How Bitcoin ACTUALLY Works - Michael Saylor

Host:

A lot of people in my audience are not going to understand why you can't just store your money in dollars. Um, I have a whole tirade about it, but I'd love to hear from you—how do you explain to people why you can't just put your money in a bank account or under your mattress in dollars?

我的很多观众可能不明白为什么你不能只把钱存成美元。嗯，我对这个话题有很多要说的，但我更想听听你的看法——你是怎么向别人解释，为什么不能把钱放在银行账户或床垫底下、以美元形式保存的？

Michael:

The simple answer is that the supply of dollars has expanded by about 7% a year, every year, for the past 100 years. What that means is—if you want to buy something that is a very scarce and desirable asset—something the government can’t make more of, and manufacturers can’t make more of, and technology, capital, machinery, and robots can’t make more of—then it's scarce and desirable.

Here’s an example: an acre of beachfront property in Palm Beach, or a beachfront house in the Hamptons, or waterfront property in Miami Beach. That’s a desirable place to live. You can’t make more of it.

If you go back 100 years, you’ll see that the value of that acre was $110,000. You go forward 100 years, and it’s about $10 million. For those who are quick at math, they'll realize that works out to about a 7% increase per year for 100 years.

That’s why people buy houses for $100 million on the beach in Palm Beach.

And my house—the one I’m in right now—was sold in 1930. I have the deed on my wall. It was sold for $100,000.

If you had taken that $100,000 and put it in a vault, kept it safe and sound for 90 years, and then took it out today—it would only pay for about 8 to 12 weeks of my property tax on this house.

Like, literally—you couldn't keep the house for eight weeks.

Go ahead.

简单的答案是，在过去的一百年里，美元的供应量每年大约增长 7%。这意味着，如果你想购买一种稀缺且有价值的资产——一种政府无法增发、制造商无法再造，技术、资本、机器、机器人都无法制造更多的东西，那它就是稀缺且有价值的。

举个例子，比如 Palm Beach 的海滨土地、Hamptons 的海边别墅，或 Miami Beach 的临水地产。这些地方适合居住，而且你无法再创造出更多这样的地段。

如果你回到 100 年前，那一英亩地值大约 11 万美元；而 100 年后，那块地的价值变成了约 1000 万美元。快速计算一下你会发现，这正是每年增长 7% 的结果。

这也是为什么人们愿意花一亿美元买 Palm Beach 海边的房子。

我现在住的这所房子在 1930 年售出，我的墙上还挂着当年的契约，当时售价是 10 万美元。

如果你把这 10 万美元锁在保险箱里保存了 90 年，到今天拿出来，它也只能支付我这所房子 8 到 12 周的房产税。

也就是说——你根本无法靠这些钱撑过八周。

请继续。

Host: Let me say it in my own words—tell me if this resonates with you: the reason you can’t store your money in cash is that the government, uh, steals your buying power by printing more of it.

I find it very sobering to look at it as theft. Um... does that resonate with you, or do you think I’m being hyperbolic?

我来用我自己的方式说一下，你看看这是不是你认同的观点：你不能把钱以现金形式存起来，是因为政府通过印更多的钱，呃，偷走了你的购买力。

我觉得把这看作是一种偷窃，令人深思。

嗯……你认同这样的说法吗？还是觉得我太夸张了？

Michael: No, you're correct.

Uh, in essence, the inflation of the dollar supply means that your wealth is cut in half every 10 years if you hold all your wealth in cash. It's just—it's the rule of 72, right? You divide 7% into 72, and that gives you the half-life of the asset. So, the half-life of your wealth is 10 years if you store it in cash.

If someone gives you an asset you can invest in that goes up 7% a year, you're keeping up with inflation. You're not getting wealthier, but you're also not getting poorer—you're just treading water.

And if you're beating that hurdle rate, then you're getting a bit wealthier.

Once you understand that, you realize that you can't preserve your wealth for long periods of time in a fiat currency—even the best fiat currency in the world, Tom, which is the U.S. dollar.

But in most other currencies, they're inflating at 14% a year, which means the half-life of your wealth is just five years.

And in weak currencies like those in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Venezuela, or Argentina, the inflation rate used to be 28–30% a year, which means your wealth would halve in just 2–3 years.

