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Rambling thoughts of a Maximalist - All 'crypto' goes to zero

10.7k sats \ 43 comments \ @028559d218 4 Sep bitcoin

Today and yesterday Bitcoin hashrate reached its highest ever - https://decrypt.co/247721/bitcoin-price-down-hash-rate-all-time-high

Still the mempool (yes I know there's no 'one' mempool but still) fees are hovering around the 3-4 sat / vbyte range with the Bitcoin 'price down'. I can't help but feel that the market is expressing its true sentiment about 'crypto'.

Let me explain. In my opinion, why should I store my time, energy, and efforts in something that doesn't require energy to make? With a monetary policy that 'can be changed', that isn't grounded in the 'real world'? With fewer 'nodes'? That has a 'roadmap'? That has a foundation that's selling to cover operating costs? It sounds like an unregistered security and in my honest opinion a house of cards.

Bitcoin while not perfect if you even have a small miner requires real heat and real energy and you feel it when you heat your office or living room in the wintertime with a small miner. They're little space heaters... and this 'proof of work' is what separates Bitcoin from nearly 99% of all 'crypto'.

'Crypto' isn't decentralized. It is usually very easily changed by a small group of insiders, and users DO NOT emphasize running nodes or 'don't trust verify'. It's staking to stake to stake to get more 'air tokens' which require NO more energy and real-world-resource tradeoffs to make and manage. It's like a central bank that keeps changing the rules, changing the 'price of money' without the consent of users it is not stable. Or not based in physics (energy-based) where running a miner and running your washingmachine and turning on the lights... electricity is required for all these things and you can even see and feel it.

Ethereum (to be specific) is in a 40-month slump, exchange-rate wise, to Bitcoin. I won't post a screenshot here... but the 2-year chart is pretty brutal just trending down and to the right. https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-40-month-slump-bitcoin-dollar-freefall-scenario

And the thing is that the overwhelming majority of alts look the same way or worse. And the few that don't... aren't proof of work and aren't decentralized. They carry obscene amounts of counter-party risk, capture risk, technical risk, unregistered-securities risk (ie solana) with their primary use case being... memecoins and NFTs. With something exposed to all these risks from state-capture, centralization, and regulatory risk how can the accompanying blockchain be global money for competitors and enemies?

It can't. If your company and servers and offices are located in the United States why would Russia, China, and Iran, not to mention Asian or European countries and businesses or users trust you? It gets too big, too powerful, too advantageous for not-the-united-states and it gets shut down. By the United States.

Could Bitcoin be shut down? Maybe but it would be extremely difficult. To emphasize this point, Bitcoin doesn't have to be perfect it just has to be the best, far superior to any competition and it is in my opinion.

So to summarize, if the air-token chains (which are not decentralized) whose main use case is NFTs and memcoins cannot compete with bitcoin... what can? What else is proof-of-work?

Litecoin. A 'failed-fork' of Bitcoin that has 'bled-out' over the last 6 years (in terms of price and hashrate).

BCash. A 'failed fork', based on bigger blocks, that noone uses that has bled out 99% in price and hashrate over the last 6 years. (see the 6-year chart)

Dogecoin. Another 'fork' that while proof of work... is not a digital scarcity, has one-minute blocks (arguably effecting decentralization but that's a different topic) with different/inferior monetary fundamentals. It is also down 80% from its ATH in 2021 and I won't go into any more detail.

All of these 'failed forks' talk about their 'low fees' and 'fast transactions'... but their usage is a small fraction of that of Bitcoin. If the use of the blockchain is anemic with blocks that are nearly empty (BCash) sure fees will be low. Noone is using it! https://explorer.melroy.org/ 90% empty blocks makes for a dead chain, in comparison with Bitcoin where the blocks are full and the hashrate is at all-time highs.

So these 3 don't offer anything over Bitcoin... is there a proof-of-work chain that offers something different or otherwise valuable? (Remember that proof-of-air-token-chains go to Zero). Maybe, just maybe Monero. Monero/XMR isn't from what I can tell a speculative memcoin, has no NFTs, and in fact is reasonably hard to acquire. Most countries and exchanges have delisted it... likely because of its privacy technicals so the people who hold it have really gone out of their way to buy it and find it. It really isn't used for speculation... because exchanges have delisted it.

