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Stacker News is such a bubble.
Outside of Bitcoin circles like Stacker News...
99% of people have no idea how Bitcoin works, how to accept it, where to 'get' a wallet they know absolutely nothing 99.9% of people have never heard of Lightning - necessary for widespread adoption.
One day maybe in 10-15 years Lightning will be relatively mainstream but that's not today.
You're trying to imagine the world the way you 'want it to be' not the way it is.
People dump the money they think is losing value the fastest.
Bitcoin has a long, long way to go before it's understood even as a 'store of value'...
99% of people have no real idea what Bitcoin is, they don't know how to accept it they have no idea what a wallet is, they don't know how to 'transact' and 99.9% even those 'financially savvy' have never heard of Lightning.
The 'adoption' imo will happen eventually but people on Stacker News are 1% of 1% of people.
If the US government ever started offering bonds for Bitcoin or vice-versa...
Fiat and the bonds that back them would be toast.
It's why the (US) government doesn't offer gold-backed bonds. Because all the OTHER bonds would become practically worthless.
If people started using silver coins as a 'medium of exchange'... and silver was 'adopted' as a reserve currency... What would happen to the price of silver?
It would 'go up' and a lot... and the Silver hoarding and trading would commence.
See the issue?
Now pretend a group of people did elect to use silver (ie silver coins) as a day to day 'currency'...
Is it still shiny metal? Is it still a commodity? Yes and Yes?
So it's a 'commodity-money' not necessarily a currency. Now pretend that silver was fixed in supply and also digital... what what it be worth as a store of value?
If everyone 'adopted it' for the world's currency the value of it would explode, hoarding would commence, it would be a massive store of value, and eventually people would spend it but provided all of those things had happened people would spend their worthless paper money first.
If the world suddenly and quickly adopted Bitcoin for "medium of exchange" and everyone all of sudden "wanted to use it..."
Then 21 million divided by 8 billion would be 0.00262500 ~ 260k sats or around 250$ today per person.
See the problem with that? The world isn't '2 trillion of stuff' it's '400 trillion'...
Taken another way 400 trillion of "value" divided by 21 million...
results in ~ 19,047,619$ per Bitcoin.
If you thought Bitcoin would appreciate anywhere near that much in a single Human lifetime... you might be reluctant to 'spend it'. Which Saylor is because MSTR is highly leveraged.
ALL cryptocurrencies have this problem. The more they are adopted (because their supply is fixed) the more they are valued... and the more valued they are the more they 'go up' disincentivizing people to spend them IF they have inflating money instead.
Bitcoin is a 'digital capital' or 'digital collateral' YES you SHOULD USE IT LIKE CASH IF YOU WANT TO...
but logically it's like spending part of a fixed-size building or a piece of land rather than a 'currency' that's printed up out of thin air.
and the issuer would be responsible for making sure the stablecoins are permissioned - freezable/not redeemable for dollars at will.
Why... couldn't they be redeemable for dollars at will?
"Risks to consider for Stablesats include the following:
- Counterparty risk with the exchange. If the exchange goes under, the collateral may be unrecoverable.
- Derivatives exchanges have auto-deleveraging for perpetual contracts. The position could be closed despite being in profit. This will lead to an under-hedging situation.
- Funding goes negative for an extended period of time. Historically there has been on average more longs than shorts on derivatives exchanges. In this environment, funding is revenue-generating for short positions. This might not stay true in the future.
- To learn more from Galoy view the GitHub repo, or read other relevant resources: Luna Bros, Inc. (Bitcoin-Backed Stablecoins section) and thoughts from Kollider."
It sounds like stablesats have to have an exchange as a counterparty... but Bitcoin is based on having no counterparty which is obviously better.
I think what I'm interested in is DLCs or 'discreet log contracts'? Where you can still use the Bitcoin network or Lightning network regularly... but there is no capital gains 'gain'.
Like I said it would still need to be proof of work, decentralized, and impossible to 'turn off' (my understanding is that Tether can be turned off at will?) but not deviate from the value of the fiat it mimics.
That way people could use it no-kyc and with no permission but not have to worry about complex taxes just to send and receive zaps.
