What do I know, I'm just an 80 IQ pleb. I don't know anything.
However here are some logical conclusions, doing as much study as I can.
-
The next ten years will see one of the greatest wealth transfers in history from general no-coiners... to Bitcoiners as it (Bitcoin) becomes a more mainstream financial asset through ETFs, custody solutions, marketing, press coverage, and education.
-
Non proof-of-work financial assets like Dollars, Yen, Euros, as well as non-proof-of-work 'cryptos' will continue to bleed out against Bitcoin. The actual percentage of people with Bitcoin in Western countries is small... single digit percentages maybe very low single digit percentages. Yet eventually everyone will want at least a small exposure to Bitcoin through some financial medium (self-custody being the best)... and there is only so much Bitcoin. It really is scarce.
-
Bitcoin continues to move from 'weaker hands' to 'stronger hands'... as the HODL crowd continues to accumulate and save even during 'price downturns'. Like late 2022/early 2023, nothing fundamentally changed with Bitcoin - but high interest rates and the FTX criminality/crypto scam did a number on public perception for no-coiners and non-Bitcoiners. It was the perfect time to save in Bitcoin if you understood it. I remember reading an article at the time in the NY Times, where a well-known Bitcoiner said "Hey Bitcoin is on sale" and he was right. The NY Times had no idea they didn't understand it (as most people don't now).
3 1/2) This is further evidenced by the buy the rumor/sell the news attitudes of some 'traders' after the ETF approval. They thought BTC was a tradable speculative bubble and they had NO IDEA what they were buying. Sell the ETF approval. Right. How did that work out?
-
Bitcoin is in fact not a "speculative bubble" but a new economic paradigm that will continue to change, and possibly accelerate change, of economic, social, and governmental norms. Distributed proof-of-work is the apex predator financial asset and ultimate Medium of Exchange for countless people. If it isn't today... then it's logical it will be in the future.
-
Bitcoin has unique traits and characteristics that make it a much better store of value (SoV) than traditional real estate, gold, bonds, stocks, or "other" commodities. And YET it is really, really small relative to all those other assets. There are lots of estimations and calculations on Bitcoin's total addressable market... however if Bitcoin captures even a small percentage of all the Bonds, Stocks, Real Estate, relative to its current size... holy crap it would be orders of magnitude larger than it currently is. You are NOT LATE to Bitcoin.
4 1/2) Again, logically you are not late to Bitcoin. Think forward ten years. The vast majority of people know nothing about Bitcoin, and those who 'think they do' roll their eyes, laugh, or call it a pet rock. And if you ask them how many Bitcoin transactions they've made, or what they think about the lightning network they will have no idea what you are talking about. Fee market? No idea. Multisignature wallets? No idea. Public/Private key cryptography? Say what again?
-
Bitcoin is on an unfortunate collision course with government currencies, debt, and inflation. If you want to protect yourself from inflation (which is most of asset/money management anyway) then BUY BITCOIN as it only has so much inflation left, and the inflationary rate is going down over the next 100 years. Disinflationary and 21 million is all you get. AND as more people finally figure this out and allocate to Bitcoin, purchasing power preservation continues but the availability of that Bitcoin isn't necessarily guaranteed. Bitcoin's exchange rate may continue to rise and considerably over the next decade as people realize what Bitcoin is and need it to preserve purchasing power relative to other traditional inferior assets. Stocks, bonds, real estate, CURRENCIES they bleed out relative to Bitcoin over the next decade.
-
Government, especially in Europe, if they wanted to "stop Bitcoin" should have been serious and dedicated to stopping it about a decade ago. Now it seems like they want to 'stop it' and 'tax it'? Are you kidding? Really for real? Stop it now?
6 1/2) See the Capital Gains tax proposals in Italy (46%) and the "self-hosted" wallet regulations in the EU... you're not supposed to 'custody it yourself'. Or 'buy it peer-2-peer' or really use it to buy things. Unreasonable tax requirements and reporting requirements make it very difficult if not impossible to use this way IE as a MoE. Yet the reason it isn't used as a MoE... is the very reason it should be restricted and taxed heavily. Because it's only for criminals. Right. Well I am not a criminal.
It's circular logic and it's bull****.
- It's logical that at some point Bitcoin's use in commerce and trade, even if just online, will increase. Despite taxes and governmental restrictions in the EU, Lightning is generally cheaper, more sovereign, more transparent, and faster to settle than traditional credit cards. Eventually somewhere, somehow businesses will prop up that harness Lightning's low costs for microtransactions... like Stacker News. For podcasts, music, blog articles other online media too. With some imagination you can create all kinds of applications and legitimate businesses that use lightning's lower fees and instant transfer of value... to provide better customer service. A better customer experience. That sounds like a profitable business model to me if it improves on traditional value for value transfer which Lightning does.
Without going on and on... Bitcoin is so incredibly exciting. In 1995 people looked at the internet and it was clunky, slow, hard to use, unreliable, and for complete nerds and tech-people at universities. There were MANY naysayers. Playing games, shopping, banking, email, video-conferences... this was not envisioned by the vast majority of people. The NY Times said the internet would go the way of the Fax Machine. WELL THEY WERE WRONG. 1995's internet was painful and look at where it is today.
Why can't the same thing happen with Bitcoin and Lightning over the next 10-20 years?