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7 sats \ 6 replies \ @klk OP 11 Jun \ parent \ on: Will Bitcoin Follow the Internet's Path to Practical Centralization? AskSN
I think that banks and governments using Bitcoin is part of the process. And something that would obviously happen.
Freedom money is also “free” and unstoppable for your enemies. That's part of its nature.
But it doesn't make it less valuable to the rest of us. We can still do exactly the same things that we could before that “capture”.
So it's actually the same that happened with Linux. Now even Microsoft uses Linux. And well a lot of non-techy people on their Android phones. But big tech using Linux does not take anything away from libertarian geeks that want to use it.
So as ETFs and corporate and nation state Treasuries acquire more and more of the total issuance an increasingly small portion of total issuance might remain in the hands of individuals who can still technically use it for p2p payments- but very few will use it for that purpose because the vast majority of commerce will remain denominated and transacted in fiat money and anyway the vast majority still held in private hands will be held with the hope and intent of speculative gain- KYCed and taxed.
Bitcoin will not have scaled to a degree where it is a viable alternative for payments.
It will have been captured and controlled as a relatively harmless KYCed and taxed speculative commodity.
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Google has most of the Internet traffic yet here we are discussing on SN and zapping sats. Internet is not a zero sum game. There's not a limited traffic of which google captures a large quota. Google can grow in traffic and SN as well.
We don't need a certain amount of coins. Any amount of limited supply coins is perfectly fine. If ETFs want to get 80% of the supply, that just makes bitcoin the largest asset class in the world and the remaining coins extremely valuable.
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If use of Bitcoin as a MoE does not grow then it fails to become a practical p2p payments alternative to fiat money.
It becomes instead a KYCed and taxed speculative commodity that is almost exclusively hoarded, and not used for MoE.
And this is exactly what is happening.
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Bitcoin growing as a MoE is compatible with ETFs acquiring Bitcoin.
Bitcoin grows as a MoE if it's used as such. With or without ETFs. ETFs acquiring Bitcoin just make number go up which push Bitcoin into a more valuable store of value. Which is necessary for it being used as MoE. Bitcoin is antifragile in this sense.
Just needs to stay decentralized and secure as a protocol. And luckily, unlike shitcoins like Ethereum, that does not depend on who holds the coins.
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If you don't get it yet I don't have the time or patience to try to explain it to you.
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Of course I would prefer everyone to do self custody, run their own full node, and have more than their proportional share of the hashrate. The thing with freedom money is that people do with it whatever they want, not what you wish them to do.
But our discussion started with ETFs going against Bitcoin becoming a MoE. And even if ETFs also have negative consequences, they're still inevitable. And they signal growth and adoption of the network.
It's naive to expect that some valuable freedom internet money is not going to be speculated with in the most comfortable way to do so in traditional financial markets. And if that prevents the coin from being usable as a P2P MoE, then any freedom money that could have ever been inveted is doomed.
Bitcoin is fine. It's just continuing to grow as a store of value an medium of exchange.