🌉 The Lindy Effect

The 100-year bridge

Would you trust a bridge that's stood for 100 years, or one built last week from "the same blueprint, but better"? Money works the same way.

The Lindy Effect: for things that don't naturally perish — ideas, institutions, technologies — the longer something has survived, the more likely it is to keep surviving. Its continued existence is proof it already weathered real stress tests.

15 years of stress tests

Bitcoin has run for over 15 years without a single successful hack of its core protocol — surviving multiple 80%+ price crashes, government bans, exchange collapses, and constant obituaries in the media. Every year it survives adds evidence it's built to last, not "due for a fall."

A new competing project starts that clock at zero. That's exactly why "new and improved" is often a red flag in money — even though it's a selling point almost everywhere else.

Quick check: What does the Lindy Effect suggest about non-perishable things like technologies or institutions?

1. Newer is always more reliable
2. The longer something has survived, the more likely it is to keep surviving ✓
3. Age has no bearing on future reliability

Continued survival is evidence the thing has already passed real-world stress tests — that's the whole idea.

Stoic corner

Marcus Aurelius wrote about focusing on what endures rather than what's fleeting.

Applied to money: chasing whichever project has the newest features means perpetually re-betting on unproven things. Choosing to understand and hold what's already proven durable lets time do the verification work for you, instead of trying to predict the future yourself.

Quick check: Why is "new and improved" often a weaker pitch for money specifically, compared to other products?

1. New money is illegal
2. Unproven durability is a real risk when the thing is meant to safeguard your savings over decades ✓
3. People are biased against new technology in general

Unlike a phone or a car, money's core job is to reliably hold value over long stretches of time — untested durability is a direct risk.