For example, take the peso — it went from 1 peso to the dollar to 1,000 pesos to the dollar over 20 years.

不，你说得对。

本质上，美元供应量的通胀意味着——如果你把全部财富都以现金形式持有——你的财富每十年就会减少一半。这就是所谓的“72 法则”，你用 72 除以通胀率 7%，就得到了资产的半衰期。所以，现金的半衰期是十年。

如果有人给你一个每年增长 7% 的投资资产，那你只是跟上了通胀的步伐。你没有变富，也没有变穷，只是在原地踏步。

而如果你能超过这个门槛率（hurdle rate），你才算真正变得更富有了。

一旦你理解了这个道理，你就会明白，你无法通过持有法定货币长期保值——即使是全球最强的法币，比如美元。

在大多数其他货币体系中，通胀率大约是 每年 14%，这就意味着财富的半衰期只有五年。

在一些货币较弱的国家，比如土耳其、叙利亚、伊拉克、委内瑞拉、阿根廷，通胀率曾经是 28%-30% 每年，那意味着你的财富 2 到 3 年内就会缩水一半。

举个例子，比如比索（peso），它从过去的 1 比索兑 1 美元，变成了 1,000 比索兑 1 美元，只用了 20 年。

Host: Jesus.

Michael: Okay, so — you know, in America, you’ve got to keep in mind: you’re American. You live in the greatest country of the last 100 years.

America won every war. We were the winner of World War I — we got richer. We were the winner of World War II. We never lost a war. We were the winners of the century.

But even so, our currency lost 99.9% of its economic power over the last 100 years.

Now, if you go to Nigeria—or Germany — their currencies crashed two or three times.

In Japan, the currency crashed. In Russia, it crashed. The last time the Russian currency crashed was in 1998.

The Brazilian currency completely collapsed around 25 years ago. The Argentine peso has crashed about four times in the last 100 years.

So, if you’re an Argentinian and you’re only 30 years old, you already know what hyperinflation feels like, because you’ve lived through the entire cycle.

Americans, on the other hand, don’t have that experience.

So when you're taking advice from an American businessperson — like Warren Buffett or Charlie Munger — well, they didn’t live through the Weimar Republic, or the collapse of their own currency.

By the way, the currency collapsed in:

  • Venezuela
  • Argentina
  • Brazil
  • Cuba
  • Russia
  • Every single country in Africa

So foreigners understand this better.

Here’s what tends to happen:

The bank takes your money, the currency devalues to zero. The government promises everything’s okay and tells you to leave your money in the bank. Then they inflate the currency, freeze your account, crash the currency, and finally tell you it’s worthless.

That’s what happened in Cyprus, not too long ago. (You can Google it.)

  • So the real promise of Bitcoin is very simple:
    • It’s a bank in cyberspace that won’t steal your money.
    • It’s an asset you can store your life savings in — something no one can debase or corrupt.

And those are two powerful promises that — for the first time in human history — are now possible.

No one has ever given you both of those promises until now.

在美国，你要意识到自己生活在过去一百年最强大的国家。美国赢得了一战、二战，我们从未真正输过一场战争，可以说是世纪的赢家。

但即便如此，美元在过去 100 年中失去了 99.9%的购买力。

  • 看看其他国家：
    • 德国、尼日利亚的货币崩溃过两三次；
    • 俄罗斯货币在 1998 年崩盘；
    • 巴西在 25 年前彻底货币崩溃；
    • 阿根廷在过去 100 年中货币崩盘了大约四次。

如果你是个 30 岁的阿根廷人，你就知道什么是恶性通胀，因为你亲身经历了整个过程。

但美国人没有那种经历，所以当你听从沃伦·巴菲特或查理·芒格这类美国商人的建议时，他们并没有经历过货币崩溃。

  • 而比特币真正的承诺是什么？ 它是：
    • 一个网络中的银行，不会偷你的钱；
    • 一个可以安全储存一生积蓄的资产，不会被贬值或腐化。

这两个承诺是人类历史上前所未有的。

Host:

Yeah, the thing that—um, and a lot of this started with me getting to know you and researching cryptocurrency — was realizing the absolute devastation that’s happening even in America due to inflation.

