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This is my problem with the current state...
Whether or not they eventually go down the route of claiming their freedom to transact is up to the individual.
If all I'm doing is sending sats... which are immediately converted to Dollars for the merchant what's the point? I might as well be spending the "gold ETF" in my brokerage because that way it's being 'sold to someone else' (ie square) and the 'merchant' could just get Dollars in its place.
What would be the difference between that and Bitcoin (if the merchant gets Dollars?)
But if it's a merchant and I spend Bitcoin privately... then no one would know about it, not even a 'brokerage'... because I had the Bitcoin to begin with.
If I don't have a reasonable ability to send it to anyone at any time, or reasonable ability to spend it to anyone, it's not Bitcoin. So it might as well be the "gold ETF" that I "sell" when I buy a haircut or purchase something from a merchant...
In which case there is no point for Bitcoin to exist.
All of this leads me to approach Bitcoin from first principles -
One laptop
One Linux distro (pick one) and
One full synced install of Bitcoin Core (pick your mempool policy).
Create a private key then have addresses and send/receive etc...
THAT'S Bitcoin the farther we stray from that I think the more we lose sight of the basic value proposition
If all I'm doing is sending sats... which are immediately converted to Dollars for the merchant what's the point? I might as well be spending the "gold ETF" in my brokerage because that way it's being 'sold to someone else' (ie square) and the 'merchant' could just get Dollars in its place.
As I said before: It answers the valid question from newbies of what they can buy with bitcoin other than yet more bitcoin paraphernalia. "You can pay for a haircut" is likely worth a lot more to most than the usual "you can zap someone on some social media."
A step in the right direction isn't wasted simply because they didn't arrive at (what you think should be) their destination yet.
No. But I see it as an important intermediary step.
It answers a common question from people new to bitcoin: "Can I even use it to buy anything?"
Whether or not they eventually go down the route of claiming their freedom to transact is up to the individual. But at least they're on the right track to start that journey if they choose to.