Bitcoin Today Is Where the Internet Was in the 2000s (The Store of Value Revolution)
Welcome back, WeWill readers!
Let's start this one off with a little time travel.
Picture this: It's 1999. You own a successful retail store. Business is good, customers are happy, and this whole "internet" thing seems like some nerdy trend that'll blow over soon enough.
Then, some guy walks into your store talking about "online shopping." He's saying people will buy stuff through their computers instead of coming to your actual store.
You laugh. I mean, come on, who the hell would buy something they can't even touch first? How do you try on clothes through a screen? This internet nonsense will never replace real shopping.
Fast forward to today.
Amazon is worth over a trillion dollars. Those "smart" store owners who embraced this weird new protocol early? They're absolutely crushing it. The ones who dismissed it as just another trend?
Just walk through Schweinfurt's (my hometown's) city center these days, half the shops are empty and the ones still open are barely hanging on.
The internet wasn't just some new tech toy.
It fundamentally changed how humans exchange information and value. The businesses that recognized this early didn't just survive, they completely dominated. The ones that didn't? They're the empty storefronts you walk past every day, wondering what the hell happened.
Here's where this gets uncomfortable:
Bitcoin today is where the internet was in the 1990s.
So let me ask you this:
Do you want to be the store owner who said "fuck it" to the internet?
Look, I've been in the Bitcoin space for over 10 years now. I've heard it all, every concern, every reason why Bitcoin will fail. Some of the most common ones I hear:
"It's too volatile."
"The government will not allow it."
"It's just speculation."
"Real estate is safer."
But the most frequent one, the one that comes up literally every single time I mention Bitcoin?
"Bitcoin has no value."
If you believe this, I totally get it. But before you write Bitcoin off completely, follow me on this one. Let's go back to basics and figure out what "value" actually means when it comes to storing it.
Because here's the thing: to understand whether Bitcoin has value, we first need to understand what makes anything valuable as a store of value in the first place.
The Perfect Store of Value
Here's what I've figured out over the years: there's never been a perfect store of value. If there were, we'd all be storing our money in the exact same thing. Instead, we've been forced to choose multiple half-baked options.
But before we look at what exists today, let's figure out what the perfect store of value would actually look like.
I'd like to invite you to this little mental experiment. If you want to challenge yourself, stop reading and write down what YOU think the characteristics of a perfect store of value should be. If you don't have the time or brain capacity, no prob, let's figure this out together.
Here's what I've concluded:
Fixed Supply
Euros and Dollars can be printed infinitely by central banks. When someone can just create more of something whenever they want, your piece of the pie gets smaller. It's basic math.
I want something that can't be diluted by anyone, ever.
Perfectly Divisible
You can't sell 0.3% of your house when you need quick cash. You're forced into all-or-nothing decisions when you want to access your money.
I want to access any amount I need without selling everything.
Highly Liquid
Gold shops close at 6 pm. Stock markets close on weekends. Real estate? Good luck selling that quickly, you're looking at months of paperwork and hoping someone actually wants your specific property.
I want to sell it right now, at 3 am on Christmas morning, if I have to.
Portable
Try running from a collapsing country with your house in your backpack. History is full of people who needed to flee quickly and lost everything because their wealth was tied up in stuff they couldn't move.
I want my entire savings in my pocket.
No Cost of Carry
Storing €10 million in houses means insurance, property managers, maintenance, taxes, and constant headaches. Scale that up, and you need a whole team just to manage your wealth storage.
Rich people spend enormous amounts of money just to keep their money safe. That's insane.
Whether I have €10 or €10 billion, storage costs should be basically zero.
No Third-Party Risk
Banks can freeze accounts. Governments can seize assets. Tenants can trash your property. Every time someone else controls your money, you're not really wealthy; you're just trusting them to keep their promise.
I want something that's mine and mine alone.
Globally Accessible
Your Swiss bank account doesn't help when you're broke in Bangkok. Your real estate empire is useless when you're stuck somewhere needing quick cash.
I want access to my money from literally anywhere with an internet connection.
Verifiable
Real gold or fake gold? Most people couldn't tell the difference without expensive equipment.
I want to verify what I own instantly, without guessing or hoping.
Equal Treatment
Try getting the same investment deals as Elon Musk. The current system has different rules for different people based on how much money you already have. That's not fair, that's a rigged game.
I want the exact same rules whether I'm broke or a billionaire.
Fungible
One house ≠ another house. One painting ≠ another painting. Every unique asset requires individual evaluation and pricing.
One unit should equal any other unit, every time.
Now, guess which store of value is the only one to check off all these boxes.
Surprise, surprise, it's Bitcoin.
Look, if you've made it this far through all those characteristics, you deserve a f*cking medal. But let's not stop now when we're about to connect the dots, right?
Bitcoin:
It has a fixed supply, unlike everything else.
It's perfectly divisible, unlike real estate.
It's highly liquid unlike unlike real estate.
It's completely portable, unlike everything else.
It has no cost of carry, unlike everything else.
It has no third-party risk, unlike banks.
It's globally accessible, unlike everything else.
It's easily verifiable, unlike gold.
It treats everyone equally, unlike fiat money.
It's not fakeable, unlike art.
It's perfectly fungible, unlike houses.
The Smart Money Already Knows
Here's what's happening while you've been debating whether Bitcoin has "real value":
BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, went from calling Bitcoin "an index of money laundering" to launching a Bitcoin ETF and actively accumulating.
JP Morgan went from calling Bitcoin a "fraud" to offering Bitcoin services to clients.
MicroStrategy has put over $5 billion of its corporate treasury into Bitcoin. These aren't crypto bros making emotional decisions, these are trillion-dollar institutions that had their teams do the exact same analysis we just went through.
Here's the thing: Bitcoin is sitting near its all-time highs, and you probably haven't seen a single mainstream headline about it. No breaking news. No retail FOMO.
This is institutional accumulation happening in plain sight while everyone else is distracted. The smart money is building positions before the mainstream catches on.
They've figured out what we just walked through: Bitcoin is the first thing in human history to check every single box for the perfect store of value.
What This Means for You
I intentionally didn't go into the technical details of Bitcoin here. How the blockchain works, what mining actually does, the cryptographic proofs, that's all fascinating stuff, but it's not what matters for this conversation.
What matters is whether you agree with the characteristics of a perfect store of value that we just walked through.
If you disagree with some of the points above, I challenge you to do the research yourself. Dig into why you think I'm wrong. Test your assumptions. See if your preferred store of value actually delivers what it promises.
Or perhaps you know just more than I do, then jump straight to the comment section below and let me know where I got it wrong. I'm always happy to learn something new.
But if you found yourself nodding along to most of what we covered, you might want to ask yourself the same question I asked earlier: Do you want to be the store owner who dismissed the internet in 1995?
The choice is yours. But remember - the smart money has already made theirs.
That's it for today.
