For the past few weeks I feel like I've been playing catch-up on everything Bitcoin. It's a whirlwind!
As I would earn sats here on SN, I'd quickly look up what that is equal to in fiat (and here I am starting to use the terminology of the community :)) All the while, I'd be calculating in my head if it is possible to earn a living in Bitcoin, making all sorts of comparisons to what I currently earn now in fiat.
Just yesterday, I switched my currency over to sats (instead of viewing it in fiat) where I have some Bitcoin. Usually, I would keep it in fiat because that is all I understood. Now, the picture begins to widen. It's still small, but the edges are widening.
It's not about earning in sats to convert to fiat, or to reference fiat, it's about creating value within the Bitcoin community so that eventually I don't have to convert to fiat.
This new thought allows me to see this new community as one to support and nurture, not to exploit so I can continue living in the old paradigm.
It won't be easy, but what the hell is nowadays? Lofty goals are important to have, and they give me a sense of purpose. I'm also not one to give up on things too easily.
The current challenge is that I work mainly as an audio engineer and representing songwriters as a music publisher. Even though there are a few talking about these subjects, or building around this, I don't see too many. I guess that's an opportunity!
The daily obligations will get you, especially if others depend on you, but there is vitality here that I haven't experienced online in a long while. The old paradigm feel like an endless loop, the hamster wheel keeping you distracted 'til you're convinced that you can't do any better.
When most people are entirely distracted and unfocused, I come here and I see people that are seeking the right knowledge, who are putting it into motion, who are taking responsibility for their lives and their freedom. I need more of this around me.
Thank you for the level up!
Many of us are still working on seeing things in sats. I've also been trying to think about what earning a living on bitcoin would require.
The trickiest part of that to me is trying to properly value sats. I believe bitcoin is worth much more than it's current dollar price and if I want to use it as a unit of account in the future, I need to know what it's worth.
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That's a thought I often have. If I charged for a master or a mix of a song in sats, how much would I charge? What is my point of reference? Am I again going back to referencing the dollar, or another currency?
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I think you'd have to, but at least you'd be on the beneficial end of the transaction that way: i.e. the sats your receiving are worth more than they seem.
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I suppose there's also the V4V discussion, which I'm just getting familiar with. I'm curious how that could apply here also.
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Yeah, that's sort of an honor system + price discovery thing. If you have some audio that you can put out for free (maybe as promos or something), you could put them up on Fountain or one of the specialized nostr clients and see what kind of sats they bring in.
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Fountain is on my list to check out. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Fountain is a must have.
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This is true. Unless there is a community of bitcoiner audio engineers transacting in sats that I haven't discovered yet. That would actually be the better option!
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Yes I was wondering how to value sats when the price against fiat changes 20%. If you’re a business do you still sell your beers at the same amount of sats or you bring prices down?
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It really depends on whether your costs are denominated in sats or fiat. If your workers pay is denominated in sats and your contracts with suppliers are in sats, then you can maintain bitcoin prices.
This will be the unit-of-account stage of bitcoinization and I think it will be pretty difficult to do until bitcoin is more widely adopted as a medium of exchange.
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I watch my stack grow in units of sats (actually, in units of BTC) but I also have a quick way to check the fiat value of it because, I’ll be honest, I live in a fiat world and it’s useful to know what I have.
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I wonder what is this “know what I have” useful for?
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I just like to be able to take inventory of my assets on all fronts.
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This most definitely still makes sense to me, maybe one day it won't as much.
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I feel like a good way to do this would be to have marketplaces that sell things in sats. Anybody know of any?
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We need to learn to see or measure our entire environment in SATS, do it in FIAT in how to play a game that is rigged so that you always lose. Or rather so that your goals are further and further away from being achieved... I have just begun to understand, apply and delve into this and the results are incredible... Something practical was putting my monthly budget in Fiat currency, in ounces and in Satochis and see how month by month, in Fiat I need the same amount or more according to how consumer goods and services behave, and on the other hand see how each month I need less amount of hard and real money to obtain the same number of Fiat papers has been for me an incredible unlocking of the matrix. All thanks to reading Awake people here on SN
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I'm big on having a budget, I wish I would've been this way my whole life. If you're up for it, I'd love to read a longer post on this. How you do the comparison and such.
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For a long time now I only think in sats, when I receive fiat I immediately think about how much it would be in sats.
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That's a good one! I'll implement that one too.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Taft 5 Apr
This is great advice: View it in sats! Never thought of it before.
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I hope it proves to be wise in the long run. For now, it's giving me new ways of perceiving ideas centered around Bitcoin.
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I am also trying to learn and accept viewing everything in sats.
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Only being active in the bitcoin community has helped me start to understand this.
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Going to be a long time before you won't have to worry about converting to fiat, hell, you and I will probably be dead if it even happens at all. Sorry to burst your bubble but this is one of the issues I have with most of the BTC maxi community. You just think the world should switch to Bitcoin and use it as the only universal payment method but you don't want to make it easier for the world to become involved or want to use it. You won't adapt and evolve the blockchain to bring more people in. Right now, why would anyone want to use a payment method that costs a significant and always changing amount to transact with (just talking on chain) AND takes an unknown amount of time for that transaction to complete when they can use fiat or fiat oriented online payment methods that do not have these issues in any way shape or.form?
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I'll also that, I see in your bio that you're excited about the future of Lightning. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on that, and how it ties in to your sentiments on Bitcoin.
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Lightning is the only possibility that Bitcoin ever becomes a universally adopted payment method but it has its own issues. The main issue is when the payee's transaction is unable to find a route through the nodes/channels and it gets stuck in transition attempting to find a route. This issue is becoming less of a problem and it will continue to do so with the ever increasing amount of nodes and channels popping up. However, when you factor in the capacity of those nodes/channels (amount of sats/BTC that the route can handle a transaction through) that adds more issues because.then you're unable to transact over a certain amount. Lightning is really only feasible though for transactions that are smaller than 500,000-1,000,000 to my knowledge. There are some channels with a lot more capacity than that but a lot of them have around only that amount at least to my knowledge.
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This makes sense. Lightning is what actually got me more active in the Bitcoin community. Being able to transact has helped me understand it with more context, which I think is very important.
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I'm curious to read the replies... it's all new to me!
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