In an outstanding post made by @Birkeland called Problems in Layer 0 - Social Attacks on Bitcoin he presented a crucial question as follows:
How can we, as Bitcoiners, mitigate the effectiveness of such attacks in our own communities? How can we mobilize our efforts for social change and repolarize widespread Bitcoin perception from negative to positive, from falsehood to truth?
My answer
The 2022 market crash was, for me, something important and neccesary, particularly for two main reasons:
- Explained to people that bitcoin is not an investment, it's hard sound money that allow people to do whatever they please.
- Those who played the investing card in the mining sector were rekt, especially miners who took uncontrolled leverage
Why am I talking about this? Because the crash made us realize the layer 0 problem, I think the main core of the situation: how we perceive money. See, most people when they want to buy bitcoin, the second question by default is: and how much money will I make?, trying to put it in the investment context. They see bitcoin as a form of investment, a risky one and their main goal is to accumulate at some point and then convert it to fiat. I'm ok with that and I have nothing to add to that kind of strategy but they miss the core value of bitcoin: money that can resist and its yours.
By the way, this come in hand with another post written by @nerd2ninja where he detailed how far are we from being something mainstream: most people don't (and if you ask me, they won't) run their own node and we know how important is to do it. People are used to wait for others to run their money, when they have something different, they still waiting sovereign but not in their own hands.
So, my final answer is clear: to mitigate the attacks, financial literacy is the most important and the key thing. The best meme/answer I can provide is this one:
When people realize they have something more powerful than any other coin they saw, when they realize they can send 1 USD to their families across continents without KYC/AML and BS like that, when they realize they don't need anyone to run their money, sweet Lord Jesus, have mercy for the banks because we won't.
Sir, are you doing something about it?
I'm doing something. I have a spanish newsletter where I encourage people to learn more about bitcoin, to save in the DCA path and most important thing in the world: to help them understand what they got in their hands. As a matter of fact, I run two groups in my country where we encourage people to save (not invest) bitcoin while we talk about it.
That's my answer to the call. Back to you Ted (?).
Why people don't see the use case of bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a solution to a problem that many don't think/know they have.
Show them the problem and people will see Bitcoin.