Four in Every 100 Americans Have Quit their Jobs Because of Crypto Gains
SCIENCE/TECH NEWS SITE Civic Science is downplaying the numbers, perhaps even ridiculously so, but they recently published poll results showing that fully 4% of Americans have quit their jobs over the last year due to “financial freedom earned by investing in cryptocurrency” and another 7% say they know somebody who has.
While these single-digit number might not seem like much at first glance, there’s an important piece of context here: most of these people quitting their jobs aren’t bitcoin millionaires. In fact, it’s just the opposite: most of those quitting their jobs are in the lowest income brackets.
One factor driving the current US worker shortage is the fact that millions of workers who aren’t used to having extra money in the bank have suddenly found themselves with tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars (at least on paper). Some may have cashed out and sold their crypto to the legion of institutional buyers now rotating into the market (thanks to offerings like BITO). Others might be borrowing against it, or selling a little at a time.
This data implies that while investing in crypto may have provided life-changing levels of income for some, the wealthier owners of crypto use it more as another form of asset diversification rather than source of income.
Those in lower-income brackets mostly aren’t used to having so much money, and since job openings (especially for lower-paying jobs) are so plentiful — and most in lower income brackets are so used to living paycheck to paycheck (or having little in savings) — they’re essentially seizing the opportunity to take some time off from work while they pivot to the play the role of amateur crypto investors, like many Americans did with tech stocks back in the 1990s.
And now that retirees and more institutional investors can buy into the crypto market via BITO, wealthier investors are doing the same thing, though, oddly, many of them see cryptocurrency as a short-term play. Younger investors have more of a tendency to see cryptocurrency as a long-term investment and they’re also more likely to see crypto wealth as a pathway to becoming wealthier than their parents were.
National Vanguard correspondent George H. Brown says investors need to be careful in investing in cryptocurrencies: “There are a lot of garbage coins out there claiming to be ‘the next Bitcoin.’ Many are scams, some scams run by the usual suspects. Some of these junk coins have impressive gains in the short term, mainly due to heavy promotion and the bandwagon effect. But then the rug gets pulled and the usual suspects run off with your money. Look at Rekt News, a site devoted in part to documenting these ‘rug pulls.’ But Bitcoin is different. It is truly decentralized money. There is no board and no ‘company owner’ — in fact, no company at all — to be corrupted or threatened or tempted to ‘go woke’ and ban patriots or otherwise do wrong. It’s anti-banker, anti-usury, permissionless money not controlled by our enemies, as the US dollar is.”
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Source: Civic Science and National Vanguard correspondents
For further reading:
Cryptocurrency, like all alternative assets, are typically savings redeployed away from other stores of value, like the stock market but differ in that crypto can also function as money rather that near-money as stocks are. This money dimension then puts crypto in direct competition with those other money alternatives, gold and silver. My own early view of crypto was that it was a Federal Reserve conspiracy to draw off demand for gold and silver. But this is increasingly coming into question as crypto definitely exhibits some range of action not present in other money alternatives. For example, in trying to purchase an expensive pharmaceutical from India, at deep discount, the subject of payment could not be resolved with the usual credit card form of money, for this merchant. As a… Read more »
I will agree with you that gold and silver are far superior forms of money than any kind of crypto currency — especially Bitcoin. First of all Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme. The only people who make life-changing gains from such schemes are the people who get in early. That is clearly the case with Bitcoin. It offers the illusion of easy riches to people with marginal IQ’s, people who lack the knowledge and discipline to search out real opportunities in markets. So yes, the lucky few who bought in when Bitcoin was dirt cheap have gotten rich, or at least on paper. But over the last few years, after Bitcoin reached a substantial price, the gains it has offered are no more impressive than one could have made in… Read more »
