{"id":4556,"date":"2025-08-13T15:17:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/13\/nobody-orange-pilled-you-or-me-or-anybody\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T15:17:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T15:17:19","slug":"nobody-orange-pilled-you-or-me-or-anybody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/13\/nobody-orange-pilled-you-or-me-or-anybody\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobody Orange-Pilled You \u2014 Or Me, Or Anybody"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

Nobody Orange-Pilled You \u2014 Or Me, Or Anybody<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cthe first fractions of a bitcoin will find you<\/em>
as soon as you are ready to receive them.\u201d \u2013<\/em>Gigi<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOrange-pill<\/a>\u201d might no longer<\/a> be the most accurate term for becoming a Bitcoiner anymore, but it conveys the core idea. Like Morpheus presenting the blue and red pills to Neo in the Matrix<\/em>, it conveys a moment of choice, or being presented with knowledge: Who made you see<\/em> that bitcoin was a good idea? Who made you a \u201cBitcoiner\u201d?<\/p>\n

Sometimes we can point to a specific such person or moment, but more often it\u2019s a slow drip from a leaky faucet, quietly turning into an open tap and then, explosively\u2026 flooding the entire kitchen.<\/p>\n

Everyone did; world events did; my subconscious did; perhaps even Satoshi himself did.<\/em><\/p>\n

All of these answers are true-ish<\/em>. In \u201cSatoshi and Me<\/a>,\u201d Tomer Strolight spoke vividly about how Satoshi \u201cgot<\/em> me\u2026 deep deep deep inside my mind. And he left his mark all over it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A friend asked me a few months back whether he<\/em> was the one who orange-pilled me. \u201cPff,\u201d I said, \u201cif anything, you failed<\/em> to orange-pill me!\u201d<\/p>\n

We referred to some flowy conversations in 2018 and 2019, where we went back and forth over money<\/a>, savings, monetary policy, what central banks do and how economies function. He tried repeatedly to show me how bitcoin was better; I couldn\u2019t grasp how that speculative, techy tulip thing could be<\/em> \u2014 let alone how bitcoin could ever supplant an (ideally) functioning central bank. I saw the same macro problems<\/a> he did; I just thought we needed better (fiat) monetary policy to fix them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For those of us living not by the sword but by the pen, we have to do most of our learning in public; our ideas become a time-stamped matter of public record<\/a>. Clearly, then, I became a Bitcoiner somewhere<\/em> in the 2017-2021 region, having already very reluctantly received my first showcase sats<\/a> well before then:<\/p>\n

\u201cI Have Doubts About Bitcoin<\/a>\u201d (Dec \u201917): Bitcoin-curious<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBitcoin\u2019s Fixed Money Supply Is a Weakness<\/a>\u201d (Aug \u201919): a hostile no-coiner.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThere Will Be No New Bitcoin Man<\/a>\u201d (May \u201920): an annoyed obsessive<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow Much of My Portfolio Should be Allocated to Bitcoin<\/a>?\u201d (Aug \u201921): an apologetic, an optimistic believer<\/em> \u2014 a soft orange-pill.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHow Bad Is Bitcoin\u2019s Flaw?<\/a>\u201d (Dec \u201921): one of us, one of us!<\/em><\/p>\n

At the end of that year, on these very pages, I tried to account for my intellectual journey<\/a> and pointed to Covid (authoritarianism) and market prices<\/a> as having changed my mind. Those were important accelerators, but the point is that my mind was already receptive to the idea. I clearly remember having looked under Bitcoin\u2019s hood with Yan Pritzker\u2019s Inventing Bitcoin<\/em><\/a>. Spending hours with Stephan Livera yapping in my podcast-hungry ears, beginning with his first podcast episode<\/a> in July 2018, probably didn\u2019t hurt either. (Since then, I\u2019ve edited some of the most crucial reads for anyone\u2019s orange-pill journey: \u201cThe Genesis Book<\/a>,\u201d Broken Money<\/a>, Bitcoin Age<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

My friend\u2019s repeated, passionate arguments during those formative years were probably decisive, setting me up for embracing Satoshi in my heart. There was no specific orange-pill moment<\/em>, and the intellectual (and, I suppose, ethical) trajectory I went through was anything but smooth \u2014 with plenty of soul-searching and reassessments of core beliefs along the way. <\/p>\n

\n

You know what\u2019s shitty. <\/p>\n

Literally a year ago I was telling all my friends to buy Bitcoin when it was around $60k. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s now DOUBLE that. None of them bought any that I know of. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shame that they haven\u2019t taken advantage of atleast learning about Bitcoin\/taken the time to\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u20bfitcoin Jake (@BitcoinerJake) July 14, 2025<\/a>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Orange-Pilled Hemingway: We Learn the Same Way We Go Bankrupt<\/h2>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t try to orange-pill people anymore\u2026 but if you have a question about it,
I\u2019ve got all<\/em> the time in the day\u201d \u2013James \u201cCheckmate\u201d Check<\/a><\/p>\n

We come to the realizations we do the same way we go bankrupt: gradually, then suddenly<\/a>\u2026 and it\u2019s hard to point to the beginning or an exact turning point, for orange-pilling or indeed anything we come to believe or embrace strongly. <\/p>\n

At the end of his excellent essay, Strolight writes that when Satoshi was done with him, the experience left him speechless. Truly. Many people have expressed similar notions: When Bitcoin has finished rummaging around in your head, you are no longer the same person you once were. <\/em><\/p>\n

This thing<\/em> \u2014 whatever it is, whatever its fate \u2014 never ceases to amaze us. And even when it possesses us, making us<\/em> obsessed with it<\/em>, it\u2019s hard to trace where, in our minds, it came from and who made us see what we now so clearly behold. <\/p>\n

So, next time you have a Bitcoin conversation that felt like a waste of your time, remember: It might not have been. <\/p>\n

This post Nobody Orange-Pilled You \u2014 Or Me, Or Anybody<\/a> first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine<\/a> and is written by Joakim Book<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bitcoin Magazine Nobody Orange-Pilled You \u2014 Or Me, Or Anybody \u201cthe first fractions of a bitcoin will find you as soon as you are ready to receive them.\u201d \u2013Gigi \u201cOrange-pill\u201d might no longer be the most accurate term for becoming a Bitcoiner anymore, but it conveys the core idea. Like Morpheus presenting the blue and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bitcoin"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digkrypton.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}