Bitcoin Forum

I came across a meme some months back and it stuck to my my head that I had to put it down in writing to some extend on my profile (personal) statue. The meme was emphasizing on giving a man Bitcoin and you'll fees him for centuries and it got me wondering about the popular quotes that says "Give a poor man fish and you feed him for a day, but teach him how to make money and you feed him for lifetime". Now if the quote meaning is that giving out money only enslaved the mind of the receiver as he/she begin to think less on how to make a living for himself instead begins to rely on you, which is bad.

But then, if you teach that individual how to make money, they become independent and there's higher chances of them replicating same action to others and the good continues. Now in the cryptocurency community the opposite is the case, people are given fish (money Bitcoin) daily through giveaway and other means steadily on the social media platforms. Isn't this contradicting everything. We're producing dependant society that rely on others instead of looking for alternative ways to make a living for themselves and start earning bitcoin.

What the meme is saying 'Give a man Bitcoin and he'll be feed for centuries' should this be the case, why isn't it publicizing teaching about bitcoin and feeding the man for lifetime or is there something that I'm missing here?.

What if you give someone bitcoin, the price decrease and the person was panic and sold it, the price later increase and the person miss the great opportunity. You will still need to teach the person that he should hold even if the price of bitcoin is falling, if the person hold, the price will increase back, the person will gain. You can tell the person that he can hold bitcoin for many years and leave it for children, that means you still teach the person by telling him to hold the bitcoin.

The original of the parable says: "Give a man a fish, and he will be fed one day. Give a man a fishing rod, and he will be fed all his life."
It goes on to speak of a lazy student who also hoped to receive fish every day. The student did not want to use the fishing rod, as he was lazy. But he saw his teacher gloriously catch more fish.
All of today's distributions, which indulge newcomers, can be compared to this parable. One small giveaway is a drop in the ocean. And if the one who has this drop is content with little, and does not want to learn how to get more, then he will remain a supplicant, not a giver.
The choice is always ours.

Memes are created to make fun. I don't think the guy who posted/created that meme truly believe in the quote: "Give a man Bitcoin and he'll be feed for centuries"?

It's even funnier to teach people about bitcoin in order to feed them for their lifetimes. The difference here is when you teach a man fishing, he can get fish wherever fish exists and physically feed himself. But bitcoin doesn't work that way. Bitcoin, stocks or any other financial games are zero-sum. While you gain, others lose. Are you sure the person you teach won't buy bitcoin at $62k and cut loss at $30k or are you gonna tell him to hold it for his lifetime?

Those who giveaway Bitcoin on social media do so to attract people to their profiles and build their following, it has no deeper meaning to it, Bitcoin is just the means. Cash or anything of value can be used in the same way.

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About the quote, it depends on how you interprete it. 'Give a man Bitcoin...' could be translated to letting someone in on how Bitcoin works as a network, but it still doesn't make much sense as Bitcoin is not a solution to poverty, it is just a decentralized currency with some other really cool features.
Learning a skill, getting a degree, investing wisely etc are ways to feed yourself for a lifetime.

Teaching someone a new idea means that it is difficult to implement, takes time and may not always work, so many choose to get the fish rather than learn it.
There's another lovely saying that says you can't teach your old dog a new trick.
People have become lazy and used to the old systems, so teaching them to use a new system will take a long time and you may not succeed in that.

Like others have said, experience is the greatest teacher.

It's not just Bitcoin, you could give someone a house (assuming it's in a prime location) and no doubt the price will appreciate over the years. But without learning the process of earning enough money to buy one, how does one understand the hardship and the taste of success?


Memes are taken at face value, but it does hold some truth. Definitely won't apply to most of us out there. ;D

Only for those people that HODL-ed from the very beginning or bought a shitton during the major crashes.

Time for Bitcoin faucets are over many years and now, people have to work to earn fiats or altcoins, then use them to buy Bitcoin.

There are airdrops, faucets with altcoins, so people can join them and sell those altcoins to get Bitcoin. Do you know ICP? They run airdrop years ago but requested fees to do KYC on airdrop receivers.

It was traded about $600 (https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/internet-computer/) months ago so airdrop receivers have good income with ICP. If they sell ICP at top, they can have about 0.01 BTC that good enough.

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I disagree that you have to give anyone Bitcoin to help. Additionally, many people are close-minded and they don't want to hear about Bitcoin or cryptocurrency.

This depends though. Like what others have already mentioned, even if you give someone free BTCs, it is still their responsibility on how to utilize it. Others may sell it at a lower price from the time they acquired it and some may sell it at a higher price which gives them profit at the end.


As an analogy to the original bible verse, it's like you're giving away $40,000 worth of free fish to a person. But if he fails to utilize each piece (i.e. preserving the rest for future use), the value overall would decrease- that is why you have to be smart with all the investments that you acquire.

