Cody Hall

What I'm reading, writing, and thinking about.

What I’m Crunching — August 24, 2025

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Books I’m Reading

A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South

Peter Cozzens has written a trilogy that looks at the events leading up to and including the eradication of the Native American population from the U.S. South. A Brutal Reckoning is the third book in the trilogy and focuses on Andrew Jackson’s role in the war with the Creek Indians. I expect to be shocked and appalled as I read.

These stories haven’t gotten the awareness they deserve. Cozzens makes the case that the brutal wars and removal of the American Indian from their lands laid the foundation for the American form of chattel slavery and thus, the American Civil War, because it opened up the fertile southern U.S. for settlement by the conquering whites.

Podcast I’m Listening To

I haven’t listened to NLW’s “The AI Daily Brief” in several months (I needed to reduce the number of podcasts I was consuming). But this one grabbed my attention.

As I lead our AI Taskforce at SonSet Solutions, we’re moving toward an “AI First” culture where every teammate is using AI tools to the most beneficial degree possible for their specific role. I’m learning the importance of 1) leadership buy-in and 2) team alignment.

NLW breaks down both of these areas in this approachable explanation of why a recent MIT survey is wrong and why, as a headline, it’s misleading huge swathes of people.

On Bitcoin

Bitcoin teaches long-term thinking.

Human psychology around investing is a well-documented phenomenon. Even though the logical thing to do is to buy low and sell high, sell your losers as quickly as possible, and hold your winners (or even add to them), the normal psychology of humanity makes this very difficult.

Short-term thinking, and the actions that flow from thinking this way, hinder successful investing. To invest well over a long period of time requires discipline, rationality, and a master of one’s emotions.

How can Bitcoin teach long-term thinking? By incentivizing and rewarding it.

Consider this recent chart published by Bitwise:

Said another way, here’s the probability of positive Bitcoin returns per holding period:

  • 1 Day: 53.1%
  • 1 Week: 55.7%
  • 1 Month: 57.8%
  • 1 Qtr: 63.5%
  • 1 Yr: 76.5%
  • 3 Yr: 99.3%
  • 5 Yr: 99.8%
  • 10 Yr: 100%

Bitcoin rewards and incentivizes long-term thinking by providing investors (actually, savers, since Bitcoin is the apex savings technology) superior returns. But you don’t get these returns unless you hold.

I’m very much in the camp of “never sell your Bitcoin.” Because as this smash up of a famous quote from The Matrix reminds us:

Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can sell my Bitcoin for millions one day?
Morpheus: No Neo, I am trying to tell you that when you are ready…you won’t have to.

Tweets I’m Reading

If you have feedback for me, if something resonates and you want to see more of it, reply in the comments below. You can also tweet at me on Twitter @the_cody_hall.

I look forward to hearing from you!

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