Is it as decentralized as Bitcoin? No. With the hashrate equivalent to Bitcoin? No. Price-performance? No. Its monetary properties and anti-ASIC propertiesm relative to Bitcoin, are completely different... however its 'selling point' is its on-chain privacy.

Now without going into its 'privacy' qualities (that are very debatable in the real-world on-chain plus off-chain)... and block size and 'tail emissions'... Can Monero be global money? I believe probably not due to regulation and other reasons.

Global money for individuals, businesses, corporations, banks, even nation-states or national treasuries will need a certain amount of: Regulatory Compliance Easily verifiable total supply AML and KYC requirements (at least for corporations/funds/and trusts) and Transparency for governments

Having every sender, amount, and receiver shrouded in mystery means that when banks and governments use that money they will never be transparent. Government does not volunteer transparency and won't be transparent using Monero either. Calls by the citizenry for governments to 'reveal their balances' or their transactions for accountability, to prove they have what they say they have will fall on deaf ears. They will be ignored. The German government sells their stack? No transparency on-chain. A business or potential ETF claims they 'have it'... no transparency on chain. Government with absolute opaqueness in transaction is extremely unlikely to volunteer transparency to the taxpayers and that is a big problem IMO. A government could run a massive deficit, have almost no XMR, lie about it... and it might be very difficult to prove otherwise until it is too late for the taxpayers and institutions.

In contrast to Bitcoin, it is not a compromise I'm comfortable with.

In addition any hint, suggestion, or even scant whiff of there being an inflation bug and the entire currency collapses. What bank or nation state is going to trust money that they can't independently verify, that isn't 'battle-tested', that won't meet the requirements of regulators, that is or can be associated with bot-net farms... Or could maybe, possibly, using complex cryptography not actually have a verifiable supply? Is a 1% chance of a supply-bug low enough for global money? For enemies and countries that don't trust each other? With all the complexity and risk factors in the world... probably not in my opinion.

With Monero there are tradeoffs, as in any engineered system, and personally I rather use Joinmarket and Coinjoins and a large anonymity set + lightning to achieve enough privacy. Global money is still verifiable and governments transparent-enough on-chain... with privacy achievable by plebs through education. Rather than the State saying **** *** no we're not telling you how much XMR we hold there's nothing you can do about it in fact there is zero transparency for the global ledger. To me it's kind of dystopian in my humble opinion.

In summary, as the world digitizes the development of a 'digital asset', a 'digital gold' or 'digital capital' is basically inevitable and the survivable of which is dependent on decentralization, proof-of-work, connection to real-world resources and energy, and being trust-less for enemies and competitors. In this world, with enough time and pressure air-tokens go to zero, and there is no 2nd best. The only surviving blockchains will be proof of work with 99% of the value, with Bitcoin probably having the vast majority of that.

Every time the market 'dips', it's one more chance for speculative assets and air-tokens to bleed-out against Bitcoin, for the 'alt-season' to never materialize, for the Wells notices to pile up, and for the rug-pulls, scams, and air-token exchanges to get hacked. Tonight the market has 'dipped'. And Bitcoin's Hashrate is at or near an all-time High. Enjoy thank you.

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131 sats \ 1 reply \ @BTCLNAT 4 Sep

For the last 2 years I have been in the crypto world in a general sense. I have looked for projects that would help me have some financial freedom, I'm not saying that I have done completely wrong. But when I saw or heard about Bitcoin, I ran away. For me, they were unattainable, expensive, technical, etc.

Now I confess that if I had adopted Bitcoin earlier, it would have been different, but as my grandfather used to say: "those in front don't go far if those behind run well"

I never tire of thanking CubaBTC for all the help and others who have supported me. It is not for nothing that we talk about the dominance of Bitcoin and altcoins, Bitcoin alone, altcoins all together, that shows the power of Bitcoin.