Your comparison is wrong, bitcoin should not represent the fish but the fishing rod itself as bitcoin as a means of payment. Fishing requires more skill and patience than it looks, same with bitcoin. You give only bitcoins to someone, then that person needs to increase their knowledge of how to use them, trading skills and practice patience to hold.

The actual case here is that those person who relies too much o giveaways and other means of gaining bitcoin amidst knowing how to earn in other ways are stupid. They've been taught how to farm yet they chose to rely on ways that is the most convenient for them. Just like any other job in the world, patience and being strategic are those that a person should obtain if he really wants to earn lots of money. Instead of instantly giving them bitcoin, teaching them how to earn is much more recommendable so that they will have the freedom to choose whether they will give importance to it or just remain with their old ways.

No one is giving away Bitcoin seriously. All those giveaways, faucets and bounties don't yield much and many of them are just scams that waste people's time or steal their coins. Buying and holding Bitcoin is a money-making method, but you need to have some money to invest in the first place, now more so than before because the rate of Bitcoin's growth is slowing down. So investing in Bitcoin is not a way for poor people to get "fish", it's a method for people who already have "fish" to get even more "fish" and protect their wealth from inflation.

There was then a newer saying, some sort of mockery towards those who love to go fishing and it tells:
"Give a man a fish, and he will be fed one day. Give a man a fishing rod, and he will be gone all day long drink beer and pretend to be fishing."


Back to OP, it depends on the person you "give Bitcoin". Some will live long and will always have money to feed their family (selling some satoshi when in need and maybe even buy them back when possible, or get the taste and trade or simply earn/work for bitcoin), some others will sell all the coins at the first occasion they get (or first time there's a dip and some FUD).

Teach me how to fish! I rather concern myself with the How, that's the only way to be successful in anything. Give someone money and they will subconsciously be indebted to you forever that's a power trick used by the rich. Poverty starts in the mind, if you give a man btc that doesn't automatically erase the years of poor mentality he has. Knowledge is what a man needs

I don't like it.
By giving the man 1 Bitcoin you didn't teach him anything. It's the same as giving him the fish. He will eat it today, ask for another one tomorrow, or starve to death because he never learned how to fish. Give him some bitcoin and he will probably sell it for profit as soon as the right opportunity presents itself. But he still doesn't have the knowledge or the experience to acquire more bitcoin.

Instead, you should teach him about the possibilities Bitcoin offers. Show him where to swap his craftsmanship for bitcoin and enjoy as he sees a bigger purchasing power. With that knowledge he can teach others and increase the adoption rate to everyone's satisfaction.

Let's not forget one thing,
Memes are created by you and me. By that I mean, just anyone with a device can create a meme, I have seen Hhampuz host a meme contest a few times on some of the campaigns he manages. Creating a meme of whatever doesn't make the words of it so true or some wise statement. An ignorant full can be behind it all.

When we look at the issue with give aways in the crypto community, you can be rest assured that, giveaways aren't allowed on the bitcointalkforum. Create a giveaway thread and it would be locked sooner than  you expect, your likely to be tagged and the participants is liable for a temporal suspension.

Should an individual be given bitcoin as against teaching the individual how to trade, hodl or manage it in some way, the individual is more likely to

1. Not know the value of what he or she has
2. Give off private key to scammers or loose bitcoin to some scam deal

Should non of these happen, we ought to know that, wealth comes with certain amount of luxury. That individual won't be limited to his poor spending, his budgets and expenditure might increase to swallow the funds and he or she would go broke once more. It's life and educating the individual would always do him or her more than handing him or her some fortune.

As for me, I think what what statement "Give a man Bitcoin and he'll be feed for centuries" means is that the price of bitcoin is't over yet, as I could remember when the price of 1BTC was $1000, but now it's over $40,000, and it keeps growing yearly which only those who where patient enough to keep holding when it has less value are now benefiting wholesome profit today.

But actually, everybody can not be that patient to hold a coin for over a long period of time without used, unless they have an alternative source of income, and that brings me to the second statement you wrote which says "Teaching about bitcoin and feeding the man for lifetime" would have been the best caption of that meme, because as the day comes by, man has needs to settle which all requires cash. So if the man has never been taught that something like like crypto trading exiest (i.e being able to buy coin at the dip and sell it at the bull), so will the bitcoin depreciate on the daily basis as man needs to settle bills for himself and family..

So in summary, the caption would have been... "Teach a man about bitcoin and feed him for a lifetime"....
 Thanks

We all know that some of us was given something opportunity but we won't believe. Untill someone is proving to us that he/she achieve his/her goal by the opportunity who've given to us.

Sometimes being lazy are letting you down. You need to fight your  greatest enemy Wich is laziness.

Which Bitcoin giveaways are you refering too? In my experience, most of them are either scam or luck based.

The meme that says "Give a man Bitcoin and feed him for centuries" has a great context which can be explain or relate to different instances. Bitcoin is a great asset that the wise investors are still in search of accumulating it more cause in time coming, people would keep on longing for it. I love this quote and I'm going to stick to the actual context.

