Bitcoin: Biohacking Wellness and Wealth
Bitcoin as a Biohack
Biohackers attempt to optimise biological systems for enhanced performance, longevity, and well-being. Whether it's intermittent fasting to trigger autophagy, cold exposure to enhance mitochondrial function, or targeted supplementation to optimize biochemistry, biohackers seek maximum benefits from minimal strategic interventions. In this regard, Bitcoin may be the most sophisticated and powerful biohack of all time.
At first glance, Bitcoin appears to be merely an investment vehicle or digital currency rather than a biohack. Yet, by creating the world’s first perfectly engineered money that is immune to central control, coercion, or debasement, the Bitcoin white paper and open-source protocol have effectively hacked humanity's relationship to money. As such, Bitcoin is hacking human attention, motivation, and resource allocation, and acts as an evolutionary force that aligns personal interests with technological, thermodynamic, biological, psychological, social, economic, and ethical imperatives, while simultaneously enhancing life across personal, social, and planetary scales.
The Bitcoin Protocol
At its core, Bitcoin is a decentralized, censorship-resistant, open-source protocol that creates digital scarcity through blockchain technology, advanced computing power, and military-grade cryptography. The protocol's defining features include a fixed supply of 21 million coins, a proof-of-work consensus mechanism, and a publicly distributed ledger that together fulfills all the properties of money: portability, fungibility, recognizability, durability, and scarcity.
Bitcoin transforms how humans create, transfer, and store value, and in an increasingly digital world, Bitcoin is an ideal medium of exchange, unit of account, proof of work, and store of value. The Bitcoin protocol has created a truly global marketplace bounded by thermodynamics and offers everyone on earth complete wealth sovereignty with the ability to store wealth without the threat of seizure or debasement and transfer wealth without reliance on a trusted third party or centralized authority. Thus, for the first time in history, everyone can have full autonomy and participation in a decentralized global network and this is poised to have far-reaching implications for individuals, communities, and the planet as a whole.
The Orange Pill and Individual Transformation
Bitcoin is multilayered and the journey to understand Bitcoin—often called becoming "orange-pilled"—typically requires about 100 hours of study. This process fundamentally rewires an individual's relationship with money, time, and value, and begins by hacking subconscious motivations. Bitcoin's proof-of-work consensus mechanism hacks our evolved circuitry for valuing evolutionary fitness and rare, hard-to-fake resources, similar to how peacock feathers signal genetic fitness through resource expenditure. The protocol's fixed supply and halving cycle further hack our temporal preferences by fuelling the “number go up” phenomenon and offering the prospect of future wealth and “financial immortality.”
Taking the "orange pill" has profound neuropsychological effects that provide a powerful counterforce to the fiat system. HODLers effectively rewire their brains to overcome the tendency to prefer immediate rewards and place greater value on future benefits and delayed gratification. "Bitcoiners" also become programmed to have an optimistic, future-focused mindset and confidence in the Bitcoin protocol counters the despondency caused by being caught in a corrupt fiat system. This positive mindset bestows profound psycho-neuro-immunological benefits that serve to enhance health and well-being. Thus, while being rich is good for you, getting rich with Bitcoin has neuropsychological benefits over and above those arising from the physical, nutritional, and social advantages that come with financial wealth.
Bitcoiners and Biohackers
The parallels between the Bitcoin and biohacking communities run deep. Biohackers seek health: Bitcoiners seek wealth, and these objectives are intimately related. Bitcoiners and biohackers both aim to use technology to create a better future and emphasize self-responsibility, self-sovereignty, distrust of authority, verification of claims, and optimization and control of previously automatic or unconscious processes.
If the currency of wellness is connection, then Bitcoin provides a foundation for both individual and global wellness and wealth. Bitcoin directly connects everyone on earth with the ability to store and transfer value that releases stranded resources and human creativity. In doing bitcoin creates a continually evolving and expanding global Bitcoin/Biohacker community that is unrestricted by the traditional barriers between nations, races, religions, genders, or ethnicities.