And understanding this difference that you’re now explaining so clearly — until I started researching you for this episode, I’d never heard you delineate it this way — that money is bifurcated into two elements:

  1. The money that you spend—cool.
  2. But then there's the money that you're trying to preserve your wealth with over time.

When I tell people how they should think about their house, I say:

Don’t think of your house as something that’s going to increase in value over time. Think of it more like an insurance policy—you're paying to maintain it, pay the property tax, and match inflation.

Unless your area becomes disproportionately desirable — and that does happen (like Austin, where prices went up because people flooded in)—then yes, value might increase significantly.

But for the most part, what you’ll actually see is:

You’re just keeping up with inflation.

So as the dollar is devalued, it looks like the price of your house is going up—but the real value isn't necessarily increasing.

我开始研究加密货币、认识你之后，才意识到即使在美国，通胀也造成了巨大破坏。

你刚才说得非常清楚，我之前从没听你这样划分过：

金钱其实是分成两部分的——一部分是你日常支出的，另一部分是你想用来长期储存财富的。

我告诉别人怎么看待房子时会说：

不要把房子看作是一个会不断升值的资产， 要把它看作是你支付保险费用以应对维护成本和通胀的工具。

除非你所在地区变得特别受欢迎，比如奥斯汀（Austin）就是因为大量人迁入而涨价。

但大多数时候，房价的“上涨”只是在跟通胀赛跑。

也就是说，美元贬值了，你的房子看起来是涨价了，但实际价值并没有提升。

Michael:

I think that’s fair, by the way. I think that’s definitely a good way to think of it.

我觉得你说得很有道理。这确实是一个很好的思考方式。

Host:

Yeah, I think so. My thing — even in my own company — when I start talking about this stuff, my employees look at me a little bit like I’m crazy, because I’m so aggressive about getting people to understand it.

It’ll be really interesting to have this conversation with you, because ultimately, the stock market is gambling.

And once you understand that people have been forced to become gamblers due to inflation — that you have to find a way to outpace inflation, otherwise you lose your money — it really changes your outlook.

The really smart among us look at the capital system, look at the equities market, and they say,

“Oh, cool. I have a complex way to find arbitrage — to find moments where, if I see an area of risk that I understand better than others, I can buy the asset, and when its value goes up, I can sell it for more than what inflation has eaten away.”

That forces everyone to play the game — or risk having their buying power stripped away.

And of course, that’s exactly what happens to the vast majority of people —** the so-called “normal” or undereducated** — they’re just going to get eaten alive, because they don’t have the time, energy, or intellect to figure out this relatively complicated game.

Okay, so with all of that as the structure—the why even the average person should care about this to a screaming degree—

There’s an idea that you say, but you kind of go by it quickly, and I think if people really understood it, it could help them a lot.

You’ve said, “I want to see the entire world recapitalize in Bitcoin.”

Now when you say “recapitalize,” do you mean:

That the portion of your wealth you want to store — to maintain purchasing power over time — should move out of real estate, out of treasuries, out of equities, and instead be moved into Bitcoin?

Is that what you mean?

我在公司谈这些话题时，员工常常觉得我有点疯狂，因为我特别激进地希望大家理解这些事情。

但这次和你谈，真的很有意义。因为股市本质上是赌博。

一旦你意识到，人们是被迫成为赌徒的——通胀迫使你必须跑赢通胀，否则你会失去财富。

聪明人会研究资本体系和股票市场，然后说：

“太好了，我可以在一些我理解比别人更深的风险区域里，找到套利机会，买入资产，等它升值后卖出，只要比通胀吃掉的多，就能获利。”

这就逼迫所有人都必须玩这个游戏，否则就只能看着自己的购买力被一点点剥夺。

而这正是大多数普通人——尤其是教育水平较低的人——的处境。 他们没有时间、精力或能力去理解这个复杂的财富游戏，结果就是被这个系统“活活吃掉”。

所以，这也解释了为什么连普通人都必须认真对待这件事。

你曾说过一句话，

“我希望看到全世界都用比特币重新资本化。”

但你说得很快，我觉得大家如果真的理解这句话，会很受启发。

所以我想问的是： 你说的“重新资本化”，是不是指：

把你想要保值的那部分财富，从房地产、国债、股票中撤出来， 然后转移到比特币上？

你的意思是这样吗？

Michael:

Yeah, that’s a good way to say it.

