Oddbean

Actually, it's not a failure of Bitcoin or its users that adoption is still low. It's a failure of the 99.9% who trust in a centralized, manipulable monetary system that Bitcoin aims to replace. In both cases, it is about personal freedom and self-determination, not acceptance by the masses.

Hmmm…I wonder why Larry fink (blackrock) and Jamie Dimon (JP Morgan) who are 2 of the greatest market manipulators of all time are so interested in a failed asset all of a sudden?🤔🤷🏽‍♂️ I think the ETF interest by some of the most reputable finance players is a pretty strong endorsement of store of value🤔…as for accepted worldwide currency we’ll see? Jus one idgit’s meandering opinion🌅

that’s what i find interesting, i feel the level of adoption is not significantly different than where we were in 2017. we have many new toys and ETFs, but still nobody wants to use bitcoin as money.

If you have ever attempted to build a distributed system that maintains state across a pool of unknown participants - even on a small scale - you would know said cock is just a mechanism for the transfer of information. Synchronization in nature is bigger than we can conceptualize.

if it wasn't, then how did whiskey and rum become moneys at certain times, and why is tobacco a currency in prisons where money is forbidden these are emergent moneys that were adopted out of need for a money, that used stores of value (all durable goods are inherently a store of value)

bitcoin was a great MoE in the silkroad days, when arguably it was more important as a MoE than SoV. as long as bitcoin is worth >$0, it can be used as money, it does not need to be worth more to do this. but bitcoin is rarely used as money anymore.

well, in those days the payment use case was more viable due to the relatively low transaction demand thus the expensive use case, payment, was viable this is now becoming unviable and shitcoinery is making it more unviable, but we have LN and ecash to help shift payments off chain without weakening the security of the base layer

99% or maybe more of the population don’t make any choices, generally, in life, even about what to buy for dinner. Choices are made for them. I mean there is an illusion of choices but we know they are not real. This is not a criticism or sarcasm, it’s just a fact. Lately there is a lot of posts about bees on Nostr , so using this metaphor here - majority of ppl are worker bees, but just much more lazy. Btw I am not any better , so I am talking about myself as well. Bitcoin has always been offering a way out , an exit from the world of fiat slavery, whether as money or as investment etc. Not relevant at this point. But there is a one huge problem - to enter this exit you are required to make your own decision, spent few thousands of calories on brain work required for an education process and you need to take a risk and full responsibility for your choice and changes that it may bring into your life. That’s it - this is a stopper. Fiat was , is chosen by others for us, it’s imposed and this is the “beauty” of it. You don’t need to make any choices, spent time, efforts on some boring shit, also - the most scary for average person element - you don’t need to take responsibility for anything. You have been assigned a role of a receiver, a forever child, who can complain , scream but doesn’t make any difference, who doesn’t matter. Fiat, inflation ,decreasing level of quality of life, ever rising taxes, dumb and dumber, arrogant and ever more arrogant politicians who don’t even care anymore to pretend that they are any different from criminals - this is all horrible , but you can forever blame on them. With btc , you can’t blame on anyone accept yourself - this is unbearable and unmanageable load . So I am afraid - bitcoin will not make everyone happy. Not in a foreseeable future. Not with the current version of a human being. Same logic I believe is applicable to scalability “problems” of Nostr. Nostr (although a lot is to do and to improve) is not for everyone . If we want to make btc or Nostr for everyone we need to change the core of what makes btc and Nostr so special. But compromise for what, for whom? For those who don’t even care when being robbed, humiliated, lied to on a daily basis? I think that at this moment, taking into account recent developments , we need to focus not on scalability, we need to ensure security and start thinking really seriously about building parallel to fiat circular economy, maybe in a country that favors btc. At this moment we can’t save everyone , it’s like on the plane - we need to ensure that we can save ourselves , then when this ensured - we will think about others. Otherwise they will eat us, and there will be no one to care about freedom or decentralized world in the first place. This is obv imo. And sorry-not sorry for not cheering up blindly, but I am actually optimistic just in an another way.