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1727 sats \ 5 replies \ @dk 2 Jan \ on: Why wouldn’t MSTR fund Bitcoin developers? They have a vested interest. bitcoin
Everyone has a vested interest, but there's also a tragedy of the commons aspect to investing in bitcoin development. Not impossible to overcome, but it usually appears with some combination of generosity, conviction, and very long term thinking.
I would argue that it could be a selfish investment if one has a deep understanding of "net-present value" and "time value of money", but good intuition around those are typically in short supply.
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Having money sooner is always worth more than having money later (time value of money). You may have heard the old quote "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today". That's because money has a time value.
The above is true even if you have a low time preference. Owning the option to do something today is worth more than not having the option (i.e. having your hands tied to make the choice until tomorrow).
But this is balanced by the fact that most informed bitcoiners expect the purchasing power of sats to continually increase forever.
Now make some assumptions about how long you'll live, how much you wish to bequeath to others, and how much money you'll need to do what you want throughout the course of your life and how fast bitcoin will appreciate. There is a selfishly justifiable amount to invest in projects that you believe will accelerate the success of bitcoin even if the projects themselves do not ever appear to deliver you a direct financial return from your investment (i.e. the only return you make is in your bitcoin appreciating). Saylor/MSTR may choose a certain amount to contribute and you may choose a different amount.
Many people will feel there is too much complexity and instead just HODL which is fine. There are so many assumptions with wild variance that there's no way to build the "right" intuition about this.
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Only came across your comment today and I think it's very underrated.
This part in particular:
Now make some assumptions about how long you'll live, how much you wish to bequeath to others, and how much money you'll need to do what you want throughout the course of your life and how fast bitcoin will appreciate.
When asked about bitcoin by friends or family, I attempt to convey this way of long(er) term thinking about bitcoin, but not always very successfully.
Nice to see it articulated in one coherent sentence that may lead to more nuanced discussions. Stealing it!
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