Yeah, you’ve articulated that quite well.

Yes — recapitalize, build.

Build your house on a firm foundation. Don’t build it on sinking sand, don’t build it on a swamp — build it on granite rock, on schist (a type of solid rock).

If I could give you the math:

If you’re capitalized in U.S. dollars, and you go buy Treasury bonds, the so-called risk-free rate is tied to SOFR—the Standard Overnight Funding Rate.

That rate fluctuates, but say you earn 5%, and then you get taxed.

After taxes, you might keep 3%.

If you’re in a tax-free environment, maybe you keep 4.5%.

But generally, if you’re taxed, you’re looking at around 3%.

So, the risk-free rate of return on capital held in dollars is in the 3% range.

Now compare that to Bitcoin.

The risk-free rate for Bitcoin, based on the last 21 years of performance, is about 29–30% annualized.

So the way I look at investments is this:

If you're pitching me an idea, I already have a large portion of my capital in Bitcoin, and I’m expecting 30% risk-free over the next 20 years.

So your investment needs to beat that:

  • It needs to return more than 30%,
  • Plus a risk premium,
  • Plus tax efficiency.

If you offer me something that makes 50% a year, but it’s taxable, then maybe I net 40%, or 35%.

And after risk and taxes, I’m like,

“Well, that’s still not better than my ‘risk-free’ 30% from Bitcoin.”

So, if you're capitalized on Bitcoin, if you understand it,and if you have a long time horizon — meaning you’ll hold it for more than four years — then you don’t care about the volatility.

All you care about is the annualized return.

你刚才的说法很好，很清晰。

是的，要“重新资本化”，要“建立”（Build）。

你应该把你的“房子”（财富）建在坚实的地基上，而不是建在流沙或沼泽上。应该建在花岗岩上。

如果我们谈一下数学：

如果你持有的是美元资产，比如买国债，那么所谓的无风险利率大概接近 SOFR（标准隔夜融资利率）。

假设你获得了 5% 的年收益，扣完税你大概只能拿到 3%；

如果是免税环境，可能能拿到 4.5%。

所以，美元体系下的无风险收益大概就是 3% 左右。

而 比特币的无风险收益率——根据过去 21 年的数据——是 年化约 29–30%。

所以我看投资的方式是这样的：

你向我推销一个投资机会？ 我已经有大量资金在比特币中，我期望未来 20 年年化有 30% 的“无风险”收益。

所以你提供的投资必须：

  • 高于 30%，
  • 再加上 风险溢价，
  • 再加上 税务优化后的回报。

如果你告诉我某个项目年化收益 50%，但要交税，最后可能只剩 40% 或 35%， 那我会想：

“这其实还不如我拿比特币的 30% 安稳。”

如果你真的理解比特币、有长期持有的视角（比如超过四年），你就不会在意波动，你只关心一个数字：

年化回报率。

Host:

There are a lot of assumptions in there.

So I know a lot of people are probably clutching their pearls right now — about Bitcoin being referred to as “risk-free.”

So can you break it down for us?

What’s the difference between volatility and risk?

And how can you have the confidence to look at Bitcoin and say,

“No, no, no — the risk is merely a timeline question.”

Because I think a lot of people will take exception to that idea.

你刚刚讲的内容里，有很多前提假设。

我知道现在肯定有不少人听到你说比特币是“无风险”资产时，已经开始“抓胸口”了（表示震惊）。

所以你能不能给我们解释一下：

  • “波动性” 和 “风险” 之间的区别是什么？
  • 你又是如何有信心说：

    • “不不不，风险只是一个时间维度的问题。”

因为我相信很多人对这点是会提出质疑的。

Michael: Yeah, so—well, the dollar has zero ARR (Annual Rate of Return) and zero volatility.

That is to say:

  • The dollar goes up 0% against itself each year.
  • It also has zero volatility — because it’s not fluctuating against itself.

So if you’re holding dollars, you’re living in flatland. You’re like a stationary pedestrian in a two-dimensional world.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is going up 60% a year against the dollar.

For how long?

