THE HODLER'S DILEMMA: LIVING WITHOUT SELLING YOUR BITCOIN

There's a scene that never leaves the minds of those who've seen it. A man takes the stage, wearing a black hoodie and black jeans, his figure tense and determined. He's not here to deliver a corporate speech. He's not here to put on a show. He's here to deliver something rawer, something truer. Something like a confession. Before a packed house in Las Vegas, Jack Mallers isn't speaking on behalf of a company, but on behalf of a generation. The generation that discovered Bitcoin, that believed in it, that accumulated it, sometimes against all odds, but that today faces a question that's much more difficult than it seems: what to do when you have nothing left... except Bitcoin?

Because it all starts here. In this almost absurd situation. Jack, the founder of Strike, a familiar face in the Bitcoin world, recounts his own tipping point. Last January, he literally had not a dollar left. Not enough to buy food, not enough to pay rent. He has Bitcoin, yes. He has a lot of it. But he needs liquidity. He needs to live. And then what he calls "the hodler's dilemma" arises. Sell? But sell what? Sell the one asset that's rising while everything else is falling? Sell a piece of the future to survive the present? The irony is brutal. Those who understood the earliest, those who believed the most, sometimes find themselves having to sacrifice their beliefs, not out of betrayal, but out of necessity.

We all know this dilemma, even if we don't talk about it. It's that discreet moment when we open our wallets, check our sats, and ask ourselves: can I hold on? Do I sell a little to pay the bills? Do I keep everything and grit my teeth? It's an intimate, silent, but omnipresent tension. And Jack finally puts it into words. He breaks the taboo. Because yes, there is a contradiction at the heart of this adventure. Bitcoin is a weapon against the Fiat system. A silent revolution. A promise of sovereignty. But in a world where everything costs more, where credit is king, where wages stagnate, and where dreams become unattainable, this weapon can sometimes seem unusable. What is freedom worth if it condemns us to isolation, to survival, to permanent abstinence? Can we really hold on without ever giving up anything?

So Jack goes back to the source. He dismantles the foundations of the traditional monetary system. The dollar, he says, is a trap. For over a hundred years, since the creation of the Federal Reserve, it has been slowly collapsing. It no longer protects anything. It no longer guarantees anything. It impoverishes. It constrains. It pushes everyone to borrow, to go into debt to live what was once the norm. A house. An education. A car. Everything now involves debt. The cycle is well known: the more we print, the more the currency depreciates. The more it depreciates, the more expensive life becomes. The more expensive life becomes, the more we go into debt. And meanwhile, the richest get even richer. Because they own assets. Because they're playing a different game. A game in which the average citizen always loses.

Faced with this observation, Bitcoin appears not as a fad or a speculation, but as a response. It is a refusal. A rupture. An alternative. It is a currency that cannot be counterfeited. That cannot be printed at will. That cannot be controlled from an ivory tower in Washington. It is an open, accessible, incorruptible code. A promise that, this time, history will not be written by central banks. That is why we believe in it. That is why we buy it, week after week, as a resistance savings. And that is also why we do not want to sell it.

But wanting isn't always enough. There are dreams, and then there's life. There's idealism, and then there are bills. Jack Mallers, on stage, doesn't play the martyr. He simply recounts a shared reality. We want to get married, start a family, buy a house, start a business. We want to live. And that's where the hodler comes up against his destiny. Can we keep everything without ever touching anything? Or should we do what so many others before us have done with their land, their buildings, their stocks? Don't sell. Borrow. Put up collateral. Build on our assets instead of liquidating them.

It's not a new idea. In fact, it's one of the oldest. The pioneers of Manhattan, the families that built New York, the barons of the 19th century... they all used the same method. They didn't sell. They used the value of what they owned to borrow, invest, and build. They understood one simple thing: a scarce asset shouldn't be exchanged for paper. It must be protected, passed on, and used wisely. And that's where Jack Mallers shifts from witness to builder. He doesn't just describe the dilemma. He offers a solution. Strike, his company, is launching a Bitcoin-backed lending platform. No remortgaging. No shady deals. Just a clear promise: you pledge your Bitcoin, you get cash, you can live without selling.

From his mouth, this isn't a marketing statement. It's an act of faith. Strike now holds 1,500 bitcoins. He personally lives on this system. He no longer needs to sell. He borrows against 2 to 5% of his stack. And he says it bluntly: if we want Bitcoin to take its place in the real world, we must create real uses. Not just hoarding. Acting. Living. Borrowing to invest. Using capital to build. This is how Bitcoin will go from reserve to leverage. This is how we will win.

This speech marks a break. It's not aimed at purists or speculators. It speaks to those who want to remain sovereign without becoming ascetics. To those who want to reconcile revolution and daily life. It doesn't oppose hodling and usage. It proposes a middle way. A mature path. That of responsible credit. That of a new finance, built on an incorruptible code. And it reminds us that all this is only the beginning. That there is still so much to invent, so much to secure, so much to expand. That Africa, Latin America, and Europe are still waiting for these tools. And that as long as Bitcoiners are forced to sell to survive, the fight will not be over.

In the room, we listen. We understand that something is changing. Jack Mallers is no longer just the child of Lightning. He is becoming the witness of a mutation. Bitcoin is entering a new era. One of concrete uses. One of integration into real life. One where we no longer just say hodl, but build. And if the future of Bitcoin is played out not only in blockchains, but also in everyday actions, then this hodler's dilemma will perhaps become, tomorrow, a new force. A way to never again choose between living... and holding on to what we believe to be right.

👉 Also read:

• The man who threw away 742 million
• The Day Bitcoin Changed Everything
• You don't own Bitcoin. It owns you.