I’m Bitcoin. I’m a digital duffel bag of cash
On Wednesday bitcoin hit an all time high of $66,817 surpassing its 2021 peak, after falling to $16,189 in 2022. Suddenly ads for Bitcoin started popping up on Craigslist, a marketplace where people buy used baby furniture, and hire freelancers.
The ad attached to the hero image at the top of this article was the winner. It said:
I’m Bitcoin. Basically, I’m a digital replacement for a duffel bag full of cash. Underneath my hood is something called the blockchain, and people go bananas over it. The blockchain has lots of other uses. But really I can only help the following people to the following things:
- Drug dealers who would rather accept digital payments than transact in cash.
- Criminals who need an untraceable currency that can cross borders for ransomware, human trafficking, or the sale of contraband.
- Tax evaders
- Rogue dictatorships like North Korea who need a foreign currency to buy stuff from other countries
- A girls’ school in Afghanistan (or equivalent) which needs to collect donations without being detected by the Taliban (or equivalent).
Libertarian tech utopianists looooove me. They say I’m going to replace the currency issued by central banks. I let them think that, because it drives up my value. But between us, I know it’s not true. The only central bank that thinks I’m indispensable is North Korea.
A few months ago some fancy men from Wall Street called Fidelity and BlackRock showed up at my basement apartment wearing tailored suits and asked if we could talk. I thought they were Narcs or Feds, but they weren’t. I was wearing an ill-fitting black t-shirt and I hadn’t showered in a few days. I cleaned up the pizza boxes and cleared some space. They said they wanted to bundle me into something called an ETF and get a bunch of other people in suits to sell me to people who used to think I was vulgar. “You’ll be more expensive! They said.” so I said, “Fuck it. Sure.” And just like that, I got more expensive!
They wrapped me in a gorgeous, wool, pinstriped bag, whoooosh! my price went up. But I know who I am underneath: I’m Bitcoin, and I’m just a digital duffel bag of cash.
When a massively hyped asset like bitcoin, tulips, subprime mortgages, or WeWork crashes, and then re-inflates, the question we should ask is: is it useful in a new way? But few people ask that question. They just feel jealous of everyone who got rich. So they buy more, and inflate the price more.
The reinflation of bitcoin is fueled by a resurgence of speculation and not newfound usefulness. BlackRock and Fidelity just issued a crypto ETF, making it acceptable to a new demographic of polite society. As I started writing this article about why bitcoin’s valuation is detached from its actual value, I was reminded of the greatest Craigslist ad of all time: a 2018 ad selling a 1999 Toyota Corolla (I cut some parts out for brevity):
You want a car that gets the job done? You want a car that's hassle free? You want a car that literally no one will ever compliment you on? Well look no further.
The 1999 Toyota Corolla….
Let me tell you a story. One day my Corolla started making a strange sound. I didn't give a shit and ignored it. It went away. The End.
You could take the engine out of this car, drop it off the Golden Gate Bridge, fish it out of the water a thousand years later, fill the gas tank up with Nutella, turn the key, and this puppy would fucking start right up….
People have done straight things in this car. People have done gay things in this car. It's not going to judge you like a fucking Volkswagen would….
Let's face the facts, this car isn't going to win any beauty contests, but neither are you. Stop lying to yourself. This isn't the car you want, it's the car you deserve: The fucking 1999 Toyota Corolla.
A good way of assessing the value of over-hyped, over-inflated new technology is if it passes the Corolla test. Can you write a simple Craigslist ad describing why it’s useful, and who it serves?
Bitcoin fails the Corolla Craigslist test. Its price is a product of hype not value.
Let’s do the Craiglist Corolla test with ChatGPT:
I’m ChatGPT. While you’ve been screwing around with freelancers from Fiverr and Upwork I’ve been memorizing the internet. THE WHOLE FUCKING INTERNET.
Let me tell you a story. One time this early stage startup who couldn’t afford a designer or developer spent all their money on freelancers who still fucked everything up. Then the freelancers demanded more money to unfuck the situation. The startup said yes, and got ripped off again. Then the startup used us and we fixed it in 30 seconds. The end.
Am I really that creative? Like if given a prompt could I create a Steve Jobs-level ad campaign? No! I’m average. I’m really good at making below average shit become average shit.
One day I’ll be able to do all the entry level, fake work that young lawyers, bankers and consultants do for 90 hours a week. Thank God - they were miserable, working 90-hour weeks doing glorified data entry work.
The other day these economists from McKinsey and Goldman Sachs stared at me for hours like I was a Jackson Pollock painting. They took lots of notes, then they typed a prompt. I farted out a digital image that is exactly the same as every other digital image, and it BLEW THEIR FREAKING MINDS. They wrote a 30-page book report on it, and predicted I’m going to eradicate white collar work. I did the same thing for some professor called Scott Galloway, and he said the same thing as them.
Maybe someday that will be true. But for now I’m just better than an offshore freelancer.
Hype cycles have an insidious way of getting smart people to believe in utopian bullshit. We start believing thought leaders and consultants who sell expertise without experience and advice without accountability. We stop asking if the technology solves a real problem, and whether it’s safe, stable, and durable. We forget to test drive it against a Corolla.
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