BioHacking Social Evolution
Beyond individual minds, the Bitcoin protocol hacks economic relationships by removing the ability to manipulate the money supply. Bitcoin therefore replaces artificial abundance and distorted price signals due to political, religious, or military coercion with a free market that more accurately reflects reality. In doing so Bitcoin establishes a new form of social proof based on objective, verifiable energy expenditure and forces all economic actors to respect thermodynamically sound money and operate within natural systems with genuine scarcity and real resource limitations.
The direct link between monetary value and thermodynamics makes the Bitcoin network function like a living organism and display antifragile properties with positive feedback loops acting across multiple domains. Thus, every node and Bitcoin holder supports the network's value, which grows stronger and more secure with increasing adoption. This creates a virtuous cycle whereby Bitcoiners are incentivized to “orange pill” others and add more value to Bitcoin’s fixed supply. This process fuels the “number go up” phenomenon, which then drives further adoption and creates financial imperatives that are propelling the world towards hyperbitcoinization.
The significance of the societal impact of Bitcoin cannot be overstated. Social connection is one of the most important determinants of human health and performance, and just as Bitcoin can enhance the health and well-being of individuals by fostering a shared positive mindset and improving social connections, Bitcoin gives oppressed, suppressed, and unbanked people unprecedented wealth sovereignty and access to the global community. Thus, Bitcoin aligns social, economic, and ethical imperatives, and “number go up” becomes a trojan horse and financial imperative for “freedom go up.”
Biohacking Energy Systems
Perhaps most remarkably, Bitcoin hacks how humans interact with energy systems. The protocol's ability to convert electrical energy directly into monetary value establishes perfect markets for energy arbitrage and incentivizes renewable energy development and the utilization of stranded resources in locations that were previously non-viable. The ability to create a ‘money battery’ and make energy monetizable anywhere, anytime, represents a fundamental breakthrough in human-environment interaction that encourages civilization to develop in harmony with natural energy flows and aligns economic incentives with thermodynamics and environmental sustainability.
The Ultimate Meta-Hack
Bitcoin is a force for good that operates across multiple scales–from individual minds to global energy systems. Bitcoin aligns individual self-interest with collective benefit, psychological well-being with environmental sustainability, and technological progress with biological imperatives.
The significance of Bitcoin to the evolution of humanity may be analogous to the significance of ATP to the evolution of complex life. Both ATP and Bitcoin represent revolutionary solutions to energy transfer and value storage, operating as universal currencies within their respective domains, and just as ATP enabled the emergence of complex eukaryotic life, Bitcoin may lead to the emergence of new forms of complex social and economic organizations that are enlivened and powered by the Bitcoin protocol. Yet, while ATP synthesis emerged as a product of biological evolution that took billions of years, Bitcoin arose through technological evolution occurring many powers of magnitude faster.
It seems that as we progress toward hyperbitcoinization, we are not just participating in a monetary revolution, but in humanity's next evolutionary leap that reveals deep structural parallels and alignment between biological and technological evolution. This is likely to give rise to novel forms of social, technological, and economic organization that anchor the digital world in the real world, connect humans through a common value system, and drive humanity toward enhanced wellness and wealth.
In this light, every Bitcoin transaction is not just a financial act, but a contribution to a massive experiment that is not just about buying and holding digital assets--it's about consciously engaging with a protocol that is rewiring humanity from the inside out. The real question isn't whether Bitcoin will succeed as digital money--it's how profoundly this ultimate biohack will transform humanity and the relationship between mind, society, and nature.
Bitcoin Rules: The Way to Wealth
Tick tock next block
See number go up
Don’t trust verify
Hold your keys
Back them up
Time in, beats timing
The trend is your friend
Zoom out
Resist FUD
HODL on till the end
#professorialpoetry
"Tick tock next block"
Bitcoin's heartbeat is the steady progression of blocks, like a clock marking the march of digital time with algorithmic certainty. This rule reminds us Bitcoin is an unstoppable force and new bitcoin will be mined every 10 minutes until the supply cap of 21 million coins is reached, regardless of price, politics, or hash rate. This certainty fuels the flow of assets into the Bitcoin network and allows patience and the passage of time to become a source of certainty and strength.
