Money is a network and a protocol...networks are winner-take-all. That is the game theory.
Sure, but at the end of the day, people want dollars. Ironically, crypto - which we were told was going to kill the USD - has only served to reinforce its supremacy. That is true now more than ever with the rise of stablecoins, which - unlike Bitcoin - actually have a serious use case, and will be embraced by the U.S. government as a means for both generating steady demand for U.S. Treasuries and spreading the USD into foreign economies. Essentially, it is just another means of exporting U.S. debt, thereby extending the shelf life of the dollar.
Nation-states (especially global powers like the U.S. and China) play by different rules than normal market participants (who are just concerned about making money, versus nation-states which must account for a wide range of domestic and geostrategic economic, political and social considerations). China has already essentially banned Bitcoin, and is certainly no worse for having done so. The idea that China will suddenly "come to its senses" and start accumulating Bitcoin in an effort to beat the U.S. due to game theory is totally laughable. The Chinese are smart enough to understand that the real basis of wealth lies in productive industrial power, which is why they have utterly transformed their economy and society in just a few decades. They have no need for Bitcoin, and if they don't, no one else does either. Bitcoin is a sideshow.
Plenty of videos where guys like Kyle Bass and Jim Rickards explain in depth how the Chinese economy is quietly imploding and how they can only paper over the cracks for so long. Communism doesn't work long term. Banning Bitcoin does little to stop its usage. There are plenty of Chinese who find ways around the restrictions and continue to buy Bitcoin. And even if China doesn't accumulate Bitcoin (the Chinese government already has a reserve of seized Bitcoin) it doesn't matter because USA, Russia, the Arab countries, Singapore and some EU countries and Latin American countries will all accumulate Bitcoin and leave China in the dust.
As for the part I have bolded in your paragraph China inflated a massive real estate bubble to prop up their GDP and now the air is quickly deflating from the real estate bubble the economy is rapidly cooling down. China is Japan 2.0. Not just real estate but China in general had a fixed asset investment bubble too many empty bullet trains to minor cities and large empty highways in minor cities, etc were built just to prop up GDP. The quality of GDP in China is very poor and malinvestment is rampant due to a lot of things being done just to create employment. China has spent decades making bad decisions and now the chickens are coming home to roost. And I haven't even mentioned the demographic cliff in China. China's population could more than halve within the next 100 years, dropping from around 1.4 billion to potentially 525 million by 2100.
LN in many ways has superior privacy than Monero. Super Testnet on Nostr was able to identify the amount of Monero that a tx to him came from, but the reciever of his LN tx wasn't able to on bitcoin.
Ain't gonna happen in our lifetime. First world culture and society is currently heading in the opposite direction moving from a desire for complexity to a desire for simplicity. In this strong cultural movement simple mattress cash will trounce complicated monetary instruments like bitcoin. There is a current on the ground movement based in a nostalgia for "simpler times." A return by the youth to flip phones, VHS and cassette tapes, vinyl records, growing your own food, tiny homes, recycling multi-purpose goods and materials, electric vehicles, unplugging from The Matrix by limiting one's use of technology, moving out of the cities to farms and woodlands in the country, primitive "folk" arts and crafts, blacksmithing, outdoor adventure and eco traveling, etc. In essence, The Amish vision of the world is becoming more attractive than a cashless society run by computers and technocrats. We're obviously not going back to the "good old days," but the strong trend of simplifying one's life is here to stay and completely antithetical to the complications of bitcoin.
Sure, bitcoin is fun, but most people don't use it and never will.
While an illustrative example for certain aspects of an asset, you miss a huge and glaring point: the utility of real estate vs the utility of money, especially once saturated. There is no such thing as saturation for money, which is the most saleable good. There may be an asymptotal valuation, something technically increasing in value over time, but very, very slowly as it is reaching market stability and thus less volatility. No one has to live in Monaco, but regarding BTC, given the option, everyone will choose it over the alternative. It's an important distinction which you ignore, because you can't grasp what BTC really is.
Again, the appeal here is ignorant of what money is, why people want it, and its overall function. Technically, no one needs USD right now, do they? It's pretty easy to trap you like that when you've thought long and hard about things.
STOP calling it currency. The error you constantly fall into is because you make language and category errors quite commonly. A nation doesn't have to abandon "control" of its shit currency. BUT, they better have BTC ...
Put another way, "currencies" can exist alongside any other better money, asset, whatever. Guess what? That's what we see in the world in places with ... shitty currencies.
We've proven this so many times it's amazing we have to keep bringing it up.
Can you tell us why all prices are going down when measured in BTC? Again, getting too caught up or flummoxed by something doesn't give you an excuse to ignore the fact that holding something that will maintain, or increase, purchasing power will always be better for Individual X, Government Y, or System Z.
