Hey everyone! First off, reminder that the first three episodes of the show are live wherever you get your pods. Episode #4 dropped today. In this episode of the Think Bitcoin Podcast, I sat down with Trey Sellers from Unchained to talk about Bitcoin, FI/RE (Financial Independence, Retire Early), and how our culture misunderstands money. What started as a conversation about personal finance and financial independence evolved into something much bigger: a rethinking of saving, leverage, real estate, and even how Bitcoin shapes culture itself.
🎧 Listen to the full episode:
[Spotify] | [Apple Podcasts] | [YouTube] | [Fountain]
Money as Uncertainty Reduction
One of Trey’s core insights reframes money itself:
“Holding money is actually using money — because it reduces uncertainty about your future. Spending is when you’re done using it.”
In a fiat system designed for debasement, true saving isn’t possible. People are forced out the risk curve. And it’s not because they want especially want to be investors, but because their money won’t hold value otherwise. Consequently, many people, FI/RE folks very much included, unknowingly conflate investing with saving. They call it investing, but what they’re actually trying to do is save. Our money’s inability to hold value means they have to go invest in something like the S&P as an attempt to effectuate savings.
Intelligent Leverage: Saylor for the People
We explored whether Michael Saylor’s corporate strategy (borrowing in fiat to buy Bitcoin, aka the speculative attack) has a personal finance analogue. Trey’s answer:
“The version of Saylor that is intelligent personal finance is the mortgage. It’s the most accessible form of credit people have, and even today it’s a bargain given how much that debt will be debased.”
For many, aggressively paying down a mortgage feels like safety, a way to pursue a liberation from monthly obligations. But Trey argues the real peace of mind comes from liquidity, i.e. keeping your base of liquid assets as large as possible. Because the liquid asset base can always be sold or borrowed against to cover obligations, the larger the base = the more optionality you retain.
Bitcoin vs. Real Estate: Math and Morality
By the numbers, Bitcoin outpaces every asset, including real estate. But Trey emphasized there’s also a cultural and moral dimension:
“Bitcoin will outperform almost everything — real estate, stocks, businesses. But Brian Harrington made me rethink whether there’s also a moral case: Bitcoiners should own things in their communities. Not 25 rental homes, but the businesses, the green spaces, the places that shape how people live.”
Bitcoin may be the best store of value, but community assets anchor people in place and help shape culture. It’s not an either/or binary. It’s both/and synergy.
Unlearning the Income Trap
Much of traditional FI/RE is built around cashflow, i.e. dividends, rents, “passive income.” Trey suggested this fixation can actually limit freedom.
“You can create income by selling assets — and often it’s more tax efficient than W-2 income. The trick is unlearning the groove in your brain that says cash flow = safety.”
He pushed back on the idea that freedom equals income replacement. Sometimes freedom comes from holding liquidity and knowing you can sell strategically, not from obsessing over monthly checks.
The Stacking Sprint
Another of Trey’s frameworks was what he called the “stacking sprint.” For young workers and creatives, the strategy is simple: go hard early.
“Do a sprint — four to ten years where you maximize savings and stack Bitcoin. That nest egg compounds in ways future contributions can’t. It’s like giving yourself a Renaissance grant or an apprenticeship fund. Then you’ve bought yourself freedom for the next chapter.”
We compared this to artists receiving MacArthur grants (which I’ve written about before) or medieval apprenticeships, structures that gave people the breathing room to hone their craft. Bitcoin makes this approach available to anyone disciplined enough to sprint early and step back later.
Bitcoin as Cultural Software
Beyond personal finance, Trey sees Bitcoin reshaping culture itself:
“Sound money reshapes culture whether or not individuals go out of their way to. Incentives shift, shortcuts stop working, low time preference becomes natural, and people invest in families and communities instead of chasing fiat illusions.”
From starting families earlier, to funding local institutions, to thinking in longer horizons, Trey argues the downstream effects of Bitcoin adoption could be as transformative as the technology itself.
Conclusion
What I loved most about this conversation was Trey’s ability to link the math of personal finance and Bitcoin with ideas stewardship and cultural restoration. Yes, Bitcoin is the best-performing asset and will continue to be. But the conversation isn’t only about stacking. It’s about what Bitcoiners will do with the freedom it gives them, i.e. building healthier communities, raising families earlier, funding art, and shaping culture from the ground up.
Which is all to say there are ways to approach bitcoin and optimize with it both within the spreadsheet and beyond it. Trey skillfully covers both.
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See you next time,
Logan