Without a doubt, Bitcoin is not perfect, but there is no second best. So if it is PoW, FoS, decentralized and private. Don't doubt it, it is Bitcoin. It is not perfect, but it is the best

15 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

I don't believe it is perfect either. But I think it is the best by a significant margin. XMR is... interesting. But it is not a store a value in addition to the issues I wrote about.

207 sats \ 6 replies \ @kepford 4 Sep

I think a certain number of people look at "number go up". On anything and think... what the heck. I'll gamble. Then some have been lucky and think they are smart...

Massive amounts of people buy lottery tickets every day...

I do not understand most of the people that I walk among.

42 sats \ 5 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

A lottery ticket statistically is a waste of money. It may be fun to buy one or 2 occasionally... but statistically it's a waste of funds. I cannot imagine scouring twitter or random websites to find 'airdrops' to connect a wallet to. Or buying memecoins. A more fun lottery ticket would be a solo-bitaxe.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @teemupleb 4 Sep

The likelihood of losing funds through phishing attacks draining your wallet also grows when chasing airdrops and connecting to random “DeFi” frontends

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

;) https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Bell_curve 4 Sep

what about solo mining lol

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 4 Sep

That's my kind of lottery!

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

Mathematically-predefined odds. What are the odds that solorocketelondogcoin pumps? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

284 sats \ 1 reply \ @leonidastouch 4 Sep

Nothing really compares to Bitcoin in terms of what you already stipulated. The 5 confirmation transaction irreversibility is not something that shipcoins can match in their lifetime. Compared with other shipcoins you will think that your coin or token is secured after a tens of thousands of confirmation only to find out that it can be reversed like in the case of Ethereum. If it goes to zero then it is still stonger than their memecoins that stays at zero.

35 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

Bitcoin, chill and dollarcostaverage friend. Run a node, hold keys, and just watch the hashrate go up. I cannot imagine holding 'alts' it would be nuts.

196 sats \ 5 replies \ @grayruby 4 Sep

Crypto people are losing their minds right now. I am left wondering why they ever thought their silly tokens were worth anything in the first place.

41 sats \ 4 replies \ @kepford 4 Sep

In my experience they have been delusional.

75 sats \ 3 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

The invention of Bitcoin spawned an absolute industry of fraud and affinity knockoffs. On the btctalkforums someone asked how long it would take before others created coins and tokens of their own... well not long at all and it's amazing to me it's still going on.

20 sats \ 2 replies \ @kepford 4 Sep

I think it is easy to under-estimate the naïvety and stupidity of humans and to over-estimate how quickly humans learn things they don't immediately need.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

To me it just looks like touching a hot stove. Touch it once ok... but again and again I mean let's just move on.

72 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 4 Sep

I think people get a high off of it all. Trading I mean.

54 sats \ 2 replies \ @03393ec3a3 4 Sep

Thus far, I cannot convert to full maximalist because the scaling issue seems to remain largely unaddressed. For almost a decade, I thought we were making progress. Then came inscriptions and the high fee market. We learned that the Lightning whitepaper wasn't kidding - LN really is not the end-all solution.

Over the past year, though, it seems like the incumbents who guide the future of Bitcoin don't really want covenants, and whales are more interested in ossification than hyperbitcoinization, which makes me think that there is a limit to how useful BTC can be and how many can realistically adopt.

Until we have something as good as or better than covenants or some roadmap for how to onboard 8+ billion users, I cannot see myself converting to full maximalist or 13-percenter. I am aware of trusted third-party solutions like Liquid, Fedi, Cashu, and Ark, but I would rather use a government bank with regulations if I have to resort to trust.

Can anyone provide any thoughts? Am I wrong?

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

My own opinion is that most people, at some point in the future, will never touch on-chain. On-chain will be reserved for the elite and the institutions... or at least for large purchases and transactions (maybe really, really large) and everything else will be on secondary or tertiary layers like lightning.

I also think it's unrealistic for everyone, regardless of scaling potential, to be running their own lightning nodes. People just aren't interested or technically inclined enough. Even if the 'perfect app' was created... some people are just too lazy or frankly irresponsible to write 12 words down on a piece of paper and keep it in a safe place.

