Oddbean

Bitcoin is flawed on both the layer 1 and 2. On the layer 1, it's not money. Because when someone pays you, there's a good chance that it's mixed, and you can't bring it on an exchange. Now you're saying F the exchange, but even businesses you buy from dump on exchanges. So it creates mad tension when you pay people, and then later their funds are seized. On the layer 2, you need $500 bucks or it's a custodial bank account. It's not logical to say it's decentralized, when there's a high barrier to entry for new people. Under high taxes, it becomes a bigger deal that these custodians can see you're not paying. Also, if the Bitcoin Core team is selling layer 2 solutions through Blockstream, that's a conflict of interest. They profit from the failure.