Well, since MicroStrategy made its first investment four years ago, it’s been up 60% annually.

But if you stretch it back 6, 8, even 10 years, you’ll see that Bitcoin has averaged around 60% annual growth.

So over a decade, it’s held that growth rate.

And yes, it also has 60% volatility. So it’s a “60/60 asset”—60% return, 60% volatility—against the dollar.

Here’s how you should think of it:

Imagine you’re on a speeding train going 60 miles per hour, and there’s a flywheel spinning at 60 RPM. Meanwhile, the person standing in “flatland” (holding dollars) is just watching the train rush by. They think, “This is scary—it’s going to suck the oxygen out of my lungs!”

But the reality is — they’re just standing still.

Their money is going nowhere — it earns 0%.

So they have a very different perspective on money compared to someone riding the Bitcoin train.

Let’s take a concrete example:

  • Someone with $1 million in cash is going to have $1 million in cash ten years from now.
  • Someone with $1 million in Bitcoin, based on historical performance, is going to double their capital every 18 months — just by holding it.

So over ten years, they’d double it four times (approximately):

  • $1M → $2M → $4M → $8M → $16M

That’s the difference in trajectory.

And so, when people get scared about volatility, they miss the bigger picture:

The volatility is real—but it comes down to a question of time horizon.

美元的年化回报率是 0%，波动率也是 0%，因为它不会“对自己”升值或贬值。 你持有美元就像生活在一个“二维的平面世界”里，静止不动。

而比特币，过去四年（MicroStrategy 投资以来）年化回报约 60%； 回看过去 6 到 10 年，平均年化也是 60%，波动率也是 60%。

所以它是一个 60/60 的资产——60% 年化回报 + 60% 波动率。

可以把它比作：

你坐在一列以 60 英里每小时飞驰的火车上，火车内部还有一个每分钟旋转 60 次的飞轮，而持有美元的人，就像在原地站着的行人，看着火车呼啸而过，吓得不敢靠近，觉得这太“危险”。

但事实是，美元根本不涨，持有它十年后仍是原地踏步。

而你如果用一百万美元买入比特币，按历史表现，每 18 个月翻一倍：

  • 1M → 2M → 4M → 8M → 16M（十年四次翻倍）

所以真正的问题不在于波动性本身，

而是你有没有足够的时间视角来看待它。

Host:

Sorry—and I’ll let you get back to that—but this does come down to a belief:

When you look into the future, the setup that gives Bitcoin a 60% annual return is going to continue.

Because when I look at it, I say—

The only reason Bitcoin has that kind of reward is because it’s volatile. There are question marks around it.

And if there were no question marks — if it were fully accepted — everyone would flood in almost instantly, the price would spike, and eventually it would hit homeostasis.

And that would be the end of these outsized returns.

So, I don’t think Bitcoin is risk-free at all.

But I do think the volatility is advantageous — for the people who are right.

If people are right about its upside potential, then that volatility rewards them fairly.

So let me ask:

Why do you think the best way to conceptualize Bitcoin is as “risk-free”?

不好意思，打断一下，但我觉得这归根结底是一个“信念”的问题：

当你看向未来，你要相信让比特币维持 60% 年化回报率 的机制会继续存在。

但在我看来，比特币有这种高回报的唯一原因，是因为它具有高波动性、存在很多不确定性。

如果没有这些问号——如果大家都接受它，那所有人都会立刻蜂拥而入，价格会飙升，然后市场就会进入稳定状态（homeostasis），高回报也就结束了。

所以我不认为比特币是“无风险”的。

但我确实认为，波动性对那些判断正确的人是有利的。

如果你赌对了它的上涨潜力，那这些波动就是你应得的奖励。

所以我想问你：

为什么你觉得最好的方式是把比特币看作一个“无风险资产”？

Michael:

Howard Marks would say:

Volatility is not risk. Volatility is volatility.

A merry-go-round, or a carnival ride, or a roller coaster — those things are volatile.

But risk is something different.

Risk is what happens if you fly off the roller coaster, or if the merry-go-round stops working, or if the ride breaks down.

So the fundamental risk of Bitcoin is the existential risk — the potential for an extinction-level event.

