Bitcoin to 0
Why Web3 Must Celebrate Bitcoin’s Collapse and Learn to Build Without the Casino
As I age, I have decided to be explicit, straightforward, and clear about what I believe in based on the fundamentals of investing, impact, and life philosophy. Hence, I have decided to write down a series of essays on this substack <First Followers>, as well as Impact Design (+) Experiences.
I want to begin with a thought from Charlie Munger on Bitcoin. He didn’t say he doesn’t understand technology, but instead he was explicit and clear in saying Bitcoin is outright evil, which I tend to agree with. It is not like Tesla bubble stock; it is worse than that. Charlie Munger's views on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were consistent and clear: he saw them as speculative, immoral, and lacking intrinsic value. Munger's long-term value investing principles emphasized the importance of buying good businesses at fair prices and avoiding investments that lack tangible value. His advice to investors was to focus on integrity, deep fluency, fair fee structures, and long-term stability.
"I regard the <Bitcoin> as anti-social, stupid, immoral… Suppose you could make a lot of money trading freshly harvested baby brains. You wouldn’t trade them, would you. It’s too awful a concept. To me, bitcoin is almost as bad."
I have never been able to wrap my heads around Bitcoin, neither it is a payment infra, it is not a currency, it is incredibly inefficient (on top of that, it is extremely energy intensive), it has zero use cases, it has essentially zero free cash flow, it is not gold or “digital gold” - hence can’t be a store of value and hence, essentially it a purely a speculative “something” that is not even an art. What a shame. I don’t hold Bitcoin, and I never will.
A purely speculative endeavor is meaningless and downright evil; it is a decentralized Ponzi scheme, fueled by lust, greed, ego, and the pride of “tech bros.” Bitcoin does not generate any cash flows, so a conventional DCF (which discounts future cash flows) cannot be applied in the same way it is used for an income-producing company; hence, it is not a productive asset like a company.
Bitcoin fills nothing except an ever-growing hole of collective delusion. It produces nothing, earns nothing, and yet millions are hypnotized by the promise that a greater fool will always appear. To me, that is not a store of value; it is a decentralized Ponzi scheme wearing a tinfoil halo. The words became more ornate—sound money, immutable ledger, censorship resistance—but the core never changed: I only make money if someone else buys my bag at a higher price. Take away the next buyer and the price is zero. That is not investing; that is musical chairs with cryptography.
Web3, in its current form, is chained to this ticking bomb. Every new chain launches with a token pre-sale, every DAO promises yield, every NFT collection guarantees “utility” that somehow always requires the next wave of entrants. The entire edifice rests on the same psychological trick: tomorrow’s crowd will pay more than today’s. Strip away the token and most projects are nothing more than open-source libraries—useful, sure, but not worth billions in pretend equity.
Bitcoin Must Go to Zero
Which brings me to the only honest path forward: Bitcoin must go to zero. Not out of malice, but out of necessity. Only when the casino chips are worthless will builders stop optimizing for number-go-up and start optimizing for actual human problems. Ethereum can survive this reset if it finally admits what it truly is: a public, open-source utility—Linux for programmable value. Let it be maintained by grants, sponsorships, and genuine usage fees, the same way Apache, Linux, and Postgres thrive without a speculative token ticker scrolling across CNBC.
Web3/Crypto as Open-Source Infrastructure
Web3 is already decentralized, with multiple nodes validating transactions. Open-source projects are also decentralized in terms of development and governance. Blockchain transactions are transparent and immutable, similar to how open-source code is publicly available for review. Web3 can evolve by maintaining open-source repositories for all projects, ensuring transparency and trust.
Imagine the relief. Developers could ship upgrades without worrying about the price of ETH. Users could pay modest, predictable gas fees without praying the token moons. Regulators could treat the network as infrastructure, not a security. The toxic marriage between open-source code and speculative mania would finally end in divorce, freeing both parties to live healthier lives.
Most alternative layer-1s will die with Bitcoin, and that, too, is a mercy. The graveyard will be littered with ghost chains whose only real product was a white paper and a liquidity mining program. What remains will be the handful of networks that found genuine product-market fit: maybe a decentralized social graph, maybe an open identity layer, maybe a transparent supply-chain ledger. Their tokens—if any—will be governance coupons, not lottery tickets.
I want to root for Web3, but I cannot do it while the ecosystem’s oxygen is still a speculative asset with no terminal value. Let the bank run come. Let the exchanges freeze, the leverage unwind, the evangelists fall silent. Out of the ashes, the real work can finally begin: open-source protocols funded because they solve problems, not because they promise 10,000% APY.
The day Bitcoin hits zero will feel like waking up from a fever dream. The headlines will scream apocalypse, but builders who truly care about decentralization will quietly roll up their sleeves. They will write code, run nodes, write documentation—same as the contributors to Linux, Wikipedia, or the Internet itself. No pre-mines, no pump-and-dumps, no laser eyes. Just software doing what software does best: giving people tools they actually need.
That is the Web3 I want to see. The casino must close for the library to open.
What is Bitcoin? It's a concept. It exactly follow the magnificent 7, it goes up when Nasdaq goes up and it goes down when the Nasdaq goes down. It is like a tech stock without any assets, without any earnings and without any business. It is just a concept. When the bubble pops, Bitcoin will go to Zero.
Feel free to reach out to me at nobody@firstfollowers.co if you'd like to discuss and exchange ideas.