Let me start by saying my view of crypto is limited—and very negative. Trying to be fair about the subject, I turned to ChatGPT for a better understanding. Here’s what I finally came up with.
Crypto has no intrinsic value—none. Its value comes only from what people are willing to pay. Sound familiar? That’s not all that different from our own currency. We’re no longer on the gold standard, so our money is only loosely tied to the American government. If you took a $10 bill to the Treasury and demanded your money’s worth… well, you see where I’m going.
At least with American currency, we have entire government agencies working to make sure its value stays relatively stable. Of course, you’ve probably noticed a dollar doesn’t go nearly as far as it used to. That’s inflation—the slow eroding of value as the economy adjusts to ever increasing money in existence.
Bitcoin, on the other hand, is tied to nothing. No central authority. No backing. Its value isn’t based on a product or a currency. Bitcoin isn’t even regulated by a nation. Though that might not be true for all types of crypto—just ask the folks in Argentina.
Now, think about baseball cards. That little piece of cardboard? It has no real value. You can’t return it to the vendor for a refund. There’s no official pricing board. The value is whatever someone’s willing to pay. If you’re not a collector, it’s just cardboard.
Crypto wallets
Bitcoin takes it a step further—it doesn’t even exist physically. Your Bitcoin is just an entry in a decentralized ledger. Decentralized because there are thousands of copies of that ledger floating around out there. A big part of what Bitcoin miners do is keeping those registers in sync. For that effort they get paid in, you guessed it, Bitcoin.
Let’s circle back to what you actually “have.” You don’t own a coin. You have a number representing an account and a private key to access your account. That’s it. No shiny digital coin, no receipt—just a number in a global spreadsheet. And since no one can remember a 77-digit number, you stash that key in a digital wallet—kind of like the password manager you should be using.
How big is that key? Picture a 1 followed by 77 zeros. According to ChatGPT, that’s more than the number of atoms in the observable universe. I’ll take their word for it—I don’t know about you, but my brain can’t even touch a number that massive. Forget brute-force cracking; this thing is locked down tighter than Fort Knox.
Buried somewhere, an $800 million hard drive
Let’s go one step further: Bitcoin is only a concept. You might have an entry in the ledger saying you own two Bitcoins, but unlike your bank account, you can’t go to the vault and see them. They don’t exist. Lose that private key? Poof—it’s gone. Just ask James Howells.
“Buried deep in a Welsh landfill, beneath layers of years-old garbage, there is a hard drive that holds the key to almost $800 million in Bitcoin – or so James Howells believes, after accidentally throwing the drive away in 2013.” Read the full story
So, with that as a backdrop, let’s dig in.
There’s a hard cap of 21 million Bitcoins. These only exist as entries in the ledger. Every time a valid transaction occurs, every copy of that ledger gets updated. “Valid” meaning the sender has enough in their balance to cover the transfer. No bouncing checks here. And like bank transactions, there’s a delay while the miners check and recheck everything.
The ledger stores every Bitcoin transaction ever made—but since Bitcoins are just concepts, not even labeled or numbered individually, there’s no way to track or trace specific ones.
That anonymity? It’s a dream come true for criminals and anyone wanting to dodge government oversight.
To visualize it, I picture Bitcoin like digital trading cards and a massive scoreboard showing account balances. As long as people want the cards, the score means something. But all it takes is a shift in public mood or a change in the law, and suddenly, your digital fortune vanishes.
So far, I’ve only talked about Bitcoin. Other cryptocurrencies have similar features, but they each come with their own quirks and tech.
Popular Cryptocurrencies:
● Bitcoin (BTC) – The original, the one everyone knows.
● Ethereum (ETH) – Built for smart contracts and decentralized apps (DApps).
● Tether (USDT), USD Coin (USDC) – Stablecoins, pegged to traditional currencies like the USA dollar.
● Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB) – Meme coins with rabid online fanbases.
Sure, there have been crypto millionaires. But remember: crypto has no inherent value. Nothing backs it up. Start your own crypto brand, pay everyone with it, hold back most of it for yourself, and as long as people believe it’s worth something—congrats, you’re a billionaire. It’s practically a digital conman’s dream.
Here’s a cautionary tale. Years ago, I was obsessed with an online game. In it, I realized I could manipulate the market for an in-game commodity. With no price controls and enough buying and selling, I caused wild price swings. Within weeks, I was an in-game millionaire.
What’s the takeaway? The smaller the group playing the game—or trading the crypto—the easier it is for someone to rig the system. Sure, you might get lucky. But if you’re not part of the inner circle pulling the strings, odds are, you’ll be the one left holding the worthless crypto.
One final note. Over the past few years, the USA has quietly amassed a significant amount of cryptocurrency, mostly seized during drug raids. No one really knew what to do with it—until recently. Trump has now declared that the USA will establish a crypto reserve and convert its holdings into XRP, another flavor of digital currency.
Right now, it’s just speculation. But like I said earlier, crypto runs on trust—and the ability to stay anonymous. If the USA government starts throwing serious weight behind XRP, its value is almost guaranteed to soar. Honestly? That smells an awful lot like Trump indulging in risk-free insider trading to me.
As for me, I’m heading outside to plant some tulips. True, that bubble burst ages ago—but at least I can enjoy the view and know where my money went.
Tulip Fever 2.0
© 2025, Byron Seastrunk. All rights reserved.
