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I heard this hot take over the holidays from a family member. He was trying to provoke me (this time I did not bring it up) for he knows I'm anti-alt. He happened to make some money on some other chain. Anyway, we'd had a few beers at this point, and the night was ripe for provocation!
After talking for a bit he said he doesn't trust bitcoin. I was shocked hearing that come from a an altcoiner:
"Bitcoin could be a psy-op designed to drive up demand for fiat and it's only going to benefit the oligarchs."
Basically, he argued that there's no real use case for Bitcoin other than store of value. He also seems to think that because we couldn't order a pizza with Bitcoin that it it's MoE use case is moot.
I told him about lightning payments and how there are already Bitcoin circular economies and marginalized communities using Bitcoin as a vehicle for freedom.
Also, I mentioned that it would be a pretty lousy psy-op that is open-source and determined by consensus of network participants.
I also mentioned how there are people/stackers whom I talked to that live completely on a Bitcoin standard (e.g. Darthcoin)
Obviously, stackers see that bitcoin can be used as an instrument for freedom, because we've seen it play out thanks to people like @anita and @JoeNakamoto.
He saw I am pretty convicted and I think he may have started to question his waywardness. However, I believe, at this point at least, there is perhaps some truth to the fact that most bitcoiners are trading it for fiat when they want to spend. This works against Bitcoin and for the fiat oligarchs.
In sum, bitcoin is winning, bitcoin is young and bitcoin does have the potential to facilitate financial freedom, but we do need to ensure that it is being used so as not to perpetuated fiat debauchery.
Like @DarthCoin puts it in his post: #819271
do not ask yourself what bitcoin can do for you. Ask yourself: what can you do for bitcoin?
I really think stackers get this, so I'm going to appeal to your expertise. Please help him come to the light (I will forward him this post) by responding to this fud in the comments. I put a 1100 sats bounty, which I will award to the top comment just before SN Live streams today (I think 5:30 ET?)
Give me your best!
Feel free to use these questions as prompts:
  1. What would you tell him?
  2. What do stackers think of this fud?
  3. Have I left out an important point?
  4. If you're not living on a Bitcoin standard or otherwise helping people and businesses onboard, then in what other ways are you using Bitcoin as an instrument of freedom?
1,100 sats paid
Fiatrevelation's bounties
All FUD has some sliver of truth or rationality to it, while I would disagree with his stance, I think SoV is a massive TAM, a massive problem that needs to be solved, what greater market is there than being the base layer money and transfer of wealth between all asset classes?
If I were to steelman some of his arguments i'd say
I think Bitcoin could increase demand for fiat, if we reach an end game where countries are racing against time and doing a straight printing to buy Bitcoin. We would have super loose monetary policy by this point because stability of fiat no longer matters.
Oligarchs will benefit from Bitcoin, if you're smart enough to transfer your wealth into the system to secure a portion of the fixed supply, so in a way that is true.
In the end incentives remain in tact, Bitcoin doesn't fix stupid and wealth in the hands of a moron will always transfer towards the smart and productive over a long enough time period, BTC is just going to supercharge financial darwinism and people will blame BTC instead of themselves and try to play the victim.
So let them FUD, i'll take their Sats
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I think Bitcoin could increase demand for fiat, if we reach an end game where countries are racing against time and doing a straight printing to buy Bitcoin. We would have super loose monetary policy by this point because stability of fiat no longer matters.
It seems like you are saying the marginal increase for fiat that of this FUD is negligible until we have this end-game. Or in other words, someone borrowing to buy more bitcoin is just a drop in the bucket in comparison to what is actually possible in terms of the 'generating demand for fiat' line of reasoning.
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Yes, I'm just gaming out what Saylor is doing on a way bigger scale in this scenario, he is issuing debt creating demand for new credit creation, but he is limited in his borrowing capacity, what borrowing limit do countries have?
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Tell him to top up a lightning wallet and go visit Madeira
There are many, many people living here on a Bitcoin standard now
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Is Madeira expensive?
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Well everything is relative but I wouldn't say so
If you live outside Funchal, the cost of living is quite low
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