I Chose Silver Over Bitcoin in 2010. It Cost Me Millions.

June 2010. I handed over cash for my first 10oz silver bar at $20.09 per ounce. I felt smart. Prepared. Like I'd figured out something most people were too blind to see. Today, that same bar is worth $48.50 per ounce. A 94% gain over 15 years.

It can't even beat real inflation.

If I'd bought Bitcoin instead, I'd be writing this from a very different place. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The Wake-Up Call That Led Me Astray

2008 nearly broke me. Not financially—mentally. Watching the financial system collapse, seeing Bear Stearns evaporate, watching the government bail out the banks that caused it all... something snapped.

My wife and I started an investment group with friends. We watched Peter Schiff videos like they were scripture. This guy called the housing crash. He understood that our paper dollars were trash, that the Fed was destroying our savings, that we needed sound money.

We got it. We really did. The dollar was a slow-motion robbery. Inflation was theft. The system was rigged to transfer wealth from savers to the connected elite.

We were RIGHT about the problem.

We were CATASTROPHICALLY WRONG about the solution.

The "Smart" Play That Wasn't

In 2011, I made my first serious move. I bought silver. Why not gold? Because gold seemed "too expensive" at $1,500/oz. Silver was only $20-30. I could stack more ounces. I could feel wealthy watching the bars pile up. This is how seductive bad logic feels when you're convinced you're ahead of the crowd.

Over the next decade, I kept buying. My last purchase was March 2020—$20.29 per ounce. Notice something? For TEN YEARS, the price barely moved.

I now own about 900 ounces of silver. At today's price of $48.50, that's roughly $43,650. I invested around $18,000 over those years. On paper, I "won." A 94% return sounds good in a PowerPoint presentation. But here's what keeps me up at night: My silver couldn't even outpace the real inflation that drove me to buy it in the first place.

The very thing I was trying to escape—monetary debasement—still won.

The Discovery I Ignored

In 2016 I purchased my first Bitcoin. Half a bitcoin for about $400. My initial reaction to Bitcoin? Skeptical curiosity tinged with dismissal. Fake internet tokens. It sounded like nerd money and I was curious on how it worked. So I picked some up.

Peter Schiff said it had "no intrinsic value." I trusted Peter. He'd been right about everything else, hadn't he? So I did what most people do: I learned just enough to dismiss it, then went back to stacking silver.

This is where I failed. This is where the real cost comes in.

Not because I didn't buy Bitcoin in 2016. But because I didn't take it seriously. I didn't put in the work to understand what it actually was. Our investment group eventually dissolved. People moved on. I became the lone voice still talking about sound money. And slowly, painfully, over several years, I finally understood what Bitcoin was.

The Math That Haunts Me

Let me show you the brutal reality:

• My silver: $18,000 invested → $43,650 today (15 years, 94% gain)

• My Bitcoin (last year alone): Up over 100%

One year of Bitcoin gains beat 15 years of silver.

But it gets worse.

If I'd taken that same $18,000 and bought Bitcoin in 2011 when I bought my first silver:

• Bitcoin was trading around $1-10

• That $18,000 could have bought somewhere between 1,800 to 18,000 BTC

• At today's price of ~$120,000 per BTC...

I'm talking about $216 million to $2.16 billion.

Just writing those numbers makes me depressed. LOL! The point is this: the opportunity cost of being early to the wrong asset is devastating.

The Peter Schiff Paradox

Here's what breaks my heart:

Peter Schiff taught me to recognize sound money. He explained how fiat currency was a scam. He showed me that governments would always debase, always inflate, always steal through monetary expansion.

He gave me the framework to understand Bitcoin.

Yet when Bitcoin arrived—mathematically scarce, globally accessible, unseizable, uncensorable, perfectly designed sound money—he couldn't see it. After watching him be so fundamentally wrong about Bitcoin, I started questioning everything else he says. Not because I want to. Because I have to. How can someone who understands the problem so clearly be so blind to the solution?