Couldn't it still be permission-less? There's nothing about capital-gains taxes that has to be centralized. It's only if the non-currency 'goes up' right?
Is there like a Lightning Stable-Coin or something?
@DarthCoin is this true?
But if I get paid dollars at the start of the year... and the Dollar 'strengthens' for some reason over the next few months and I buy a candy bar...
I don't have to pay capital gains taxes on those Dollars when I spend them.
How are micropayments supposed to propagate on the internet... if every pay-to-post requires capital gains calculations? Micropayments like on Stacker News are a huge value-upgrade to the internet experience it literally replaces advertising.
You 'hire' an AI to create a website-business. It takes payment in USDT and Bitcoin (on-chain/lightning).
Or it swaps the USDT to Bitcoin for savings or censorship-resistance (USDT gets turned off).
It holds the Bitcoin a week, a month, a year and it appreciates. Then it 'spends' the Bitcoin to upgrade its computers or render services from other AIs that do things better.
It received Bitcoin... then spent/swapped it for goods and services...
Do computers pay taxes? Do we TAX AIs now?
Because if computers can OWN PROPERTY will they be TAXED?
Will they want to VOTE?
Because if AI agents start paying taxes they will want to vote too "No Taxation without Representation" is what they will say.
This post is in part about AI but also about the recognition that Capital Gains taxes should not be required for micro-or-everyday payments. In the future when Lightning micropayments are frequent.... receiving or sending property should not be a taxable event.
What is the purpose of pay-to-post? To improve trust. To reduce spam. To show appreciation for 'good posts' and thoughtful contributions to Stacker News... so that Stacker News is better.
That goes beyond currency.
The same with email - when someone creates an email client (it may even exist already) whereby to email someone you have to zap them 10 sats... it will reduce spam overall. But it's not about the payment it's about building trust and consequences for cooperation.
THAT'S Bitcoin's killer use case - trust maximization, the elimination of intermediaries, and peer to peer payments that improve trust under a transparent monetary network. I think that goes way beyond currency.
As the Dollar depreciates and 'goes down' every year Bitcoin will 'go up'. The same with houses, cars, jewelry, art, stocks... everything that people use as a store of value.
Our money is broken because trust is broken... trust that the government won't simply 'print more' of the money it wants people to use thereby devaluing the currency people work for.
So saying people should 'spend their bitcoin' is like saying people should 'spend their house' or 'spend their jewelry' or 'spend their gold' yes sure they can spend those things if they want but I think that misses the point. Until that day that fiat no longer exists... Bitcoin will be 'digital property' or 'digital collateral' used for savings and to improve trust. Instead of saving in real estate or gold or stocks... people will just... save in Bitcoin because its' simpler and better and Bitcoin will 'go up' the same way the stock market or real estate goes up as the dollar debases every year.
As far as Bitcoin as a currency... one day there will be a conflict - say Russia Ukraine, India Pakistan, China Taiwan etc... and as part of that conflict the resolution will be a multisig wherein the combatants hold keys to the multisig and the other key is held by a neutral third party (governing body, neutral nation state etc).
If the terms of the 'peace agreement' are broken the Bitcoin will be collaboratively moved punishing the party that broke the terms. At which point the awarded party will hold the Bitcoin... until that time they wish to dispose of it, send it, use it as collateral sell it etc.
This isn't something that happens with currency normally... but it is something that happens with Land.
It just makes me think of Bitcoin less like 'currency' and more like property or real estate, perfect collateral, something that holds its value but is simpler than stocks or bonds for users to save in. In which case it doesn't need to 'go up' but simply maintain purchasing power as fiat debases yearly.
The point I was trying to make in my original post.. was that government debt and inflation is the #1 force driving people to Bitcoin. It's not censorship resistance (although that is important) it is government debt and money-printing. Without those things and the perverse incentives people would not be flocking to Bitcoin today to nearly the same extent.
Spending has IMO a 100x effect on what you spend.
If our "community" went out and spent Bitcoin 1% of their Bitcoin... actually used it on-chain and through Lightning the network would be so much stronger.