Oddbean new post about login | logout This take hurts my heart 💔 nostr:nevent1qqs2sz3p3ejh87daz76z45gqufj00sh4alklq5spxq8scyyq235w4rcpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhsygxfl5vpl4yn2g8wu9kytaz84zmwsjpmyj5f23658m5kthkj3n04pupsgqqqqqqs4d2p4g
Using money as money is a very important use case.
Bitcoin isn’t money. It’s speech. One of Bitcoin’s features is that it behaves like money.
This is my take as well. The most important part is the censorship resistant network. The money is just the side benefit that values the network's throughput.
“Most important part” is subjective here. With a handle like mine, the most important part is its provable scarcity. For the person in Argentina and Venezuela, its freedom from insane inflation rates. For the ex-NSA agent in Russia, it’s censorship resistant to being financially destroyed and cut off from transacting with others. For the father of three whose wife is cheating on him, the father no longer has to give up half of his assets anymore when they divorce. For the energy companies, Bitcoin means that there’s no such thing as “stranded” energy. It’s all subjective, but what isn’t subjective is that it is speech.
Why? Using the paper money to store the harder money for when its needed in the future? I don't see anything wrong with that. I've spent sats to buy a few btc related things but the vast majority is stored for long term savings. Isn't that really the best use case for now?
Without the P2P transfer then what good is Bitcoin to hodl? I think first principle is building an uncensorable value transfer system
Money needs to hold value. Holding value over time is HODLing.
Without economic activity the value is unknown.
Value is subjective. I value my SATs at over 1 dollar per sat. My values are expressed by me not selling for anything less. The market equilibrium is always made up of just a few trades at any given time. Why would everyone have to spend to express their value?
I agree with your valuation but we aren't interacting with the market by hodling. We are just storing economic value for a future interaction. The market equilibrium is exactly the problem. If there was more use of Bitcoin as a currency then you solve the corruption that can happen to the market by small #s of participants trading on exchanges. You also grow the network by making the underlying asset have more usability. Spending dollars adds economic activity to that market making it more usable to merchants because of wider adoption. We have to break the pattern.
To be clear: When I can, I use Bitcoin to spend. Merchant adoption has little to do with store of value though and store of value will remain the most important use until we reach enough density to have a circular economy. I've personally made a POS station for my work which enables us to accept Bitcoin over lightning for our entire menu. But the average customer here is 60 and nobody has demand for that yet. The time will come for medium of exchange but only when >30% of people value it as a store of value.
Why? We the hodlrs are the floor. You should practice HODL once in a while
Why? What do you plan to leave your grandkids?
Because it isn't the most important part of Bitcoin to me and I think this sentiment leads to bad incentives for the network to grow around. I hope to leave them strong values more than anything else but if we're talking what I'd want to leave as an asset then of course Bitcoin.
It's been a forcing function to think long term about decisions. If I plan to hodl as long as my family can, I MUST pass on strong values. I MUST build community and a good reputation therewithin. I don't play stupid games like I used to. I think about my soul and the promise of resurrection through Christ.
I agree to save as much as possible in Bitcoin. I just think losing ourselves to the idea of storing value vs building the best money is a bad mental frame to be in. If we have a dollar in our pocket then we're giving economic activity to the Beast. I think the real value is opting out of the Beast's money altogether.
Store of value precedes all other monetary use cases. This is not the same a greed.
Store of value happened long ago or you wouldn't see a market price. We need more people moving past that step to a medium of exchange much less their own personal unit of account.
I buy coffee with sats. Most people I trade with don't want my sats. They're not incentivized yet because the value stored has not enticed them to consider it as an option.
I disagree on their incentive. Their incentive isn't based on the value of the stored assets, it's based on the number of buyers willing to spend with it. If it was just based on value then you'd expect everyone to be transacting in gold more so than even dollars. This is why the hodl as most important factor hurts my heart so much because it decreases our ability to grow past store of value to build a real economic unit.