THE TEMPTATION TO RETURN TO FIAT
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There are days when even the most ardent Bitcoiner finds themselves glancing at their bank account the way they might look at an ex they claim to have forgotten. Just to see. To check that the old world still exists, that the credit card works, that the magic money hasn't vanished into the great black hole of sovereignty. It's not a relapse, not yet. It's a reflex, a trace of the old world. A muscle memory of comfort.
Fiat has that deceptive gentleness of a cradle. It doesn't judge you, it lulls you to sleep. It invites you to stay lying down. To stop thinking. To consume without understanding. And when you wake up one morning, weary of your ideals, when the market is flat, when the noise fades away, Fiat beckons. “Come back, here everything is simple, here you don't need courage.”
The temptation to go back never begins with a rational choice. It stems from doubt. From fatigue. From the weariness of fighting against lies. Because holding on to Bitcoin means fighting against the entire world. Against the banks, against the media, against the red, against fear. It requires a mental endurance that few can understand. Even the most seasoned sometimes falter.
The hodler is traversing silent deserts. Months without excitement, without an adrenaline rush, without new all-time highs to remind him why he chose this path. So he begins to doubt. Not Bitcoin. Himself. “What if I’m just missing out on life?” he thinks, scrolling through social media where others are getting rich off memes or colorful tokens. “What if this asceticism is just an illusion of importance?”
That's where fiat currency creeps in. Through comparison, through lack, through desire. It's not logic that draws us back to the system, it's the need to feel understood, integrated, "normal" again. Because Bitcoin isolates you. It's a choice for outsiders. You speak a language no one around you understands. You expect nothing from the state, you trust no bank, you live in a long timescale no one else inhabits. You have no collective reference points, no economic calendar, no roadmap. You live in the void of reality.
Fiat, on the other hand, provides the narrative. “Salary. Bills. Vacation. Loans. Retirement.” A pre-prepared scenario. It's reassuring, even if it's false. There's something comfortable about going along with the collective lie. This lie has fixed schedules, notifications, justifications. It allows you to exist socially without having to think. It's tempting, after years of resistance, to become “normal” again.
But every time you give in to that temptation, you feel that little inner sting. The sting of renunciation. Because once you understand the mechanics of fiat currency, you can no longer pretend you don't know. You know your money doesn't belong to you. You know your account can be frozen, that your purchasing power is slowly eroding with inflation, that every number displayed on your banking app is just a disguised debt. You can ignore the truth, but it remains, lurking beneath the surface, ready to remind you that your security was nothing but an illusion.
Bitcoin is anything but soothing. It promises nothing. It offers no reassurance. It confronts you. It leaves you alone with your ignorance, your impatience, your lack of discipline. It forces you to understand time, energy, scarcity, and trust. It's a philosophical test as much as an economic one. Those who last in this system are not investors. They are digital ascetics. Monks of code.
But even monks have doubts. Some days, you open your wallet, check your balance, and wonder if it all makes sense. If this obsession with private keys, this security paranoia, this war against convenience hasn't stolen a bit of your humanity. You watch others living in the fluidity of the fiat world, typing in their four-digit code for a coffee, and you envy their ignorance. Because they don't know they're slaves, and there's a kind of happiness in ignorance.
The return to fiat currency is therefore not a logical defeat. It's an emotional relapse. A need for warmth in a world that has become too cold. Bitcoin is the naked truth, without any cushioning. Fiat is the velvet lie. When the reality of the market becomes too harsh, when uncertainty gnaws at you, you dream of velvet.
But this comfort comes at a price. It lulls you into oblivion. It makes you docile, dependent, subservient to bureaucracy and debt. Fiat buys you with your own money. It offers you tranquility in exchange for your freedom. You sign the terms of service without reading them, you let the institutions decide what is “normal.” You become a customer again.
The hodler, for his part, learns solitude. He learns to live with the inner turmoil. He learns to wait without hope, to believe without proof, to possess without selling. He no longer seeks to win, he seeks to understand. He understands that sovereignty is not a state, it is a constant tension. That there is no final victory, only successive resistances.
The temptation to return to fiat is part of the journey. It's necessary. It tests you. It sometimes humiliates you, but it strengthens you. Because each time you resist, you gain another layer of awareness. You draw a little closer to that inner peace known only to sovereigns.
