What's needed for Bitcoin to be ready?
729 sats \ 27 comments \ @phaedrus 26 Mar 2023 bitcoin
First I was feeling good about all the recent events, thinking "I told you so" and "bitcoin solves this", but then I got scared, because if the banking system collapses right now, I'm actually not sure my local community would by fine and just started using bitcoin.
What needs to happen for the Bitcoin ecosystem to be ready?
What tools need to be build? How much Lightning needs to scale? What percentage of a community needs to own at least some bitcoin for them to switch?
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705 sats \ 6 replies \ @nicosey 26 Mar 2023 freebie
A bigger circular economy
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157 sats \ 0 replies \ @xanny 26 Mar 2023
Beat me to it.
We need more people actually using Bitcoin as a currency.
Otherwise it'll never lose its reputation as a speculative investment asset.
Nostr and SN make me very hopeful this is starting to happen.
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1 sat \ 3 replies \ @cointastical 26 Mar 2023
Nobody is going to buy bitcoin to then only turn around and spend in bitcoin when they could have just spent in fiat.
So what is needed for a bitcoin circular economy to emerge is for enough of us to insist on earning in bitcoin. That means when your fiat employer laughs, you walk. Who among us are that motivated? Few.
At least, for now yet.
In the meantime, however, in the absence of a plan to earn in bitcoin rather than receive fiat income, we should be working on a side hustle or some other plan that generates income in bitcoin.
Not an entrepreneur? Then find a way to partner with one and start building.
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141 sats \ 0 replies \ @cointastical 26 Mar 2023
Or, try to earn in bitcoin in other ways:
Freelancing platforms which pay in Bitcoin, and other ways to earn bitcoin. https://cointastical.medium.com/freelancing-platforms-which-pay-in-bitcoin-e38be56166df
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25 sats \ 1 reply \ @phaedrus OP 2 Apr 2023
Interesting point. I wonder how is getting paid in Bitcoin different from just buying Bitcoin immediately after getting pay check. Does it need to be non-KYC?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cointastical 2 Apr 2023
how is getting paid in Bitcoin different from just buying Bitcoin immediately after getting pay check.
Well, for one, ... when I am paid in bitcoin, it is my employer who is paying the cost of acquiring (or exchanging to) bitcoin.
For another reason, ... because they can choke our access to the exchanges, but they'll have a lot harder time limiting our access to bitcoin when they need to force employers to no longer pay us in bitcoin.
And one big reason I personally want my (currently) fiat employer to pay me in bitcoin is that then makes the employer more interested in accepting bitcoin for payment (or otherwise earning in bitcoin themselves).
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @phaedrus OP 2 Apr 2023
What are the best stories of circular economies?
Any tutorials how to build one in first world countries like US?
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739 sats \ 1 reply \ @phygit 26 Mar 2023
The Bitcoin ecosystem is totally ready. Plenty of nodes, miners, wallets, payment processors and services of all sorts.
What we need is simple: (much) more users and less traders.
Way too many people seem to be "Bitcoin advocates" when they are in fact seeing Bitcoin as a "get rich fast" scheme. The (ugly) truth about Bitcoin today is that too many current Bitcoin owners don't give a dam about Bitcoin. They are just day-traders of a volatile (and possibly juicy) asset. If Bitcoin was a kind of hyped toothbrush, it would be the same for them.
Bitcoin will succeed only if hundreds of millions of "normal" people use it on a daily basis, as they do with fiat currencies.
It's not a question of technology, tools, or "community", it's all about adoption. Nothing else matters. Not even regulation, because once we reach a critical mass (say, 1B users), no country in the world can take the political risk to ban/limit Bitcoin anymore.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @phaedrus OP 2 Apr 2023
Good point about hard to ban once critical mass reached.
So what are some tips on what can regular person in US do to help drive adoption? Besides orange pilling all friends? Any good tutorials on how to convincing local business to accept bitcoin?
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195 sats \ 3 replies \ @DarthCoin 26 Mar 2023
I think the technology is quite ready. I mean we have a good amount of apps and solutions that could offer a good steady adoption. LN is definitely helping a lot. We are in 2023 not 2013 anymore with just 2 wallet apps to use and only onchain.
What I think is needed is user education, well informed about solutions available.
I see organizing many local meetups. This is awesome, this is needed for nocoiners. A direct contact with bitcoin educators. There's no need for podcasts talking about "investment", TA and crap like that.
Is time to show the world that Bitcoin is freedom money, is a payment network, not a speculation tool.
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7 sats \ 1 reply \ @kilianbuhn 26 Mar 2023
There's no need for podcasts talking about "investment", TA and crap like that.
Is time to show the world that Bitcoin is freedom money, is a payment network, not a speculation tool.
Exactly. And you even get headwind from Bitcoiners when you say that Bitcoin is a money and not an investment! 😔😔
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @xanny 26 Mar 2023
I've personally not seen this from people I'd classify as "bitcoiners."
I do see it all over Crypto Twitter but that place is cancer full of pump and dump shitcoins.
When I speak to bitcoiners - and here I refer primarily to the kind of people who you find here and on Nostr etc - there is none of this day trader get rich quick mindset. They understand the philosophy BTC was built on. They read Satoshi's reasoning for why Bitcoin was necessary and buy it primarily due to sharing those beliefs.
