your brother. your mom. your customers

i remember what it was like to start a bitcoin company in a country that hadnt decided what bitcoin was yet.

this was years ago. before the supreme court rulings. before the regulatory frameworks. before the etfs. before the institutional adoption.

back then.... by choosing to do a bitcoin business you were essentially choosing to face hell on earth.

i mean it.

your mom thinks you are gambling. your dad thinks you are wasting your education. your brother sends you newspaper articles about scams. your friends ask you politely when you will get a real job.

your customers are nervous about putting money on your platform.

your bank closes your business account without warning. then the next bank does the same. then the next. and there is no appeal process.

your investors keep asking when you will pivot to something more legitimate.

everyone in your life turns on you to some degree if they think you are doing something wrong.

and the something wrong is just being early.

now compare that to building a bitcoin business today.

the us government has a strategic bitcoin reserve. the regulators are issuing clear guidance. the largest asset managers in the world hold bitcoin etfs. fortune fifty companies put bitcoin on their balance sheets. the federal reserve member banks have started custody operations.

your mom now asks you which bitcoin company to invest in.

same product. same protocol. same code base. completely different social environment.

and i think about this every time i meet a new founder who is starting a bitcoin company in 2026 and complaining about how hard it is.

they have no idea.

they are starting in the easy era.

and the founders who built through the hard era have a permanent advantage that nobody talks about. they did the social work that the new founders do not have to do. they convinced their families. they convinced their friends. they convinced their first customers when bitcoin was still a foreign word.

which means their conviction was forged when there was no support structure for it.

which means they cannot be talked out of it now.

this is the hidden moat of operators who started early. it is not technical. it is psychological. they made peace with their families turning against them. they made peace with their banks turning against them. they kept building anyway.

once you have done that.... no future hard moment can scare you the same way.

so for whatever you are early in.

are you willing to face hell on earth for it?

because the conviction you build now is the moat you carry forever.