Thousands of other "musicians"...

That's an interesting read, thanks. So based on the assumptions in the piece, I can see how it's technically possible. But it's still not practical.

And I think this is the heart of the discussion: just because it's technically doable doesn't mean people will want to do it that way. If all the UX improvements bitcoin needs to scale ultimately come down to "someone can spend and receive money using a password" but if you lose that password your money is all gone... most people do not want that.

He may have a point. One of the disappointments about the promise of bitcoin as a truly peer-to-peer money today is it wouldn't work with millions of people using it daily -- even with layers like Lightning. Of course, it's possible the tech evolves to meet that demand but it's also possible it won't. Or we have to make compromises on features like self-custody to support hundreds of millions of people.

Matt Levine has written a lot about how much of the crypto world involves reinventing the financial wheel, so to speak, and creating many of the same instruments and tools that have grown out of decades of trial and error in traditional finance but making those mistakes faster and without a safety net -- learning along the way. I sometimes wonder if bitcoin is doing a bit of this, as novel as it is, and in its awe we're blinded to some realities about why modern banking is the way it is right now. Nevermind the "fiat system" and all that, I'm talking about people who don't want to stash cash under their mattress or would rather have someone else manage their money.

I think of ETF's as the AOL of bitcoin, in other words: a gateway