Those who return to fiat currency for good haven't failed. They've simply given up on making an effort. They want life to be simple again. But the world isn't simple anymore. It never was. Fiat just masks it better. It covers the cracks, distributes illusions, erases responsibilities. As long as you haven't seen the other side of the coin, you can still believe the story. But once you've read the code, understood the mechanism, and signed your first on-chain transaction, it's too late. You've seen the matrix. And even if you go back to your old life, it will never taste the same again.
Fiat currency fuels the dream of stability, but that stability is a fiction. It's a system built on the fear of change. It traps you in the perpetual present of consumption. Bitcoin, on the other hand, returns you to the future. It forces you to think in terms of decades, not quarters. It's a timescale the modern world has forgotten. So when you doubt, when you're tempted to "sell a little to catch your breath," remember: it's not Bitcoin that's unstable, it's your mind. Bitcoin is constant. It produces a block every ten minutes, rain or shine, whether there's a war or a network outage. It never promised you wealth. It offered you the truth. It's up to you to decide if you deserve it.
The return to fiat currency is often preceded by rational discourse. “I have to be pragmatic.” “I’m diversifying.” “I’m keeping some liquidity.” In reality, these phrases mask a single feeling: fear. The fear of scarcity, the fear of loss, the fear of being alone in the truth. Fiat capitalizes on this fear better than any propaganda. It knows that humans don’t seek freedom; they seek comfort.
True freedom hurts. It demands silence, control, discipline. It requires you to know what you're doing with your energy, your money, your time. It deprives you of excuses. That's why so few people can tolerate it. Bitcoin is a school of sovereignty. A mental forge. It teaches you to stop delegating your trust, to stop seeking authority, to stop hoping for a savior. And that's precisely what makes it unbearable for those who grew up in dependency.
Fiat currency traps you in debt. Bitcoin traps you in yourself. The former buys you, the latter awakens you. But between the two lies this long tunnel of doubt, loneliness, and temptation. Every sincere Bitcoiner traverses this tunnel. There is no escape. Even the strongest have days of weakness. Some end up rationalizing their return. They say they “took their profits.” That they “won.” That they “made a killing.” But what they lost is deeper than what they gained. They lost the continuity of their path. The coherence between what they said and what they did. They became spectators of their own fear once again.
The true victory of the hodler isn't financial. It's internal. It's the victory of waking up each morning and no longer needing external validation. Of knowing that your money doesn't depend on anyone. That you could lose everything tomorrow, except your autonomy. It's this peace that frightens the fiat world, because it can't be bought. So yes, temptation will always return. It will strike when you're tired, when the market is sluggish, when life seems unfair. But it's part of the protocol. Bitcoin doesn't need to hold you back. It promises you nothing. It leaves you free. Free to leave. Free to come back. Free to understand.
And perhaps that's the greatest paradox: in a world where everything binds you, Bitcoin is the only thing that offers you the freedom to leave. And those who leave always end up coming back. Because deep down, they know that nothing else makes sense. Returning to fiat currency isn't a mistake. It's a reminder. It shows you that freedom isn't a stable state, but a muscle. If you don't exercise it, it atrophies. And every time you choose comfort over truth, you weaken it a little more.
But every time you resist, every time you refuse the easy way out, every time you keep your key offline, every time you continue staking despite everything, you become stronger. You don't need to preach. You don't need to convince. You already embody living proof that another model is possible. One day, when the fiat system finally cracks, when the screens display balance errors, when collective trust evaporates, you will be asked how you managed to hold on. You will simply answer: I stopped being afraid.
The temptation to return to fiat is an illusion. There's nothing to find there. Only a memory, a mirage of security, an empty cocoon. Bitcoin is harsh, but it's true. And it's in this harshness that peace is born. The one who remains, despite the doubt, despite the weariness, despite the falls, is not an investor. He is a guardian. And his silence is worth more than any speech. Because ultimately, the only answer to the temptation of fiat is the quiet certainty that the protocol continues. That a block is forged while you doubt. That the truth moves forward without you. And that if you want to find it again, you simply need to reconnect.
Fiat currency speaks, promises, reassures. Bitcoin remains silent. And in that silence, there is everything.
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