"But what if we're wrong on bitcoin? ...gets banned or co-opted," - that would make me right, cos I fully expect this to happen on the "west". "people just get lazy and stop caring" - have you talked to Argentinian or Russian abroad, or Turk, or Nigerian? They care.
"What is "beyond" bitcoin?" - something new, but wont be money. AGI perhaps.
Get comfortable with the idea majority wont make it. Majority of your friends even are not gonna make it. You cant change someones mind, you can at most inspire them by example. Save your closest family and people who ask, but dont expect hyperbitcoinisation and happitimes for all. Its gonna get way worse before it gets better.
I believe you are right
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In the near term, I think it's next to (but not completely) a lost cause to try to orange pill the western economies. Most people we know don't see any benefit to Bitcoin because they benefit from the relative comfort their country's economic hegemony provides. To them, all the rhetoric around flawed financial systems is just more "sky is falling" noise.
Bitcoin's value proposition doesn't speak to them (yet). It does however resonate with billions of people who suffer under those hegemonies (primarily in the Global South). They're not entrenched in financial institutions and their country's money is either unreliable or inaccessible.
That's where the next billion users needs to come from. I know that's not lost on many here, and there are groups working on this, but if the Bitcoin community at large could really rally behind that effort, it could potentially save Bitcoin from any future irrelevancy.
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Hmmm true, but most BTC is already held by westerners, because of their headstart in understanding of IT. But that doesnt dispute the fact some fiats are collapsing faster than the other and some people need Bitcoin much more than westerners.
Sadly not everyone will be able to be a keyholder. Given food or onchain fees you always choose food. Therefore its important the custodians to be as small as possible and as many as possible. Local communities.
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