Oddbean

I’ve heard the argument that we need the institutional investors to come in to pump the price. Idk if that’s true but seems to be the common belief. My concern is that these people want bitcoin to be exactly the way saylor describes it: a store of value, digital property, investment, etc. We want it to be money so we can move on from fiat. But people like Saylor benefit more from Bitcoin when it ISN’T money. What Saylor can do, plebs like us cannot. We can’t get loans at the interest rates that he can: less than 1%. So whenever he takes out a loan and buys Bitcoin, he’s practically guaranteed to win. It’s basically free money. Look at the interest rates we deal with when buying a home or a car. A pleb trying to play the fiat game has to pay 15% or more to take out a loan against his Bitcoin. Remember that they don’t pay taxes on debt. Clearly the system favors people like Saylor so why would the suits give that up? It’s against their own interests. That’s why I think he is against Bitcoin development. He runs a software company, he is well aware of the amount of work it takes to maintain code and fix bugs. That is mostly what Bitcoin core does. I think the problem for Saylor is that Open Sats funds projects like btc pay server, ecash, and Zeus. These are projects that literally undermine the current fiat system. Under a bitcoin standard, Saylor would have to work and/or take on risk to earn more bitcoin. But the current system allows him to just borrow money and let NGU make him richer. And the way the macro environment looks right now, people may look for alternatives in the upcoming years. If Bitcoin is too expensive on the base chain and the second layer solutions are not ready, they will stick with Bitcoin IOUs and keep the fiat system going.

All valid points. He can frame Bitcoin as not a currency but it doesn't stop us using it as one. I think that's the difference. He's preaching a message that suits him and his audience like we all do. Primarily I want Bitcoin to absorb all the fiat capital and neutralise the system, preventing the state from printing money and shrinking it down. Saylor's efforts align with that. There's also an element of don't take the state head on, trojan horse that shit onto everyone's balance sheet then win the battle. The winners dictate terms afterwards.

I’ve considered the trojan argument but that’s hard for me to believe given his history with CIA and the military industrial complex. I just hope bitcoin doesn’t end up being another 401k substitute or s&p500-like asset that normies hold with their employers. What effects will it have on the world if/when they get rugged? How many retail investors are going to take custody of Bitcoin when Saylor doesn’t even custody his own Bitcoin?

Again brother can't fault your logic. I think there will be a group of sovereign individuals who custody our keys and normies will hold it with their bank. I had hoped otherwise but I've seen too many people fail to grasp even the basics. And that's ok imo. Aslong as we keep Bitcoin decentralized and secure we can use it as we need. People will get rugged and will learn or not. This is the natural state of things. Winners and losers.

I 100% agree with you. It’s unfortunate but most people are willfully ignorant and they’re going to get rekt over and over again. But as long as the network keeps pumping out blocks, people like us will be fine because we put in the work to learn how to use these tools.