For example:

  • If space aliens come down and say, “We’re taking your Bitcoin away,” well, then I guess there’s risk.
  • Or if some evil genius invents a cyber virus that instantly and irreversibly destroys the Bitcoin network—that’s a risk.

But that's like the existential risk you take in everyday life:

  • When you get on an airplane, the risk is: it could crash.
  • When you cross the street, the risk is: you could get hit.
  • When you eat food, the risk is: what if someone poisoned it?

If you say, “Can you imagine this food hurting me?” I’d say, “Yeah, if I put poison in it, you’re dead.”

So the real question is:

Do you trust the system? Do you trust the chef? Do you trust the waiter?

Yes, there’s some risk in life. And in the case of Bitcoin, the existential risk is some world-ending event that wipes it out.

But short of that, volatility is just motion, not danger.

Howard Marks 说得好：

波动性不是风险，波动性就是波动性。

旋转木马、游乐场的过山车，这些都很波动，但它们本身不是风险。 真正的风险是你从过山车上飞出去、机器坏了、无法停止等事件。

比特币的根本风险是它面临的“灭绝级事件”，也就是存在性风险：

比如：

  • 外星人降临，说：“我们要拿走你们的比特币。”——那当然是风险。
  • 或者有个邪恶天才制造出一种网络病毒，能立刻摧毁比特币网络且无法恢复——这就是风险。

但这些风险就像你日常生活中要承担的“存在性风险”：

  • 你坐飞机 → 有坠机风险；
  • 你过马路 → 有被撞风险；
  • 你吃饭 → 如果有人投毒 → 你就死了。

所以问题不是“有没有风险”， 而是你问自己：

“我信任这个系统吗？我信任厨师或服务员吗？”

没错，人生中总是有一些风险。 而对比特币来说，除非发生那种毁灭级事件， 否则所谓的“风险”其实只是价格的波动，而不是真正的危险。

Host:

There’s another layer of risk—not existential—but still important.

You’re referring to Bitcoin as having a "risk-free return" of 60%, but I think what feels off to a lot of people is the assumption that it will continue performing at that rate.

Even you have said that over the next 21 years, it’s expected to come down—that it will average out to around 29% annualized return.

But what if that slowdown happens faster than expected? What if the actual return ends up being substantially lower than that?

Now, I understand saying that Bitcoin has a better chance of delivering a higher return than, say, the S&P 500, which we might estimate at around 15%.

So maybe it won’t hit 60% consistently, but it also probably won’t drop below 15% — and if 15% is our hurdle rate, then it’s reasonable to say Bitcoin could outperform.

However, I think the part where people get uncomfortable with your language is this idea of inevitability — the assumption that 60% is somehow guaranteed.

What would you say to that?

这里还有一层风险，虽然不是“存在性风险”，但仍然重要。

你说比特币的“无风险回报是 60%”，但很多人听起来觉得这有些问题， 因为这背后带有一个假设：比特币未来依然会维持这个回报水平。

你自己也说过，未来 21 年的年化回报可能会降到约 29%。

但如果这个下滑来得更快呢？ 如果实际回报比预期的低很多呢？

当然，我理解你说的意思是：

比特币未来可能比 S&P 500（标普 500 指数）表现更好， 而我们可能把标普年化收益估算在 15% 左右， 即便比特币达不到 60%，可能也不会低于 15%，如果我们设定的“门槛收益率”是 15%，那么比特币还是有望跑赢。

但问题在于，很多人对你用“60%”这个数字时的语气有点不舒服—— 因为这听起来好像你在说这个回报是不可避免的、几乎是保证的。

你会怎么回应这种质疑？

Michael:

So we’re really dealing with three concepts here: risk, volatility, and performance.

I’ve already addressed risk by pointing out that there is always some existential risk in any given network or system—whether it's Bitcoin, fiat currencies, or traditional finance.

But once you understand and accept that level of risk, you need to ask:

What’s the source of volatility? What’s the source of performance?

If you don’t understand the underlying mechanics — what I call economic physics — then Bitcoin looks random.

And when you don’t understand why an asset performs the way it does, you’ll mistake volatility for risk, and you'll assume the performance is just luck or chance.

Let me give you a metaphor to help explain it.

