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Bitcoin Is Honest Money. Prove Me Wrong.

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Essay · Money · Philosophy

Bitcoin Is Honest Money.
Prove Me Wrong.

By Axel Hoogland

Every serious objection to Bitcoin has already been thought through — and answered. This is a challenge to critics to find one that hasn’t.

2026  ·  A challenge to skeptics  ·  Not financial advice

“The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work.”

— Satoshi Nakamoto, 2009

What Is Honest Money?

Money, at its core, is a technology for storing and transferring value across time and space. For thousands of years humans have searched for a form of money that couldn’t be corrupted — that couldn’t be debased by kings, inflated away by central banks, or confiscated by governments with printing presses and good intentions.

Gold came closest. Fixed supply. Scarce. No one could create more by decree. But gold has real problems — it’s heavy, hard to divide, difficult to verify, and nearly impossible to transmit across borders without trusting intermediaries. The very institutions gold was meant to protect us from ended up holding it for us. And once they held it, they printed paper on top of it. And once they printed paper, they removed the gold backing entirely.

This is not conspiracy theory. This is history. It happened in 1971. The dollar has lost over 98% of its purchasing power since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913.

Bitcoin is the first monetary technology in human history that combines the scarcity of gold with the transmissibility of the internet — and does so without requiring trust in any institution, government, or person. That is what makes it honest money. The rules are in the code. The code is public. No one can change the supply schedule. No one can freeze your coins without your keys. No one can print more.

Fixed supply of 21 million coins. Predictable issuance schedule. Decentralized — no single point of control or failure. Permissionless — no one can deny you access. Censorship resistant — no one can stop a valid transaction. Verifiable — anyone can audit the entire system.

Bitcoin as Money: The State of Adoption Argument

Critics love to point out that Bitcoin fails the three classical tests of money: store of value, medium of exchange, and unit of account. They’re not entirely wrong — yet. But this critique completely ignores that every monetary technology in history went through an adoption curve where these properties emerged gradually.

The dollar wasn’t always trusted. Gold wasn’t always liquid. The internet wasn’t always fast. Pointing at Bitcoin’s current limitations as though they’re permanent is like critiquing the iPhone in 2007 for not having an app store.

The sequence of monetary adoption is predictable and Bitcoin is following it precisely:

Stage 1 — Collectible / Speculation

Early adopters buy it because they believe others will value it later. This is where Bitcoin spent most of its early years. It still has some of this character today but has largely moved beyond it.

Stage 2 — Store of Value

Institutions, sovereigns, and sophisticated investors hold it as a hedge against currency debasement. This is where Bitcoin is now. BlackRock’s ETF alone holds over $86 billion. Strategy holds over 762,000 coins — more than 3% of the entire supply. Nation states are building reserves.

Stage 3 — Medium of Exchange

As volatility dampens with deeper liquidity and wider adoption, transacting in Bitcoin becomes practical. Layer 2 solutions like Lightning Network are already enabling this. As the price stabilizes at higher levels, the incentive to spend rather than hold increases.

Stage 4 — Unit of Account

Prices denominated in satoshis. This is the final stage and the most distant — but not implausible in a world where Bitcoin has achieved reserve asset status globally.

21M Maximum Supply. Ever.
3-4M Estimated Lost Forever
762K Coins Held by Strategy
$170B US Spot ETF Assets

Bitcoin as Philosophy

Bitcoin is not just a financial instrument. It is a philosophical statement — arguably the most important one made in the field of money since Bretton Woods.

Distrust of institutions is not paranoia. The 2008 financial crisis demonstrated that the institutions entrusted with the monetary system could be catastrophically wrong, spectacularly rewarded for failure, and bailed out with money created from nothing. The genesis block was not subtle about this. Satoshi embedded a newspaper headline about bank bailouts directly into Bitcoin’s first block.

Sovereignty over your own wealth is a human right. The ability to hold value that cannot be confiscated, frozen, or inflated away without your consent is not a radical idea. It is the natural extension of property rights. Bitcoin makes that right technologically enforceable for the first time in history.

Scarcity is not the enemy of prosperity. The dominant monetary philosophy of the 20th century held that money supply should be managed. Bitcoin rejects this entirely. Its scarcity is not a bug but the central feature. Scarcity is what gives money its meaning as a store of value across time.

Rules over rulers. Perhaps the deepest philosophical claim Bitcoin makes is that mathematical rules enforced by cryptography are more trustworthy than any human institution. Not because humans are evil — but because humans are fallible, corruptible, and mortal. Code, once deployed and sufficiently decentralized, is not.

The Environmental Argument — Already Answered

Bitcoin uses an enormous amount of energy. This is true. What critics leave out is what kind of energy, and what Bitcoin does with it.

Bitcoin miners are uniquely flexible electricity consumers — they can be switched on and off instantly, making them ideal buyers of stranded and curtailed renewable energy that would otherwise be wasted. Wind farms and solar arrays frequently produce more power than grids can absorb. Bitcoin absorbs the excess, making previously uneconomic renewable projects viable.

More compellingly: Bitcoin miners are increasingly deployed to combust methane — the gas vented from oil wells and landfills that would otherwise enter the atmosphere directly. Methane is roughly 80 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2 over a 20-year period. Using it to mine Bitcoin converts it to CO2, dramatically reducing net emissions. This is not spin. It is chemistry and thermodynamics.

The environmental argument against Bitcoin is a legacy talking point that has not kept pace with how mining has actually evolved. The narrative persists not because it is accurate but because it is politically useful to those with incentives to undermine Bitcoin’s legitimacy.

The Objections — And Why They’ve Been Answered

What follows is an honest accounting of the most serious objections to Bitcoin, and the responses that Bitcoin thinkers have developed over 17 years of adversarial scrutiny. These are the actual strongest arguments — tested against people who have spent careers trying to find the fatal flaw.

Objection: Quantum Computing Will Break Bitcoin’s Cryptography

A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could theoretically derive private keys from public keys, compromising holdings.

Quantum computing is an existential threat to every cryptographic system on earth — every bank, every government database, every secure communication. Bitcoin is actually among the more adaptable systems since it can hard fork to quantum-resistant algorithms, which already exist and are being standardized. This objection proves too much — if quantum breaks Bitcoin, it breaks everything.
Objection: Transaction Fees Can’t Sustain Miner Security After Halvings

Block rewards halve every four years until ~2140. At zero issuance, miners must be compensated by fees alone. If fees are insufficient, hash rate drops and the network becomes vulnerable.

