Oddbean

Explain to me how these institutions are going to control Bitcoin?? Not everyone is going to go full self sovereign cypherpunk even though I agree they should. NGU is necessary for us to build freedom go up tech.

You are going to control utxos that you can't spend anywhere without cumbersome kyc requirements and severe tax burden but not to worry! there will be an alternative that is easy to use and accepted everywhere! deposit your utxos at SaylorBank and you'll get a 10% premium on sBTC! (backed by Bitcoin™️) OR you can just go ahead and transact with plebs directly right now. you don't need NGU for that. freedom is now.

I entirely agree, we have all of the tools to build an entirely p2p circular economy right now and that is the path that I want to take. However, I have no doubt that the first scenario that you described will also be a reality there will be many institutions offering bitcoin products and a lot of people will choose that convenience. Some people will have to learn “not your keys not your coin” the hard way. But I don’t see that as a bad thing, everything has trade offs and ppl will do what they want. But having more coins trapped in these fiat institutions only makes on chain kyc free coins more valuable.

Don't underestimate the number of UTXOs that are going to be captured and the penalties tthat will be levied on those that don't interact with the walled garden system. If Bitcoin is actually successful and becomes a legitimate threat to the banking system, they are going to kill people that don't comply. They aren't going to be "Bitcoin products offered by companies for convenience" They're going to issue paper BTC or some bullshit cbdc instead and self-custody will be de facto criminalized. Although in reality, they probably don't need to take it to that point because 99% of people will voluntarily give up their UTXOs in exchange for convenience and increased purchasing power. Bitcoiners are not preparing for war. They just fantasize about NGU and how rich are they going to be inevitably. Nobody understands how bad the "then they fight you" part is.

I respect that stance, I think Bitcoin needs people like you to call out potential threats. I do agree there is likely harder times ahead of us and the powers that be will not relinquish that power willingly. However, I have hope that most people have more to gain from embracing Bitcoin than fighting it and once we have enough people on our side it will be impossible to fight. Bitcoin was designed to resist nation state level attacks and I find it highly unlikely that the government is going to start executing people for holding their own keys. Don’t forget that the government still derives its power from the citizens and if they push it too far they will lose all of their power. That being said, self custody is a hill that I am willing to die on. I just hope that it doesn’t come to that.🤷🏼‍♂️

I think that is indeed the point. "A sly roundabout way" means we just start using it p2p. Not that we seek the sanction of regulators and legacy systems. Freedom is right now. We don't need a particular USD price point.