The Mountain Lake Analogy

Imagine I’m a hiker who stumbles upon a mountain lake — It holds 500 trillion gallons of water, it’s clear and cold, and there’s a waterfall flowing from it.

  • The water in the lake is calm.
  • The waterfall is turbulent — it’s volatile.

If I don’t understand where that water came from or how it moves, I might say:

“This waterfall is wild! What if it stops falling downhill?” “This is too volatile for me!”

So maybe I take a selfie, go for a swim, get cold, and leave.

But suppose I’m not just a tourist—I’m an engineer.

Now, I start to understand the system:

  • The sun shines on the ocean
  • Water evaporates
  • It rises, condenses, and rains into the mountains
  • That fills the mountain lake
  • The water flows downhill due to gravity

I realize:

“Ah! This system has structure, momentum, and energy. It’s not random.”

So what do I do?

I build a dam.

I install a turbine and generate electricity.

Then I power a village or a city.

If someone says,

“What happens when the water stops flowing downhill?” I say: “Gravity. Newton solved that one.”

If someone asks,

“What happens when the lake runs dry?” I answer: “There’s 500 trillion gallons in the lake—and the sun keeps shining on the ocean. The system is sustainable.”

Bitcoin Is the Waterfall

Now let’s tie that metaphor to Bitcoin:

  • The 500 trillion gallons of water = $500 trillion of global capital
  • That capital is currently stuck in real estate, sovereign debt, corporate bonds, fiat currencies, artwork, and equities in unstable countries
  • It’s held in warehouses that are depreciating, or in currencies in crisis zones like Cuba, Venezuela, Nigeria, etc.

So there’s a natural force — call it economic gravity — that causes capital to flow from high-energy, low-efficiency systems to low-energy, high-efficiency systems.

Bitcoin is that lower-energy state. It’s more thermodynamically sound. Capital wants to flow downhill into it.

It’s not an accident that Bitcoin is going up—it’s because:

  • Capital is seeking efficiency
  • Inflation, war, entropy, and time are devaluing traditional assets
  • Bitcoin represents a more energy-efficient storage of value

Why Is Bitcoin Volatile?

Because Bitcoin is open, liquid, and always trading.

Unlike:

  • Real estate you can’t sell at 3am
  • Picassos you can’t trade on weekends
  • Apartments that don’t have 100x leverage on global exchanges

With Bitcoin:

  • On a Saturday night, someone can place a $10 billion short bet with 100x leverage during a geopolitical scare
  • Then reverse the position Sunday morning when the crisis passes

No other asset on Earth allows that kind of behavior. And that is why Bitcoin is volatile —

Not because it’s broken, but because it’s the most liquid, most accessible, and most useful capital market instrument in the world.

So yes, volatility is a feature, not a bug. It’s a result of Bitcoin’s usefulness, its openness, and its efficiency in absorbing and redistributing capital.

And once you understand that—once you stop seeing performance and volatility as random—you realize:

Bitcoin’s growth isn’t luck. It’s physics.

我们要讨论的其实是三个核心概念：

  1. 风险（Risk）
  2. 波动性（Volatility）
  3. 表现/回报（Performance）

用“山湖瀑布”作比喻：

  • 湖水是稳定的资本（500 万亿美金）
  • 瀑布是资本从低效资产流向高效资产的过程（比特币）
  • 重力 = 经济逻辑（资本自然想“往低能耗、更高效”的方向流动）
  • 工程师（懂机制的人）就会用这个系统发电（比喻：利用波动性创造回报）
  • 只要太阳还照耀海洋、水循环还继续，这个系统就能长期运作

为什么比特币表现好？

因为它不是随机现象，它是资本在寻找更低能耗、更高效率的状态。

相比之下，许多传统资产：

  • 被通胀吞噬
  • 被战争摧毁
  • 被腐烂和时间削弱

为什么比特币波动这么大？

因为它：

  • 开放交易（24/7）
  • 全球杠杆（100 倍）
  • 交易量大、深度强

也就是说——

如果你能在周六晚下 100 倍杠杆空头，然后周日早上又反转做多，那当然波动性大！ 这在股票、房产、艺术品市场根本不可能发生。

所以波动性不是比特币的缺陷，而是它作为全球最有效资本市场的体现。

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