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@ Ben Justman🍷
2025-05-05 16:19:39
Zooming Out: How Winemaking Prepared Me for Bitcoin
Starting Peony Lane meant leaning into something most people see as a downside.
Waiting.
Making red wine is slow.
You invest into grapes, barrels, and labor, then wait two years before selling a single bottle.
https://blossom.primal.net/2bea1ed0c4eca4fe75047a715ac4bdc11a91f8b27007a862ad8397e73264f03c.jpg
Most people hate that part.
For me, it was the opportunity.
The waiting gave me time to focus on what actually matters: making good wine.
Since I didn’t have a product to sell yet, all I could do was learn.
People act like it’s wild I learned so quickly while working full-time, but nothing motivates you like dumping your life savings into something and having to figure it out.
One year in, I had a big test.
You only get to make wine once a year.
When that second fall came, I'd never sold a single bottle, but I had to decide how much wine to make.
So I guessed.
I figured I’d make a little more than the year before.
Worst case, the wine would sit and get better with time. No harm in that.
That became the rhythm.
Not scaling up felt like more of a risk than scaling up too much.
I never wanted to run out of wine to sell.
And if I ever made too much, I’d just make less the next year. Simple.
What I couldn’t do was go back and make more if I ran out.
Eventually, that thinking becomes second nature.
You stop looking at each vintage in isolation.
Your baseline shifts to thinking two or three years ahead.
When I found Bitcoin, the low time preference mindset clicked immediately.
You can’t chase every short-term move.
You have to zoom out.
You trust that time and patience will reward conviction because you know the underlying product is sound.
(Which, to be honest, is more than I could say about my wine back then.)
So I went all in on Bitcoin at both tops of the 2021 cycle.
It felt more risky to not buy bitcoin in the moment than the downside potential of being able to buy cheaper bitcoin in the future.
If you can wait long enough, time heals all.