Bear Market Diaries 2022: Adam O Interview
By @piratebeachbum - Analyzing The Bitcoin Bear Market Series - Volume 11
Name:
Adam O
Country
USA
How do people know you?
I’m an outspoken oil & gas advocate as well as a Bitcoin advocate who has been speaking about how bitcoin synergizes with upstream energy production — specifically how the bitcoin network can be leveraged as an autonomous energy-consumption market to rescue the immeasurable amount of stranded & wasted natural gas around the world.
How long have you been into Bitcoin?
I found bitcoin in February/March of 2018 while working in the O&G industry — so 4.5 years at this point.
How many Bitcon market cycles have you been through?
Well I found bitcoin at the beginning of the 2018 bear market so I suppose this would be my 2nd.
What are you optimistic about in this space despite the current state of the market?
I’m optimistic about bitcoin in general. Each day there is another breach of liberty that signals to more people the value proposition of a money that is dictated by rules not ruleRS. Whether it’s Canadians getting their bank accounts frozen over donating $5 to a protest they wanted to support, or Congress designating $369,000,000,000 of the Inflation Reduction Act ($369B is only $12B less than ALL BITCOIN IN EXISTENCE for the record) in order to “save the environment;” These atrocities highlight the value of a pre-determined internet-native immutably-scarce decentralized money controlled by no one. It is sad to see such tyrannical atrocities occur — the silver lining is that many are immune to such currency debasement and potential capital controls because many already have bitcoin. There is plenty of hope to be had. Most specifically I can say that I have never been more confident and optimistic regarding bitcoin’s value proposition as an autonomous energy consumption market that is available over the internet. I have personally witnessed dozens of oil and gas producers who have begun to fluently understand this energy technology known as the bitcoin network, and they’re getting quite savvy at implementing bitcoin mining into their existing upstream O&G operations improving their efficiency at every site they’re deployed. Bitcoin isn’t going anywhere.
What tips do you have to those who are new to this or who might be upside down?
The lower you can set your time-preference the better. Bitcoin is designed to last hundreds of years, millions of blocks, and we only just passed the 750,000th block — we are STILL within the 1st million-block epoch. If you’re thinking about earning yield over the next 12 months without considering the insane amount of counter-party risk required in order to earn yield, then your time-preference is too high.
This IS the beginning of bitcoin — especially in regards to mining. In 100 years bitcoin will have been mined for 113 years and throughout that time the transaction fees will have made up >75% of the block rewards for over 75 of those 113 years. There is only a very very very very very small time period right in the beginning, about the first 1m blocks, where the risk of mining bitcoin seems relatively high while the reward is also appropriately high — this will not last. In the grand scheme, the majority of bitcoin mining will be boring — low risk low reward — these are in fact ‘the good ‘ol days.’ Enjoy them.
Biggest regret during the last bull market?
I’m not sure I have many regrets of the last 12-18 months. I do wish I would’ve been able to make it to more events down in Houston with the fine folks from Unchained Capital + others. I wish I would’ve upgraded the electrical panel at my house so I had more capacity to expand today and take advantage of some bear market ASIC pricing. I have extremely high conviction in the robustness of the bitcoin network and its utility as an unregulated + autonomous energy-consumption market native to the internet.
What have you learned so far in this bear market?
I’ve learned that millions will give away their bitcoin for the promise of earning a couple % in “yield” without thinking.
I’ve learned that people have insanely high trust of financial institutions and I think people need to explore and evaluate why they trust the same financial institutions that privatize gains while socializing losses.
I’ve learned that we are still very very early into The Information Age, The Consumer Internet, and The Bitcoin Network.
What is the biggest fail you have seen during the last bull cycle?
No question it was The Celsius Network which spent 2 years instilling fear into people arguing that self-custody of bitcoin is “dangerous” and “risky.” Celsius went insolvent and has since filed for bankruptcy but not before freezing customers’ funds and blocking any withdrawals.
Now we get to see what kind of accountability (if any) will be had.
The entire point of bitcoin is to remove counter-party risk — anyone arguing for reasons as to why you should introduce counter-party risk is likely hoping to get their hands on your wealth for their own gain.
What do you think helped trigger the current bear market?
The world was already headed for an energy crisis caused by the dismantling of reliable energy/power-production infrastructure in favor of intermittent wind & solar which crippling Europe’s energy & power markets. This has rendered European nations highly reliant upon Russian gas which, during wartime, will be leveraged as a tool to apply pressure and help fund the persistence of Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Centralized lending platforms & crypto exchanges that were degenerately gambling on 3 Arrows Capital & Luna didn’t help either.
Who was exposed during this last market meltdown?
Well as I mentioned previously 3AC, Celsius, and Luna were all disasters caused by self-seeking greedy behavior.
What are your thoughts on Bitcoin Maximalism?
I believe the term describes a person that thinks money is a winner-takes-all competition between commodities and the commodity which is best suited to be money is the one most easily divisible, identifiable/verifiable, fungible, transferable, durable, and scarce that has the least amount of competition/utility to be used for a competing process.