The Fight That Changed Everything

When I started selling our stocks and ETFs to buy Bitcoin ETFs, my wife and I had one of our biggest fights.

I get it. It looked insane. Abandoning our "diversified" portfolio for an asset that Peter Schiff (our former hero) called worthless? But I'd finally done the work. I understood what Bitcoin was. And I knew—with the kind of certainty that makes you willing to fight for it—that our traditional portfolio was the actual risk.

The risk wasn't Bitcoin's volatility. The risk was fiat's guaranteed debasement.

She was skeptical. Angry, even. But I couldn't unsee what I'd learned about money. Today, those investment account invested in Bitcoin ETFs? Up over 220% in just 18 months. Meanwhile, my 900 ounces of silver sit in storage. Waiting. A monument to the lesson I learned too slowly.

If I could go back and talk to 2010-me, I'd say three things:

1. Buy Bitcoin, not silver

2. Understand money—really understand it—before you invest

3. Take it seriously. Don't dismiss what you don't understand.

The Uncomfortable Truth for Gold & Silver Holders

If you're reading this and you own physical precious metals, I need you to hear something:

You're not wrong about the problem. You're just using the wrong solution.

We want the same thing. We see the same threat. Fiat currency is a slow-motion collapse. Central banks are destroying purchasing power. The system is rigged. But Bitcoin isn't competing with gold and silver anymore.

Bitcoin already won.

Not because some crypto bro said so on Twitter. But because the math is undeniable:

• Bitcoin's worst performing decade beats silver's best performing decade

• Bitcoin is more scarce (21 million vs. infinite mineable silver)

• Bitcoin is more portable (cross-border in minutes vs. physical shipping)

• Bitcoin is more divisible (sats vs. ounces)

• Bitcoin is more verifiable (public ledger vs. assay tests)

The only advantage precious metals have? They've been around longer.

That's it. That's the whole case.

The Decision I'm Still Making

Here's the truth I haven't told you yet: I'm still holding my 900 ounces of silver.

Not because I think silver is the better play. I don't. The math is clear. I'm holding it because letting go is hard. Even when you know you're wrong. Fifteen years of buying. Fifteen years of believing. Fifteen years of being "the silver guy" in my investment group. Fifteen years of Peter Schiff confirming my bias.

That's a lot of identity wrapped up in a stack of metal that's barely moved. But identity isn't a good investment thesis. And ego is expensive. Every time I look at that silver stack, I see two different paths:

Path 1: Keep holding. "It's been 15 years, what's another 15?" Maybe silver finally has its day. Maybe I'm wrong about Bitcoin. Maybe Peter Schiff sees something I don't. Or maybe if the zombie apocalypse does happen, these silver coins and bars will be used as money.

Path 2: Sell it all. Convert to Bitcoin. Accept that I was wrong for 15 years and stop compounding the mistake. Stop letting sunk cost fallacy steal my future.

Logically, I know Path 2 is right. The same logic that got me to sell stocks for Bitcoin tells me to sell silver for Bitcoin. But emotionally? I'm still wrestling with it.

So I'm putting this to you, because I genuinely want to hear both sides:

What Would You Do?

To the Bitcoin holders: Am I crazy for still holding this silver? Should I just rip the band-aid off and convert it all?

To the silver/gold bugs: What am I missing? What's the case for holding precious metals when Bitcoin exists? Convince me I'm wrong about Bitcoin being superior.

Leave a comment. Tell me what you think. Not what you want to be true. What you actually believe.

If you're holding precious metals: Why? What would make you change your mind? What am I not seeing? If you sold your precious metals for Bitcoin: What was the moment you knew? What finally convinced you? Any regrets?

If you think I'm insane for even considering selling: Make the case. I'm genuinely listening. Because maybe—just maybe—writing this article and hearing from all of you will give me the push I need to stop making the mistake I've been making for 15 years.

Or maybe you'll show me something I'm missing. Either way, the cost of doing nothing is too high. The sound money revolution is happening. I wasn't wrong to seek it. I was just early to the wrong asset.

The question is: Am I still going to be wrong 15 years from now?