What do you think of adding a low% of crypto allocation

[LateStarter]

This is just the same "it's no use to me, therefore it's no use to anyone" argument again.

My repeated response is: You're a wealthy westerner with easy access to the strongest currency and most reliable banking services in the world. You don't have a great need/urgency for change.

The world is much bigger than lucky you and your grocer.

well... yes? When it comes to the personal finance decision of "should I get some BTC"; yes I only care about what works for me. I'm glad you at least admit that crypto is pointless for me, and everyone like me. So that would  mean also (I'd bet) every single person on this forum, 99% of reddit etc. Basically all 1.2 billion people living in the developed world. But how many of the crypto-evangelist are "westerners" vs people in the developing world?

I acknowledged, as things stand, Bitcoin has no great use for you as a currency.
It has possible use as an investment / store of value - depending on your outlook.

On the larger claim of "BTC will help oppressed people"...? When I see the Winkelwoss twins, Jack Dorsey and every cryto-bro suddenly show deep, heartwarming concern for the plight of people of sub-Saharan Afrika, when that just so happens to  also align with their personal financial interest...? My eyes rolled so hard I'm still recovering, and I had to pay 14 Eth to my optometrist (oh wait I can't!).

Anyway, the idea that an unregulated, insecure, scam-ridden, technologically complex, slow (just 10 min to pay for that cab ride), expensive to use (what are gas fees up to now?), payment system is supposed to help people who can't afford shoes is obviously laughably stupid. Anyone who's not loaded up on BTC will see that the best solution is to use the systems we have. Hell, dropping dollar bills from orbit would probably be more efficient. I would think this would be obvious, but most people in the developed world aren't poor because "oppressive government take their money", it's because they have no money. In general, dictators take money from those who have it. So yes, I guess if you're an oligarch in an oppressive regime you do have a use for crypto. Congrats! We have a use case! (of course Putin's goons will just take a steel pipe to your knees until you give up your crypto wallet)

If you don't trust the views of rich white guys, what about those of someone closer to the ground ?

What about this, published just a few hours ago: Bitcoin is Hope for Africa featuring Farida Nabourema

Ok I didn't listen to the whole thing, just skipped through what I thought was the relevant section. But all I heard were cryptobro talking points; decentralized, immutable, belongs to everyone, "stable" (LOL!). Nothing about the practical issues of how a nigerian farmer can set up a wallet and pay $50 gas fees and wait 20 min, to sell his harvest to... someone (?) with a currency that swings 20% in a day and is not accepted by his government?

What were you expecting ? Bitcoin is what Bitcoin is - and those are it's much-discussed features that she believes have value in her country and in much of Africa.

Scoff away, but she seems like a pretty smart lady to me, and my guess is she knows far more about what might help her country/continent than you do, or I do.

Can you give us a breakdown on how BTC will help people with no money, . . .

No, I can't. To my knowledge, nobody has suggested it could help people with NO money.

and how these practical problems are solved?

The "practical problems" of "$50" and "gas fees" and "20 mins" are all complete nonsense. No solution required.
Wallets and volatility are specifically addressed in the video.

[GuitarStv]

This is just the same "it's no use to me, therefore it's no use to anyone" argument again.

My repeated response is: You're a wealthy westerner with easy access to the strongest currency and most reliable banking services in the world. You don't have a great need/urgency for change.

The world is much bigger than lucky you and your grocer.

well... yes? When it comes to the personal finance decision of "should I get some BTC"; yes I only care about what works for me. I'm glad you at least admit that crypto is pointless for me, and everyone like me. So that would  mean also (I'd bet) every single person on this forum, 99% of reddit etc. Basically all 1.2 billion people living in the developed world. But how many of the crypto-evangelist are "westerners" vs people in the developing world?

I acknowledged, as things stand, Bitcoin has no great use for you as a currency.
It has possible use as an investment / store of value - depending on your outlook.

