Little Johnny took the shoebox-sized present from Santa and shook it. No rattle, no thuds… not a single sound! He turned it upside down, tossed it up in the air, and caught it again. It was too light to be the latest Transformer™ or a new laser saber. He put the box aside and grabbed another one directly from under the tree, bypassing Santa’s deliberate sequencing. This one was more promising. It was heavy, it was flat, and Johnny could hear a low sliding thud when he shook it. Something heavy was moving inside. He tore the paper off and stared in disbelief. A book? Not the new game controller from Nvidia he’d asked for but… a book?

Across the room, Johnny’s dad watched him intently, wanting to savor the moment his only child realized he’d got his first crypto investment. The book, ‘The Bitcoin Standard,’ had been his own bible when he had started investing in Bitcoin and other crypto currencies a few years ago. Now he watched with dismay as his 10-year-old boy Johnny tossed the book away and dove into the remaining gifts under the tree, shaking each one, before reading who it was for.

Earlier in the year, Bitcoin had been labeled as the Christmas gift of the year. It was anonymous, it was volatile, it was everything you needed to get excited about investment and trading. The ups and downs of Bitcoin’s value made it the gift that kept giving: Buy one today, sell it for 40% more in three weeks, see that collapse in five months, buy back in, see it rise, miss the peak, absorb the loss, lick your wounds and get back onto the wagon. Or hold it for the future, when you’re old enough to appreciate its appreciable value.

Back at little Johnny’s home, Christmas day continued in blissful laziness. He eventually opened the super light box and looked at the single piece of paper with two strings of letters and numbers on it. He looked at the letters and numbers, he looked at the book, he looked at his father. When he realized the connection between the book and the paper with numbers, he lit up, rushed over to his father, and gave him a huge hug.

For the coming years, little Johhny had the ultimate Christmas gift; a gift that keeps giving, and giving, and giving.