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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @unboiled 7h \ on: If You Want to Understand Bitcoin's Future... Listen to Rep. Schweikert bitcoin
Parker Lewis says it best:
If you truly think spending it isn't a good idea because it appreciates over fiat, it tells me you're trying to stay (or are unknowingly stuck) in fiat land and rely on Bitcoin as NGU tech only.
As the Dollar depreciates and 'goes down' every year Bitcoin will 'go up'. The same with houses, cars, jewelry, art, stocks... everything that people use as a store of value.
Our money is broken because trust is broken... trust that the government won't simply 'print more' of the money it wants people to use thereby devaluing the currency people work for.
So saying people should 'spend their bitcoin' is like saying people should 'spend their house' or 'spend their jewelry' or 'spend their gold' yes sure they can spend those things if they want but I think that misses the point. Until that day that fiat no longer exists... Bitcoin will be 'digital property' or 'digital collateral' used for savings and to improve trust. Instead of saving in real estate or gold or stocks... people will just... save in Bitcoin because its' simpler and better and Bitcoin will 'go up' the same way the stock market or real estate goes up as the dollar debases every year.
As far as Bitcoin as a currency... one day there will be a conflict - say Russia Ukraine, India Pakistan, China Taiwan etc... and as part of that conflict the resolution will be a multisig wherein the combatants hold keys to the multisig and the other key is held by a neutral third party (governing body, neutral nation state etc).
If the terms of the 'peace agreement' are broken the Bitcoin will be collaboratively moved punishing the party that broke the terms. At which point the awarded party will hold the Bitcoin... until that time they wish to dispose of it, send it, use it as collateral sell it etc.
This isn't something that happens with currency normally... but it is something that happens with Land.
It just makes me think of Bitcoin less like 'currency' and more like property or real estate, perfect collateral, something that holds its value but is simpler than stocks or bonds for users to save in. In which case it doesn't need to 'go up' but simply maintain purchasing power as fiat debases yearly.
The point I was trying to make in my original post.. was that government debt and inflation is the #1 force driving people to Bitcoin. It's not censorship resistance (although that is important) it is government debt and money-printing. Without those things and the perverse incentives people would not be flocking to Bitcoin today to nearly the same extent.
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Until that day that fiat no longer exists... Bitcoin will be 'digital property' or 'digital collateral' used for savings and to improve trust.
Citation needed.
I'm using it as moe multiple times per week. Yet fiat still exists.
You're trying to describe it as if using it for savings only is the only choice. Yet there are plenty of people like me, who live the opposite of that claim.
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What is the purpose of pay-to-post? To improve trust. To reduce spam. To show appreciation for 'good posts' and thoughtful contributions to Stacker News... so that Stacker News is better.
That goes beyond currency.
The same with email - when someone creates an email client (it may even exist already) whereby to email someone you have to zap them 10 sats... it will reduce spam overall. But it's not about the payment it's about building trust and consequences for cooperation.
THAT'S Bitcoin's killer use case - trust maximization, the elimination of intermediaries, and peer to peer payments that improve trust under a transparent monetary network. I think that goes way beyond currency.
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What is the purpose of pay-to-post? To improve trust. To reduce spam.
I don't know about trust. I see its key purpose as attaching (a more significant) cost to posting. Which will reduce spam that cannot extract more than it has to pay.
So it's less about trust and more about making low-returning spam a negative investment. It's about incentives, not trust.
Trust may or may not be a downstream effect from that. I haven't thought deeply enough about whether or not I trust posters here more than other places because of pay-to-post.
I feel I see less noise and more signal here. But SN certainly isn't devoid of noise.
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