5/31 ANDY HOFFMAN (CryptoGoldCentral.com): MY JOURNEY TO, FROM, AND BACK TO THE ONCE AND FUTURE CRYPTO KING, BITCOIN

I tweet more than ever, but write very seldomly – with the last entry at CryptoGoldCentral.com, which I have operated for nearly three years, being “I have officially returned to a 100% Bitcoin/ 0% altcoin crypto allocation…likely, forever.”

However, when I have something to say, I will do so – like today. Not so much for personal benefit, but because I am dedicating essentially all my online existence to Bitcoin education.

Today, it is unprecedentedly needed due to the confluence of political, economic, social; and most importantly, monetary events we are witnessing. This, with Bitcoin’s maturation at a point which, as Plan B describes it, it is ready to become, imminently, a primary global asset worth trillions, perhaps tens of trillions of fiat dollars.

Those who have followed my career know I became a full-blown Precious Metal bull in 2002 – so much so, that not only did I invest 100% of my liquid net worth in first miners, then bullion, I made it into a 15-year career…during which, I became one of the world’s most well-known sound money advocates.

As the global financial system deteriorated over the ensuing decade – and permanently broke in 2008 – I became increasingly pessimistic about the future of money…and frankly, humanity itself.

Yes, I believed Precious Metals would dramatically increase in value. However, I never believed a “new gold standard” was possible – and thus, assumed that a dramatic upward valuation of gold and silver would symbolize the commencement of a new Dark Age.

As a leader of the gold community, I was introduced to Bitcoin before most, circa 2012. Given its nascence, and potential to compete with Precious Metals, my initial response was Peter Schiff-like. Of course, this was when Bitcoin had essentially no market value or track record.

However, the concept intrigued me – and my articles back then, and answers to podcast questioners, was that it has possibilities as a monetary asset, no matter how remote they seemed. So much so, I actually bought one Bitcoin in late 2013 – at Mt Gox, counter to the advice of my good friend Michael Krieger, who suggested I use Coinbase.

The Mt Gox collapse was a near extinction event for Bitcoin - but still it kept churning out blocks, day after day, month after month. The price was mired at $200-$300 for years, but still I kept my eye on it. Scant crypto media was available, which is why Andreas Antonopoulos gets SO MUCH of the credit for educating me – and subsequently, my still best friend in crypto, Adam Meister.

This, whilst Precious Metals continued their inexorable path toward obsolescence - propagandized out of the public consciousness, and irreversibly diluted by “paper” gold and silver derivatives.

Finally, in January 2016, whilst still Marketing Director of Miles Franklin, a major bullion dealer, I re-entered Bitcoin in a big way – as an investor, and extremely bullish daily commentator.

The next two years were amongst the craziest of my career – as very rapidly, I started to replace all I had believed about Precious Metals’ timeless monetary leadership with Bitcoin – culminating with the sale of my silver for Bitcoin in July 2017 (the day SegWit locked in); my (involuntary) departure from Miles Franklin and launch of CryptoGoldCentral.com in August 2017; and sale of my gold for Bitcoin in January 2018.

When I started CGC in August 2017, I was 100% invested in Bitcoin. During June and July, I was 90% Bitcoin/10% Litecoin – as back then, when few altcoins even existed, I believed Charlie Lee that LTC could be “silver to Bitcoin’s gold.” Given my background in Precious Metals, this intuitively made sense – but again, this was VERY early in crypto’s history, at a time when 98% of today’s altcoins did not yet exist.

Actually, Charlie Lee was my first “One-On-One” guest when CGC launched – coincidentally, the day Bitcoin plummeted because the Chinese government announced the “ban” on crypto trading that was never followed through with. The fact that HE sold all his Litecoin in February 2018, but continues to hold all his Bitcoin, should be all you need to know about the future of LTC.

The thing about crypto that most maximalists don’t understand (particularly the vast majority, who were not around when I was pre-2018), is that it is a brand new, complex technology that only a handful of people truly understand.

Thus, even open-minded people like me, with a predisposition to Bitcoin’s sound money principles, must learn in real-time…which I assure you, was MUCH more difficult, dangerous, and scary pre-2018 than it is today. To that end, this is why those who invested with Bitcoin’s much higher risk/reward ratio at the time, have been so handsomely rewarded.

The anguish I endured in 2016-18 as a large Bitcoin investor was significant, particularly as for the first time in my career, following my departure from Miles Franklin in August 2017, I was forced to be self-sufficient.

Fortunately, I was playing with house money, given my low cost basis. However, when the “Hoffman Line” (the $100 billion market cap level I had discussed since October 2017) was seriously challenged throughout the summer of 2018; at a time when my then subscription-based blog was generating no revenues in the post-bubble era; I needed to make a risk management decision.

Bitcoin was STILL unproven, and damned if I was going to risk so much in such an uncertain environment. Thus, I set a strict stop-loss at the Hoffman Line (then, $6,000) – and very publicly sold when it broke in November 2018. I needed to SEE how Bitcoin would respond – as given all I had witnessed, I was not yet CONVINCED it must succeed.

To that end, despite the fact I had long written that 95% of altcoins would become worthless (which by then, had exploded in number), I still believed a small subset could become major successes. One such coin was Bitcoin Rhodium, a FREE BTC airdrop I received in early 2018, that had just launched its MainNet in October 2018.

Bitcoin Rhodium, or XRC, was created by anonymous developers with the goal of being a niche store-of-value asset – which, if it succeeded, would do so because it had far better “silver to Bitcoin’s gold” features than, say, Litecoin. The developers were NOT scammers, but good people dedicated to building something special – and truly were cutting edge in their methods.