That doesn't mean they don't (or shouldn't) convert some to fiat during bull runs. After all most people cannot pay rent in Bitcoin. But they don't view it as a trading game, generally.
I think there is somewhat of a generational gap here too. It's weird to think about, but Bitcoin is 14 years old. A generation is 20 years.
A lot of the new kids only know "crypto = gainz." They're the same ones buying a load of ShibeDogeMoonSafe because "if it becomes worth a dollar I'm a millionaire." Same kinda gullible morons who would be buying worthless pink sheet stocks if crypto didn't exist.
But the OG's who were around in the early days and said HODL when it was practically worthless are a different breed entirely. Or even the OG's who were too stupid to HODL but still used Bitcoin to buy stuff in those early days because they believed in the vision. (That's me.)
I guess my point is, we gotta orange pill the new kids properly, so they understand why Bitcoin exists and why it's important beyond just "number go up."
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3 sats \ 0 replies \ @jk_14 26 Mar 2023
There's no need for podcasts talking about "investment"
This.
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1174 sats \ 1 reply \ @nout 26 Mar 2023
Make bitcoin the default across software and the web. Defaults matter. Anyone who owns eshop or something online should default to bitcoin and let users select the other options if they want. We should try actively nudging people and stores to do this.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @phaedrus OP 2 Apr 2023
This is interesting. I wonder if that's the way to go: start with virtual/online circular economies.
On the other hand, the virtual stores have unsolved issue with trust. Once you send bitcoin, its gone. And if the seller doesnt send the goods, you can't call you credit card company to cancel the charge. Maybe an opportunity for a new service. But from this perspective bitcoin seems better fit for in-person transactions.
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807 sats \ 2 replies \ @om 26 Mar 2023
People in Lebanon where this has already happened are saving in Bitcoin but circulating USDT.
Most people are too dumb to comprehend inbound liquidity management and will use mints instead. Fedimint's stability pools (basically DAI but on the mint) looks like our best shot for a currency to circulate.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @phaedrus OP 2 Apr 2023
Is there anything I could read to learn more about how this works in Lebanon?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @om 8 Apr 2023
I saw a discussion somewhere on Reddit, but now I can't find it, sorry.
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152 sats \ 1 reply \ @kilianbuhn 26 Mar 2023
What needs to happen for the Bitcoin ecosystem to be ready?
What tools need to be build? How much Lightning needs to scale? What percentage of a community needs to own at least some bitcoin for them to switch?
None of that. Just adoption from sellers. There are enough people to buy with Bitcoin. There are few things you can buy with Bitcoin - except for novelties where you can buy with Bitcoin for the sake of buying with Bitcoin!
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600 sats \ 0 replies \ @m00ninite 26 Mar 2023
Getting LN into mainstream POS systems will go a long way. Maybe one day square will add bitcoin to their system
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505 sats \ 0 replies \ @quark 26 Mar 2023
I would say Android and IOS including a wallet app by default. People will think: ok, if they include this by default now, it must be good.
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1002 sats \ 0 replies \ @TNStacker 26 Mar 2023
Bitcoin is ready. The people are not.
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1001 sats \ 0 replies \ @moel 26 Mar 2023
What needs to happen?
  1. More adaption for Payjoin in on-chain wallets. To increase privacy.
  2. More wallets (like BBW) that use a US $ denominated amount in your wallet. On the background your wallet opens long and short positions on a DEX, but you just see the wallet holding a US dollar denominated amount of money. Why? Because it’s scary to have an asset that goes up and down in value. Most people trust the dollar (it will be the last of the fiat currencies to fail, not the first) and so our wallets should show and hold $ amounts.
  3. More easy to use accounting software that works with ₿ and more POS solutions for in stores.
  4. More WordPress plugins to work with LN paywalls and pay-as-you-scroll solutions (not Brave, but like it).
  5. More privacy on LN as well, such as via Trampoline payments or Fedimint mints that maybe mint a “stable coin”.
  6. More games that pay or are payable in ₿. This way a new generation will grow up understanding it naturally.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheBTCManual 26 Mar 2023
I don't think the technology is really the problem, on the margins yes, it will be improved but there are certain hard stops that you cannot dev/ux away and i think its more about education.
I think there is too much content focusing on investing, price, trading and very little on how this works, why to use it or the pros and cons of using this way or that way to interact with bitcoin.
Maybe formalised courses will come to the market in future, but I really think its the understanding holding it back. You mention LN needs to scale, if people learn to run nodes, it improves scaling by several factors.
As for LN scaling critique, we don;t know how far the current tech can take us with simply adoption, we only know how far it scales until people really pressure it with demand, again circles back to educating users
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600 sats \ 0 replies \ @rijndael 27 Mar 2023
  • More routable liquidity on LN
  • Some kind of channel factory or multi-party LN channel so more people can use LN non-custodially
  • Easier self-custody wallets
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @crybaby 26 Mar 2023
everything is fine, chill out
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @01xCc 26 Mar 2023
51% населения планеты... этого достаточно что б все случилось...
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