Even if there is no "replacement" it says nothing about the desire for people to always own better assets, commodities, or savings technology.
No, you are the one missing all the points due to your lack of humility and ability to admit when you are wrong (which, according to you is never). Scorp just ran circles around you BTC bros and it's just cope after "muh, yeah but..." cope.
Everything you talk about is pagan future predicting fortune telling. What, are you a tarot card reader or do you prefer runes?
Let's stick with the facts. About 100 million humans own and use bitcoin and 8.1 billion humans use cash. End of conversation. Cash is, always has been, and will for the foreseeable future (our lifetime) remain King. Without talking about "muh, the future" you cannot argue with this, but no doubt you will.
Just because the majority of people live as slaves, does not make it a desirable condition for every individual.
No they won't. I mean, Bitcoin has been around for fifteen years already. Is everyone choosing it? There is very little demand for it outside of the zealous maxi cult and MSTR.
Everyone who lives in the U.S. needs dollars. There is also a huge global demand for pseudo USD in the form of stablecoins. The USD is by far the most in-demand currency in the world.
Why? What strategic purpose is served by hoarding BTC? I brought up the example of China with Australia Sucks. China has zero use for BTC and they built the largest industrial economy in the world. China is indisputable proof that countries simply do not need anything that Bitcoin provides. I am dealing in reality, you are dealing in delusion, conjecture and fantasy.
Prices go down when measured against any appreciating asset class, such is the nature of a depreciating currency. Bitcoin has been on a good run for the past few years, but this line of argument will not age well during the next bear market.
Truth. In 15 years only 1% of the world's population is using it. I mean, that ain't chump change, it's actually something, but nothing that will replace the US dollar or be widely adopted in this lifetime. Why? Because like all usurious JQ financial instruments (banking, finance, insurance, lawfare, stock markets, etc.) 8 billion normies are too low IQ to understand it which is a built in feature, not a bug.
I started posting in this thread last year with the attitude toward pro-BTC posters here: "BTC is cool, glad you enjoy it and have done well with it, but for most people it is gambling and a losing proposition because in the world of gambling the house always wins." And then the pro-BTC'ers started getting all defensive with the slightest critique(s) of BTC, started taking facts about BTC personally, and then started reactionary doom posting with: "The US dollar is over, BTC is the only future of money, and all young men should be in the BTC game or they will live lives of poverty and slavery." And so personally, I feel obligated to push back, not to diminish CiK members BTC success and financial gains, but to tell young (and old) men that the US dollar is fine, and besides, "money is the root of all evil" and it cannot make you happy. Bitcoin is just another jew inspired usurious form of money. It is not new, BTC is the oldest trick in the JQ book: "Give (((us))) all your cash every payday and we'll match your contribution and in 20 years you'll be a millionaire!" Meanwhile, you give up your cash for some future potential windfall, (((they))) make billions with your cash while paying you 3% [and using your money against you by using your money to fund (((their))) globohomo immigration projects designed to replace you], and you aid (((them))) in ushering in a cashless society. It's a win-win... for Antichrist jews.
And this is the fallacy and intelligence trap with high IQ men like you. BTC works for you, great, but there is no way of knowing how 8 billion people "out there" live, much less whether or not they live as "slaves." You say they live as slaves, but I see a lot of poor yet happy people out there making their way, loving their families, and using cash to achieve a better life for themselves. I've spent a lot of time in the 3rd World, and nobody there even knows what bitcoin is, much less do they have any use for it. Furthermore, they would laugh at you for calling them "slaves." They just aren't as financially fortunate and educated as you and I, but many of them are happier because they live simple lives based around faith (God), agriculture (good food), art (music), and a deep sense of community (family and friends).
That is how S curves of adoption work. There are various graphs showing BTC adoption side by side vs internet adoption when the internet was a nascent technology and BTC is actually being adopted at a faster rate then the internet was. We haven’t yet hit the exponential part of the S curve of adoption yet. Let’s have this discussion again in another 15 years.
And before you make a comment “oh but Bitcoin was invented in 2009 not 2015.” Well yeah but the internet was technically invented in 1983 not 1990. They just started the graph at a point that was relevant because both things were too tiny to be relevant early on.
You seem ignorant of history. Every fiat currency in history eventually crashed and burned while gold has functioned as money since at least 500 BC and still continues to do so. Hard money has a Lo shelf life, fiat doesn’t. The average lifespan of a typical fiat currency is something like 40 years. Now the USD is a well above average fiat currency but still it’s getting closer tot he end of its useful shelf life due to uncontrolled deficit spending.
