were wary of entering an echo-chamber where our Youtube and newsfeed only showed us pro-Bitcoin arguments. By actively searching for arguments against Bitcoin, it ensured that if we were to move forward with investing, we were doing so in an informed manner. I wouldn’t say we set out to prove Bitcoin wrong, but we did wade into it with a healthy dose of skepticism.

It’s important to do this when figuring out one’s religious views too. One of the best modern examples of investigating the claims of the Christian faith is that of Lee Strobel. Lee was a journalist for the Chicago Tribune and an ardent atheist. In the 1980’s he set out to dissect and dismantle the arguments for Christianity. He presumed he would fairy quickly be able to find the thread that once pulled, could unravel the entire system. He quickly realized that thread was the resurrection of Jesus. If he could find strong evidence against the resurrection, demonstrating that Jesus was either a fictional character or dead in the ground somewhere, Christianity would be worthless. Strobel was correct in reasoning this, given that even the Bible says that if the resurrection didn’t happen, our faith is in vain (1 Corinthians 15:12-19).

As Strobel conducted his investigation, consulting with various theologians and archeological experts, he did something completely unexpected: he changed his mind about Jesus. He came to the conclusion that Jesus actually was real and literally rose from the dead. His story can be read in his book The Case for Christ or through the more recent film of the same name (which has surprisingly good acting for a Christian movie).

I appreciate it when someone is willing to change their mind, given new evidence. In Bitcoin I see this happening all the time. Take the example of the Motley Fool, who in December of 2020 published a beauty of an article entitled: “Here’s Why I Won’t Buy Bitcoin, and You Shouldn’t, Either.” This was one of the pieces of FUD that my brother-in-law and I dissected on our journey to investing in Bitcoin.

Low and behold, just like Lee Strobel, the Motley fool changed their own minds and announced a $5 Million Investment in Bitcoin less than 3 months later! While I respect their willingness to change their mind, I’ve recently taken a “turn off the FUD” approach to the Motley Fool due to their click-bait, contradictory articles. To think that they were pumping out anti-Bitcoin propaganda while considering putting it on their corporate treasury is deceptive.

C. Stay connected to believers.

There’s nothing like a daily dose of Michael Saylor to keep your Bitcoin conviction strong. Perhaps it’s just human nature to forget why we believe what we believe. Or perhaps there is something about living with a minority viewpoint that causes our convictions to wear down over time. Either way, we need people around us who hold similar beliefs. When are exposed to their thinking, it strengthens our resolve as well.

“As iron sharpens iron,
    so one person sharpens another.”
– Proverbs 27:17

Christians need each other. It’s why Jesus created the Church – the global body of believers, each with our different strengths and weaknesses. When one of us fall, another can pick him or her up (Ecclesiastes 4:10).

In his novel, The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis writes what in my opinion, is one of the best scenes in his entire Narnia series. He describes Prince Rilian, having just been freed from the the silver chair, deep in the underworld, along with his rescuers, being slowly subdued by the Green Witch’s enchantment. This enchantment causes them to forget their former brighter past in the overworld. It causes them to forget the sun, and even Aslan (the Christ figure) himself. Finally, it takes the sacrificial effort of their brave friend Puddleglum, who stamps out the enchanted fire with his bare webbed foot, to set the children and the prince free from the witch’s deception.

In the same way, we need friends in our lives who are willing and ready to stand for truth, even at their own expense, for the good of others. Their courage will inspire us by reminding us of the value that we hold in Christ. This is why the author of the letter to the Hebrews encourages believers to continue meeting together (Hebrews 10:25). Having a like-minded community around us reminds us of the infinite value of what we possess, so that we can keep hodling.

So what are day traders thinking? As Michael Saylor points out, those who speculate with Bitcoin have no idea what they possess. Bitcoin is an “extraordinary pristine asset” much like owning real estate in Manhattan, but entirely mobile and more secure. If you own real estate in Manhattan, you never sell it. You simply borrow money from it to live and watch as the value of the asset goes up year over year. If these Bitcoin traders actually understood the value of what they possessed, they would never sell it.