This objection ignores the difficulty adjustment — one of Bitcoin’s most elegant mechanisms. If hash rate drops, difficulty adjusts down, making mining profitable again at a new equilibrium. At $1 million per coin, even tiny fees in BTC terms are substantial in dollar terms. The security budget concern disappears at scale.
Objection: A Superior Competitor Will Replace Bitcoin

Technology has network effects that shift. Something better could emerge and Bitcoin could become MySpace.

This analogy fundamentally misunderstands monetary network effects. MySpace lost to Facebook because Facebook was more useful in ways users could immediately feel. Monetary network effects are far stickier — the value of money IS the network. Gold held its monetary premium for 5,000 years. Bitcoin may have crossed a similar threshold.
Objection: Governments Will Ban It

Sovereign monetary authorities will not permit a parallel monetary system to challenge their control.

China has “banned” Bitcoin multiple times. It still trades in China. Bans on information and mathematics don’t work. More importantly, the US regulatory posture has reversed dramatically. Spot ETFs are approved. SAB 121 has been rescinded. Institutional banks can now custody digital assets. The world’s largest capital market is opening, not closing.
Objection: Bitcoin Is Too Volatile To Be Money

Something that drops 70% in a year cannot function as a reliable store of value.

Volatility is a function of market depth and adoption, not an intrinsic property of Bitcoin. Every asset becomes less volatile as liquidity deepens. Gold was volatile when its market was thin. Bitcoin’s volatility has been declining measurably each cycle as institutional participation deepens. This objection describes the present state and projects it as permanent — a logical error.

The Real Challenge

After seventeen years of adversarial scrutiny by some of the sharpest minds in cryptography, economics, and computer science — every major objection to Bitcoin has been examined and answered.

The honest answer to “what could derail Bitcoin?” is the unknown unknown — the thing no one has thought of yet. That’s intellectually serious. That’s the right answer.

The challenge to skeptics is simple: find a serious objection that the Bitcoin community hasn’t already examined in depth and answered.

Even Fidelity — one of the world’s largest asset managers — has concluded that ignoring Bitcoin is no longer a prudent approach. The burden of proof has shifted. It is no longer on Bitcoin advocates to justify owning it — it is on skeptics to justify owning zero.

Most people who try to find a fatal flaw end up owning Bitcoin instead.

The Structural Buying Pressure Nobody Is Talking About

Beyond the philosophical and technical case, there is a mechanical reality forming in markets that deserves attention. Fidelity’s 2026 research finds that Bitcoin has delivered the highest risk-adjusted returns of any asset class over both five and ten year horizons — and that even a 1-3% allocation has historically produced meaningful portfolio improvements.

Companies like Strategy have pioneered a model where corporate balance sheets treat Bitcoin as a primary treasury reserve asset, funding ongoing purchases through equity and non-margin debt instruments. Strategy alone holds over 762,000 coins — more than 3.6% of the total supply — and has structured its balance sheet specifically to avoid any forced liquidation scenario. This is a one-way accumulation machine.

This is happening simultaneously with the halving-driven supply reduction — the programmatic 50% reduction in new Bitcoin issuance that occurs every four years. Less new supply entering the market. More institutional demand absorbing existing supply. ETFs holding billions on behalf of pension funds, endowments, and retail investors who will never touch a private key.

These forces compound. They do not reverse without a fundamental change in the thesis — and the thesis has only gotten stronger with time.

The Honest Remaining Risks

Intellectual honesty requires acknowledging what is genuinely uncertain.

The unknown unknown. Bitcoin could fail in ways no one has conceived. This is true of any system. It is taken seriously precisely because it cannot be dismissed — but also cannot be acted upon. You cannot hedge against what you cannot imagine.

A catastrophic BIP. The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal process is the mechanism by which protocol changes are proposed and adopted. Conservative governance makes bad changes unlikely — but not impossible. The community’s demonstrated ability to resist even well-intentioned changes (the block size wars) suggests this risk is managed, not eliminated.

Partial success. The most likely “disappointing” outcome is not failure but incomplete success — Bitcoin becomes a globally recognized store of value held by institutions and sovereigns, reaching prices that would have seemed absurd a decade ago, but never fully displacing fiat as the unit of account for everyday life. This would be an extraordinary outcome for holders while representing a partial failure of the original vision.

Conclusion: The Game Theory of Honest Money

You don’t have to believe Bitcoin will succeed to understand why it might.

A small number of people who deeply understand the monetary system, the history of currency debasement, and the technical properties of Bitcoin will continue to accumulate. Their accumulation drives price. Rising price attracts attention. Attention drives adoption. Adoption deepens liquidity. Deeper liquidity dampens volatility. Dampened volatility enables broader use as money. Broader use as money drives further adoption.

The masses don’t need to understand sound money theory for this to play out. They never do. They didn’t understand TCP/IP to use the internet. They didn’t understand double-entry bookkeeping to trust banks. They will not need to understand elliptic curve cryptography to hold Bitcoin.

History doesn’t require universal understanding to move in a direction. It requires enough people who understand to make it inevitable for everyone else.

The question is not whether Bitcoin is perfect. No monetary system is. The question is whether it is more honest than what we have — and whether honest money, once available, can ultimately lose to dishonest money in a world where information moves freely.

If you’ve found a flaw the Bitcoin community hasn’t already answered, the world is listening.

This essay represents the author’s analysis and philosophical perspective. It is not financial advice. Bitcoin is a volatile asset. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Do your own research. Hold your own keys.

By Axel Hoogland

MyWheelLife.com

Bitcoin Is Honest Money · 2026  ·  Not your keys · Not your coins

bitcoin_honest_money_wordpress (2).html

Bitcoin Maps and a Simple Observation

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I opened the Bitcoin map inside Cash App today.

Then I opened https://btcmap.org.

Both maps showed the same thing.

A large number of businesses.

Restaurants, shops, and local services spread across the city.

For a long time, the common assumption has been that Bitcoin is mostly held, not used.

But when you look at these maps, that assumption becomes harder to maintain.

These are not theoretical use cases.

They are physical businesses that have made the decision to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment.

What Happens When a Business Accepts Bitcoin

When a business enables Bitcoin payments, something else happens at the same time.