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Again refer to my internet vs BTC S curve adoption chart in the post above. Although I should point out that even though the chart is labelled Bitcoin it’s actually a chart of total crypto adoption. But the basic point remains valid.
It's a very misleading comparison for a couple of reasons:
1) The internet didn't really "start" in terms of public adoption until around 1994/95. It existed prior to this, but was limited almost entirely to government, academic and corporate use. The barriers to entry to mass adoption were too high until the mid-nineties. Once those barriers were removed, the internet went gangbusters immediately. The fifteen year span between 1995 and 2010 saw the internet go from something totally novel and untrusted to something completely ubiquitous. Its adoption was similar to that of the automobile, electricity, refrigeration and television: it was not a technology that anyone needed to be sold on; its benefits were clear and incontrovertible. Even in the early days of the internet, it was extremely obvious that it was going to be "the next big thing", and would radically transform society (this belief was the entire basis of the dotcom bubble). And despite the bubble infamously popping, the contention itself was born out as true: the internet did radically transform society.
2) Bitcoin, being an internet-based protocol that emerged into a relatively mature internet in 2009, has had zero barrier to entry for its entire lifespan. Indeed, Bitcoin maxis are quick to point out how easy it is for anyone in the world with an internet connection to buy Bitcoin. That is literally its entire purpose. Anyone who has an internet connection and the desire to buy Bitcoin can do so. There's nothing stopping them. This has been the case for fifteen years, and yet the vast majority of people have zero interest. This was simply not the case for the internet itself. Bitcoin has already failed miserably at its inventor's goal of being a peer-to-peer form of electronic cash. Its advocates have adroitly pivoted to portray it as digital gold, but most of the world still shrugs its shoulders. The only people with any regard for Bitcoin are a tiny minority of maxis and rotating cast of shysters and charlatans who see it as a tempting vehicle to attach themselves to for the purposes of fleecing gullible rubes.
The fact is, anyone who tries to compare Bitcoin adoption rates to the internet itself is either an ignoramus or grossly dishonest. The two are in no way comparable
Not true at all. Firstly Bitcoin was invented in 2009 but didn't even have its first transaction until a year after it was created (2010). Secondly all the infrastructure around Bitcoin wasn't there and it wasn't user friendly. Only tech nerds had the ability to transact in Bitcoin in 2009 and 2010. In terms of exchanges Mt Gox opened in 2010 but did not really gain any traction until 2011 where it started to gain some traction. The first Bitcoin cold storage wallet the nano ledger S only started in 2016. And the first Bitcoin ETFs in the world were launched in Canada in February 2021. People are lazy and want everything to be convenient. Now that there is clear regulation and everything is convenient Crypto (including Bitcoin) adoption will explode.
You mean using Bitcoin as-designed is kind of cumbersome? Well... duh! That's one reason no one wants to use it in the first place!
As I'm sure our very own @chance vought would be quick to remind you, buying a Bitcoin ETF is not really buying and owning Bitcoin. It's mere price speculation.
The fact remains: no one has any actual use for Bitcoin. The vast majority of the (relatively few) people buying it do so purely for speculative reasons. Zealous enthusiasts like chance are few and far between, even among Bitcoin owners. The dream of Bitcoin died years ago, and has been replaced by a pseudo religion based on green and delusion. What started as a cypherpunk revolution against the bankers has, embarrassingly, morphed into grotesque and cynical attempt to emulate them.
The uses for bitcoin are many, but first, savings: imagine your savings, your human time and energy, as water. Bitcoin is a titanium bucket. Endless mountains of fiat money, rotting real estate with taxes upon taxes, not to mention the threat of seizure by lawfare or hostile government: Everything else is a wicker basket, constantly leaking all your life force, no matter how fast you carry it.
Strategy qualifies for S&P 500...
The internet was cumbersome in the late 1990s. Do you remember the dial up connections that always dropped out and nobody could make a phone call when you were using the internet. The first cars also sucked. New technologies are usually clunky and have bad user experience but generally improve over time.
Positive feedback loop just kicked into overdrive. Passive Index funds now have to buy strategy which pushes up the share price which means the company can issue more shares to buy even more bitcoin which pushes up the Bitcoin per share which pushes up the share price even more which means index funds have to buy even more (because most index funds are market cap weighted) and then the loop just keeps repeating. And of course all this additional buying of bitcoin will also help push up the bitcoin price as well which also helps Strategy.
The internet of the mid '90s was easier to use than Bitcoin is today (meaning actually owning Bitcoin, not the ETF). There is a reason AOL was so popular: because everyone and their grandma (literally) could use it.
Don't get too excited yet. There's a difference between qualifying and being selected.