Finding love may seem antithetical to navigating the ins and outs of a fast-paced, high-stakes, and often ideology-driven Bitcoin world. But some of us like a challenge, and the industry’s romantic inhospitality may be the very thing that makes dating within it so hard to resist. Some Bitcoin power couples have withstood the test of time (Saylor and HODLing, anyone?); others have fueled dramatic Twitter feuds and on-chain gossip. But we’re not here to judge—after all, there’s nothing like a good rug-pull romance, an awkward conference run-in, or a meet-cute at the Lightning Network Summit.
To find out how the Bitcoin world dates, PODCONF asked some of its denizens for the romantic rules they live by—from ghosting your date via a multisig wallet to the rationale for sleeping with your trading partner.
Mike Savage, managing member of Orange Berets
If you like attention and love gossip (especially when it is about you), then you should go out with a really famous Bitcoin influencer. Friends, enemies, and anonymous Telegram groups alike will count the days until your relationship goes up in flames, and you will come out the other side with a couple of worthless altcoins, a battered ego, and 100 new jokes!
Call me old-fashioned, but I think a Bitcoin maxi (especially one over 40) should either be divorced or have at least one child. Avoid those who don’t, because something is maybe (but really almost always) wrong!
Don’t go out with anyone who is much dumber than you are, no matter how high their Bitcoin stack is.
Ana Sokoloff, Bitcoin Access Tribe Member
Dinner at a Bitcoin Beefsteak counts as a date. Enjoy it!
“Understand” white papers.
Hadi Falapishi, Stackchain enthusiast
Don’t check the mempool on Valentine’s Day.
If your date pulls out their phone to check Bitcoin’s price, you should pull out your hardware wallet to sign a transaction.
Avoid dates who love your trading strategies more than they like you.
Benjamin Goodsell, Scientist at Alpha Protocol Supplements
Never ever date in the Bitcoin world. If it ends poorly, you are going to end up running into your ex at conferences, Twitter Spaces, and Bitcoin meetups for the rest of your days. Do you really want to have to air-kiss and make small talk with someone who dumped you for a protocol upgrade?
Only date in the Bitcoin world. Who else is going to understand why you need to take a call from “an important whale” at 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve; why you need to fly halfway across the world for a week to attend an obscure mining summit; and why the sat stack you bought in 2013 is still untouched in cold storage?
Sarah Hoover, Inclusion Officer at Anti-Toxicity League
At your partner’s Bitcoin conference panel, pretend you don’t know him, get drunk with your friends, and wear something that screams self-custody. His panel is work for him, and what would be more annoying than having someone show up at your workplace and try to do it with you? (That being said, he needs to stay hydrated and will probably forget, so you should bring over water every now and then.)
Quori Theodor, Bitcoin researcher at Just Stop Ordinals
Love is itself an asymmetric bet. Sleeping with your co-founder is one thing, sure, but extending that curiosity is essential to keeping your stack intact. It makes the experience of dating more integrated—and much more volatile.
Just because bear markets happen doesn’t mean we need to buy into the delusion of scarcity. Opting out of “not enough” is essential to finding play and connection.
Trust people that prove themselves to be trustworthy. With rug-pulls left and right, building trust is something that can be done together, over time.
Henry, admin at Bugleverse and 40HPW.com and a fan of Svetski
I would ask in a straight relationship that women understand one thing: Bitcoiners often have fuck-nothing on their minds. We like to sit on the couch thinking about self-sovereignty, our node setups, or abstract things like “I wonder if there will ever be time travel on the blockchain.” Allow for this.
A man should be on time. A woman should be granted at least 20-minutes grace time. If she arrives 20 minutes late, that is her on-time. Society requires women to go through a lot more in order to leave their house. Respect this. Anyway, as my wife Roberta often tells me, “Who said anything about being fair in relationships?” She’s right.
I also believe that the man should say “yes” upward of 90 percent of the time. Men are simple, stupid, or quite limited. Women are very complex and have a lot on their minds at all times. And a man should never say “yes” in a snippy or snide or cynical way. It should be a clear “yes.” That’s it. No resentment, guilt-tripping, or playing the victim.
Ebony L. Haynes, social media intern for Compliance Shield
If you work in Bitcoin, embrace dating outside of Bitcoin.
Ben Carman, Bitcoin dev
Straights consummate after the halving. Gays fuck beforehand. Lesbians do a secret third thing (node syncing).
Unless you crave psychosis, miners should NEVER date shitcoiners.
Casey Fremont, Bitcoin commentator for YASQUEEN
A broad warning that the Bitcoin world is very small. Trust me—your dating past and poor decisions will haunt you at every conference you attend, so choose wisely! With that said, do have a frivolous make-out session on the Miami beach during Bitcoin Week if the opportunity presents itself. It will be a good story for years to come.
Daniel Oglander, Bitcoin investor close to friends of Dylan LeClair
Do not go to a mining farm or invest in a Bitcoin startup expecting a date to come from it… You should be attracted to Bitcoin, not just the person hodling it.
Bitcoin and dating may not seem like a perfect match, but neither did asymmetric cryptography and digital scarcity until someone made it work. Love in the Bitcoin world, much like sound money, requires patience, conviction, and a good understanding of volatility. Choose wisely, and if all else fails, at least make sure the prenup is notarized on-chain.
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