Yes! Crypto! Why Not?

I'll put my cards on the table: I own Bitcoin and I own Ethereum. I'm what folks call a "crypto bull." I believe in the technology, and I believe this is where the money system is headed.

No bait, no switch. This letter isn't about your Roth or your dividend bricks. It's a plain-language look at what crypto actually is, why the biggest money managers on the planet are buying it, and what time has done for patient holders. Then you decide.

🔗 First, what is the blockchain?

Think of the blockchain as a giant shared notebook that records every transaction. Instead of one bank keeping the notebook in a back office, thousands of computers around the world each keep an identical copy. Every new page of entries (a "block") gets checked by the network and chained to the page before it, which is where the name comes from. Once a page is written, nobody can quietly erase or change it, because everyone else's copy would call them out. No middleman, no closing hours, no single point of failure. That's the whole idea: trust built into the math instead of into a company.

🥇 The two leaders

Bitcoin (BTC): Digital Gold

Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency, launched in 2009 by an anonymous creator known as Satoshi Nakamoto. Its job is simple: be money that no government or bank controls.

The key feature is scarcity. There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin, period. Nobody can print more. That's why people call it "digital gold": a store of value you can send anywhere in the world in minutes. It's the biggest crypto by far, worth roughly $1.6 trillion in total.

Ethereum (ETH): Buying the Internet

If Bitcoin is digital gold, Ethereum is the digital highway. Launched in 2015, it's a blockchain other people can build on. Developers write "smart contracts," little programs that run automatically when conditions are met, with no lawyer or banker in the middle.

Thousands of projects run on top of Ethereum: stablecoins, lending apps, digital collectibles, and tokenized assets. Every one of them pays fees in ETH to use the network. That's why some say owning ETH is like owning a piece of the internet itself. It's the second-largest crypto, and there's real debate over whether it's the better long-term investment.

My take? Don't pick sides. Own both.

⏳ The $1,000 time machine

A $1,000 bet on either coin in October 2018 would be worth more than $11,000 today. That's eight years of holding through crashes, headlines, and a lot of people calling it a scam.

Put $1,000 in each, and your $2,000 would be roughly $24,000 today.

That's the power of time. Not trading, not timing. Buying and holding. Brick by brick.

_{Prices are approximate, as of October 28–29, 2026. Past results don't promise future ones.}

🏦 Why is the big money in?

Ask yourself one question: why would the largest money managers in the world touch something this risky? Because they see where it's going.

BlackRock, the biggest asset manager on Earth, runs its own Bitcoin fund (ticker IBIT) and its own Ethereum fund (ticker ETHA). Fidelity has both too. These funds let regular investors buy crypto right inside a normal brokerage account, and they pull in real money: Bitcoin funds took in about $176 million on a single day this week, led by IBIT. Wall Street banks like Citigroup now publish price targets on both coins.

Here's the kicker. Back in 2017, BlackRock's CEO Larry Fink was publicly dismissive of Bitcoin. A few years later, his firm built one of the biggest Bitcoin funds in existence. When the people who manage trillions change their minds, it's worth paying attention.

🏠 The real-world use: RWA

Crypto isn't just coins. The bigger story is real-world assets, or RWA: putting ownership of real things on a blockchain as digital tokens.

Imagine a house split into 1,000 digital shares, so you could own a slice for $50. Imagine buying a stock or a bond at 2 a.m. on a Sunday and having it settle in seconds instead of days. Imagine transferring the title on a car or a piece of land without a pile of paperwork. Real estate, stocks, bonds, art: almost anything with an owner can be digitized.

Digital assets move fast, cost little to send, and never close. Most of that building happens on Ethereum. That's the use case, and that's why I'm a bull.

⚠️ Yes, it's risky. Here's how I handle it.

I won't sugarcoat it: crypto can drop hard and fast. Ethereum is down about 40% from a year ago, from roughly $3,980 to $2,360. Bitcoin is well off its highs too. Someone who bought at the peak of a hype cycle may have waited years just to break even. That $1,000 time machine only works if you can sit through the scary parts without selling.

So here's my playbook:

• Start small. Only money you won't need and won't lose sleep over.
• Think in years, not weeks. The numbers above took eight years, not eight days.
• Own both. Bitcoin for digital gold, Ethereum for the digital highway.
• Buy a little at a time. Regular small buys smooth out the wild swings.
• Keep your foundation first. Emergency fund and retirement bricks come before crypto.

So, crypto? Yes! Why not? Just lay it like every other brick: one at a time, on solid ground.

I have a separate crypto portfolio. If you want to know more about it, subscribe to the newsletter. 😎

_{Disclosure: I personally own Bitcoin and Ethereum. This newsletter is for educational purposes only and is not personalized investment advice. Crypto is highly volatile and you can lose some or all of your money. Do your own research and consider your own situation before investing.
Sources: Fortune, Saxo, Yahoo Finance, CoinMarketCap}