I'm accepting Bitcoin...

Why I’ve decided to accept Bitcoin as a means of payment…

This is NOT financial advice. I repeat THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE.

In many ways the last few months has been something of a transformative time for me.

One of the many things I have done is take some time to educate myself about our monetary system. This in itself has been fascinating. I took an Economics A level and then started (didn’t finish…University wasn’t for me) a Business related degree so I thought I knew a bit about how things work. How wrong I was. None of what I have learnt over the last few months was part of my ‘education’.

Now, if you are anything like me first off, I’m sorry. And secondly, you have probably spent a good period of your life thinking that something about our world is off (too put it mildly). So many of us work very very hard every single day and yet making any meaningful progress is like wading through treacle. Basically our existing financial system is (putting it politely), a mess. Want to change the world? Then changing the monetary system would be a good place to start.

In learning about the current system I found myself learning about Bitcoin…that crazy internet funny money that every few years seems to go utterly ballistic before disappearing off the radar for a little while. Without wishing to go into much detail (there is a LOT of detail) Bitcoin has given me hope for my (and therefore our) future.

So what was it that tipped me over the edge? Well first off, ‘Quantative Easing’ (better known as printing money). I’ve always felt it crazy that countries can just print money whenever they need it…whilst we still have to pay taxes (if you can just print money, why do we pay taxes?), air ambulances are considered charities (that drives me mad), and schools are literally falling to pieces. Remember that magic money tree Theresa May talked about. Turns out there is one whenever they need it. Trouble is, the more they print, the more the ‘value’ of our money (such as a FIAT currency can have value) is dissolving in front of our very eyes. After all, the more of an item you have and the easier it is to produce, the less it is worth right? And secondly, when taking into account inflation we now have (more or less) negative interest rates (and likely will have them directly quite soon), so even if you can what is the point of saving money? Our system is based (and depends) upon debt. It is it’s very lifeblood.

Want to learn a little more? Watch this…

This can’t be right. So why has Bitcoin hooked me?

Well, one element that gives money its value is scarcity. FIAT currency is not scarce. As we know Governments can print as much as they want whenever they want. The supply of Bitcoin on the other hand is fixed. Only 21 million coins will ever be ‘mined’ over the coming decades. Furthermore, the flow of new coins will decrease over time. Every four years or so the flow of coins is halved. This is part of it’s coding… part of it’s DNA. This in itself creates an incentive to hold / save rather than spend it…as the total supply stays fixed whilst its flow decreases, it’s value should grow. Why spend it now if it will be worth more in a few years time? As it’s value increases demand should also increase for a decreasing supply…further increasing its value.

With this in mind it seems to me that Bitcoin is a fantastic store of value. Sure, it’s crazy volatile (it can go up very quickly… but also come down fast to…not for the faint of heart) but as a mid to long term store of value nothing has come close to it over the last decade. If nothing else, it’s certainly an alternative to putting your money in the bank and watching it lose it’s value as prices rise.

It’s also decentralised. No one person, group or entity owns the system. This is hugely appealing to me.

One of the other things that peaked my interest was learning that a single Bitcoin is actually divisible into 100,000,000 units known as Satoshis. So, yes.. a single Bitcoin is very expensive.. but buying a few Sats is most definitely not. This is what tipped me over the edge.

There is so very much more to Bitcoin (both the system and the means of exchange) than I could possibly begin to share here but for me at least, having studied it over the last 5-6 months or so, it has me hooked.

So, as a consequence I have decided that (alongside traditional currency) to accept payment for my services in Bitcoin as well as via more traditional methods. There’s a fair chance that I may never take a booking paid for with Bitcoin but in my opinion, as more and more people take the time to look into it and understand what it is and how it works, maybe that will change*.

There are many books, articles and videos out there that discuss what Bitcoin is. If you are at all interested the book that has blown my mind over recent months is ‘The Bitcoin Standard’ by Saifedean Ammous. Furthermore, with everything that is happening in the world at the moment, watching this might be worth 30 minutes of your time…

So, if you are interested in my work and maybe want to pay using Bitcoin? Fantastic… let’s talk!

And finally, again…. This is NOT financial advice. If Bitcoin is of interest to you please DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. I am absolutely not telling you to buy Bitcoin.

*Todays (21/10/20) announcement from Paypal suggests this might be sooner rather than later!