About a year ago, I did something that surprised a lot of readers and, if I'm being honest, surprised me too. I started buying Bitcoin.

That might not sound particularly noteworthy, except that I had previously written an entire article explaining why cryptocurrency was not part of my investment plan. If you've been following along for a while, you may remember my original post on why I wasn't investing in Bitcoin. At the time, I believed physicians simply did not need cryptocurrency to build wealth or reach financial freedom. Looking back a year later, I still believe that.

So why did I start investing?

Did I suddenly become convinced that Bitcoin was the future of finance? Did I abandon index funds or real estate? Or did I decide I could predict where cryptocurrency was headed?

Not even close.

In fact, the funny thing is that almost nothing about my investing philosophy has changed over the past year. If anything, this experience has reinforced the principles that have guided our financial journey from more than $500,000 in debt at the end of residency to a net worth of more than $2 million today.

The only thing that changed was that I became curious enough to devote a very small amount of money to learning firsthand about an asset class that had become impossible to ignore.

That distinction is incredibly important because this has never been about chasing returns. It has been about education, intellectual curiosity, and making sure I wasn't dismissing something simply because it was unfamiliar.

Why I Changed My Mind Without Really Changing My Mind

One of the things I try hard to avoid is becoming dogmatic about investing.

There are very few absolutes in personal finance. Markets evolve. New technologies emerge. Investment products improve. While I believe it's dangerous to constantly change your financial plan, I also think it's dangerous to refuse to learn.

That was ultimately the reason I started buying Bitcoin.

For years I had read about cryptocurrency, listened to passionate advocates on both sides of the debate, and watched Bitcoin make seemingly endless headlines. Despite all of that, I had never actually owned any. At some point I realized that if I wanted to have an informed opinion, it probably made sense to experience it myself rather than simply observe from the sidelines.

So in August 2025, with Bitcoin trading near an all-time high, I set up an automatic investment of $100 every week.

That decision probably sounds strange because conventional wisdom would suggest waiting for a better entry point. But if you've read my article on investing when the market is at all-time highs, you already know that I don't believe in trying to time markets. I certainly wasn't going to make an exception just because the asset happened to be Bitcoin instead of the S&P 500.

Instead, I treated it exactly the same way I treat every other long-term investment. I began dollar cost averaging.

More importantly, I deliberately limited the size of the investment. This wasn't retirement money. It wasn't part of my written financial plan. And it certainly wasn't money that my family would ever rely on. It was fun money. If Bitcoin eventually truly became a transformational asset, great. If it didn't, our path toward financial freedom wouldn't change at all.

That may sound boring, but boring has worked remarkably well for us.

One Year Later: Here's What Actually Happened

If you had told me a year ago that I would be writing this update while my Bitcoin investment was down more than 20%, I wouldn't have been particularly surprised.

As I write this today, Bitcoin is trading around $66,000 after falling significantly from the all-time highs reached late last year. My own investment is down 21.51%.

And honestly? I'm completely okay with it.

That probably sounds odd coming from someone who spends so much time teaching physicians about investing. Aren't investors supposed to hate losing money? Of course they are. But context matters.

This investment was intentionally designed to be too small to meaningfully affect our financial future. That's exactly why I was comfortable making it in the first place. The purpose wasn't maximizing returns. The purpose was learning.

Ironically, the biggest lesson I've learned has very little to do with Bitcoin itself. Instead, it's been fascinating to watch my own psychology.

When Bitcoin initially appreciated after I started buying, I caught myself feeling smarter than I actually was. When it began falling, I found myself wondering whether I should increase my purchases or stop them altogether. Neither thought was rational. Both were emotional.

Those are exactly the same emotions investors experience with stocks, real estate, or any other investment. Bitcoin simply compresses those feelings into a much shorter period because its volatility is so much greater. But that volatility exists with any investment to some degree and over a certain time spans.

Experiencing those emotions firsthand has actually strengthened my conviction in the importance of having a written financial plan. Plans exist specifically so we don't have to make emotional decisions every time prices move dramatically.

Why Bitcoin Fell…and Why I'm Not Trying to Predict What Comes Next

One of the most common questions I find myself asking is why Bitcoin has dropped so much. Is there a rational reason?

The honest answer is that there probably isn't one single explanation.