Custodians and intermediaries will be required... even if they're lousy brick-and-mortar banks for large numbers of people... as people aren't going to flock to 'self-custody' and self-sovereign technology just because it's available. People could use lightning 'now' and yet so many don't... it's foreseeable that people will use it in the future and not even know they're using it and the backends will be provided by banks and institutions (for actually spending sats on goods and services). This strongly implies the use of bitcoin to purchase things day to day on a very large scale - nonspeculative use and hyperbitcoinization to a degree.

I don't see the 'base layer' as being mainstream for day-to-day payments really for the vast majority of people and situations... as it's extremely secure but extremely slow. I think that implementations of lightning with varying levels of sovereignty will comprise the vast majority of transactions by everyday people... and the transactions will be instant with minimal fees like people generally expect today.

I also believe that lightning will open up new use-cases for money on the internet... tipping for posts, sending money via social media, tipping while you watch a youtube video, micropayments of all kinds that we can't even imagine yet. Small and instant remittances things like that. And yes some of this will be custodial, some won't and I think that's inevitable people won't care about being 'self sovereign'.

Less common opinion: I don't think the lightning opening and closing fees will be that much of an impediment. Apps and businesses will allow others to purchase channels that are already set up, people will use the same channel for an extended period, and the costs of opening channels will be ameliorated between more users. How this is exactly incorporated ie via covenants I'm not sure... but I think it could be done with existing infrastructure and apps. Phoenix Wallet for example loses money on liquidity and makes it up on transaction fees... that kind of thing. Maybe they help subsidize the cost of opening a channel (30-50$) in return for higher fees or a subscription - I think these kinds of arrangements are probably more likely than a complex technological rework.

Personally I think the 'ordinals' thing was temporary the best way to understand them is to look at rest of the nft market over the last year (nfts don't have long-term appeal). And that's why I pointed out the fact the hashrate is at all time highs... while the fees are low. Lower than last year while ordinals were most of the block space.

[I have some unorthodox opinions or thoughts on what the future could possibly look like if anyone cares... maybe i'll put them in a post ¯_(ツ)_/¯]

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @03393ec3a3 5 Sep

I hope you will - I really appreciate your original post and this reply, and your non-normative takes are very refreshing against the backdrop of so many podcasters and opinion leaders all basically repeating each other. I look forward to it! :)

70 sats \ 1 reply \ @nostrman 4 Sep

They're little space heaters... and this 'proof of work' is what separates Bitcoin from nearly 99% of all 'crypto'.

This is the best thing that ever happened to Winter season. You are keeping yourself alive by pushing the cause of hypothermia and at the same time you are earning by auditing up to 4000 transactions every ten minutes. You are hitting two Giant birds with one stone.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

I love my little miner. It's an older model but I still get about 5th on economy settings. Great in winter can't wait for Bolt 12

41 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 4 Sep

Only Bitcoin otherwise I'll trumpet you!!

https://m.stacker.news/49709

65 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 4 Sep

Thanks for the great write up! TBH, I don't see any competition to Bitcoin from anything that's trying to mimic it badly.

This fuckin' describes it all!

https://m.stacker.news/49707

121 sats \ 1 reply \ @redlight_pleb 4 Sep

Transparency is a feature not a bug - the ability to verify makes this whole thing work.

Great write up , thanks for rambling

111 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

100%. Regardless of the price movements and volatility... there's no inflation bug and your keys, offline and cold are secure. That goes a LONG long way towards global adoption imo.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @synergymatrix 4 Sep

You were right on point when you compared Bitcoin to Dogecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ethereum. These coins are the perceived competitor to Bitcoin up until the Cerveza Sickness when Bitcoin showed them all who is the real King of Proof of Work. Ethereum is shown to always change its direction from Hard Forking away from Ethereum Classic to shun the embarrassment that they experienced from hackers and to return the "coins" of their friends and allies, through creating a new path using DPOS. It literally destroyed their roadmap to greatness while the non meddling mentality of Satoshi Nakamoto helped Bitcoin flourish to levels that we have yet to imagine. Talk is cheap is but this is just the gist of what transpired in past 15 years and you successfully summarized the disaster that shipcoins have created themselves by succumbing to greed and gluttony.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 4 Sep

https://m.stacker.news/49705

I saw this recently and your post reminded me of it.