On the larger claim of "BTC will help oppressed people"...? When I see the Winkelwoss twins, Jack Dorsey and every cryto-bro suddenly show deep, heartwarming concern for the plight of people of sub-Saharan Afrika, when that just so happens to  also align with their personal financial interest...? My eyes rolled so hard I'm still recovering, and I had to pay 14 Eth to my optometrist (oh wait I can't!).

Anyway, the idea that an unregulated, insecure, scam-ridden, technologically complex, slow (just 10 min to pay for that cab ride), expensive to use (what are gas fees up to now?), payment system is supposed to help people who can't afford shoes is obviously laughably stupid. Anyone who's not loaded up on BTC will see that the best solution is to use the systems we have. Hell, dropping dollar bills from orbit would probably be more efficient. I would think this would be obvious, but most people in the developed world aren't poor because "oppressive government take their money", it's because they have no money. In general, dictators take money from those who have it. So yes, I guess if you're an oligarch in an oppressive regime you do have a use for crypto. Congrats! We have a use case! (of course Putin's goons will just take a steel pipe to your knees until you give up your crypto wallet)

If you don't trust the views of rich white guys, what about those of someone closer to the ground ?

What about this, published just a few hours ago: Bitcoin is Hope for Africa featuring Farida Nabourema

Ok I didn't listen to the whole thing, just skipped through what I thought was the relevant section. But all I heard were cryptobro talking points; decentralized, immutable, belongs to everyone, "stable" (LOL!). Nothing about the practical issues of how a nigerian farmer can set up a wallet and pay $50 gas fees and wait 20 min, to sell his harvest to... someone (?) with a currency that swings 20% in a day and is not accepted by his government?

What were you expecting ? Bitcoin is what Bitcoin is - and those are it's much-discussed features that she believes have value in her country and in much of Africa.

Scoff away, but she seems like a pretty smart lady to me, and my guess is she knows far more about what might help her country/continent than you do, or I do.

Can you give us a breakdown on how BTC will help people with no money, . . .

No, I can't. To my knowledge, nobody has suggested it could help people with NO money.

and how these practical problems are solved?

The "practical problems" of "$50" and "gas fees" and "20 mins" are all complete nonsense. No solution required.
Wallets and volatility are specifically addressed in the video.

I didn't hear any even a half decent attempt to address the concerns of wallets and volatility in the video.  Mostly the volatility response was that the same volatility and devaluation of African currencies that she's hoping will drive people to bitcoin mean that the volatility of bitcoin doesn't matter.  ???

I did hear some total bullshit though.

"[Bitcoin is] a currency that can be moved easily without creating any extra fees and constraints"

Then she goes on to indicate how there are no conversion fees changing from her currency (franc) to bitcoin because it's "free money, and independent currency, a currency that's not created specifically to control people".

She indicates that 70% of the people in her country do not have bank accounts, and thus would be perfect to convert over to using bitcoin.  But she completely glosses over the little point of exactly how to do this.  How are they going to convert their current cash holdings into bitcoin?  Can't transfer funds from their bank, obviously.  Later there's mention of magical technologies that will allow people without phone or computer access to easily and safely access bitcoin without risk.  I'd like to hear a lot more about that though, since it sounds like bullshit but no further discussion involved that point.  Instead she just says that bitcoin is like internet and electricity.  And we leave it there.

She also doesn't address how the people who move their fortunes over to bitcoin are supposed to pay their taxes.  Or buy groceries.  Or buy anything, since bitcoin isn't commonly accepted anywhere in the country.  I guess the theory is that everyone will instantly switch over nationally?

She also talks about how a huge problem for these African countries is that they can't pay their international debts.  They don't produce anything of value, so can't generate the money needed to pay their loans.  That's what's causing the devaluation of their currencies.  But she just ignores this completely in relation to bitcoin.  How does bitcoin fix these debts?  Well, it doesn't.  So the fundamental problem causing the poorness remains.

