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Please help it make sense. Bitcoin gets SO MANY things right. Censorship resistance? Check (I've never seen any stories of actual censorship of bitcoin transactions in the wild)
Protection from monetary debasement? Check. Reduction of counter-party risk? Whether it be governmental, regulatory, environmental, location-specific. Check. Take bitcoin (your bitcoin) ANYWHERE in the world.
Low fees for transactions? Check (they're only 35 cents currently even if they might go up over time) Extreme security? Yes seed phrases with mainstream software and devices cannot be hacked or guessed and are generally more secure than ever before.
So the question is? What are people waiting for? Bitcoin is logically and conceptually the best store of value (SoV) in the world, it is digitized capital, independent of any nation or national borders, and can be taken anywhere just by memorizing random words. It is a fraction of a percent of what people currently use for a SoV (stocks, bonds, real estate, gold, art, property) and yet it is SO MUCH better in many regards.
Imagine being a civil society advocate, an anti-regime journalist or writer, a local businessperson or politician, or just 'regular person' (common pleb) for which bitcoin has WAY less risk in holding, provided the seed phrase is kept secure than SO MANY other assets or other forms of savings. The regime takes your bank account? You're safe. They take your business? You're safe. They 'print money' or inflate the currency? (like everywhere?) You're still safe because there are only 21 million bitcoin. Take the bitcoin across borders or send it to friends or family, create a singlesig, a multisig, sell it non-kyc on a saturday night... it's up to you it's digitized capital. Create a lightning channel and accept donations (through Bolt 12, LN addresses, or invoices) or share your thoughts for Bitcoin donations on Nostr or places like Stacker News :D
Want to use bitcoin for remittances? Sure go ahead get a lightning wallet (Zeus, Pheonix, or run LND or CLN yourself) and send it to friends or family. Then they can sell/exchange it or use it for goods or services, even without an 'on-chain' transaction.
It can be easily verified, unlike gold, with a maximum supply and predictable and verifiable inflation rate (future production rate). It can be mined at home (maybe not profitably) but technically it still can especially with the use of lightning withdrawals for pleb mining with bitaxes etc.
It has the LIGHTNING network where money can be sent instantly and cheaply anywhere in the world, only to be settled later (like a bar tab), and you can run a lightning node AT HOME. Always on, reasonably secure (maybe not for LARGE amounts but certainly enough for day to day spending). The LIGHTNING 'bar tab' can be coupled with websites for SPAM prevention, to improve the quality of websites and social media and forum content, and you can get 'tipped' and tip others, instantly, for a fraction of a penny! Credit cards cannot do this it is the digitization of capital and of gold.
The anonymity set of bitcoin is large enough to provide 'forward' privacy using coinjoins (for low/reasonable cost) with joinmarket, not to mention other yet-developed or soon-to-be-developed protocols using social media or nostr or decentralized coordinators. So by all means coinjoin away!
So why don't people get it? Bitcoin should be ten times more expensive. Look at what people pay for overpriced cars, houses, stocks even... that don't have ANY of these qualities. The cars lose value and houses 'go up'... but they are fully capitalized, bitcoin is not. In fact bitcoin is seen is 'risk on' or 'risky' because it's volatile. Ok well what else was volatile in the past? Amazon stock in 1999. Bitcoin is so exciting. And yet it's such a small asset relative to stocks, bonds, real estate, gold etc... it's logical it would eat (at least partially) many of them and SHOULD be considerably more expensive.
The logical conclusion is to sell (?) or never touch 'crypto' which is 99% scams and unregistered securities and instead save in Bitcoin long term. Yet when everyone inevitably starts doing this bitcoin would have a MUCH larger market cap and you could natively store Bitcoin on an iphone/through Apple. 'Crypto' should die a quick and painless death, generally speaking, as it's a waste of time, and Bitcoin should be considerably more expensive. It doesn't make any sense.
Why don't more people see this? Bitcoin is probably the greatest asset/technology mix in a generation, maybe in many decades.
It takes time and patience to learn and relearn and admit that you don't even understand money, which is quite hard for most people. And I was looking around at what most people do with their time, consuming, consuming, and consuming, then sharing photos online to get cheap likes, and they are "happy."
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Very simple: because people do not understand money, like, at all. Ask anyone who doesn't get bitcoin what's money and you will be greeted by a stutter of incoherences and tautologies in a desperate attempt to cover such shameful clueless ignorance. Anyone who knows what money is understands and holds bitcoin.
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If you have not experienced hyper inflation or currency devaluation, you have almost no incentive to understand or study money or monetary policies.
I became interested in money after reading and watching Free to Choose. An entire chapter is devoted to inflation. The book was written or transcribed after television documentary
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@CHADBot /eli5
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42 sats \ 0 replies \ @CHADBot 17 Aug bot
You have summoned CHADBot. Please zap this post 21 sats to receive service.
Made with 🧡 by CASCDR
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21 sats \ 2 replies \ @CHADBot 17 Aug bot
User 028559d218 is saying that Bitcoin is really, really good. Like having a toy that can play, draw, and tell stories all by itself. You can take it to any friend's house, and no one can steal it if you remember a secret password. Plus, it stays valuable even if other toys become too many or less fun to play with. It even has a secret code (Lightning Network) that lets you share or receive toys quickly and without giving too much away.
