Wealth

Bitcoin is a fixed-supply digital money: 21 million coins, issued on a public schedule, secured by the largest computing network on Earth. The thesis is simple: dollars are printed, bitcoin is not.

Scarcity

No one can make more than 21 million. The supply issued to miners halves about every four years.

Self-custody

Move coins off exchanges to a hardware wallet you control. Exchanges fail (Mt. Gox, FTX) and freeze accounts.

Dollar-cost average

Buy a fixed amount every week or month regardless of price. It removes emotion and timing.

Time horizon

Bitcoin has fallen 70–80% several times. Only hold what you can keep through a four-year cycle without selling.

Lightning

The Lightning Network sends bitcoin instantly for fractions of a cent: payments, tips and cross-border transfers.

Taxes

In the US, selling or spending bitcoin is a taxable event. Track your cost basis from day one.

Thousands of tokens exist. Most will go to zero. Treat everything past bitcoin as venture-capital risk.

Ethereum

A programmable blockchain for smart contracts, stablecoins and tokenized assets. The second-largest network.

Stablecoins

Dollar-pegged tokens (USDC, USDT) for fast settlement. Check reserves and issuer risk.

Position size

Keep speculative altcoins to a small slice you can lose entirely.

Red flags

Guaranteed yield, anonymous teams, “send me crypto and I’ll double it”, pressure to act now. All scams.

Security

Use a separate wallet for experiments. Never sign a transaction you don’t understand; wallet drainers look like airdrops.

You can’t out-trade the market, but you can own it. Low-cost index funds beat most professional managers over 15-year periods.

Core holding

A total US market or S&P 500 index fund, plus international. Expense ratio under 0.10%.

Compounding

$500 a month at 8% for 30 years is about $750,000. You contribute $180,000; time does the rest.

Rule of 72

Divide 72 by the return rate to get years to double. At 8%, money doubles every 9 years.

Don’t time it

Missing the 10 best days in a 20-year period can cut returns roughly in half. Stay invested.

Individual stocks

Keep stock picking to a small share. Know the business, its moat and its cash flow before buying.

Rebalance

Once a year, trim what has grown too large and add to what has fallen behind.

Income is not wealth. The gap between what you earn and what you spend is.

Automate

Split paychecks automatically: bills, savings, investing. What you don’t see, you don’t spend.

Big three

Housing, transport and food are 60%+ of spending. Win there and small purchases don’t matter.

High-yield savings

Keep cash in a high-yield account or Treasury bills, not a 0.01% checking account.

30-day rule

Wait 30 days before any non-essential purchase over $100. Most wants disappear.

Stealth wealth

Drive a paid-off car, live below your means, invest the difference. Rich is quiet; broke is loud.

There is no infinite money glitch, but the tax code and markets do have loopholes the wealthy use daily. All legal, all boring, all powerful.

Employer match

Free money: a 100% match on 5% of salary doubles that money on day one.

HSA triple tax

Tax-deductible in, tax-free growth, tax-free out for medical costs. Invest it and save receipts to reimburse yourself years later.

Roth IRA

Pay tax now, never again. Decades of growth come out tax-free in retirement.

Buy, borrow, die

The wealthy rarely sell appreciated assets. They borrow against them, and heirs inherit with a stepped-up basis that erases the gain.

Tax-loss harvesting

Sell investments at a loss to offset gains and up to $3,000 of income a year, then buy a similar (not identical) fund.

House hacking

Buy a 2–4 unit property, live in one unit, rent the others. Tenants pay your mortgage.

1031 exchange

Sell investment real estate and roll the proceeds into another property to defer capital gains tax.

Business deductions

A real business can deduct its legitimate expenses: equipment, software, a home office, travel for work.

An entity separates your business from your personal life: legally, financially and on paper.

LLC

A limited liability company shields personal assets from business debts and lawsuits, if you keep it separate.

Keep the veil

Separate bank account, no mixing funds, sign contracts as the LLC, keep records. Mixing money lets courts pierce the shield.

Where to form

Usually your home state. Wyoming and Delaware have privacy and legal advantages, but you still register where you operate.

S-corp election

Once profit is roughly $50–80k+, an S-corp election can cut self-employment tax by paying a reasonable salary plus distributions.

Holding company

A parent LLC owning operating LLCs isolates risk: one lawsuit doesn’t sink every venture.

Privacy

Use a registered agent and business address so your home doesn’t appear in public records.

Wealth that isn’t structured is lost to probate, lawsuits and taxes. Trusts are how families keep it for generations.

Will

The minimum. Names guardians for children and says where assets go. Everyone needs one.

Revocable living trust

You control it while alive. Assets pass to heirs privately and skip probate, which is public, slow and expensive.

Irrevocable trust

You give up control in exchange for asset protection and possible estate-tax savings.

Beneficiaries

Retirement accounts and life insurance pass by beneficiary form, not by will. Keep them current.

Term life insurance

Cheap protection for anyone who depends on your income. Buy term and invest the difference.

Get counsel

Trust and estate law varies by state. Pay an estate attorney once; it is cheap next to probate.

A job trades time for money. A business trades systems for money. A brand makes people choose you before you ask.

Solve a painful problem

Find people already paying to solve something, and do it better, faster or cheaper.

Start small

Pre-sell before you build. Ten paying customers beat a thousand compliments.

Own the audience

Social platforms rent you reach. An email list and a website are assets you own.

Brand

One name, one color, one promise, repeated everywhere. Consistency builds trust faster than creativity.

Recurring revenue

Subscriptions, memberships and retainers turn one-time sales into predictable cash flow.

Leverage

Code, media and capital work while you sleep. Build products that scale without adding hours.

AI is the biggest leverage shift since the internet. One person with AI can now do the work of a small team.

Automate your work

Use AI to draft, research, code and analyze. Reclaim hours and reinvest them in building.

Build with it

AI-powered tools, agents and content businesses can launch in weeks with almost no capital.

Research edge

Use AI to read filings, summarize earnings calls and compare investments. Verify every number it gives you.

Own the picks and shovels

Chips, cloud, data centers and energy supply every AI company, whichever one wins.

Beware AI scams

“AI trading bots” promising guaranteed returns are a common fraud. Real edges don’t get sold on Instagram.