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Bitcoin is everyday money - Parker Lewis x.com/parkeralewis/status/1988011313633603953

240 sats \ 3 comments \ @Scoresby 10h bitcoin

If it were not technically possible or practically achievable to purchase real goods and services directly with bitcoin and instead, if you always needed to convert bitcoin to fiat to then buy your goods and services, bitcoin would almost definitionally be too centralized as a system to credibly remain censorship resistant or to credibly enforce the rules of the system that make it viable as a currency system (notably its fixed supply).

This doesn't get said enough, but I think it's true: if there aren't many merchants willing to accept Bitcoin in direct trade for goods, the Bitcoin project fails. But even saying that, I'm not sure.

Is it the case that you need to be able to buy stuff without converting to another currency in order for Bitcoin to succeed?

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102 sats \ 2 replies \ @brentkearney 9h

No. Bitcoin succeeds at filling in the missing fundamental function of money in modern monies: store of value. It has been a huge success so far, and will continue to be. At some point, enough people will be using it as a store of value, that interest in its use as a medium of exchange will compel merchants to adopt it. By then, the technology will be developed enough to lower the friction of technical competence for the average person, allowing its use for means of exchange to flourish. Then finally, with enough users using it as a means of exchange, its use as a unit of account can proceed.