Oddbean new post about login | logout Bitcoin is the only technology capable of being the world's currency. It has stood the test of time, proven its trustless nature and resilience, and most importantly, it works. We use it every day here. And the idea of a decentralized and versatile world currency is very fascinating to me. It will be the first time we see something like this.
In what sense is Bitcoin currently capable of being the world's currency? Pretty sure we still haven't scaled to that level without significant custody tradeoffs. Potential is a better word than capable as of right now, in my opinion.
You're not wrong but I also happen to believe Bitcoin has built-in auto-scaling. Its incentive system does a great job, and fortunately, its scaling is also very straightforward, involving computing and energy. It's very well designed to scale according to demand.
That's an interesting take. I am not sure what you mean by built-in auto-scaling, nor about scaling being straightforward, involving computing and energy. No matter how much computing and energy is thrown at it, Bitcoin still only has ~144 blocks a day and 1mb/block, not counting witness data. Even self-custody Lightning requires ownership of a UTXO currently, and eCash is a custodial solution, not-self custody. Other options are in the works, and I am sure that incentives will result in even more possible options down the road, as the need arises, but I would still consider that a far cry from "straightforward."