However, over a nearly two-year period, it never built the network effect it sought – despite the fact it accomplished everything the developers aimed to achieve, and then some. The reason being - as I learned in real-time, and KNOW in hindsight - that no matter how novel a crypto idea is, if it is centrally managed, it will never develop the kind of organic network effect Bitcoin has…PARTICULARLY if it seeks to be an alternative “store of value.” Let alone, if one or a handful of people are integral to its success, maintenance, and marketing…which is the case for essentially ALL altcoins.

It’s kind of funny, when you’re involved, the cognitive dissonance altcoin investors have – in pretending such operational risks don’t exist, like the potential death, illness, or desertion of the key management personnel (in most cases, ONE person). Not to mention, the instability of networks with such low hash rates; limited or non-existent loyalty of its mining community; lower caliber of the exchanges that agree to list it; and incredibly low market liquidity.

And heck, I’m just talking about the minority of coins that are proof of work – as opposed to the vast majority that were heavily pre-mined, with little or no mining occurring today. To that end, 99.9% of coins are pre-mined – which means that ultimately those who developed it, or took big positions early, will seek to dump large, illiquid positions onto the market. To that end, the result is the same whether the project was created with novel aspirations, or as a pure pump and dump scam.

As Bitcoin Rhodium slowly faded away (around a $3 million market cap for the past nine months), I was introduced to MWC – which, counter to consensus view, was absolutely conceived with novel intentions. To that end, the lead developer – who has sold some already, and would for all intents and purposes kill the project if he died or left – is a very good guy, who treats people well and truly believes MWC has a use case. Of course, he is a big, nearly religious BTC holder – so unquestionably, he one day hopes to convert his considerable MWC holdings to BTC.

The problem being, that whilst MimbleWimble is incredible technology – that perhaps, Satoshi would have used in Bitcoin had it been available in 2009 – it is not in and of itself superior to what is available today. It cannot be implemented into Bitcoin via soft fork; and given the rapidly expanding list of privacy and scaling options, is not necessarily “needed” for Bitcoin to scale or become more “private.”

Equally importantly, for the reasons cited above, there is essentially no chance sustainable mining and investment communities will arrive to enable the developers and early buyers to cash out (particularly the ONE GUY who owns perhaps 35% of all MWC, and effectively “manages” the coin’s operations for his own benefit). This, BEFORE Trace Mayer got involved in pumping and dumping his obviously large airdropped coin position, which tainted the coins’ reputation further…and may in and of itself, be a major supply overhang for as long as MWC exists.

And don’t forget that as we speak, MWC’s hash rate is STILL near its all-time low, at levels below where it was successfully 51% attacked in January, multiple times. Not to mention, the fact that when the “HODL program” ends in two years or so, there will be MASSIVE dumping onto an illiquid market – just like in XRC, whose HODL program MWC’s was modeled after.

To that end, consider the very relevant comparison to HEX – an actual scam, in which 90% of the float will become freely tradeable this November…at which point, the price, which at this point is supported by brainless Richard Heart supporters, will plunge to zero.

In a nutshell, Bitcoin Rhodium was a well-intentioned project that aside from ONE MAN’s attempt to pump it into relevance several times (losing significant amounts of BTC in the process), has effectively died because it has no use case; or chance to compete with Bitcoin’s hash rate, liquidity, or decentralization – let alone, when the end of its HODL program causes MASSIVE amounts of XRC to be dumped on an incredibly illiquid market.

As for MWC, it too is supported solely by a handful of people who received it for free (in words, not deeds), and the ONE person who bought it all up with other people’s money who will DESTROY the price when he decides to sell.

As Bitcoin becomes more scalable and private (particularly when the Taproot/Schnorr soft fork occurs in the next 12 months, and coinjoins become more popular) MimbleWimble’s use case proposition will die, too. This, in a coin with essentially no hash rate, reliable exchanges, or liquidity – that, like XRC will at some point in the next two years see the vast majority of its float dumped on the market, as its HODL program ends.

Back to Litecoin, at this point it’s hard to believe anyone owns it for any reason other than the “unit bias” that has destroyed so many unsophisticated crypto investors so far…let alone, when the one man associated with its success, Charlie Lee, long ago left in lieu of Bitcoin. It may be older than most altcoins, but quite literally it has no use case – with a hash rate that, even after all these years, is so low, it too could easily be 51% attacked.

After selling my BTC in November 2018, I spent as much time following it’s progress as marketing the FREE airdrops XRC and MWC. Everything I did was transparent – and frankly, made a LOT of people a LOT of money. To wit, 1% of the entire Bitcoin community registered for their free MWC – which today, has a $120 million mkt cap; and anyone who registered for their free XRC, or bought it when I most actively marketed it early on, made significant windfall profits.

That said, the most valuable thing I accomplished during this time, for myself and the crypto community, was my observation of Bitcoin’s progress – which ultimately, led me to re-establish my once “maximalist” position…that unquestionably, is where I intend to remain for years, if not decades to come.

I needed to SEE first hand how these extremely nascent, complex technologies would develop – and after doing so, over seven years of Bitcoin’s existence, and nearly the entirety of that of the altcoin sector’s, I am 100% convinced that not only will Bitcoin be SHORTLY worth trillions (perhaps, TENS of trillions) of dollars, but that 99.9% of altcoins will be worthless within the next 3-5 years.

Today, my only career goals are HODLing Bitcoin and educating as many people as possible about why they need to own BTC, and NOT altcoins. Please contact me at CryptoGoldCentral.com if you have any questions.