Oddbean new post about login | logout This is a great question and actually opens up a whole rabbit hole. The TLDR is as long as the USD is the UoA, accurate pricing is impossible.
It’s really interesting because if Bitcoin is meant for being against the system, I can’t stand when the people with fiat-mindset buy in for “number go up” type of thinking just so they can sell something that is scarce for something that can be printed and backed by nothing. I guess it’s why the entire financial system would have to change for the 1 BTC = 60k USD to be meaningless
I think that's exactly right. On one hand, they want to argue that fiat is a worthless arbitrary measurement system. But on the other hand, they want to argue that somehow the equivalent fiat value increasing means something important. Something-something Trojan horse. When in fact ot is just an indication of regulatory capture. or maybe incentive to regulatory capture.
It is funny though because the people that call themselves Bitcoin maxis and anti-fiat are the first ones to post clickbait because they want to get others excited to buy in and sell it for worthless paper down the line. They can’t have both. Fiat is worthless and continues to be worth less year after year, so pricing a scarce money in USD just doesn’t even make any sense
Price action is mostly VCs and fiat degens aping in in hopes of a return in fiat terms. It's insane that anybody who's interested in freedom money would think it's relevant. In fact, it's actively bad for Bitcoin.
Interesting, yeah. Can you expand on that last part? Bad how, in terms of reputation?
because it's not just about the protocol. Scalability is also about dominant culture surrounding the network. When we scale but what you have is a bunch of NGU de-gens coming in, then there's incentive in a particular direction. For example, I'm pissed off because the NGU priority has meant that there's no good privacy on Bitcoin. In fact, strong privacy is actually against the NGU philosophy, because those big money people won't come in if Bitcoin is antagonistic to government regulation. So we end up in a situation where Bitcoin actually wants to play nice with regulators for the sake of NGU. Either by doing something or by NOT doing something. So we have a situation where it isn't just technical scaling, but it's also cultural social scaling and the direction and incentives involved. Maxis will write it off by just saying that Bitcoin is inevitable, which is just an excuse to rationalize NGU and their fantasies of being the new 1%. </rant>
I don’t have much to say in response because I don’t know much when it gets to this specific topic, but I do think I agree with you. Usually what happens when anything nice is a bunch of people end up ruining it lol. That’s why I don’t mind us gatekeeping Nostr, it’s nice here. I don’t want degenerate incels from Twitter or any other dog shit social media platform to flock here. They can continue to cluelessly cry about censorship completely ignorant to the fact that the solution has already been built.
couldnt you just use any of the other privacy coins if ngu isnt wanted, or even bch? why does bitcoin have to be for privacy? its clear that the price is not related to its privacy benefits, and people that value that, will likely use something different. I'm not trying to say that money shouldnt be private, but just saying bitcoin might not be that anymore. People have bought it more for NGU and will use other things for privacy. also, i dont know much, just pondering 🙃
If the supply is fixed and the ledger is transparent and there's a lot of wealth invested in it then naturally there is a lot of incentive to track value transfer. so chain analysis becomes a billions and billions business. as time proceeds the number of utxos without registered owners only decreases. unless there are strong privacy tools people can use conveniently 😕 It's easy to imagine BTC as becoming a surveillance chain maybe it will have high fiat-denominated "value" but it wouldn't be freedom money. default privacy is an unfortunate necessary condition for freedom.
or does sunk cost fallacy come into play? too invested into bitcoin to leave now and use something else for privacy. or are there just no other good options?
Definitely don’t sell your #Bitcoin. We still like Bitcoin, I love Bitcoin actually. My criticism is mainly directed towards people that are too ignorant to acknowledge that Bitcoin has failed as the money that will solve privacy and anonymity. I’m not afraid to admit that I’m in Bitcoin now specifically for “number go up” because I do agree it’s digital gold and a hedge against inflation. In this shit USD system, it’s definitely the best thing to own, no doubt. On the other hand, we want real political change. Many on here are AnCaps, Crypto anarchists, or minarchists (such as myself). We do not want more Democrat Republican bs. I am a Christian and very libertarian, I value freedom and liberty. That includes private money simply because it’s nobody’s business. For this case, #Monero is the absolute clear winner and it’s not even close. But most people that like Monero also love Bitcoin, just for different reasons. But many people that love Bitcoin (the maxis mainly) are too dumb to realize that Monero solves all of the things that Bitcoin was SUPPOSED to solve, they just don’t like it because “it isn’t Bitcoin” or “Bitcoin is worth more in USD” so they purposely miss this point. They boast about privacy and “not needing a bank” when their Bitcoin is very likely KYC Bitcoin and they’re using a custodial lightning wallet.
Agree 100%. Bitcoin is only being used bc ppl have to use it to get into the crypto market and just like the USD its traceable and hijacked by a very tiny group, thus very centralized in reality. Its not digital gold because its traceable, gold isn't. It has become a digital shitcoin over the years.