Oddbean new post about login | logout My concernns are more near term. If adoption doesn't grow then a circular economy will never happen, it didn't happen in El Salvador and the people were certainly given the opportunity. The store of value has to incentivise new users to buy & hold & that just isn't happening, people are not coming in despite what many maxi's will have us believe. The arguments for being early are over, we are past being early everyone knows about bitcoin it's even on the stock market. I wonder whether we might have reached the end in terms of mass adoption.
But you need to educate yourself, that is the point. And a few are willing to do the job.. For now.
I am educated in this, been in it over seven years & done a lot of learning. Just because you believe in something doesn't mean it will happen & bitcoin cannot succeed without more adoption, that is a fundamental fact & we haven't been getting new adoption so to keep saying "we are early" is just denying that fact. Everybody knows about bitcoin, it is over $1 trillion marketcap but it hss stalled in user growth. You can sit there and tell people to educate themselves but some educated people are beginning to ask if we might have peaked & it's a very reasonable question. It's the same influencers on the conference circuit, on the podcasts etc telling us the same things we heard 5, 6, 7 years ago. If we don't hit $100k (expectations are far higher prices) this bull run what will the reasons be?
I can give you my example: living in a hiperinflationary country like Argentina you star to realize very quickly the valueof of BTC. I started to buy back in 2020 with PESOS!!!! and for me, today, its just work perfectly.
Yes I appreciatethatt & even though the dollar is less infaltionary I did the same. My btc is a lot more valueable to me than the dollars I bought it with. However we are a tiny minority & bitcoin isn't growing. I first bought in 2017 & I don't know a single person who has bought any apart from times in a parabolic move in a bull run & then they stopped & not bought since. For sure bitcoin is more widely known & there's more people holding it since then but the growth is tiny, nothting like the growth spurt of the 1990’s internet the maxi's would have us believe was going to happen.
it's not fully monetized yet, thus cannot be a medium of exchange yet. don't put the cart before the horse
I think bitcoin being a widely used medium of exchange is a dream, just as the idea that bitcoin would replace banks was a dream that I heard repeatedly when I first got into bitcoin.
How does using it as a medium of exchange, change anything? How does replacing banks help you if you already own bitcoin? None of it matters; there are going to be fiat bag holders, and there are those that won’t be. The exit isn’t big enough for everyone. The world where everyone is saved by Bitcoin and no one suffers the consequences of the century of central banking can’t exist.
My point is that bitcoiners might be living in a dream. They certainly believed & definitely hoped to see the banks be replaced by bitcoin & it's my suspicion that bitcoin will not be the widely used MoE that some think it will. It already failed that in El Salvador. There are stories/narratives that bitcoiners hold on to such as "gradually, then suddenly" and "we are so early" to encourage holders to keep their convictions but after seven years I am beginning to question the validity of it all because without further adoption it dies. I will add that I hope I my concerns are unwarrented on this which is why I asked Jeff for his thoughts.
Again, why are you focused on medium of exchange. It is only one function of money, and in today's world the least important. We have a medium of exchange that currently works, for most people; why would Bitcoin replace it already? I use Bitcoin when I need it, and it works. I needed ivermectin and antibiotics, and I wanted some watches from russia. Bitcoin was the only way I could get those things. Adoption is not something that needs to be pushed. People will recognize superior money and choose it over inferior money. Hard money will impoverish those with softer money. It has happened many times through history. Africans, Indians, Chinese, the Yapese... A world where Bitcoin does not impoverish the holders of all soft money and money substitutes seems extremely unlikely.
" The world where everyone is saved by Bitcoin and no one suffers the consequences of the century of central banking can’t exist." This is a perfect example of what I mean. This story has been told over & over for years, you are just repeating it without truly questioning whether it is even feasible. It's a dream that the hodler convinces himself but it cannot happen without adoption.