Why I have a High Conviction on Bitcoin
A look into my journey down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, sharing the personal opinions and hard facts I've learned that forged my conviction.
I first heard about Bitcoin when I was 14 years old. I used Rp 100,000 to trade crypto, and it eventually went bust. I was just gambling based on technical analysis I'd learned. It only lasted six months before I stopped trading crypto and focused on school and getting good grades.
A few years later, when I started high school, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and the crypto craze began—especially NFTs. NFT tokens came in many forms: digital images, cards, in-game characters, or skins. Of course, I wanted to get rich fast by playing NFT games. But not long after, it all went bust again.
Not long after that, I found a content creator named Timothy Ronald. You can call me "Penyepong Timothy" or a fanatic—whatever. Because of him, my mindset about money and assets changed drastically. At first, I was skeptical. He talks harshly in public and is more contrarian than any other content creator. I was just curious about his background at first. I learned about his background, then learned what he said. Somehow, I felt he wasn't talking nonsense. He just says what he thinks is reality—no sugar coating.
At that moment, I started diving deep into learning about Bitcoin. I went down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and I learned why it was created. It was designed to solve centralized transactions—the cause of the 2008 crisis. It also critiques a system where central banks "print" money to save failing private institutions, highlighting Bitcoin's purpose as a decentralized alternative that requires no such trust.
Current Money System (Fiat)
The current money system (fiat) is only based on trust. You have to trust that banks won't fail and that governments won't over-print money. When citizens don’t trust and stop using their country's currency, it becomes meaningless. This happens in hyperinflation countries. Too much money printing makes the price of everything go up, but wages stay stuck.
Feel free to check how Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Argentina, Turkey, Haiti, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Lebanon, or any other hyperinflated countries are doing. Imagine wanting to buy bread in the morning, but the next day the same bread's price has doubled. How frustrating it is to live in those circumstances.
Bitcoin Over Fiat System
1. Hard-Capped Scarcity (Anti-Inflation)
Unlike the US Dollar or Euro, which can be printed in unlimited quantities (often leading to "currency debasement"), Bitcoin has a hard supply cap of 21 million.
2. Decentralization (Censorship Resistance)
Traditional systems have "gatekeepers" (banks/governments) who can freeze accounts or block transactions. Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network with no central "off" switch. This ensures financial sovereignty—if you hold your private keys, no one can prevent you from sending or receiving your wealth.
3. Permissionless & Global Infrastructure
Moving money across borders in the traditional system is slow, expensive, and tied to banking hours and intermediaries. Bitcoin operates 24/7/365 globally. In 2026, we see this evolving into a "parallel financial infrastructure" where Bitcoin serves as a neutral settlement layer that doesn't care about nationality or local regulations.
4. Transparency vs. "Hidden" Risk
The 2008 crash happened because of opaque, complex financial products that no one fully understood. The Bitcoin ledger is public and immutable. Anyone can audit the entire supply and every transaction in real-time. There are no "hidden" bailouts or secret balance sheets.
5. Finality of Settlement
Traditional digital "money" is actually just a promise of payment (a credit). It can take days for a bank transfer to truly settle. A Bitcoin transaction, once confirmed on the blockchain, is final and irreversible. It is a "bearer asset" in digital form, meaning the transaction is the settlement itself.
Bitcoin Security
“Tapi bang…” Quantum computing is getting better, it can breach Bitcoin right away. Yes, true. But the traditional bank system will already be breached before that happens. Why?
| Feature | Traditional Banks | Bitcoin |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Lock | Uses RSA or standard Elliptic Curve (ECC) for HTTPS, logins, and wire transfers. | Uses ECDSA (secp256k1) to sign transactions. |
| Quantum Vulnerability | Shor’s Algorithm can break RSA-2048 much more easily than Bitcoin's specific curve. | Also vulnerable to Shor’s Algorithm, but only for certain address types. |
| The "Second Layer" | Banks rely on centralized databases. If the encryption layer breaks, the whole database is exposed. | A Bitcoin address is not your public key; it is a hash of your public key. Quantum computers are surprisingly bad at reversing hashes. While Grover’s Algorithm can speed up the process, it only provides a "quadratic speedup." |
| Fixing | Slow. Updating the entire global legacy banking infrastructure takes decades. | Faster. Bitcoin can implement a "Soft Fork" to introduce quantum-resistant signatures. |
What Next?
In March 2025, the US Government announced an executive order to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. This means that Bitcoin is now labeled as a national reserve asset at the government level, not just an investment for institutions or retail like in previous cycles. I believe we just have to wait and see how other big countries respond to Bitcoin.