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I actually agree they can coexist for now — the real question is which one compounds more long term?
A conference can spark the first orange pill, but if there’s no place to learn, spend, and keep sats moving after the applause, does that energy just leak away?
That chicken-and-egg problem is exactly why I lean toward building the “egg” first: education, merchants, and circular economies.
Curious where it got tricky for you on the ground — was it merchants, users, or keeping the momentum alive after the first excitement?
I would love to hear your experience on it #1469835
ETH and co have made it so easy to print shitcoins, and there are some very bad actors taking advantage of it, promoting bitcoin, but selling shitcoins.
You remember Central African Republic? One of the advisors of the CAR president was a felon from Cameroon who made million$ promoting such a shitcoin in Cameroon, and its diaspora. It was a Ponzi that failed badly.The guy eventually fled to CAR, where he had the protection of the president with whom he was plotting his next coup, the bitcoin stunt in CAR...
In a country with extreme poverty it's difficult to compete against such people. They poison the well for everybody. It's sad because Bitcoin can actually solve the problem of low trust in our societies, but paradoxically, it can also be misused to exacerbate this same problem.
I actually think that the African elite should be the first to embrace bitcoin, which is why such conferences, imo, are useful.
Personally, I have held a 2-day workshop in Douala, Cameroon, back in 2022 to a handful of people, gifted several books. I also had a contact who was working as a journalist for a local newspaper, he would always come to me when he needed an opinion, and many of our WhatsApp conversations on bitcoin and the local Ponzi scams were used for his articles. I want to believe that it had a small impact...
Fair point:
I actually think that the African elite should be the first to embrace bitcoin, which is why such conferences, imo, are useful.
Elites can definitely accelerate legitimacy and capital flow.
My only pushback is: does adoption become real when elites talk about Bitcoin, or when ordinary people can actually earn and spend sats daily?
Which layer do you think creates the stronger long-term effect?
Both can coexist, and should, in the same way that bitcoin and fiat should coexist, for now.
Work on the ground is a tricky chicken and egg problem. I've tried...