She talks about how people in Africa now are buying land and cattle to transfer wealth to their children and hopes that they'll change from doing this to something so much safer and better protected - bitcoin.  But she doesn't even address the theft and fraud so common with bitcoin wallets.

She's super excited about getting Africa into the environmental destruction required to mine bitcoin.  Doesn't seem to be aware the mining bitcoin will end and is not a long term thing.  She also (completely without evidence) says that bitcoin is much better for the environment than all other banking systems.

This goes on and on.



This is one of the most painfully stupid things I've ever sat through.  It's hard to imagine any reasonable person being swayed by this.  Was your post intended as a joke response?

[Telecaster]

Most people ? However you view it, a very large number of people are poorly served by existing financial and political systems.


2021 Democracy_Index
Type of regime         Countries     World population (%)
Full democracies           21 (13%)        6%
Flawed democracies      53 (32%)       39%
Hybrid regimes             34 (20%)       17%
Authoritarian regimes    59 (35%)       37%


"A global comparison by Global Finance (2021) saw that in the Middle East and Africa 50% of the population is financially excluded, with South and Central America nearing 38%, Eastern Europe at 33% and Asia Pacific at 24%."


https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/corruption-index

So large total addressable market for Bitcoin then.   I've used part of this anecdote before, so forgive the repeat but it is relevant here.  In the late 2000s Vodaphone observed their Kenyan customers were send and receiving lots of cell phone minutes, basically using it as a form of currency.   So Vodaphone cooked up a service called M-Pesa where their customers could send and receive actual money, and even get cash at Vodaphone stores and other locations.   It was a big hit and in just a few years M-Pesa had millions of customers and began to spread to other countries.  In 2022, M-Pesa had 52 million customers who made $19 billion in transactions.

Imitators followed and now mobile money is huge in Africa.  There are something like 500 million unique users who made nearly $700 billion in transactions last year, just in Africa.

https://www.statista.com/topics/6770/mobile-money-in-africa/#topicOverview

Clearly, this explosive growth demonstrates there a huge demand to send and receive money on mobile devices outside the traditional banking system.   But we're not seeing this S-type disruption happening with Bitcoin. 

[MustacheAndaHalf]

... you forgot the kicker, it’s an open source technology that can be easily and cheaply replaced at any time with another coin/token if people so desire

Not "if people desire", but if a majority of the blockchain nodes switch, which is by design.  If you create a few computers running your own blockchain, you are one of thousands of tiny coins that are mostly scams.  I hope people ignore that.

If you instead run alternate software and mine BTC, your version of the open source software needs to have the same results as the rest of the blockchain.  If you do something different, the rest of the blockchain will fail to verify your contribution.  You will be wasting electricity just to be ignored by the rest of the blockchain.

[blue_green_sparks]

Bitcoin swings more, but it sure does move with the stock markets. I don't understand the correlation other than the market gives bitcoiners economic forecast perhaps?

[Scandium]

This is just the same "it's no use to me, therefore it's no use to anyone" argument again.

My repeated response is: You're a wealthy westerner with easy access to the strongest currency and most reliable banking services in the world. You don't have a great need/urgency for change.

The world is much bigger than lucky you and your grocer.

well... yes? When it comes to the personal finance decision of "should I get some BTC"; yes I only care about what works for me. I'm glad you at least admit that crypto is pointless for me, and everyone like me. So that would  mean also (I'd bet) every single person on this forum, 99% of reddit etc. Basically all 1.2 billion people living in the developed world. But how many of the crypto-evangelist are "westerners" vs people in the developing world?

I acknowledged, as things stand, Bitcoin has no great use for you as a currency.
It has possible use as an investment / store of value - depending on your outlook.

