There’s a phrase that floats around in certain Bitcoin circles: “Bitcoiners get Bitcoin at the price they deserve.”
It sounds clever. It sounds meritocratic. But it’s not. It’s vile.
This saying implies that those who bought Bitcoin early — at $10, $100, or even $1,000 — deserved to, while those who buy it now at $60,000 somehow don’t. It suggests that where you entered the market is a reflection of your intelligence, your research, or your conviction.
But this could not be further from the truth.
In reality, when and how someone gets into Bitcoin has almost nothing to do with “deserving” and everything to do with circumstance — where they live, how much free time they have, how much money they can risk, how educated they are, and how much access they have to the necessary technology and infrastructure.
Let’s Talk About the World — Not Just Crypto Twitter
There are over 7 billion people on Earth. The vast majority of them have never had the opportunity to buy Bitcoin, let alone buy it early.
Here are just a few of the reasons why:
1. Timing and Exposure
People buy Bitcoin when they hear about it. And that depends on geography, media, and social networks. Someone living in rural India, Haiti, or Sudan didn’t have tech podcasts or libertarian newsletters explaining Bitcoin in 2011. In fact, even in many Western countries, Bitcoin remained obscure until 2017 — and misunderstood until long after.
It’s not about laziness or lack of curiosity. It’s about visibility. Most people simply didn’t know. How can someone “deserve” to buy something they weren’t even aware existed?
2. Access to Infrastructure
Buying Bitcoin isn’t just about interest — it’s about access:
- Can you get on an exchange?
- Do you have a bank account or credit card to fund it?
- Is Bitcoin even legal in your country?
- Is your internet connection fast enough and stable enough to make the process possible?
- Is KYC (Know Your Customer) compliance even possible if you don’t have an official ID?
Billions of people face “no” answers to these questions. The reality is, for most people, there never was a window of real access to buy Bitcoin easily or securely when it was cheap.
3. Wealth and Risk Tolerance
Let’s be honest: buying Bitcoin early was a risk. And only people with spare capital could afford to take it. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck, feeding a family, or dealing with inflation or unemployment, you don’t have $100 to gamble on internet money in 2012 — or even 2020.
You’re not stupid. You’re not lazy. You’re just financially vulnerable.
4. Education and Research Time
Bitcoin is complicated. Understanding it takes time — time to read, to think, to question, to dig through misinformation and noise. Most people in the world don’t have that luxury.
If you’re working long hours, caring for relatives, or living under daily stress, you don’t have evenings free to study monetary theory, cryptographic security, and the Austrian school of economics. That’s not a moral failing — that’s life.
5. Technology and Self-Custody
Even if someone understands Bitcoin, even if they want to buy some — the next hurdle is how to store it safely. That often means a hardware wallet, secure devices, or privacy tools.
But many people — especially in lower-income or rural areas — don’t have consistent access to smartphones, secure computers, or even electricity. The idea that everyone could have just jumped on the early Bitcoin train and “HODLed” is a fantasy rooted in privilege.
6. Legal and Political Barriers
In many countries, buying or owning Bitcoin is banned or heavily restricted. Exchanges are blocked. Banks freeze crypto-related transactions. People face jail time or persecution for trying to escape capital controls.
Those affected are not the irresponsible ones — they’re often the ones most in need of financial sovereignty. And yet, they’re the most locked out.
The Truth: Many Deserved It More Than the Early Adopters
If anyone deserved to buy Bitcoin at $1, it wasn’t the tech bros or forum lurkers. It was:
- The saver in Argentina watching their pesos die.
- The worker in Nigeria struggling with remittance fees.
- The citizen in Lebanon, Venezuela, or Zimbabwe trying to store value outside a collapsing economy.
- The Afghan woman hiding her earnings from patriarchal systems.
These are the people Bitcoin was made for. These are the people who could have benefitted most — and who were most excluded from early access.
What This Phrase Really Reveals
When people say, “Bitcoiners get Bitcoin at the price they deserve,” what they’re really doing is:
- Justifying their early gains.
- Downplaying the role of luck and privilege.
- Shaming those who came later — through no fault of their own.
It’s a hollow, self-congratulatory slogan. One that pretends this has been a merit-based system, when it’s been anything but.
A Better Ethos for Bitcoin
Bitcoin doesn’t need this toxic elitism. It needs humility, empathy, and global perspective.
We should be saying:
“Most people never had a fair chance to buy Bitcoin early. Let’s work to make access fairer for the billions still left behind.”
If Bitcoin is to succeed on its own terms — as a global, inclusive, decentralized money — then we have to bury this nonsense idea that people “get Bitcoin at the price they deserve.”
They don’t. They get it when — and if — the world finally lets them.
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