You said: “First of all Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme.” I would say that it’s the opposite of a Ponzi scheme. There is no Ponzi. There is no central authority at all. All there is is an immutable ledger that runs almost without human intervention, something that has never existed before. There is no scheme, except honest money that can’t be manipulated like the dollar can. The US dollar is the Ponzi scheme, buying votes with payouts so the looting of honest folks’ wealth can continue. Bitcoin offers a way for the honest folks to keep their wealth. It’s also a way for businesses that banks don’t like to do business (like Cosmotheist Books, for example). Bitcoin is permissionless, meaning there is no way for anyone to prevent you from… Read more »
I have always wondered whether cryptocurrencies were just a trial balloon for some kind of central bank issued currency which would give them total control over spending and behavior. This is exactly why any introduction of a “digital dollar” must be opposed with the vigilance of fighting firearm restrictions. But a system such as Bitcoin makes unlimited creation of credit very difficult due to the enormous amounts of electricity required. And our current energy policies are making electricity an increasingly expensive commodity. Without unrestricted credit creation, a debt based economy is impossible. Which is why it is curious that the central banking authorities have not done more to suppress it since their function is to protect such a system. Either Bitcoin really is an genuine attempt to develop a decentralized… Read more »
One dimension of Bitcoin is that it is very slow and therefore problematical for use as money. But exchanges allow for instantaneous exchange of Bitcoin for other more facile cryptos, like Cardano or Dash or Monero. So Bitcoin I believe, is still climbing because it is well known and exchanges make it very liquid. I missed the boat on that one and put my money in Cardano which doubled but is now down to only about a 25% gain. But, I still get an uneasy feeling about crypto, like Disraeli’s comment about those behind the curtain. How many cryptos are they running?
Bitcoin exhibits none of the requirements of a viable currency. Transactions are slow and expensive, so much so that Bitcoin is useless for smaller purchases. It’s not a store of wealth. It is as ephemeral as the mist. And it has no steady value. How could loans ever be made over a substantial period of time, say for a house mortgage, with Bitcoin? Bitcoin is so volatile and unpredictable that somebody will lose their ass with a 30-year mortgage denominated in Bitcoin. Could be the lender. Could be the borrower. There is no question the cable business channels have been consistent Bitcoin pumpers over the last few years. They represent the interests of the corporate establishment here in the US, so why are they doing this? My theory is that… Read more »
I agree with everything you say with the additional observation that Russia, China and the U.S. are all run by the same folks, only stage managing the different characters and their differing roles and outcomes. China’s role seems to be manufacturing while the U.S. plays the world’s cop. And of course, the imperative for depopulation cannot be ignored. But I think many former soldiers, soldiers in the broadest sense, are showing signs of unreliability and that is causing some disruption – sort of a race between the oligarchs and the awakening masses. Whose going to get there first? In the meantime, planning for buying food down the road, gold and silver are the final money to be sure. I read that somewhere, gold flakes are already being used.
There’s no way that this anti-banker money was a “trial balloon” for central bank digital currencies.
The truth is that the central banks, such as the Fed (and the entire US banking system for that matter), have had digital currencies for as long as there have been keyboards and computers to make entries with. When they make a “loan,” they just declare that such-and-such a number of dollars has been added to a certain account. It’s not debited from anywhere. That’s a digital creation of dollars, and they’ve been doing it for a very long time; long before Bitcoin ever existed.
When they say they will be creating “central bank digital currencies,” what they really mean is they will be eliminating cash. Big difference.
Blockchain definitely has a future, but
I am not sold on cryptos. When the
telegraph was invented back in the
mid-nineteenth century, it revolutionized
communication technology and messages
could be transmitted instantaneously.
However, no one uses telegraph today.
I know a lot of people, and I don’t know anyone who owns Bitcoin, much less who has made enough money to quit working. The headline smacks of the usual Bitcoin pumper propaganda: get rich quick, money for nothing, etc. Brenton Tarrant supposedly made enough money off Bitcoin to quit work; if so, then God bless him, and if Bitcoin enabled him to strike his blow, then some good has come from it.
If anyone thinks anything computer is “de-centralized” i have a 400 suare mile fresh water lake i will sell you in arizona.
“Many are scams, some scams run by the usual suspects. “
“… by the usual suspects. ” Always the usual suspects.