Like every financial market, Bitcoin reflects millions of individual decisions happening simultaneously. Higher interest rates over the past couple of years reduced investors' appetite for speculative assets. Profit-taking after an enormous rally likely played a role. Regulatory uncertainty created additional volatility. Investor sentiment simply cooled after a period of extraordinary enthusiasm.

That's usually how markets work

People often want one headline that explains everything, but investing rarely offers that kind of simplicity. At the same time, I also think it's fair to acknowledge that cryptocurrency has continued to mature over the past several years.

Institutional participation has increased dramatically. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have made cryptocurrency accessible through traditional brokerage accounts, something that was difficult to imagine only a few years ago. Fidelity has published excellent educational resources explaining how these products work, and the SEC has similarly emphasized both the opportunities and the risks associated with these new investment vehicles.

Blockchain technology also continues to find applications beyond cryptocurrency itself. Whether those innovations ultimately justify today's valuations remains an open question, but they're certainly worth paying attention to.

Could Bitcoin eventually become a much larger part of the global financial system? Absolutely. Could it continue experiencing dramatic volatility or even disappoint investors over the long term? Absolutely.

The truth is that I don't know. More importantly, I don't need to know.

That may sound like a strange admission from someone writing an article about Bitcoin, but I think it's actually one of the healthiest mindsets an investor can have.

I don't need every investment to be predictable. I simply need my overall financial plan to succeed regardless of how any one investment performs.

Why I'm Still Buying $100 Every Week

Perhaps the biggest surprise for readers will be that despite being down 21.51%, I haven't changed my strategy at all.

Every week another $100 goes into Bitcoin. No more. No less.

Some people have asked why I don't buy more now that prices have fallen. Others wonder why I don't stop buying altogether until cryptocurrency “stabilizes.”

Both questions assume that I know what happens next. I don't. And neither does anyone else.

If there's one lesson I've tried to emphasize throughout this blog, it's that predicting short-term market movements is incredibly difficult, regardless of whether we're talking about stocks, real estate, or cryptocurrency. That's why our family's wealth has been built primarily through diversified index funds, cash-flowing real estate, and consistently investing the gap between what we earn and what we spend. Those principles have served us incredibly well, and I have no intention of abandoning them. These strategies have long term track records that don't erase risk but minimize it when investing wisely over the long term.

Bitcoin simply sits alongside that plan as a very small speculative position.

For me, $100 each week represents a tiny fraction of our investments. It gives me exposure and basically a hedge if cryptocurrency continues gaining adoption while limiting the downside if my skepticism ultimately proves justified.

That's exactly the balance I'm looking for.

In the end, I don't want stubbornness or lack of understanding to negatively impact our path to financial freedom. Healthy skepticism and sticking to the basics is mandatory. I still don't think anyone should have crypto as the core of their investment portfolio. Anyone who has seen their investment drop in half since the Bitcoin high in the summer of 2025 hopefully feels the same way. But there is room to learn more and hedge against your doubt.

The Bigger Lesson for Physicians

As physicians, we're trained to gather information, analyze evidence, and make decisions based on data. Those skills serve us incredibly well in medicine. But investing has a funny way of exposing our blind spots. Markets don't care how intelligent we are or how confident we feel. They have a remarkable ability to humble everyone eventually.

That's one reason I've become increasingly convinced that successful investing is less about finding the perfect asset and more about building a system that doesn't require perfection.

For me, that system remains exactly what it has been for years. I max out retirement accounts. I continue investing in broadly diversified index funds. We purchase cash-flowing real estate when the numbers make sense. We follow our written financial plan instead of reacting to headlines. If you're interested in that philosophy, I'd encourage you to read my posts on boring index fund investing and our updated written financial plan, because those represent the foundation of everything we do.

Bitcoin hasn't replaced any of those investments.

It hasn't even come close.

Instead, it has simply become a small educational experiment that allows me to stay engaged with an evolving asset class without putting our financial future at risk.

If Bitcoin ultimately transforms global finance, I'll be glad I participated, even in a small way. If it doesn't, our family will continue moving toward financial freedom exactly as we always have.

In some ways, that's actually the biggest lesson this experience has taught me. Good investing isn't about making dramatic predictions. It's about building a plan that's strong enough that you don't have to.

What do you think? Is Bitcoin or other cryptocurrency a part of your investment plan in any capacity? How did you determine to introduce it or not to? Let me know in the comments below!