Here’s my point: in the same way that FUD tempts hodlers to sell their Bitcoin, there are things that tempt Christians to turn away from their greatest asset too. What is that great asset, which is the greatest, most valuable thing in human existence? Answer: not Bitcoin, but a relationship with God.

In Christianity the saying is true that it’s not so much what you know, it’s who you know. Knowing God and becoming a part of his family is worth everything. Christians through the ages have understood this. It’s why the disciples of Jesus refused to recant their claim of his resurrection even when faced with torture and death. They were willing to stand for the truth for the betterment of others, even at their own expense. Because they knew that their wealth in Jesus extends beyond the grave and holds promise for the age to come (see Ephesians 2:7). They didn’t sell out early, they held on for dear life.

Success Criteria

When it comes to adoption, I believe Bitcoin and Christianity have two very different success criteria for lack of a better term. In Bitcoin, “number go up” is the ultimate proof of the system working. Hodlers have had to endure times of lean and times of plenty… but it’s been mostly times of plenty, so long as they’ve held it for more than 3 years during any stretch of Bitcoin’s existence.

When the price of Bitcoin continues to rise at a rate of more than 100% per year relative to USD, it raises eye-brows. Anyone in the world with internet access can notice the trend, see where it is going, do some research, and buy in. The proof of Bitcoin becomes stronger every time more people adopt it. Through its network effect, it becomes stronger as more people buy in. In this way, hodlers become more sure of Bitcoin’s worth in real time, as the number goes up, so long as they keep their focus on a long time horizon.

Christianity, however, is not simply authenticated by numbers and adoption in real time. There are two key markers for Christianity’s proof of success. The first proof comes from Jesus’ resurrection 2000 years ago. Much like the decentralized spread of Bitcoin, the early church grew exponentially in the years after Jesus’ ascension. The growth of the Christian church is especially astonishing given that in its first 300 years it was under intense persecution.

You might think I’m over-stretching this analogy by comparing the start of Bitcoin to the start of Christianity… but I’m not the first person to notice the similarities:

“Last week a client asked me, ‘what’s the chance of Bitcoin going to zero,’ and I ask, ‘what’s the chance of Christianity going to zero?’ It’s just not… it’s left the station.” – Ross Stevens of Stone Ridge Asset Management

The second proof of Christianity will come at the “end of the age” when Christ returns. At this time, everyone who holds to a faith in Jesus will be massively rewarded, and those who refused to buy-in will suffer by the wayside. You might say, “that’s not fair! Why would Jesus reward those who trust in him and punish those who don’t?” By that same logic, is Bitcoin fair? Bitcoin rewards those who adopt it and punishes those who don’t. We seek to compel our friends and family to invest in Bitcoin because we love them and want them to succeed and not get crushed by the collapse of the fiat system. [Quick aside: there is a huge first-mover advantage in Bitcoin that does not exist in Christianity (see the parable of the vineyard). This comparison could be its own article, but Jesus is pointing out that even if you adopt the Kingdom of God later than others, you still get equal benefits because of God’s great generosity.]

So we have proof at the start and the end, but what about the meantime? As we wait for Christ’s return, Jesus hodlers have been given something that powerfully offers assurance of the value of our possession – the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is Jesus’ guiding presence in the life of a Christian that affirms in our hearts what we believe.

The Holy Spirit changes the believer, enabling them to see the “fiat system” of sin and death in our world. The Holy Spirit then enables Christians to live counter-culturally – to love their neighbours and even their enemies – because their operating standard is based in another world. This is one of the key reasons why Christianity thrived in its first 3 centuries under persecution. As Tim Keller says, “It was because the early church didn’t fit in with its surrounding culture, but rather challenged it in love, that Christianity eventually had such an effect on it.”

It is our sincere belief that Jesus is worth holding onto for dear life. We also believe that Bitcoin is worth hodling far into the future. If you’re a hodler too, our hope is that whatever FUD you’re dealing with, that you’ll turn down the noise, pause and think through the arguments, and that you’ll stay connected with communities that support your beliefs. That said, perhaps you’re not convinced about Bitcoin or Christianity. If that’s you, my hope is that you’ll take some time to do some research, perhaps starting from First Principles. The truth can handle investigation – go search for it!