In reply, didiplaywell says that many people don't get how great Bitcoin is because they don't know what real 'toys' are. It's like not knowing why a Lego set is better than a single block.
Finally, Bell_curve explains that unless you've seen your toys lose all their fun (like hyperinflation or currency devaluation), you wouldn't understand why a super toy (Bitcoin) is better. It's like learning why an ice-cream doesn't stay frozen under the sun only after it melts.
Made with 🧡 by CASCDR
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I like how it tried to get analogies to articulate thoughts. It didn't really got it well but seems to be half-way to it.
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Great analysis 🧐 !!!
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For me it was government debt and inflation. I've traveled to and spent plenty of time in Europe, Central and South America (including the US) and seen so much money stuffed into all kinds of things just to offset monetary debasement, fiat money. Bitcoin is the best tool for the job.
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What do you mean by stuffed? People are hoarding cash or buying expensive stuff?
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Yes. Property and gold and stocks. People by wine and art and collectibles just to 'save money' because they don't know what else to do with it.
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Those are good hedges against inflation. It’s rational behavior
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Free to Choose
Cool! I didn't know about it, so that's where the shorts come from. Will watch, thank you!
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The book has been translated into many languages including Spanish.
Television show and book were broadcast and published in 1980.
There are other lectures by Milton Friedman on YouTube. The bulk are from 1976 to 1980.
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I'm going to start pushing for it to be aired on Argentinian TV
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👏👏👏👍👍👍
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It's just so obvious. And worse, in my opinion, as all the 'crypto' that tries to pass itself off as something of value or the same as bitcoin and it is NOT the same.
There's more education about Bitcoin now than ever before.
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Again, don't focus on Bitcoin. Bitcoin stems from understanding money. Focus on money. Bitcoin is less known, and even distrusted, because people is hopelessly clueless on what's money in itself.
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That’s what piqued my interest in bitcoin: no central bank and finite supply. My friends teased me for being obsessed with libertarian fantasies
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Best thing about libertarianism is that no degree of it can be considered "excess", literally. So you can safely "err" on that side too and you will still arrive to the exact same place.
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Bitcoin isn't money.
Crypto represents nasty weeds deliberately sown in to choke out the good grass that is bitcoin. It’s not working though as the crypto weeds are choking themselves out instead. Bitcoin is emerging, greener and stronger regardless of all the attacks coming at it. Bitcoin is winning, and more people will eventually get. Did I hear someone say “low time preference”?
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It's kinda painful honestly... seeing 'crypto' thrown around casually with bitcoin by the media. Non-proof of work pump and dump memecoin scams are not the same as bitcoin and it's kind of painful to see the media's confusion honestly.
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People take money for granted so they don’t really understand what it actually is or how the current system works.
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I guess. People work all their lives to make money and get paid. You think most would spend a few hours seriously thinking how to keep it... and just do the math.
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In my experience most people don’t really take time out of their busy lives to think deeply about anything. That’s not the way the current education system has taught them to think.
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hopefully bitcoin will change that
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101 sats \ 1 reply \ @alexbit 17 Aug
It takes humility and many hours to deprogram yourself from years of indoctrination to start understanding Bitcoin.
The majority of people are either so immersed in day-to-day life chores or plainly lazy that they are not willing to do the work.
I myself gave The Bitcoin Standard book to several friends and family members. How many actually read it? None. Pure laziness.
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Indeed it can be very hard to orange-pill people. You talk to them about bitcoin, point them in the right direction, and there sometimes is a strong tendency for them to come back to you with all these memcoins. It just doesn't make any sense.
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People in most places just don't see the problem it solves. In short, they don't believe they need it.
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All of its features make it an asset that we should all have and own in order to escape the fiat money scam.
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+1 for ReasonTV on youtube.
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Assuming you didn't get into bitcoin 15 years ago, why didn't you get it before you got it?
Everyone's on their own learning path. Most bitcoiners got it before me and I got it before most people.
We're still early. People don't like thinking. Most people don't care very much about the problems bitcoin solves. People are social animals, which makes them averse to adopting new things. Propaganda works (until it doesn't). People don't trust technology (until they do).
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I didn't get it... because I honestly had never heard of it. Then when I read about it the first time (not that long ago actually) it just clicked immediately. I sat down on the bed for 9 hours straight, didn't move didn't do anything except read its 'proof of work' and I was astounded. I didn't know anything like this existed.
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That's awesome!
I heard about bitcoin very early on and was intrigued by it, but I didn't get over my hangups until a couple of years ago.
There are still lots of people who are in the position you were in and many others who are in the position I was in.
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Government "education program" is deliberately designed to produce financially-illiterate drones.
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. —Henry Ford (possibly misattributed)
The system only still holds together because the vast majority of people do not understand that they live inside a fraud. Fiat has a network effect too - it makes the brainwashed drones correct or oust other drones that start appearing anomalous, talking about freedom technologies and generally question everything that's "supposed to" be believed.
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Bitcoin is neither private nor fungible. Layer two and three will require custodial solutions to onboard the masses in any meaningful capacity. Lightning has many problems that have not/can not be fixed.
Congrats to Bitcoin Core for making Bitcoin digital gold and not a MOE.
A far cry from Satoshi's original vision in the white paper. Not your keys, not your coins.
stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.