774 sats \ 11 replies \ @k00b 8 Jul 2023 \ on: What are the biggest Bitcoin misconceptions - among bitcoiners? bitcoin
That bitcoin has already won. I'd guess only 20% of the currency war has been waged so far. Bitcoin's incentives for securing itself, and for hodling, are incredible but there's still a lot of work to do.
complacency will kill us.
reply
Let's for argument sake say that bitcoin has already won. If that were true we wouldn't know it based on the signals. That tells me people that think or say this are out of touch. The battle is just warming up. It may be true that bitcoin is to established to be stopped but I'd rather not take that for granted.
reply
Yep. It's like Pascal's Wager for never declaring you're finished.
reply
So refreshing to find a place where people will say this out loud.
reply
Biggest misconception is that bitcoin hasn't already won, mostly espoused by high time preference people who equivocate "1% chance it takes >100 years with multi decade bear markets" with "existence of possibility that bitcoin has not already won".
reply
It’d probably be more useful to define winning than slinging out bitcoin slurs like “high time preference,” but point taken.
reply
I don't even think that is the issue. I think Bitcoin can win on its own, however humanity faces multiple existential threats that Bitcoin will not fix or cannot fix within the amount of time needed. We are actively pushing ourselves to extinction before Bitcoin can have any impact whatsoever.
reply
I think the order unraveling is a separate issue.
I'm mostly saying we can't wipe our hands and put our feet up.
reply
Yeah you are right about that. There is nothing that says Bitcoin has to be the winner and history consistently chooses inferior technology for the various reasons that it happens. I do think after Spot ETF products come online it becomes exponentially harder for Bitcoin to not win. My biggest concern is even if we have the ability to kick our feet up, we wouldn't be able to relax and enjoy it anyways.
I think for now Bitcoin is in a good spot and at least for me personally I can shift focus a little to those other problems. I think as long as we are able to objectively come back and make our observations about its health we can combat complacency while also not letting the anxiety of Bitcoin potentially slipping through the cracks eat us alive.
Bitcoin isn't something I ultimately want to obsess about. I just need it to continue doing its thing and will be happy to help push it along when it needs it.
reply
those other problems being, being able to kick those feet up and enjoy it?
I'm with you, it does sound great and even, extremely worthwhile, even if somewhat aligned to the complacency side of this thread 😅
reply
Part of the logic of "bitcoin has already won" relates to lindy and technology adoption curves, as well as the software development maxim "worse is better". Bitcoin is unquestionably the simplest, and this hugely weighs in its benefit because it's still here and still slowly moving towards small reconfigurations that close previous holes.
The unraveling of the order is also bullish for it because this unravelling isn't a new thing in history, happens basically like clockwork every 400 years. Last time there was the unraveling was the birth of paper money and banking, out of the tail end of the Crusades and the Magna Carta that went along with it.
As the order unraveled last time, we got the USA, also, and the modern liberal democratic state.
These are just trajectories that tend to be repeated and you don't have look far for the patterns in our own last 20 centuries happening over and over again.
reply