It gets listed.

On Cash App, it appears on the local Bitcoin map.
On BTC Map, it becomes part of a global directory.

In both cases, the business becomes easier to find.

A Different Type of Customer

Most marketing is broad.

Businesses advertise and hope the right customer eventually sees it.

These maps work differently.

Someone opening a Bitcoin map is already looking for a place to spend.

That is a narrower and more specific type of demand.

The business is not trying to attract attention.

It is being surfaced directly to someone who is already interested.

A Small but Growing Effect

Each individual business making this decision is not a major event.

But the pattern is noticeable.

A few businesses appear.
Then a cluster forms.
Then an area becomes dense.

That pattern shows up on both maps.

Larger Businesses Are Starting to Participate

This is not limited to small or experimental businesses.

Steak ‘n Shake now accepts Bitcoin.

That does not mean universal adoption is imminent.

But it does suggest that accepting Bitcoin is moving from the edge toward something more normal.

Why Early Adoption Matters

There is a practical advantage to being early.

When fewer businesses are listed:

  • Each one is more visible
  • Each one stands out more clearly

As more businesses adopt, that visibility becomes more diluted.

This is true for most discovery platforms.

A Simple Takeaway

Bitcoin adoption is often discussed in abstract terms.

But these maps show something more concrete.

Businesses are choosing to accept it.
And when they do, they become easier to find.

That is a small change at the individual level.

But repeated many times, it starts to look like a system forming.

Final Thought

You do not need to assume that Bitcoin will replace existing systems to notice what is happening.

You can simply open a map and observe:

Businesses are adopting it.

And the ones that do it earlier are easier to see.

$200K vs $1.2M: A SATA + STRC Thought Experiment on Reaching F.I.R.E.

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For years, the standard framework for retirement income has been the 4% rule.

The idea is simple: if you want $48,500 per year of spending, you would typically need roughly:

$48,500 × 25 = $1,212,500

In other words, about $1.2 million invested in a diversified portfolio to sustainably withdraw that income.

But recently I came across an interesting thought experiment involving two relatively new preferred securities.

Before diving into the math, it’s important to note that these securities ultimately sit within financial structures connected to Bitcoin, so they carry some exposure to the long-term success of Bitcoin itself. More on that later.

Two High-Yield Preferred Securities

Two securities caught my attention:

  • Strategy Series C Preferred (STRC) – currently yielding about 11.5%
  • Strive Asset Management Preferred (SATA) – currently yielding about 12.75%

Both are preferred securities issued by companies building financial products around Bitcoin treasury strategies.

An interesting feature is their dividend timing.

  • STRC has an ex-dividend date around the 15th of the month
  • SATA has an ex-dividend date around the 28th of the month

The actual cash payment arrives roughly 15 days later, but what matters for dividend eligibility is simply holding the shares on the ex-dividend date.

After that date passes, an investor can sell the shares and still receive the dividend.

The Rotation Idea

Because the ex-dividend dates occur at different times of the month, a strategy some investors discuss is rotating between the two securities:

  1. Hold STRC through its ex-dividend date (~15th)
  2. After the ex-date passes, sell and move into SATA
  3. Hold SATA through its ex-dividend date (~28th)
  4. Then rotate back to STRC and repeat

In theory, this rotation attempts to capture both dividend streams each month.

The Yield Math

Using approximate yields:

SATA: 12.75%
STRC: 11.5%

Combined:

12.75% + 11.5% = 24.25%

If an investor pays roughly 24% tax on the income:

24.25% × 0.76 ≈ 18.4% after tax

That’d give this investor $18,400 per a year income on $100k or $36,400 per a year on $200k.

The Early Retirement Thought Experiment

Suppose an early retired investor allocated $200,000 to this strategy.

At a 24.25% gross yield, the income would be:

$200,000 × 0.2425 = $48,500 per year

Under the traditional 4% rule, producing that same income would require:

$48,500 × 25 = $1,212,500

So the comparison looks like this:

StrategyCapital Required
Traditional 4% rule~$1.2 million
Preferred rotation idea~$200,000

That’s roughly a 6× difference in required capital.

Even More Interesting for Early Retirees

For some early retirees who structure their income carefully, qualified dividend income can fall within the 0% federal tax bracket.

In that scenario, the full 24.25% yield could theoretically flow through without federal income tax.

Using the same $200,000 example:

InvestmentYieldAnnual Income
$200,00024.25%$48,500

That level of income could cover a meaningful portion of living expenses for many households.

The Bitcoin Connection

It’s important to understand what ultimately sits underneath these securities.

Both STRC and SATA are part of financial structures built around companies holding significant amounts of Bitcoin on their balance sheets.

At the base of these preferred securities is therefore some degree of Bitcoin risk.

If Bitcoin were to fail as an asset class entirely, the underlying business models supporting these preferreds would likely fail as well.

However, if Bitcoin continues to grow and remain valuable over time, these structures should continue to function as designed.

It is also possible that as demand for these types of securities increases, the dividend yields could gradually decline. Markets tend to compress yields when large numbers of investors compete for the same income-producing assets.

So the yields discussed above should be viewed as the current state of the market, not necessarily a permanent condition.

Finally there is company risk. Strive (ASST) issues SATA and Strategy (MSTR) issues STRC. Either company could fail for some generic business reason and that woudl also be a risk, just like any business.

Final Thoughts

For decades, the 4% rule has been a useful guideline for thinking about retirement income.

But financial markets are constantly evolving, and new structures occasionally appear that change the math in interesting ways.

This rotation idea may or may not prove durable over the long run. But it highlights how emerging financial instruments—especially those tied to Bitcoin treasury strategies—are beginning to create entirely new types of income assets.

And sometimes, when you run the numbers, it’s worth pausing and asking:

Could the future of income investing look different than the past?

As of 3-16-2026 I started an account to do this specifically. I will share the results in a few months or at the end of the year to see how it’s gone and if anything has changed since I started this experiment.

All prices in the below table are per share. multiple the # shares x any price to get the total amount. I started with 10x $97.22 = $972.20 and a purchase of 10 shares of SATA.

Stock# sharesDate PurchasedDate SoldPurchase Price Sell Priceprice appreciationDividend DateDividend
SATA103-16-264-1-26$97.2297.89+$0.67

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice.

