Even famous successful investors like Peter Lynch, Warren Buffett, Bill Dermot, and Howard Marks had tiny asset bases when they were starting out, and we only know them today as successful because we see the winners; we never hear of the 10,000 portfolio managers who were flushed out and failed—a case of survivorship bias.

The Satoshi Nakamoto paper was released about a year after the first iPhone, and Bitcoin started trading about a year later in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, embedding the post-crisis narrative about not trusting governments and Wall Street into Bitcoin's origin story.

A dollar's primary purpose is to serve as a medium of exchange for trading hours and expertise for cash, and it needs to be a store of value only for the very short time between receipt (paycheck) and expenditure (mortgage, food, travel, investing)—it serves this function splendidly.

Rolfs' wife joked about how broke they were when first married, and his decision to switch careers from law to finance created significant career uncertainty during their 20s and 30s, but the stress of career uncertainty and not knowing if his career path would work out was substantial during that period.

Bitcoin's security properties were (and remain) questionable—the example of someone losing $100 million in Bitcoin because they couldn't find their password illustrates that while the price charts look good, the practical usability and security are poor compared to traditional currencies.

Rolfs is increasingly acknowledging that we know very little about what's happening in the future and even in the present, which represents a philosophical evolution from industry-standard confidence.

Rolfs' firm (Rolfs Wealth Management) manages a couple of billion dollars in assets, meaning his personal wealth is directly tied to market performance.