Classic strawman avoidance of the issues.

If mass 'adoption' means corporate/government capture, custody and control, that is not 'success' in the terms of what The White Paper set out as objectives.

ETFs are not mass adoption. They are commodification, centralisation and corporate custody capture and control.

If you are posturing as a Bitcoin authority but do not understand this you are a dishonest sell out.

Tend to agree.

Although I am not sure I would want the Chinese hegemony that looks likely to succeed the USD to have a long life- even if it quite probably will.

I do agree the world is likely to be multi-polar and in that there maybe some- some regions and jurisdictions where alternatives to Chinese hegemony might exist- but do not count on it. The West as a whole appears to be too attached to the US to splinter off a provide a real alternative.

Note the US exceptionalist Bitcoin Bros are completely fucking silent on this article- they have no way of coping with let alone responding to the reality that US hegemony is DYING!

Agreed. I was playing along, to some extent. I do believe though women are on average less inclined toward revolutionary ideas as they tend to carry risk and women are less risk inclined than men, on average.

The articles narrative is that fiat money is good and if you believe that then you also accept the debt that goes with fiat. He says fiat money cannot be debased(because it is not backed by gold or any fixed asset), which is BS because in fact fiat money can be debased the most easily of all forms of money as it depends more upon the monopoly fiat has over MoE. The USD has a near monopoly over global trade payments and dominates global financial markets- so gold and most trade commodities are priced in dollars. But this global dominance of the dollar is more fragile than it might appear to a fiat fan- the USD global; hegemony depends upon the dominance of global institutions and markets- SWIFT, IMF. World Bank, Wall st etc. However the US dominance of these markets was built when the US dominated global manufacturing and trade- today the US does not dominate in manufacturing and commodity markets- China does. Chinas dislike of the dominance of the USD is no secret- China has been building its alternatives to the USD/SWIFT/petrodollar hegemony. Today most trade done by Russia, N.Korea and Iran is denominated in Yuan. China leads the mBridge digital trade payments protocol which includes partners Thailand, UAE and Hong Kong and recently added Saudi Arabia to its grouping. The USD is highly vulnerable to declining dominance- it is already happening and the data from BIS, IMF and World Bank simply does not include the rapidly growing trade payments and volumes being enabled via Chinas alternative protocols to USD/SWIFT such as CIPS and mBridge. A fiat believer accepts debt and debt in the west has been growing rapidly since the gold backing of the USD was dropped and USD went full fiat. The viability of the US empire is now dependent upon continued funding of serial fiscal deficits via sale of USTs- and global demand for UST is dropping as China, India and others accumulate gold and decrease their holdings of USTs. Fiat money is a powerful economic stimulant but it carries significant risks if debt reaches significant levels and the finance issued via fiat money is not directed into productive assets- this is exactly what has happened across the western world since neoliberal deregulation removed any restriction upon the purpose to which commercial banks issue fiat debt funding. Since neoliberal reforms the ratio of fiat funding of non productive speculative purposes has skyrocketed and conversely investment in productive assets and infrastructure has rapidly declined. Housing has become the defacto SoV for the masses who can afford to fund a mortgage. A massive misuse of fiat debt funding results in inflated housing costs and much reduced international competitiveness. Fiat money is financial stimulant and can keep the empire going a little longer but the fundamentals have been substantially undermined since the gold peg was abandoned.

So much for p2p payments protocol revolution then - It is now just a speculative commodity plaything custodied by rentseeking third parties.

Women are so superficial. Still glad your wife has finally started to see the light.

Be free of third party HW gadgets and services...and their constantly changing terms of service and updates that leave you dependent and hostage to these third party providers.

They undermine and incapacitate your ability and confidence to learn and operate your own monetary sovereignty.

Learn how to build your own secure long term cold storage. It's not difficult and is a solid investment in your monetary sovereignty. This is all you need.

Curious to know how many stackers are set up 100% self storage vs reliant upon third party HW and/or corporate custodians.

As a paid apologist for Trump you can claim that but -

'Section 311 of the USA PATRIOT Act authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury to designate a foreign jurisdiction, financial institution, class of transactions, or type of account as a "primary money laundering concern" '

Absolutely could be applied to anyone.

Jewish bankers own and control the Fed. Christian values would impose strict limits upon usury (as was the case to some extent until the neoliberal deregulation of banking in the 1980s) but these have been obliterated by rentseeking bankers who own and control the wests politics.

Building a minimal, memory capable linux OS offline on a usb stick and installing Electrum wallet onto it completely offline then learning how to sign transactions remotely is a small investment that will be worthwhile in the long term. Store the seed phrase securely also in a completely offline manner. Avoid becoming forever dependent upon third party HW vendors.

I don't see Chinas eventual triumph and dominance over the west and the rest of the world as inevitable yet, but that certainly it is how many, especially Chinese, see things already. China is already well ahead in many areas. The denial of even the possibility of Chinese dominance by many in the west is a huge problem (for the west) as it makes it a lot more probable the west will not respond to the challenge in time. Chinas military power is not yet equal to that of the west, but is rapidly catching up. Bitcoin certainly does offer a powerful and useful neutral monetary solution in this scenario. Sometimes I dare to hope that China and the west could potentially work together with great effect if they adopted neutral protocols for trade and exchange, such as Bitcoin, which provides a model of monetary neutrality and equity. The Chinese can reasonably argue that current international protocols and institutions (eg SWIFT and IMF) are stacked heavily in the wests favour...but if China is simply to impose its own instruments of imperialist advantage and extraordinary privilege to replace them there is very limited appeal to the rest of the world in that.