Calling MSTR a Ponzi Scheme Shows a Fundamental Misunderstanding of Finance

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Understanding Ponzi schemes, Bitcoin carry trades, and how new financial instruments are evolving

Recently there has been a wave of posts online claiming that MicroStrategy and securities like STRC are “Ponzi schemes.”

That claim misunderstands both what a Ponzi scheme actually is and how these instruments work.

Before labeling something a Ponzi scheme, it helps to start with a clear definition.

What Is a Ponzi Scheme?

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment structure where:

  1. Investors are promised returns
  2. Those returns are not generated by real economic activity
  3. Early investors are paid using money from new investors
  4. The scheme collapses once new inflows stop

The defining characteristics are:

  • No real underlying asset
  • No productive activity generating returns
  • Fabricated account statements or hidden losses
  • Mathematical collapse once new money stops coming in

The most famous example is Bernie Madoff, who fabricated account balances while paying existing investors with money from new clients.

If there is no real asset and no real economic activity, you may be looking at a Ponzi scheme.

An Interesting Contrast: Social Security

Ironically, one of the closest structures many Americans participate in that resembles a Ponzi-style payment system is **Social Security Administration’s Social Security program.

Social Security works by:

  • taxing current workers
  • using those taxes to pay current retirees

There is no large invested pool backing the system. Instead, it relies on a continuous stream of new contributors to fund previous participants.

Government projections show the trust funds are expected to become depleted within the next decade, after which benefits would have to be reduced or taxes increased to maintain payouts.

This is not fraud — it is a demographic funding system created by law — but it illustrates an important point:

Money flowing from new participants to previous participants does not automatically make something a Ponzi scheme.

A Ponzi scheme specifically requires deception and fake returns.

Now let’s look at MicroStrategy.

What MicroStrategy Actually Does

MicroStrategy is a publicly traded company that:

  • issues equity and debt securities
  • uses the proceeds to purchase Bitcoin
  • holds that Bitcoin on its balance sheet

The underlying asset is Bitcoin, which is publicly verifiable on the blockchain.

Investors buying MicroStrategy securities know exactly what they are purchasing.

Nothing is hidden.
Nothing is fabricated.
The underlying asset exists and can be independently verified.

You may disagree with the strategy.

But it clearly does not meet the definition of a Ponzi scheme.

What STRC Actually Is

STRC is a preferred stock issued by MicroStrategy that pays a monthly dividend currently around 11.5% annually.

The capital raised from selling STRC is used to purchase additional Bitcoin.

Conceptually, the structure resembles a carry trade.

A Bitcoin Carry Trade

For decades global investors used the Yen carry trade.

The strategy worked like this:

  1. Borrow Japanese yen at extremely low interest rates
  2. Convert yen into higher-yielding assets (often U.S. dollars)
  3. Capture the yield difference

STRC works in a somewhat similar way — but with Bitcoin.

Instead of:

Yen → USD

The structure is effectively:

USD → Bitcoin

Investors provide capital and earn roughly 11.5% yield, while MicroStrategy accumulates Bitcoin.

What the Market Has Actually Shown

STRC began trading in July 2025.

Around August 2025, Bitcoin traded near $120,000.

Since then Bitcoin has experienced significant price volatility.

Yet STRC has generally continued trading near its $100 reference price.

That doesn’t prove the structure will work forever.

But it does show something important:

So far, the instrument has functioned roughly as designed.

Financial markets tend to expose broken structures quickly.

The Lindy Effect

There is a concept known as the Lindy effect.

The Lindy effect suggests:

The longer something survives, the longer it is likely to continue surviving.

We see this with technologies, institutions, and financial instruments.

Gold has survived thousands of years.
Stock markets have survived more than a century.
Bitcoin itself has now survived multiple boom-bust cycles.

Each month that STRC:

  • maintains its price near $100
  • pays its dividend
  • continues operating normally

…the probability that the structure works increases slightly.

What Are the Real Risks?

None of this means STRC or MicroStrategy are risk-free.

But the risks are often misunderstood.

The real risks are tail risks — low-probability but high-impact events.

For example:

1. Catastrophic failure of Bitcoin

If Bitcoin were somehow fundamentally broken — a critical cryptographic flaw, catastrophic protocol failure, or a coordinated global ban that destroyed liquidity — the entire thesis behind MicroStrategy’s balance sheet would be undermined.

2. Corporate catastrophe unrelated to Bitcoin

Another possibility would be some major event affecting the company itself:

  • fraud inside the company
  • regulatory disaster
  • management misconduct
  • or some unforeseen corporate collapse

These risks exist for every public company.

3. Extreme financial system disruption

In a severe financial crisis, credit markets can temporarily freeze. Any company that relies on capital markets — including MicroStrategy — could be affected.

Risk Is Not Fraud

The irony in many of these debates is that the word “Ponzi” often gets used as a general insult for anything people don’t understand.

Real Ponzi schemes involve deception, fake assets, and fabricated returns.

MicroStrategy and STRC involve transparent securities backed by a publicly verifiable asset.

Whether someone believes in Bitcoin or not, the structure is visible to everyone.

In fact, one of the broader trends of the past decade has been the opposite of a Ponzi scheme: systems where the underlying asset is more transparent than ever before.

Bitcoin’s supply is public.
Bitcoin’s transactions are public.
Bitcoin’s monetary policy is fixed.

Financial instruments like STRC are simply new ways that traditional capital markets are interacting with that asset.

You may think the strategy is aggressive.
You may think the trade will fail.

But the difference between risk and fraud still matters.

And confusing the two only makes it harder to understand what is actually happening in financial markets today.

Tracking the “Political ETFs” — My Ongoing Experiment

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Members of Congress have long faced accusations of trading on insider information — buying and selling stocks in companies they help regulate.
It’s a bipartisan problem: Republicans and Democrats alike have profited from privileged access and timing the rest of the public could never match.

That’s not just bad optics — it’s corruption.
It undermines faith in both the markets and the integrity of government.

To highlight how deep this problem goes, I’ve started an experiment tracking three ETFs:

  • NANC — the Unusual Whales Subversive Democratic Trading ETF, built around stocks traded by Democratic lawmakers.
  • GOP — the Unusual Whales Subversive Republican Trading ETF, reflecting trades made by Republican lawmakers.
  • SPY — the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, serving as a neutral market benchmark.