We don't really know TBH. There have often been times where Bitcoin dominance goes up, then when the bull run gets into top gear traders begin to "rotate" into other assets.

its too late to buy bitcoin
its bad for the environment
its old tech

Are all real barriers for retail (and possibly Wall ST) to become educated on. Sh$tcoins might continue for a while yet. Look at Trumps NFT BS..... They need to learn like all of us. And the best way to learn is to lose lots of money.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

Thanks for your post. Bitcoin requires education and work to understand honestly. I've heard it said that it's an IQ test in risk management and I agree.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheWildHustle 4 Sep

All prices fall to the marginal cost of production.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @supratic 4 Sep

Well, you know... we need to test sh*t out before realizing it was an absolute dumb idea! History repeats and tells the truth to those able to read it, the rest will keep falling into the loop.

25 sats \ 1 reply \ @cyberduck00 4 Sep

A business or potential ETF claims they 'have it'... no transparency on chain.

We really need 100% transparency in the spirit of real fairness. Laymen will be required to be transparent but the too-big-to-fail corporations are flashing Legacy wallets to seemingly prove that they have "real" Bitcoin and when Bitcoin price tumbles they will be acting similar to vultures. They can sense death but they can't find any carcass.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

Imagine a situation where a 'privacy-chain' is adopted by etfs and governments. It could be a nightmare. Like I wrote in my post it's extremely unlikely that wall street and government would volunteer transparency. So everything would be 'hidden'. Then government and wall street get together, fund research, hire cryptographers to exploit the stealth cryptography... to find an inflation bug for themselves. If there's even a small chance of this happening I think it could potentially cause concern. Bitcoin more transparent.

2 sats \ 1 reply \ @fakebookbuzz 4 Sep

Could Bitcoin be shut down? Maybe but it would be extremely difficult.

Bitcoin even if it shuts down today can be revived any day simply because it has a block chain database. It is stupid to seize all computers and after a few hours it will become operational again since it is automatic that the Bitcoin client is required to synchronize with the latest block. It will then synchronize and everything will be operational again. It can be killed but it can be revived immediately because it has a memory to begin with. From Genesis block up until the latest block. So, practically speaking it cannot be killed.

31 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4 Sep

100%. Tens of thousands of nodes (the exact number isn't known because they're over TOR) each with a complete copy of the blockchain.

I researched a certain DAG - directed acrylic graph - chain and in addition to many many issues this is one of them. The developers themselves have said that individual nodes would only have 3 days worth of history. That's because the amount of chain data is so large it would be continually shed... too large for home-non commerical nodes to keep.

Bitcoin it's always all there from the beginning.

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @yo2xncv0 30 Sep

"they will never be transparent. Government does not volunteer transparency" "I rather use Joinmarket and Coinjoins and a large anonymity set + lightning to achieve enough privacy"

I find this argument schizophrenic...

If these systems are permissionless...What stops governments from just using Coinjoins/lightning for privacy like you do? Or even swap to Monero or whatever privacy coin for when they want a transaction to be private? They can just hide behind a veil of "national security", "top secret", or "classified" like they already do.

"Can Monero be global money? I believe probably not due to regulation and other reasons."

If you're relying on politics and regulations for Bitcoin to succeed...you still don't understand Bitcoin. It's entire architecture is designed to operate without permission from any authority.

0 sats \ 6 replies \ @028559d218 OP 30 Sep

Monero doesn't have the liquidity for really large (billion $) transactions. And while coinjoins are great... try coinjoining 500 million $ of bitcoin (or a large transaction for a government) it won't work. I don't think coinjoins can handle sizes that large honestly. And in the process all the government is doing is adding liquidity/size to coinjoins that they are presumably opposed to.

I don't depend on regulation. However 'global money' means that everyone will use it. Banks, nation states, individuals, businesses, Wall Street... everyone. There will be regulations and there will be governments anarchy is not realistic.

