The Price of Poker Went Up
FF2k4 min read·Just now--
We all knew the price of poker was gonna go up.
We just didn’t know it was gonna be this fucking fast.
That’s the funny thing about living inside the fiat casino. Everyone knows the chips get lighter every year. Everyone knows the house takes a cut. Everyone knows the menus get rewritten, the bags get smaller, the subscriptions multiply like bedbugs, and the “temporary” emergency spending somehow becomes a permanent lifestyle choice.
But most people still measure their lives in the casino’s chips.
That’s the part Bitcoiners have been screaming about from the corner booth while everyone else pretends the waiter didn’t just bring out a $19 cheeseburger with the emotional support pickle removed.
Here’s the ugly little scoreboard.
A general basket of stuff that costs $100 today cost about
| Year | Fiat cost then | Bitcoin cost then |
| — — | — -: | — -: |
| 2016 | $72.53 | 0.1609 BTC |
| 2021 | $81.26 | 0.00145 BTC |
| 2023 | $91.84 | 0.00332 BTC |
| 2026 | $100.00 | 0.00124 BTC |
That’s the whole joke.
In dollars, the same pile of normal human existence got more expensive. |
In Bitcoin, it got radically cheaper — with the usual rollercoaster nausea included, because Bitcoin refuses to wear khakis and behave politely for quarterly reports.
Groceries? Same story.
| Year | Today’s $100 grocery basket cost then | Bitcoin cost then |
| — — | — -: | — -: |
| 2016 | $75.16 | 0.1667 BTC |
| 2021 | $80.09 | 0.00143 BTC |
| 2023 | $94.89 | 0.00344 BTC |
| 2026 | $100.00 | 0.00124 BTC |
Your grocery bill didn’t “go up.”
Your unit of account got rug-pulled by adults with microphones and flag pins.
Housing is even funnier, if by funny you mean “possibly civilization-ending.”
Median U.S. house sale price:
| Year | House price | Bitcoin price |
| — — | — -: | — -: |
| 2016 | $306,000 | 678.65 BTC |
| 2021 | $367,800 | 6.58 BTC |
| 2023 | $418,500 | 15.15 BTC |
| 2026 | $403,200 | 4.99 BTC |
Imagine explaining to a normal person that the house got “more expensive” from $306k to $403k, while also getting cheaper from 679 bitcoin to 5 bitcoin.
They’ll look at you like you’re selling powdered libertarianism in the parking lot.
But that’s the point.
The dollar chart is the chart of someone slowly boiling a frog and calling it “economic growth.”
The bitcoin chart is messy, violent, obnoxious, and allergic to smooth lines — but it at least gives you a way to notice the pot is on.
Gasoline?
2016: $2.22/gal, or 0.00492 BTC.
2026: $4.45/gal, or 0.000055 BTC.
The fiat guy says, “Gas doubled.”
The Bitcoiner says, “Gas fell 98.9% against the asset nobody told you to save in because it was too volatile.”
Both statements are technically true.
Only one explains why everyone feels poorer after getting raises.
That’s the fiat trick. It doesn’t usually steal your couch. It steals the future couch you thought you were earning. It steals the second kid. The safer neighborhood. The paid-off house. The small business. The ability to help your parents without becoming a financial triage nurse.
And then it hands you a CPI report and asks you to clap because inflation cooled from “house fire” to “active toaster bath.”
Bitcoiners are annoying because we won’t stop pointing at the unit of account.
Not the price.
The ruler.
If your ruler shrinks every year, eventually everyone starts arguing about why the furniture got bigger.
So yeah, the price of poker went up.
Food went up. Rent went up. Insurance went up. Houses went up. Cars went up. Existing went up.
But the real problem is that millions of people are still calculating their survival in a money that’s designed to leak. I can do everything to prepare for me and my family but if I can’t reeducate my neighbors, they might end up camped out on my lawn.
Data notes for article footer
• Inflation baskets: FRED CPI All Items, Food at Home, Rent of Primary Residence, New Vehicles. Latest available used: March 2026.
• Housing: FRED Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States. Latest available used: Q1 2026.
• Gas: FRED Regular Gasoline Prices. Latest available used: May 4, 2026.
• BTC/USD: Yahoo Finance BTC-USD daily close for comparison date