My goal isn’t to glorify these funds — it’s to show in real numbers how political trading compares to the broad market, and to call out why this system needs reform.

Policy Context

This issue connects directly to Senator Josh Hawley’s proposal to ban individual stock trading by members of Congress.
His bill wouldn’t ban investing altogether — lawmakers could still own broad mutual funds or ETFs, just not trade individual stocks that might be affected by their votes.

That distinction matters. It allows long-term wealth building without the appearance or reality of insider trading.
📎 Read Hawley’s bill here

Performance Snapshot (Feb 10 2023 → Oct 27 2025)

SymbolETF NameDescriptionStarting Price*Current PriceTotal Return
NANCUnusual Whales Subversive Democratic Trading ETFTracks stocks favored by Democratic members of Congress$24.69$46.15+86.9%
GOPUnusual Whales Subversive Republican Trading ETFTracks stocks favored by Republican members of Congress$24.96$37.20+49.0%
SPYSPDR S&P 500 ETF TrustBaseline for overall U.S. market$408$685+67.9%

*Starting prices from Google Finance (Feb 10 2023, ETF inception date). Current prices as of Oct 27 2025.

The Takeaway

Both “political ETFs” have gained since launch, but that doesn’t justify congressional trading.
When lawmakers can personally profit from decisions they influence, public trust erodes — no matter how well the market performs.

This experiment is my small way to expose how close politics and profit have become — and to advocate for a system where leadership means stewardship, not stock tips.

The Politics of Envy: How Bernie Sanders Uses Billionaires to Distract from Washington’s Failures — and Keep People Angry

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Blaming billionaires is easy. Fixing bad policy, broken incentives, and decades of fiscal irresponsibility isn’t — so Bernie Sanders keeps the outrage machine running instead.

A lot of people — Bernie Sanders in particular — hate billionaires because they assume billionaires stole their wealth.
But that belief comes from misunderstanding how value is actually created.

💵 Creation vs. Printing

Bernie and the government “create money” by printing it — literally out of thin air — which steals purchasing power from everyone who already has dollars.
That’s not value creation. It’s value redistribution by dilution.

So when that’s your frame of reference, you start to believe that everyone who gets rich must have taken something from someone else. Because that’s how you create “money” in politics — you print it or tax it away.

But wealth in a free market isn’t created by decree. It’s created by building, coordinating, and innovating — by making something others voluntarily trade for.

📈 Value Creation Is Not Theft

Larry Ellison, for example. One day Oracle stock went up, and his net worth jumped by $100 billion. Bernie acts like Larry ran around stealing $100 billion from working people.
But that’s not what happened. That value didn’t exist before — it was created.

Wealth in the market represents new value built through skill, innovation, and coordination, not theft.
If you’re stranded on an island with a billion dollars, it’s worthless. You need resources, tools, and knowledge to turn that “money” into something useful.

The problem is, people who’ve never built or created real value assume no one else can either.
So they see wealth as theft instead of creation. That’s the confusion at the heart of modern politics.

⚠️ Bernie’s Game: Blame, Not Solutions

And that’s where Bernie Sanders comes in.
He isn’t actually helping working people by pointing to billionaires as evil — he’s manipulating them.

By giving people a villain to hate, he distracts from the real causes of economic pain — bad money, wasteful government, and decades of inflation that quietly rob savers and workers.
He rallies frustration around a scapegoat instead of a fix.

If Bernie genuinely wanted to help, he’d talk about restoring fiscal discipline, reducing waste, and making it easier for regular people to build wealth — not demonizing those who already have.
But he doesn’t. Because blaming billionaires is politically easy.
Fixing the system would mean questioning the very machine that gives him power.

So instead of solving problems, he feeds resentment — keeping people angry, divided, and dependent on him to express that anger.

🧮 The Fantasy of the “Billionaire Tax”

In a recent Time article titled “I’m a Millionaire. No One Needs More Than $30 Million”, the author argues that a Billionaire Income Tax could raise $557 billion over ten years and “jump-start a permanent safety net.”

That sounds impressive — until you look at the math.

The U.S. government currently runs a $2 trillion annual deficit.
That’s $20 trillion in overspending every decade.
So this “transformative” billionaire tax covers less than 3 % of the hole. It’s fiscal rounding error.

The problem isn’t a lack of billionaire money — it’s a lack of discipline and accountability.

🏛 The Real Problem Isn’t “Too Much Money” — It’s How It’s Used

The Time article goes on to argue that wealth beyond $30 million stops being about living well and becomes about wielding power — influencing elections, buying media outlets, and suppressing competition.

That part isn’t entirely wrong. Money can corrupt politics.
But the author’s solution — capping wealth — misses the point completely.

If the issue is that money manipulates the system, then the answer is to make the system harder to manipulate, not to confiscate wealth after the fact.

We should make elections harder to buy, not success harder to earn.
Reform campaign finance, close regulatory loopholes, stop insider lobbying — that’s how you stop abuse.

The same goes for the “buy, borrow, die” loophole that allows the ultra-wealthy to avoid realizing gains.
If that’s the concern, close the loopholes directly — don’t destroy the entire structure of value creation to fix a tax code glitch.

And even then, no system will ever be perfect.
Smart, ambitious people will always find new ways to optimize around the rules — that’s part of what makes them successful.
Every time you close one loophole, innovation and adaptation create another.
The goal shouldn’t be to eliminate advantage; it should be to keep the playing field open and the incentives productive.

And far from “locking others out,” large pools of wealth are what fund the next generation of builders.
People don’t lose the chance to innovate because billionaires exist — they lose it when regulation, bureaucracy, and bad policy make it impossible to start or scale.
Just look at Europe: it leads the world in regulation, but none of the world’s biggest or most dynamic companies are European.
They’ve made it harder to fail, but also impossible to truly win.
Capital isn’t a finite pie being hoarded; it’s the byproduct of trust, savings, and productive investment.
Destroy that, and you destroy the fuel for future innovation.

Blaming “too much money” is a lazy shortcut that lets broken institutions off the hook.

💥 What Happens If You Actually Take It

Let’s pretend we go full Bernie and seize every dollar of billionaire wealth in America — all $6 trillion of it.

