If someone tells you to buy a thing and then never use it, you probably agree it is a scam. And it really is.
However, this is how BTC actually markets itself.
What does ‘hodl’ mean concerning BTC?
HODL means “to hold,” and is used in the digital asset sphere by people who think that buying BTC and then never make use of the BTC is a revolutionary act.
Whether you read “crypto Twitter, “crypto media,” or even certain mainstream financial news outlets, you are basically asked to buy into BTC (or other digital assets) and hold them infinitely. The idea is to hold those BTC coins until they are worth much more dollar wise. Buying an asset, holding it and selling it later for more is called speculation, no problem with that.
However, the “sell it” part is actually never mentioned by BTC proponents. They do not encourage to ever sell BTC.
Why?
The idea of an endlessly dollar appreciating BTC
BTC proponents try to sell the idea that BTC will—due to its limited supply—only increase in dollar appreciation. Sounds logical, there are “just” 21 million BTC and human population is growing.
But assets do not price appreciate solely for being limited while potential buyers are unlimited. If anything is to price appreciate, it needs a reason to do so. If it is used for something that people want, it might be worth more later on.
It all comes down to utility. Is BTC actually used for anything though?
No, because remember: they want you to buy and “hodl” it. They are basically saying “buy and never use it.” You are asked to not make use of the thing you just bought! It is insane.
If we never use BTC, how could it ever infinitely price appreciate? It cannot, and this is the scam.
Due to technical reasons, BTC cannot and does not want to scale. It therefore cannot be used as cash in any way. People are forced to pay ridiculously high transactional fees to move their BTC at certain times.
Furthermore, BTC does not make use of Bitcoin’s potential at all. With the real Bitcoin—nowadays known as Bitcoin SV—we are able to put value to data. A never seen before possibility in human history. This is why businesses build on Bitcoin SV instead of BTC.
They want you to ‘hodl’ so you pump their BTC bags
Explaining the obvious: the known BTC proponents probably bought their first BTC at two-digit dollar valuations. For example, they bought in at $10. Now they try to lure you into buying BTC, so it becomes more scarce by more people buying and infinitely “hodling” it.
BTC trades at roughly $9,000 as of writing this article. So-called expert investors still tell people to “buy and hodl”—but you are buying at $9,000 now, when they did buy at $10.
Not hard to understand what is going on, right?
It is crucial for them to not let you actually sell your BTC—ever. If enough people would sell BTC, the price would dramatically crash. They would be back at their $10 faster than anyone could imagine.
That is why the “hodl” narrative is so important. They further decorated it by calling BTC “digital gold,” which is false as we have shown as BTC is a digital Dow Jones. They will sell their BTC eventually, they do not plan to “hodl forever”—but you will.
Remember: if someone tells you to buy something but never use it, a scammer is talking.
How is Bitcoin SV different?
Bitcoin SV’s economic model does not rely on people buying the Bitcoin SV coins. No serious Bitcoin SV proponent will try to convince you of buying BSV and never use it.
Quite the opposite: Bitcoin SV is building an “earn and spend” economy, or to make it simple: an economy.
Economies are transactions between humans. Human to human, human to machine, or machine to machine—machines are run by humans after all, so it all comes down to humans transacting.
Bitcoin SV exactly serves this purpose. It runs on low transactional fees, does already scale for worldwide usage and serves as a way to value data and be used as cash conveniently. BSV is explicitly in existence to be transacted in an economy, to be actually used.
Pay attention to the BTC block reward miners and Bitcoin SV transaction processors, too. You will see the difference: while BTC block reward miners perform work for themselves, Bitcoin SV transaction processors work for others. The latter is creating an economy.
Do you want to be part of an economy or part of a scam?
You can ‘hodl’ your Bitcoin SV too—but with good reasons to do so
In a real economy that’s being built on Bitcoin SV right now, there are people who spend, earn and save their money. You can “hodl” Bitcoin SV for sure, nobody has anything against that.
But you would “hodl” BSV to save your money, and savings are meant to be a delayed spending. Nobody saves money for the purpose of solely hoarding money, it is always being saved for a future transaction.
If you “hodl” BTC, there is no future transaction. With Bitcoin SV, you are able to conveniently save your BSV in order to participate in the future economy built on Bitcoin SV at a point of time you choose.
Grasp the difference or get scammed by the “crypto cartel.”
New to blockchain? Check out CoinGeek’s Blockchain for Beginners section, the ultimate resource guide to learn more about blockchain technology.