And in that world people want to make sure that the money they are using is 'clean' and there's a large aspect of transparency. Transparency of supply and transparency for compliance. Some business buys it or accepts it... they have 'risk and compliance' they need to make sure everything is clean and regulated. Imo that's the real world...

Bitcoin can have the 'light' markets & and the 'dark' markets and they will need to coexist in global money.

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @yo2xncv0 2 Oct

Maybe not at this moment, but we're talking about the future. I expect both Bitcoin and Monero to grow over time and other layers to emerge. Obviously they wouldn't do half a billion at once, but broken up and over time, and smaller amounts for covert operations. The same way 3 letter agencies use Tor.

That wasn't an argument on the viability of anarchy. It was just a fact about Bitcoin. If its security and success is at the mercy of regulations then it failed it's entire value prop. We already have money backed by politics; it's called fiat

There is no advantage to making a Bitcoin transaction that follows the rules and is "regulatory friendly" and "compliant". Why not just use digital fiat for those transactions? It's the most rule following thing to use. Cheaper, faster, and has a much larger network effect than Bitcoin too. Bitcoin is black market money at it's core. All white market transactions are permissioned by definition.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @028559d218 OP 2 Oct

Bitcoin is 2 markets that exist at once. The 'lit' market, which helps with savings and price, 'investment grade'. And the 'dark' or gray market - which is entirely peer and peer and is completely permissionless. Both these markets need each other.

In my opinion any crypto that attempts to be only one or the other... will fail. Both coexist. Both need each other too.

Too 'lit' and regulated and the market will run back to being peer to peer - with a heavy emphasis on privacy tools. Too private, with only a peer to peer dark-net application, and normies won't use it. People won't want to save in it.

This is currently (from what I can tell) the state of monero.

Bitcoin is both.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @yo2xncv0 4 Oct

Saving with Bitcoin or any crypto on the white market doesn't protect your "investment" or "savings" (or only fleetingly so). Your savings are already being leeched from if you ever spend/trade it on the white market. Governments will continue increasing taxes to offset any savings (i.e. realized and unrealized capital gains taxes) or make any arbitrary rules they want. We already see them starting to do this.

At some point white market Bitcoin savings and transactions will be as manipulated as any other fiat/stock/financial instrument. They can even make it illegal to use "self-hosted" wallets (like legislation being proposed in Europe) and require you to leave your Bitcoin with "certified custodians" where they can print IOUs freely and rug you.

If you refuse any of this you are now in black market territory again.

Using white markets means you are relying on politics to secure your wealth yet again (defeats the entire advantage of Bitcoin). If you wanted to follow the rules, digital fiat money is already superior to Bitcoin at that.

21 sats \ 2 replies \ @028559d218 OP 5 Oct

The taxing of Bitcoin to pay for everyday goods and services (for example through captial gains taxes) is wrong, unethical, and illogical. It needs to stop.

I think my point is that people, myself included, want to spend Bitcoin on day-to-day goods and services. Groceries, cups of coffee, gas in the car whatever. Not because I have much Bitcoin (I don't) but because I believe that Bitcoin is better money and I want to put my money where my beliefs are... convert my fiat to Bitcoin and generally use it like money, like how it was intended. Peer to peer cash.

I believe that the creation and adoption of Bitcoin, as decentralized internet money, in competition to government money or 'Fiat' is one of the greatest events of the 21st century. It is a revolutionary idea that actually competes with governments, competes with the government debt and inflation and it cannot be adopted soon enough to provide a 'check' on government influence, risk, and credit.

With regards to Monero... I have respect for the monero community. However they want crypto to be 'private' and 'untraceable'... but it's BS. The vast majority of people don't care about privacy or how or where they are traced. The vast majority of people have phones that track their every location... and most people don't know that every website they use, without a VPN, probably leaks their IP address and location. It is outrageous and they... don't care.

People will not go out of their way to be 'private' and 'undiscovered'... but they understand inflation and what 'the printer' does to their savings over the long term.