Here’s what happens:

  1. That covers just three years of deficit spending at current rates. Then what? You’re out of billionaires, and the deficit keeps growing.
  2. Most of that wealth isn’t cash. It’s ownership stakes in companies — Tesla, Oracle, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.
  3. If the government forces liquidation, prices collapse. No one can buy trillions in stock without tanking the market.
    • Even a 50 % drop cuts the haul to $3 trillion — barely 18 months of deficits.
  4. Who buys the assets? The next-richest class. Inequality reshuffles briefly, then reforms.
  5. Meanwhile, innovation stalls. Investment dries up. Everyone gets poorer.

You can’t fund a government by destroying the productive capital that funds everything else.

⚙️ The Real Issue Isn’t Wealth, It’s Value

Wealth isn’t evil — it’s a signal that someone created something valuable enough for millions of people to trade their time or money for it.
That’s fundamentally different from printing dollars and calling it “stimulus.”

If we want a stronger, fairer economy, the solution isn’t confiscation — it’s creation.
Encourage building, innovation, and hard work, and you’ll raise living standards for everyone.
Punish them, and you’ll end up with equality through shared decline.

🧭 Final Thought

Bernie isn’t fighting for the working class. He’s fighting to stay relevant to it.
You don’t fix inequality by burning down the factory.
You fix it by letting more people build factories of their own.

What to Buy in 2025? My Thoughts on Global Investing

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Quick Take:
International markets are finally outperforming the U.S. in 2025, with VXUS up 25% versus the S&P 500’s 13%. But much of that gain is tied to a weakening dollar and global money printing — not just fundamentals. I also see potential in small-cap value stocks and India as a long-term growth story. – Not financial advice!

I was replying with a long comment to a YouTube video about investing, and it turned into something worth sharing here. I’ve cleaned it up a bit to make it flow like a proper post — but the ideas are the same: how I’m thinking about markets right now and where opportunities might lie.

When people ask me what to buy, I always start with one key principle:
focus on total return, not dividends.

Dividends are nice, but they’re just one piece of the puzzle. What really matters is total return — the combination of price growth plus dividends. That’s what grows your wealth over time.

International Markets Are Finally Waking Up

In November 2024 a friend told me what a dog his internationl stocks were and said he was going to sell them adn buy all S&P 500 I mentioned to him the idea of reversion to the mean While I was rewarded quickly, after years of underperformance, international markets have been on an absolute tear in 2025.

  • VXUS — the total international ETF (about 25% emerging markets) — is up roughly 25% year to date.
  • VWO, which tracks only emerging markets, is up around 21%.
  • Meanwhile, the S&P 500 (VOO) is up just 13% this year.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen this kind of outperformance from non-U.S. stocks. But before we get too excited, it’s worth asking why.

Factors Driving International Resurgence

Several factors have driven the recent resurgence in international markets.
Concerns about the U.S. trade war and tariffs have pushed investor attention abroad, while a weaker U.S. dollar has amplified gains for dollar-based investors holding foreign assets.

The U.S. Dollar Index has declined roughly 9% this year, giving a lift to unhedged international equities.

That currency impact is easy to see when comparing VXUS to hedged strategies.
For example:

  • Xtrackers MSCI EAFE Hedged Equity ETF (DBEF) and
  • iShares Currency Hedged MSCI EAFE ETF (HEFA)

are both up about 11.4% this year — solid returns, but well below the 25% gains seen in unhedged funds like VXUS.

In other words, a large portion of the international rally is being driven by the decline in the U.S. dollar, not just by improving fundamentals abroad.

👉 You can read more about this dynamic in a recent ETF.com article here:
“VXUS Tops $100B as ETF Investors Embrace International Stocks”

Inflation, Money Printing, and “Bigger” Returns

I suspect that in the future, the stock market’s returns might look higher than historical averages — not necessarily because companies are more productive, but because money printing and inflation are inflating nominal returns.

Historically, the S&P 500 returned about 11% per year, with maybe 3% of that driven by inflation and monetary expansion.
If we enter a world where inflation runs closer to 7%, then even if the real return stays about the same (around 8%), the headline number could look like 15% annual returns.

Obviously, that’s not guaranteed — just a thought experiment. But it’s a good reminder that higher nominal returns don’t always mean higher real returns.

Be Greedy When Others Are Fearful

Warren Buffett’s old rule still applies:

“Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”

So what are investors fearful of right now?
Small-cap stocks.

  • VIOV (small-cap value ETF) is up only 2% this year.
  • VB (small-cap blend) is up around 6.5% year to date, and about 52% over the past 5 years.
  • The S&P 500, by comparison, is up 90% over that same period.

Historically, small caps have outperformed large caps over the long term — and markets tend to revert to the mean. That doesn’t mean small caps will outperform next year, but it might be time to start paying attention to them again.

A Closer Look at India

One specific market I’ve been watching is India, through the INDA ETF. I’ve personally allocated about 1% of my portfolio there. While it is actually -1% for the year that adds to it’s intregue! As I noted you want to consider buying the losers as they will likely revert to their mean higher returns.

I’ve traveled to India and work with suppliers there who produce castings and tubing. The country reminds me a lot of where China was a couple of decades ago — rapid growth, huge labor pool, and rising industrial capacity.

Here’s a quick comparison:

  • Average income in India: about $2,000 per year
  • Average income in China: about $15,000 per year

India also has another advantage — it’s a democracy, politically more aligned with the U.S., and open to global capital and trade. That combination of low base income (meaning huge growth potential) and political stability makes India a fascinating market to watch over the next decade.

Wrapping It Up

So, what should you buy?
That depends on your goals — but here are the themes I’m watching:

  • International markets, especially emerging economies
  • Small-cap value stocks that have been left behind
  • And long-term growth plays like India

Just remember — higher returns on paper may reflect inflation, not real productivity. Always think in terms of real value creation, not just nominal gains.

And, of course, this isn’t financial advice — just my perspective on how I’m thinking about global investing in 2025.

What do you think? Are you adding international exposure or doubling down on U.S. stocks?
Share your thoughts below — I love reading different perspectives on where people see opportunity.

Bitcoin, Deflation, and the Myth of “Useless Money” – (People Won’t Spend Bitcoin Because it’s TOO Valuable????)

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A common fear I hear about Bitcoin goes something like this: “If it becomes so valuable in the future, people will never spend it. They’ll just hoard it forever — and that means it can’t work as money.”

But let’s pause. That argument assumes that money needs to lose value in order to be useful — that people will only spend if their savings are constantly melting. Does that really make sense?