It can be argued that the heyday of western power and wealth was the 1930s-1970s mixed economy when a fair amount of socialism was introduced to pacify the masses (free education and in many places free health and education, unionism, welfare, state investment in infrastructure, highly regulated exchange rates, import controls and quotas and trade tariffs, strong policies seeking to produce locally and strict regulation of profit motivated bankers use of fiat debt issuance- commercial banks could only fund productive enterprise- not housing and other non productive asset price speculation etc...during that time the west led by the USA dominated manufacturing - but that since the deregulation of the neoliberal era the wests economy has lost ground in manufacturing and become very much dependent upon financialisation and speculation in financial derivatives, and last but not least a culture of debt has grown.

China is applying its version of the mixed economy- certainly with very heavy handed state control- especially in terms of the allocation of capital- but this is delivering what most Chinese want- economic improvement. Most empires have had their rough edges at the start.

It can be argued today capital directs western governments and voters have little real say beyond cosmetics, democracy has been hijacked by corporpate lobbyists embedded in a revolving door model of patronage and cronyism - while in China the CCP knows that if it fails to deliver economic advance to the majority it risks very likely bloody removal from power under the modern equivalent of Heavens Mandate.

Over time as happened in the west people will want more freedom and 'rights' and the Chinese model may change or take a new form- just as western governments changed from when the British were privateering pirates raiding the Spanish galleons. . . just as today the Chinese are raiding western technology...

Once you rise from the underdog to being the empire the narrative and imperatives change!

Fascinating- I was not aware of this but a search online shows this is happening as you say-

Looks like you can in some circumstances and locations now exchange Yuan for gold- they may be seeking to expand acceptance of Yuan and the way the Great British Pound was once seen as - good as gold!

The expansion to international gold holding facilities (starting with Hong Kong which is only just outside China!) looks to be a fairly recent thing (the two articles above are both from this year) but if expanded to true global reach this would indeed logically assist in Yuan becoming increasingly accepted internationally.

It would be good to see this happen but hard to see how it will happen when the role of central banks is to preserve fiat hegemony... You can argue they do hold gold and so holding Bitcoin is a logical step plus Bitcoin has the advantage of being easily transferred between central banks. Time will tell. IMO it looks more likely China will continue to develop its alternatives to SWIFT- CIPS and mBridge which would result in the CBDC Yuan becoming increasingly the reserve currency held by respondent central banks. China now dominates international trade in manufactured goods and commodities so can, and logically has the strong imperative to, use that dominance to advance its monetary system dominance.

China stood up to Trumps bullying and Trump backed down. USA needs China as much if not more than China needs USA. Trumps bluffs and bluster have squandered US soft power. The tariffs are admission that US manufacturing cannot compete in world markets. And that US debt is reaching unsustainable levels requiring such desperate anti-competitive trade obstruction. Meanwhile China is gaining ground in developing world markets. #1057308 https://www.thepress.co.nz/world-news/360771422/china-busy-making-friends-and-its-partly-thanks-trump

I agree to some extent with this opinion. Bitcoin has been and is being increasingly captured by the SoV speculative commodity narrative while the use of Bitcoin as a MoE continues to be severely obstructed. This cannot be blamed upon TBS. It can be attributed to the fiat powers (banks and governments) very slyly understanding and responding to the threat that Bitcoin poses. And to the docility and stupidity of the masses who believed that nothing more needed to be done than stack and hodl. People love to believe that change can come easily but positive change never does.

On the bright side some of us have used our gains to embark on projects that would never have been possible otherwise. Stacker News is one of many many examples. Bitcoin has changed the world already and continues to do so in real ways - perhaps not a full scale revolution but there has been some progress. It is now hard to imagine a world without Bitcoin and so much of the progress might not be obvious but rather taken for granted. I would suggest that to blindly stack and hodl is folly if you have a project you want to launch and the debt free capital to achieve it ~ do not be dissuaded by the alleged opportunity cost that NGU hopium is based upon.

Bitcoin is at risk of ossification into a stale speculative commodity if it is not increasingly deployed as a p2p MoE- a major risk would be the regulatory pressure to outright ban non KYCed sats from trading - a quasi ban on private custody and pseudonymity Already perhaps over 95% of Bitcoin in effective 'circulation' is KYCed...and less and less proportionately, is used for p2p payments.

TBS is a brilliant work- full of flaws, hype and exaggerated assertions, but also courage, hope and truth. Ammous clearly enjoys stirring debate and is not afraid to be opinionated but this is surely a great thing as long as TBS is not taken as gospel but instead as a work of provocation designed to make us think more and question the fiat monetary system which had been largely unquestioned and unquestionable until Bitcoin came to offer an alternative. One author cannot be responsible for the fate of Bitcoin- they can only provide their perspective and stimulate debate and dialogue- and TBS has done that more than most.