r/investing
How is Bitcoin not just a digital amulet
Author compares Bitcoin to a digital amulet, arguing it lacks real utility, cannot solve financial issues, and only enriches promoters.
- Bitcoin is just arbitrary numbers in code with no actual power to fix real-world financial problems like inflation.
- It fails as a true store of value, resembling a pyramid scheme where returns rely on finding someone else to buy it.
- It cannot provide freedom from government control, as holders still must pay taxes, obey laws, and face regulatory seizure.
You know how amulet sellers spoke the language of fixes: this carved bone wards off evil spirits, that little stone guarantees a good harvest, this piece of metal cures sickness, that scrap of cloth brings luck. The objects themselves were ordinary junk with zero real power. They fixed nothing. Their only strength was the story and the desperate hope of the buyer.
Bitcoin works exactly the same way, just in digital form. Promoters talk endlessly about the fixes it delivers. It will end inflation. It will free you from corrupt banks and governments. It will give you unbreakable security, borderless money, and a true store of value no one can seize. Sounds powerful, right? Yet underneath the hype, Bitcoin is nothing more than fractions of an arbitrary number, 21 million, imagined by a programmer and recorded in code. Just like the amulet, this has no actual power to fix anything.
Financial problems are problems of bad or excessive obligations. Trust in money is trust that those obligations will be fulfilled and enforced. Holding a fraction of some imagined numbers cannot fix this.
Value storage? How is trading away real assets to hold a number actually storing value? It is like joining a pyramid scheme and hoping you will get your investment back later from someone else.
Freedom from government? You still have to pay taxes. You still obey the law. The government does not care how many satoshis you stack. Holding those numbers will not shield you from regulation, seizure, or political reality.
In short, holding fractions of an imagined number and having them stored decentrally cannot fix anything in the real world.
Meanwhile, the people promoting this are doing great. Book authors, seminar hosts, exchange operators, and influencers make serious money by presenting Bitcoin as the ultimate fix for every financial ill. They thrive on the same human impulse that kept amulet sellers in business for thousands of years: hope mixed with fear, wrapped in a compelling narrative.
So how is Bitcoin not just a digital amulet? The honest answer is that it is exactly that. It is the same ancient trick, updated with better marketing and clever code. Technology changed, human nature did not. The shape of the amulet evolved from carved bone to blockchain entry, but the game remains identical: sell belief, collect real value.