Why do you think there is an emerging narrative to demonize Bitcoin Maximalists?
I don’t think the narrative is emerging it’s just that the total amount of people paying attention to bitcoin has gone up massively in the last 12 months.
I think it’s pretty simple: The more lucrative it is at any given point to sell a project around the idea that “it’s like bitcoin except _____” to VC’s and mainstream retail customers, the more people will act to take advantage of that emerging capital opportunity. In other words, the total market capacity for centralized bitcoin-affinity scams grew significantly during the last bull market (LUNA alone went from $40B to $0 in a couple weeks) so it only makes sense that there would be more voices trying to silence anyone shining light on the crypto racket. Do Kwon could’ve never pulled off the LUNA scam 4 years ago — or at least it would’ve never grown to such reckless leverage. Bitcoin is pure signal, the rest is mostly noise.
What kind of damage do you think the latest price drop has done to buyer sentiment?
I think the bankruptcies & deceptions carried out by centralized crypto lenders/exchanges like BlockFi & Celsius have been far more damaging to this space’s legitimacy than any price change in bitcoin’s market price.
What is it going to take to turn this around?
Time. Bitcoin is a highly-liquid freely traded digital bearer asset with insane price slippage — there is no telling what tomorrow brings and anyone who claims otherwise is grossly overestimating their understanding of the world’s first natively digital decentralized bearer asset with a transparent & unchangeable supply schedule.
What type of carnage do you expect to see in Bitcoin startups?
I expect to see some bitcoin companies cut costs — unfortunately that can mean laying off employees but hopefully the small bitcoin companies hoping to build useful tools in this space will be able to weather the bear market in order to find the light at the other side of the tunnel. A bitcoin treasury isn’t the easiest thing in the world but, because bitcoin on-average goes up over time, it is advantageous to weather the hard times because the upside will inevitably outweigh the short-term pain.
What are your tips for HODLing Bitcoin through downturns?
The best way to HODL through the bear market is to Prepare during the Bull. When everyone is manic and “getting rich” and NFT’s (a pixelated jpeg image on someone else’s server) are selling for $35M — maybe that’s the time to live cheaply for a couple months while saving up 6-months of food and household supplies, set aside a couple months of mortgage/rent, and limit your downside.
How do you feel about alt-coins and NFT’s and stable coins?
Bitcoin not only disrupts global fiat money & markets, but it disrupts global energy production & power generation — providing immense utility to both of these global industries. Without focusing on the fact that crypto & NFT’s are NOT immutable, decentralized, sound, independently auditable, or able to be sovereignly held — without focusing on that — I think they’re hilariously unimportant & uninteresting relative to the implications of bitcoin’s utility & value proposition.
Ultimately I’d rather spend my time cataloging the various shades of the color gray than talking about those things.
What kind of impact do you think the radical drop in alt-coins and NFT’s will have on their future?
Hopefully? An increase in awareness to the lack of their value/utility/future.
More likely? People will forget, others will start getting rich again, and I fear the same thing will repeat again in the near future.
What do you think about shitcoin implosions like Luna, Celsus and the Solana hack?
I’ve already commented some on that but, in summation: When money becomes infinitely abundant then capital allocators will begin to justify more and more reckless degenerate gambling with levered funds until an insolvency/liquidity crisis threatens the risk stack.
What is your take on FTX buying up distressed Bitcoin companies like Blockfi?
It is natural that capital will consolidate and centralize during times of liquidity crises — I’m curious to see how retail customer and equity holders end up being impacted in the end.
What is the best way to accumulate Bitcoin during a down market?
Everyone always recommends to get a “side-hustle” and increase cashflow. I feel that is always something to work on no matter bull or bear market. Find a way to earn cashflow by working on the things that you’re passionate about. Instead I’d recommend trying to minimize your operating expense as much as possible. Try to spend less than $10/day on food for a whole month. See how many small expenses you can go without until bitcoin is back over X price. Live smaller so you can save bigger — this will have a compounding effect while bitcoin is cheaper, you may be able to save 3x or 4x more bitcoin than you would have had price remained at $50k and you kept your expenses the same.
How bullish are you on Bitcoin despite this recent pullback?
Insanely. You cannot extinguish the bullish flame within me. I have seen firsthand how impactful the bitcoin network is and how disruptive it is going to be. Not since the advent of electricity (or the internet itself) has the world seen such a revolutionary leap forward in technology. In a world populated with 8B people where it still seems impossible to find even just 2 people who agree on anything — hundreds of thousands of individual bitcoin users find consensus every 10-minutes….and everyone cooperates with one another no matter their race, religion, color, beliefs, size, abilities, reputation, or social alliances. This is truly an amazing thing.
Any tips you want to give to people new to Bitcoin?
Get comfortable with using bitcoin — it will set you ahead of those who are ignorant and equip you with certain personal assurances that I promise will make for more restful nights and less counter-party risk.
Any last words of wisdom?
-Trust but verify.
-Never forget to be thankful.
-Don’t be afraid to obsess over the things
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