I don't know you personally, but I'm pretty sure you work hard every day to make a lot of money. I assume so because that's what a majority of people do. Working hard to build a better future or just enjoy the present better.
And then one day you realize that your hard-earned money is not really yours.
It is only made available to you by the powerful people in charge of the current monetary and financial system. To keep it yours, you must use your money according to their rules. Thus, you cannot make all the transactions of your choice with your money in the current banking system.
The power of censorship of those who run this system is total. They can also decide to confiscate your wealth for totally arbitrary reasons.
For those who are satisfied with these restrictive rules, there are worse things to come. The original sin of the current system: the ability of central banks to print as much fiat money out of thin air as they deem necessary. This great monetary inflation keeps devaluing your purchasing power over time.
It is something dramatic that prevents you from achieving true freedom with your money.
The day you discover this ugly truth about the current system, then you will be delighted to discover at the same time that a solution already exists. That solution is called Bitcoin and it has been running continuously since January 3, 2009. It is up to you to take advantage of it.
To do so, there are 5 steps to follow.
1. Buy Bitcoin
Invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin is a revolutionary P2P system that gives power back to the people. Bitcoin is encrypted P2P money. Best of all, Bitcoin is the people's money backed by the people.
Bitcoin gives you essential safeguards to protect the fruits of your labor from the ravages of monetary inflation in a way that is resistant to censorship.
Thus, the supply of Bitcoin is hard-capped at 21 million units. Its programmatic monetary policy abstracts you from the arbitrariness of human beings. It allows you to actually save your money without fear of seeing its value drop inexorably.
This is a total paradigm shift that the general public will have to get used to in the years to come. After discovering this, people will obviously end up buying Bitcoin. The demand will explode while the supply will remain the same. You don't need to draw a picture: this will cause the price of Bitcoin to soar.
2. Control your Private Keys
Bitcoin gives you power only if you have the private keys associated with your units. Without private keys in your possession, you fall back into the same trap as with the current monetary and financial system.
You trust a third party to take responsibility for your wealth. You don't really take power.
To take power with Bitcoin, you must control your private keys. In this regard, constantly remind yourself of the following golden rule:
Not your Keys, Not your Bitcoin.
After purchasing your Bitcoin on an exchange platform, your first instinct should be to transfer it to cold storage to take possession of your private keys. Once that's done, you can truly live your life on your own terms.
3. Run your own node on the Bitcoin network
The next logical step is to become your own bank. This can be done at any time without the need for permission by running your own node on the Bitcoin network. This is where Bitcoin makes all the difference with its transparent and permissionless system.
By running your own node, you can verify for yourself what the truth of the network is. Bitcoin will become the truth. You can contrast this with fiat currencies that are the truth of governments that force you to trust them blindly.
With your own node, you can also broadcast your own transactions on the Bitcoin network. A way to be truly sovereign and avoid that a third party tries to prevent you from using the fruits of your labor as you wish.
4. Use CoinJoin to protect your privacy
Contrary to what many people think, the Bitcoin network is not completely anonymous. Bitcoin is a pseudonymous network. To learn more about this, I recommend reading an article that answers four big questions about anonymity and privacy in the Bitcoin network.
The good news is that there are solutions to enhance your privacy with Bitcoin.
For this, the best is to use software wallets like Wasabi or Samourai. These wallets allow you to mix your BTC in a CoinJoin. A CoinJoin is a transaction to yourself where your BTC is mixed with BTC from other parties. The mixing is usually done with 50 to 100 other parties.
Thus, an outside observer cannot tell who is who once the transaction is validated. So no one can associate your identity with any of the addresses at the output of the transaction. Indeed, no one can know who is who in this type of CoinJoin transaction.
You can even go one step further by participating in multiple CoinJoin transactions, reinforcing the anonymity of the participants.
Currently, a minimum of 0.01 BTC is required to participate in a CoinJoin transaction with Wasabi. Each CoinJoin mixes only the same amount of BTC. If you have more to anonymize, you will automatically be queued for the next CoinJoin.
For smaller amounts, you can use Samourai.
Both of these services charge a fee for the CoinJoin that is made. This remains low since it is about 0.003% per anonymization.
On a technical level, Wasabi and Samourai work on the TOR network which means that you will not reveal your IP address during the process. This is something essential. Using a VPN to hide your IP address remains an excellent practice anyway when you make transactions in BTC.
The Lightning Network which is a second layer on top of the Bitcoin network may be used in the future for this purpose. It continues to develop slowly but surely.
5. Pay with Lightning Network
Opponents of Bitcoin continue to attack the network as being unusable for everyday payments. The validation times and transaction fees are prohibitive. These opponents condemn Bitcoin on this basis.
What they forget is that the Bitcoin community has already been working on a solution for several years.
That solution is the Lightning Network protocol, which is still growing. The 10,000 active nodes were passed earlier in 2021 and we are now beyond 13,000 nodes as I write this. The future of Bitcoin as a widespread means of payment in everyday life lies with the Lightning Network.
Paying via the Lightning Network has only advantages, and it's the last thing you need to do to really take control of your money.
Final Thoughts
In today's monetary and financial system, you will always have to abide by arbitrary rules set by a few powerful people. Rules that will only make you poorer over time. You must therefore seek to take back the power over your money to change your life for the better.
That means opting for the Bitcoin system. By choosing Bitcoin, you can change your future regarding money. After your first purchase in Bitcoin, all you have to do is follow the steps I've outlined above to fully access the liberating power of the Bitcoin revolution.
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