BOOM! This week we’ve seen the collapse of one of the largest crypto exchanges, FTX, which will no doubt have many further repercussions and do billions of dollars worth of damage. As this week will no doubt go down in crypto history, we felt it would be a good time to do what we do best: help teach. Specifically we want to drive home to everyone why there’s Bitcoin and literally everything else.
You can read about the details of the collapse from many sources so we won’t go into it in huge details here. But essentially, the crypto exchange FTX was doing some extremely questionable stuff with their own (and users) funds. When this was revealed in part to the market a bank run occurred and the entire house of cards came spectacularly crashing down.
As of writing they’re wanting an almost $10 billion USD buy out, user withdrawals from the exchange have been frozen and many people look to have likely lost anything they had on the exchange. Yikes.
It should be noted that their collapse is just the latest in a long line of bankruptcies spanning all the way back to the very first exchange Mt. Gox. For some fun history you can see a list of them all in our piece Crypto Exchange Bankruptcies: Spectacular And Ever Constant.
What we’d like to focus on here is reiterating how you can avoid these issues both now and in the future and why we focus only on Bitcoin. To avoid being rugged and losing all your money (not to mention maintaining your Bitcoin Privacy) it boils down to three core rules:
- Bitcoin ONLY, no shitcoins
- Self Custody those bitcoins in your own Bitcoin Wallet
- Never use centralized exchanges, use non-KYC decentralized Exchanges
Contents
Bitcoin vs Crypto
For the new and uninitiated out there, first we’ll just quickly explain what the difference between Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency is and then get into a bit more detail below.
A good example to help illustrate the difference is a Ferrari 296 GTB and the descriptive word Car. A Ferrari 296 GTB is a type of car, just like the Ford Model T is also another type of car. You have “car” as the general category and then many thousands of different cars underneath that.
Similarly, you have Bitcoin and then the descriptive word Cryptocurrency. There are many thousands of cryptocurrencies out there under the general category of “cryptocurrency” and Bitcoin is just one example. Ethereum is also another type of Cryptocurrency.
As Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency, many people who don’t know much about the topic (eg talking heads on TV) use the two terms interchangeably which can lead to a lot of confusion. They also think that Bitcoin and these many other thousands of cryptocurrencies (or shitcoins as they’re known) are “similar” or comparable when in fact they are anything but.
Bitcoin is the original monetary network that has a number of absolutely critical aspects to it that elevates it orders of magnitude above all others. Not a single other cryptocurrency out there has its network effect, its creation conditions, its size, its branding, its recognition, its decentralization or its security. All things that underpin anything that is trying to be a real money. It’s like comparing a Ferrari 296 GTB… with a tiny plastic Hot Wheels car.
There is Bitcoin and literally everything else.
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There Is No Second Best
Bitcoin has had no outside capital investment and is still by far the biggest. Crypto has had vested interests pour billions into companies hoping to create the next Google or Amazon that they can then turn into cash cows via using unsuspecting retail investors as Exit Liquidity.
Bitcoin has stood strong for almost 15 years now. Crypto has had coin after coin after coin crash and go to 0. Here are the top 2,412 coins versus Bitcoin over a multi-year period. 97%+ of crypto coins suffered a >10x loss. This is also pre-2020. These are also the top coins, there are 15,000+ other worse ones.
Bitcoin is actually decentralized with over 15,000+ nodes world wide. Crypto isn’t and is in many cases, beholden to regulatory capture already. Below is an example of Bitcoins decentralization in action. Hard proof, not promises.
Bitcoin is secured by the strongest computer network on the planet in the form of Bitcoin Miners with almost 500 TH/s of hash rate. Even the top crypto is orders of magnitude less secure and thus, at more risk from attacks.
Bitcoin is used by hundreds of millions of people world wide for savings, fighting oppression, growing businesses, buying groceries, coffee, building nations and more. Crypto continues to devolve into a sea of degenerate gambling, self printed tokens, bank runs, insolvencies, ponzinomics and dogecoin. The SEC has also just ruled that virtually all crypto assets (except Bitcoin) are securities.
Bitcoin has a near perfect up time at 99.988% since its inception in 2009. Since 2013 it’s up time is a perfect 100%. Multi trillion dollar global behemoths like Google and Amazon can’t even beat that.
Crypto keeps getting hacked, pausing withdraws, going down and restricting its users from withdrawing staked funds.
Will I be able to use my funds while I’m staking ETH?
Coinbase
For now, you won’t be able to trade, send, or sell the amount you have staked.
The void between Bitcoin and all other “crypto” coins is as big as the void between galaxies and should be beyond obvious to anyone that looks even remotely closely.
Shitcoins are a melting pot of scams, SEC violations, unregistered securities, fraud and at best, a fake “decentralized” version of what we already have with centralized banks and fiat currencies that censor and steal for the powerful elite. FTT was no different and it’s succumb to a similar fate that the thousands of other coins before it have.
There is Bitcoin and literally everything else.
A Reminder For Why Bitcoin Was Created
FTX is a centralized exchange and bank for those who kept their crypto assets (including Bitcoin) on their platform. Banks, exchanges, governments and more have been freezing, debasing and stealing peoples money for thousands of years and the collapse this week is just another data point to prove this point.
At its core, Bitcoin Was Created to be an online version of physical cash that removes the need for trusted third parties like banks and exchanges. The original whitepaper is literally titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System“.
Bitcoin allows anyone, anywhere to take their money and self custody it in their own Bitcoin Wallet with no other third party ever getting involved or giving permissions. FTX crashing is a reminder to all and is something we’ve said over and over and over again to try and educate as many people as possible.
Take any money you have off exchanges and self custody your bitcoins now!
This is a sad week for many, many people that have any type of money on FTX. There will be other crypto exchanges out there who will likely come under pressure and potentially fail as well given how big FTX were. But it’s a teachable moment too and we’re here to help educate.
We’re not saying “I told you so” or dancing around cheering. That doesn’t help and it simply displays bad form for the Bitcoin community.
Instead what we’re saying is to please take control of your money like Satoshi Nakamoto intended you to and setup a Bitcoin Wallet that only you control, with no trusted third parties involved. We’re saying only focus on Bitcoin. And we’re saying only buy your bitcoins from non-KYC Crypto Exchanges.
We hope you are all doing well this week, and if you’ve got funds on FTX, we’re genuinely sorry. Just know that you will recover and things will get better 🧡
There is Bitcoin and literally everything else.