People Already Save

In reality, people save no matter what. Even with inflationary dollars, households and businesses don’t spend every cent. They put money aside — but because the dollar steadily loses value, they are forced to search for other stores of value:

  • Stocks
  • Bonds
  • Real estate
  • Gold
  • Collectibles

This isn’t a feature. It’s a problem. The constant need to escape a leaky dollar creates bubbles, misallocates capital, and makes financial life complicated for everyone.

Take housing, for example. When money loses value, homes become more than shelter — they turn into financial assets. People don’t just buy houses to live in them; they buy them as inflation hedges. That means families looking for a roof over their heads end up competing with investors and savers desperate to preserve wealth. Prices get bid up far beyond the utility value of the home, making affordability worse and turning what should be a basic necessity into a speculative storehouse for capital.

Deflationary Money Doesn’t Paralyze Spending

Critics imagine that if money gains value over time, nobody will use it. But people already spend under deflationary conditions — technology proves this. Everyone knows next year’s phone or TV will be cheaper and better, yet they still buy today. Why? Because they value the use and enjoyment now, not just later.

The same applies to Bitcoin. Once mature, it will likely appreciate at roughly the rate of productivity growth (similar to a low-yield bond). People will hold it to store value — and still spend it when a purchase is worth more than waiting.

Flipping the Narrative

Inflationary money forces people into risky, complex alternatives just to save. Hard money that holds or grows its value removes those distortions. Contrary to the fear, deflationary money won’t break the economy — it may actually fix many of the problems caused by inflationary systems.

And here’s the real irony: many critics already suspect Bitcoin could become extremely valuable — that’s why they worry no one will spend it. But at the same time, they refuse to buy any today. They recognize the upside, but fear keeps them paralyzed on the sidelines.

Conclusion

In a Bitcoin world, homes could go back to being homes, not savings accounts. People could save without speculation, spend without fear of losing purchasing power, and invest in businesses for growth rather than sheltering from inflation. That’s not “useless money.” That’s money finally doing its job.

How I’m Using Covered Calls on Tesla as a “Safe” Portion of My Portfolio

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Disclaimer – If you aren’t comfortable with all potential outcomes, including your Tesla shares dropping 50% in value, you shouldn’t consider this idea. 

You also should not consider this if you are unfamiliar with trading options. 

I am only sharing this to share information and educate. 

I’ve been a Tesla shareholder for years, and I don’t plan to sell my core position anytime soon. But I’ve also been learning about covered calls as a way to generate income at a higher rate than today’s money market funds which currently are paying ~3.5% and going down as rates decrease!. Right now, I see the potential for about a 14% annual yield using this strategy — and I want to take advantage of that while keeping my long-term conviction in Tesla intact.

What’s a Covered Call?

A covered call is one of the simplest options strategies. It works like this:

  • You own at least 100 shares of a stock. Most options are written where 1 option = a contract for 100 shares.
  • You sell a call option to someone else, giving them the right (but not the obligation) to buy your shares at a set price (the strike price) by a certain date. For example – “You have the option to buy 100 shares of Tesla from me at $600 on or before 3-20-2026”
  • You are paid a premium when you sell the option.

Two big things can happen:

  • If the stock stays below the strike price, the option expires worthless. You keep both the shares and the premium.
  • If the stock rises above the strike, you may have to sell your shares at that strike price. You still keep the premium, but you miss out on gains beyond that level.

Think of it like renting out your shares — you earn income while you hold them, but you’re capping your upside in exchange.

Why Tesla?

Tesla is currently trading around $440. My existing 400 shares make up about 12–13% of my overall portfolio (roughly $176k out of $1.4M). That’s a meaningful bet, but not my entire net worth. I personally have never looked at options before when I had less money. But I am considering it now with a very small part of my portfolio. 

I’ve been holding Tesla for years and plan to continue. I believe in its long-term growth story, Elon Musk’s ability to deliver, and even the possibility of the company eventually reaching an $8 trillion valuation — nearly 6x its current $1.38 trillion market cap. That would potentially happen if Tesla hits all the growth targets in Elon’s proposed new pay package, that is voted on in November 2025. I have already voted yes and hope everyone else does also!

That conviction is what allows me to buy an extra 100 shares — not to hold forever, but to use specifically for covered calls.

The Trade

  • Underlying: Tesla at ~$440
  • Shares purchased for strategy: 100 ($44,000)
  • Option sold: $600 strike, expiring March 2026
  • Premium collected: ~$30/share = $3,000

The Three Outcomes

Here’s how the trade plays out depending on Tesla’s price by March 20th, 2026:

ScenarioTesla PriceOutcomeReturn
1. Tesla < $440Falls below my purchase priceShares drop in value, but I still keep the $3,000 premium. I’ll hold and sell another call in 6 months.Paper loss on stock, but income cushions downside
2. Tesla $440–$600Rises but stays under $600I keep both the shares and the $3,000 premium.~7% in 6 months (~14% annualized) + stock appreciation
3. Tesla > $600Blows past $600Shares are called away at $600. I keep the $3,000 premium plus $16,000 in gains ($160/share).~$19,000 profit on $44,000 (~43% in 6 months)

How This Fits My Long-Term Tesla Plan

Part of my long-term Tesla strategy for my original 400 shares has always been to gradually divest once it grows too large a percentage of my portfolio — say once it approaches 30–50%.

This covered call approach fits that plan perfectly: it generates income now and gives me a way to get paid while reducing exposure if Tesla keeps climbing.

  • At $600/share, my portfolio would grow to about $1.5M, and Tesla would represent ~$300k of that (~20%). If 100 shares are called away, I’d reduce Tesla to 400 shares ($240k), which still leaves me with significant exposure.
  • At $800/share, my portfolio could be around $1.6M. Selling another 100 shares would leave me with 300 shares worth $240k — still ~15% of my portfolio, almost the same weighting Tesla holds today (~12.6%). This is assuming the rest of my portfolio doesn’t also rise. It likely would so really Tesla would end up an even smaller percentage of my portfolio.

So even as I trim, Tesla stays a core but not outsized piece of my investments.

The Long-Term Upside

At $800/share, Tesla would be about a $2.5 trillion company. Even if I’m down to 300 shares at that point, that’s still $240k invested.