In coming year, Bitcoin is going to be great and those who were able to endure the holding phase, would enjoy the benefits of of having Bitcoin. Give a man Bitcoin and feed him for centuries✓

I'm not sure how the whole thread derailed with giveaways, but it's just a proverb of what happens when you give someone a whole Bitcoin.

It could be a father entrusting his child to keep safe it, or a family member entrusting someone else with it.

Come to think of it, I'm not even sure why the discussion is centered around its literal interpretation.

I remember what I did to someone who are very close to me. When he was having a hard time making money, I tried to give him a little crypto and introduced trading and holding. because, in my opinion, if I just give him money, maybe he will never understand how hard it is to make money in the crypto world. So, I decided to introduce trading, and it was up to him, if he wants to use that ,oney to be traded or not, then I told him that I won't be giving away money for free in the future if he only wish get another money. Because we never know what he will do in the future, will he be independent in following what we teach or will it only burden our lives. But, I will agree to another member, better to give me knowladge before we are giving him a giveaway.

Better to teach him how to fish than give him a free bitcoin. For a crypto investor, bitcoin is very valuable even the price market right now is very low due to market crash, you still see the potential and the future value of bitcoin. Do you think you'd have the same reaction if you gave someone a bitcoin? Of course, he'll act irresponsibly, such as selling due to a lack of knowledge when market occurs.

If you teach someone how to learn crypto and how to earn more, he will have the same perspective as an investor, who can see the potential of crypto and will make sensible market decisions.

It's not easy to handle a thing like crypto; people thought it was, but it's not, so let's always teach each other about crypto and remind them to DYOR and be mindful as much as possible.\
My friends are giving some cryptos to my other friends, but first, they want to make sure they understand how crypto works.

Diving into Bitcoin is not so easy for a newbie like me. It takes a lot of patience and a good mental an psychological conditioning but for me it would be nicer to say "teach a man how to mentally tough, learn to trade , give him bitcoin and he will feed for a lifetime" does it sounds good ? Please correct me if I'm wrong but that is what I learned something reading books about investing and trading.

If you teach him a way to make money, he will survive in any conditions without getting afraid if he can not eat someday because he has the basic thing to continue his life.
He will repeatedly try to make money from the way you gave and he will not give up (but that will depend on that person).
Mostly, if you give them bitcoin aka money, they feel comfortable and become lazy to search for the way and only wait for the next give from the other people.
As humans, we need to try hard to survive and if we only expect the other to help us, how can we survive in the hardest of life.
In this case, if we can teach him and show the way, he will try by himself to make money and if he gets into trouble, he can ask us, which will improve his knowledge to become better.

Where is the place you refer to?. As far as I know, Bitcointalk already prohibits those giveaways and whoever held it or even join it, will get a ban. I personally experienced it lol and learn from my mistake, I won't ever join that kind of giveaways anymore where you don't do any efforts to gain and just writings your credentials below the thread.

I can't talk about other places, it's probably right if you see it on social media, but I believe there's only a small portion of them are legit, the rest won't give anything. People will learn eventually that it's useless. It's not easy to get money from the crypto world and people should know it.

The different is very clear, but depending on personal views and perspectives. Teaching a man how to fish, meaning showing or guiding a man a way to Hustle so as to have a joyful lifestyle after success, but when u give me bitcoin or give me what to eat for a while, I might still be dependent on someone to give me another time, in cryptocurrency perspective, given bitcoin might resolve to different things which can be favorable and in the other way round it might not favor. Therefore Teaching me how to fish is better than given me bitcoin.

Yes . Not all people are suitable for fishing.
Some people may only teach him how to put the fishing rod and he already knows how to raise the fishing rod after catching a fish. Some people teach everything to them. He may forget quickly or learn the skills.
Fishing also has tools, such as fishing rods and fishing nets. Some people are suitable for fishing rods, while others are suitable for fishing nets.

1. Give a man Bitcoin and he'll be fed for centuries? Wait a minute, how's that even possible? Giving a man Bitcoin in exchange for nothing is exactly giving a man a fish. The man will use the Bitcoin to buy his necessities. When the last Satoshi has been spent, what's next for the man? To beg for more Bitcoin?

2. Forget about the giveaways on social media. They're not really for free. And any man couldn't live on them either. It cannot even buy a small piece of stale fish.

3. Teaching a man Bitcoin doesn't feed him for centuries either. I'd say give a man a job, with a decent salary of course, and he'll be sufficiently fed for as long as he lives.

You are very correct.I also prefer being taught how to fish than been given the fish.To a man,the best thing you can ever do to him is to show him how to make money,giving him money is also good,but showing him how to make the money is the best thing you can ever do to him.

In crypto,Bitcoin can metamorphose into something reasonable in future,the both ways can work perfectly well for someone that has a good knowledge about Crypto currency.He can decide to invest and get back the money given to him,but being taught how to make the money is the best.