As far as restrictions on self-hosted markets and software... well the EU can pound sand. Bitcoin wallets are open-source and they are everywhere. The more 'restricted' they become at this point the more people will self-custody and the harder to stop Bitcoin.

The real downfall of governments, both in the US and EU is the totally out-of-control fiscal irresponsibility. You can't cheat math forever... and I believe that one day it will be really out-of-hand and undeniable. Then, eventually, people will flock to Bitcoin as a safe-haven and the tools will be strong enough to provide it to the masses.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @yo2xncv0 6 Oct

I agree with you that it is wrong, unethical, and illogical. I'm just describing the facts of the current situation and likely worsening future.

I also like to use crypto for everyday payments. But it's more for ideological reasons like yourself. Spending Bitcoin on white markets for everyday transactions is such a tiny segment of people. Only the real believers will do that. It makes no sense for normal people to do it for multiple reasons (digital fiat is cheaper, faster, convenient, follows the rules of white markets, and widely accepted)

Bitcoin can only compete with government money if you are making the transactions they don't want you to (black market AKA free markets). If you are making transactions only under their rules on their markets they control, of course they are going to play unfairly and make it onerous to use there...they also use legal ambiguity to make businesses fearful

Addressing your Monero comment: That's true they don't care about privacy. But vast majority of people don't care about sovereignty, being free and responsibility that comes with it either. So I'm not concerned with them. Bitcoin and Monero will only ever appeal to a small group of freedom loving individuals (custodians and permissioned use doesnt count i.e. exchanges. I'm talking about really using it). And that's fine. It's a power we didn't have before.

Most don't understand the root of inflation either. It's obvious to us because we are immersed in this stuff and in a bubble. Ask the average Joe on the street and he either doesn't know or doesn't care about that stuff.

Agree that the EU can pound sand. I'm just saying when they get their way, the only escape is non-compliance via black markets (The true free markets). We see this all thru history when government clamps down.

Either way governments are not going down without a fight. Fiat dominance is an existential crisis for them and they'll do every dirty and violent thing they can to maintain it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 6 Oct

"Either way governments are not going down without a fight. Fiat dominance is an existential crisis for them and they'll do every dirty and violent thing they can to maintain it."

Unfortunately I agree with you. I feel like a crazy person... but I think it's clear at this point that government does not want to lose control of their ultimate power - the money supply. A free, independent, international money separate from state power and manipulation (for example the money printer and interest rates) is a really BIG idea. It's a HUGE idea and in my opinion it's desperately needed.

I respect some of what I read about Monero... but here is my issue with it. I was looking at the 'marketplaces' and 'places to spend' Monero - not black market but gray market mostly... and there are still way way fewer places overall than with Bitcoin.

Monero from what I can tell has maybe 1/20th the total number of places to actually spend it - whether it's gift cards, VPNs, software, food, other peer-to-peer items... the Monero market appears really really small compared to Bitcoin's. I don't really care about the black-market stuff I do not use drugs. I'm interested in lawful commerce, just regular goods and services and Bitcoin has way more of that, although it's still uncommon day-to-day. Basically if you want people to trade with and buy and sell - Bitcoin is by far the biggest crypto market nothing else comes close.

In that sense Monero is just so small. If relatively few people know what Bitcoin is much less how to transact in it... way way fewer know anything about Monero. This is part of the discussion going on with Proton Wallet right now - XMR may be more private (maybe) but the network effects pale in comparison with Bitcoin's and most people will never have the skillset or curiosity to even acquire Monero since it was delisted.

I agree that governments are not 'playing fair'... I believe that Bitcoin transcends governments - Bitcoin is not 'underneath' the fiat system. It is its own separate system maybe above Fiat in some ways it really is the 'ultimate' money.

Something I slightly disagree with... is the idea that custodians don't matter. Businesses and institutions cannot legally custody their own coins - at least for right now. To custody them they really need institutions... no it's not self-custody obviously. But it gets them into the game and this is not a black-and-white issue. Some people and organizations need others that are regulated and audited to hold their coins for them so that they can benefit from Bitcoin financially. And impact the Bitcoin market as well.

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