"See number go up"
This isn't just a meme--it's a recognition that just as water flows downhill, value flows from less stable to more stable states, and just as a balloon expands when air is blown into it, bitcoin’s price increases with the inflow of capital. “Number go up” drives adoption and coincides with ‘freedom go up’ as the Bitcoin network is the most decentralized, stable, and secure network on earth that lets everyone transmit and store wealth without permission, censorship, or debasement.
"Don't trust, verify"
In a world where individuals must interact with increasingly complex and powerful entities, this core principle advocates for verifying information or claims before accepting them. While trust enriches relationships, it can also be corrupted leading to betrayal and exploitation. Bitcoin's genius lies in minimizing trust or counterparty risk through cryptographic verification and the creation of “digital truth” so that anyone can verify the entire system. This has profound implications that extend beyond commerce to media, medical, financial, religious, and governmental organizations.
"Hold your keys"
Private keys represent self-sovereignty and absolute ownership over a wallet that is as secure as the most secure bank vault or nation-state archive. Custody equals destiny and "not your keys, not your coins" is a reminder that you can avoid counterparty risk and retain true ownership and direct control over your assets by holding your own keys. Thus, true independence requires taking direct responsibility rather than delegating it to others and this extends to personal sovereignty in all its forms.
"Back them up"
Bitcoin gives everyone on earth complete power over their assets, but with great power comes great responsibility. Bitcoin does not have a helpdesk and holders of bitcoin must take full responsibility for their keys or accept counterparty risk. Many people have lost billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin due to trusting third parties that were hacked or corrupted, or from keys that were lost due to inadequate backups. Accruing and preserving wealth requires self-responsibility, planning, and redundancy and backups are essential.
"Time in beats timing"
History confirms that holding bitcoin long-term consistently outperforms active trading and for most people, time ‘in’ the market beats trying to extract profit by gambling on short-term market movements. Bitcoin’s inherent volatility makes trying to time Bitcoin's short-term price action a fool's errand. Success is a marathon, not a sprint and success is more likely to come from conviction, sustained effort, and consistent engagement. This wisdom extends far beyond Bitcoin--whether in investing, relationships, or personal development.
"The trend is your friend "
“The trend is your friend till the end” is a principle that encourages you to identify and align with trends that provide reassurance, clarity, and conviction for the future. The digitization and dematerialization of the world is a powerful trend that has already disrupted computing, communication, photography, music, media, and entertainment, making them faster, smarter, and cheaper. Bitcoin is now disrupting the world’s financial system and demonetising other asset classes and this trend is likely to continue for decades to come.
"Zoom out"
Wisdom comes from perspective and the ability to see problems from different angles. “When in doubt zoom out” is an effective strategy for maintaining perspective when facing business setbacks, personal challenges, or societal problems. When daily price movements seem volatile or negative news seems to dominate your thoughts, zooming out to see the bigger picture prevents you from getting lost in short-term details and often reveals temporary problems are part of a larger positive trend and thereby provides reassurance and peace of mind.
"Resist FUD"
“FUD” (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) are powerful psychological forces that shake conviction in even the strongest beliefs and can be used as weapons to inhibit rational decision-making. FUD around Bitcoin is often generated by those who don't understand it or from powerful organizations that have vested interests in the current system. The ability to resist FUD requires a deep understanding of bitcoin’s underlying principles and conviction in bitcoin’s trajectory which requires at least a hundred hours of study to obtain.
"HODL on till the end"
"HODL" transcends its origins as a typographical error and “Hold On for Dear Life” is perhaps the most profound rule for building wealth with bitcoin. The ability to maintain conviction and persevere through difficulty often determines success in relationships, projects, or personal growth. The ability to ‘never sell your bitcoin’ and hold on with ‘diamond hands’ rather than ‘paper hands’ is the simplest and most direct way to leverage the digitization of the global economy and build personal and intergenerational wealth.
About the Author
Dr Marc Cohen is a medical doctor, university professor, author, poet, entrepreneur, wellness trailblazer and perpetual student of life, who believes wellness can be just as contagious as illness. Marc has a deep commitment to promoting accessible wellness practices and aims to co-create a culture of wellness that infects the world with good health. He embodies the role of a bridge-builder, connecting ancient wisdom with modern science, academia with industry, and individual well-being with global health. You can find him at www.drmarc.co
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