And if Tesla grows to an $8 trillion valuation as some expect — a 3.2x increase from $2.5T — my 300 shares could climb to about $768k.

That means even after trimming, I’d still capture massive upside if Tesla’s long-term growth story plays out.

Why This Works for Me

  1. It’s a small slice of my overall portfolio. At ~$44,000, the covered call sleeve is just 3% of my total assets. That makes it a safe experiment that doesn’t threaten my financial foundation.
  2. My core Tesla is protected. My long-term 400 shares are untouchable. The 100 new shares are my “income Tesla” — designed to work harder without risking my conviction stake.
  3. All three outcomes are acceptable. If Tesla dips, I’ll just sell another call. If it grinds sideways, I pocket income. If it rips higher, I still earn a great return, even if I give up some upside.
  4. It aligns with my long-term plan. Selling calls is a structured way to generate income and gradually reduce Tesla’s weight in my portfolio as it grows.
  5. Conviction makes it possible. I’m comfortable capping the upside on 100 shares because I still own 400 more shares that will fully benefit if Tesla continues to grow. This way, I get income from a small slice of my position, while my larger core holding remains positioned for the long-term upside.

Testing My Future Retirement Plan

This trade is also a trial run for my early retirement plan. If I eventually trim my Tesla position to around $240k (say 300 shares at $800), I could use the same covered call strategy to generate income.

At ~14% annualized, that $240k could potentially produce about $33k per year in income — without me ever touching the rest of my portfolio.

That’s a powerful idea: one high-conviction stock position, managed carefully with covered calls, could provide a meaningful cash flow stream in retirement while my index fund base continues to compound.

My Investing Context

Most of my portfolio is in index funds. That’s my base strategy — low-cost, diversified, and reliable.

But Tesla (and Bitcoin) are my two exceptions. I’ve listened to years of Tesla content, followed the company’s progress, and watched Elon Musk repeatedly deliver on ambitious goals. I believe in the growth story.

Final Thoughts

Covered calls aren’t “free money.” They limit your upside, and they only work if you’re comfortable with all possible outcomes. For me, splitting my Tesla into two buckets — 400 shares conviction hold, 100 shares income strategy — strikes the right balance.

Tesla remains my long-term hold. The extra 100 shares are simply there to spin off cash flow, provide income, and help me get paid while gradually divesting. That way, Tesla stays a meaningful but balanced piece of my portfolio — while still giving me the chance to benefit if Elon Musk delivers on the $8 trillion vision.

And looking ahead, this strategy doubles as a test run for retirement income — showing how one well-managed conviction position can help fund financial independence.

If you aren’t comfortable with all potential outcomes, including your Tesla shares dropping 50% in value, you shouldn’t consider this idea. 

You also should not consider this if you are unfamiliar with trading options. 

I am only sharing this to share information and educate. 

From 3% to 10%: STRC and STRD Show How Bitcoin-Backed Preferreds Beat High-Yield Accounts

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Money market funds have quietly become a $7.7 trillion behemoth. They’re the go-to “safe yield” for investors and savers alike. But with the Federal Reserve now in an easing cycle, those yields — currently around 3.5%–4% — are headed lower.

That’s where Strategy’s Bitcoin-backed perpetual preferreds come in. While most people know Strategy (MSTR) as the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, fewer realize that it has built a full yield curve of preferred instruments, each engineered for different investors.

Where These Instruments Sit in the Capital Stack

Most senior → Debt (convertible notes) → STRF (Strife) → STRC (Stretch) → STRK (Strike) → STRD (Stride) → Common (MSTR) → most junior / volatile.

The Rationale: Building a Bitcoin Yield Curve

  • STRF (Strife): Senior, cumulative, fixed dividend, long-duration. Currently yielding about 9%.
  • STRC (Stretch): Senior to STRD and STRK. Variable monthly dividend, engineered to trade around $99–$101, currently yielding about 10.25%.
  • STRK (Strike): Convertible hybrid with both dividend and equity-conversion features. Not my focus here, but it’s an important part of the structure.
  • STRD (Stride): Junior high-yield, fixed 10% dividend, currently yielding about 12.7% due to market pricing in more perceived risk. Functionally similar to STRF, except dividends are non-cumulative (can technically be skipped). That said, I believe skipping would be highly unlikely, as it would damage trust and Strategy’s ability to raise future capital. Dividends are paid quarterly.

Visualizing the Yields

Here’s how these instruments compare against traditional money markets:

  • Money Market (green): conservative baseline at ~3.5–4%.
  • STRF (orange): senior, stable preferred with ~9%.
  • STRC (orange): short, steady instrument at ~10.25%, engineered to trade near $100.
  • STRD (orange): dynamic junior instrument at ~12.7%.

Why I Prefer STRC and STRD

I’m drawn most to STRC and STRD.

  • STRC is designed to be the least volatile of the group, with a monthly payout and mechanisms (ATM issuance, variable rate, call option) that help stabilize its price.
  • STRD is the high-yield gear, juiced by its junior position in the stack. While the market demands extra yield for perceived risk, I personally think that risk is overstated given Strategy’s Bitcoin reserves and incentives to maintain dividend trust.

Together, they cover two ends of the spectrum: steady monthly yield vs. higher-octane quarterly yield.

A Practical Emergency Fund Example

Suppose you have a $10,000 emergency fund.

  • All in Money Market: $10,000 × 4% ≈ $400/year.
  • Blend with STRC: Keep $7,500 in money markets (=$300/year) and put $2,500 into STRC (=$256/year).
    • Total = $556/year — a 39% boost without overcommitting.

I wouldn’t put my entire emergency fund into a new instrument like STRC — safety and liquidity should come first. But even a modest allocation can noticeably lift your yield while still keeping most reserves conservative.

Closing Thought

Strategy is essentially pioneering a new financial system built on Bitcoin collateral. If they can consistently pay these dividends — even through Bitcoin downturns — it would be revolutionary. It would prove that Bitcoin isn’t just “digital gold,” but the foundation for a new class of yield-bearing, creditworthy instruments.

Here are 2 videos of when STRC and STRD were initially offered. They offer a lot of information about how these work. 

Strategy’s Stride STRD Perpetual Preferred Stock IPO Backed by Bitcoin | Michael Saylor and Phong Le

Strategy’s Stretch STRC Perpetual Preferred Stock IPO Backed by Bitcoin | Michael Saylor & Phong Le