The interesting thing about Bitcoin is that people in different countries seem to be buying completely different things

Soros had this idea of reflexivity: people don’t just passively observe reality. Their beliefs affect how they behave, that behavior affects prices and sometimes reality itself, and the new reality then feeds back into those beliefs.

Bitcoin is probably one of the clearest examples of this I’ve seen.

After spending time in different countries, I’ve noticed that people can attach completely different meanings to the exact same asset.

Among some Chinese Bitcoin holders, BTC can take on an almost ideological meaning.

You hear a lot about protecting private property, escaping monetary debasement, decentralization, freedom from government control, etc.

For them, Bitcoin isn’t just something that might go up in price. Sometimes it feels closer to a belief system. It represents distrust of existing institutions and the hope of having wealth that nobody else can easily touch.

Korea feels quite different to me.

A lot of Korean retail investors I’ve met seem much less interested in the ideology. Bitcoin is mostly viewed as a high-volatility way to make money quickly.

The dream is pretty straightforward: make enough money, buy an apartment in Gangnam, get a nice car, move up socially.

Then you go to places like Scandinavia and the attitude can be completely different again.

If you tell an average person there that Bitcoin protects private property or gives you financial freedom from the state, the reaction might simply be: my property rights are already pretty secure.

If you tell them fiat money loses purchasing power, they can already buy Swedish, European or US index funds very easily and hold productive assets for decades.

So the emotional need for Bitcoin can be much weaker.

And then there’s another group entirely: criminals and people operating in gray markets.

For someone who needs to move money across borders, avoid the traditional banking system, or carry a large amount of wealth without physically carrying anything, Bitcoin has yet another value.

Several major fraud cases in China in recent years ended up involving enormous Bitcoin holdings.

So the same Bitcoin can mean completely different things depending on who owns it.

To one person it represents freedom and private property.

To another it’s a lottery ticket for moving up the social ladder.

To someone in Scandinavia it might just look like an unnecessary volatile asset.

And to someone operating outside the legal financial system, its value comes from something else entirely.

That’s probably what I find most interesting about Bitcoin.

Everyone appears to be buying the same asset, but psychologically they may be buying completely different stories.