On the larger claim of "BTC will help oppressed people"...? When I see the Winkelwoss twins, Jack Dorsey and every cryto-bro suddenly show deep, heartwarming concern for the plight of people of sub-Saharan Afrika, when that just so happens to  also align with their personal financial interest...? My eyes rolled so hard I'm still recovering, and I had to pay 14 Eth to my optometrist (oh wait I can't!).

Anyway, the idea that an unregulated, insecure, scam-ridden, technologically complex, slow (just 10 min to pay for that cab ride), expensive to use (what are gas fees up to now?), payment system is supposed to help people who can't afford shoes is obviously laughably stupid. Anyone who's not loaded up on BTC will see that the best solution is to use the systems we have. Hell, dropping dollar bills from orbit would probably be more efficient. I would think this would be obvious, but most people in the developed world aren't poor because "oppressive government take their money", it's because they have no money. In general, dictators take money from those who have it. So yes, I guess if you're an oligarch in an oppressive regime you do have a use for crypto. Congrats! We have a use case! (of course Putin's goons will just take a steel pipe to your knees until you give up your crypto wallet)

If you don't trust the views of rich white guys, what about those of someone closer to the ground ?

What about this, published just a few hours ago: Bitcoin is Hope for Africa featuring Farida Nabourema

Ok I didn't listen to the whole thing, just skipped through what I thought was the relevant section. But all I heard were cryptobro talking points; decentralized, immutable, belongs to everyone, "stable" (LOL!). Nothing about the practical issues of how a nigerian farmer can set up a wallet and pay $50 gas fees and wait 20 min, to sell his harvest to... someone (?) with a currency that swings 20% in a day and is not accepted by his government?

What were you expecting ? Bitcoin is what Bitcoin is - and those are it's much-discussed features that she believes have value in her country and in much of Africa.

Scoff away, but she seems like a pretty smart lady to me, and my guess is she knows far more about what might help her country/continent than you do, or I do.

Can you give us a breakdown on how BTC will help people with no money, . . .

No, I can't. To my knowledge, nobody has suggested it could help people with NO money.

and how these practical problems are solved?

The "practical problems" of "$50" and "gas fees" and "20 mins" are all complete nonsense. No solution required.
Wallets and volatility are specifically addressed in the video.

I didn't hear any even a half decent attempt to address the concerns of wallets and volatility in the video.  Mostly the volatility response was that the same volatility and devaluation of African currencies that she's hoping will drive people to bitcoin mean that the volatility of bitcoin doesn't matter.  ???

I did hear some total bullshit though.

"[Bitcoin is] a currency that can be moved easily without creating any extra fees and constraints"

Then she goes on to indicate how there are no conversion fees changing from her currency (franc) to bitcoin because it's "free money, and independent currency, a currency that's not created specifically to control people".

She indicates that 70% of the people in her country do not have bank accounts, and thus would be perfect to convert over to using bitcoin.  But she completely glosses over the little point of exactly how to do this.  How are they going to convert their current cash holdings into bitcoin?  Can't transfer funds from their bank, obviously.  Later there's mention of magical technologies that will allow people without phone or computer access to easily and safely access bitcoin without risk.  I'd like to hear a lot more about that though, since it sounds like bullshit but no further discussion involved that point.  Instead she just says that bitcoin is like internet and electricity.  And we leave it there.

She also doesn't address how the people who move their fortunes over to bitcoin are supposed to pay their taxes.  Or buy groceries.  Or buy anything, since bitcoin isn't commonly accepted anywhere in the country.  I guess the theory is that everyone will instantly switch over nationally?

She also talks about how a huge problem for these African countries is that they can't pay their international debts.  They don't produce anything of value, so can't generate the money needed to pay their loans.  That's what's causing the devaluation of their currencies.  But she just ignores this completely in relation to bitcoin.  How does bitcoin fix these debts?  Well, it doesn't.  So the fundamental problem causing the poorness remains.

She talks about how people in Africa now are buying land and cattle to transfer wealth to their children and hopes that they'll change from doing this to something so much safer and better protected - bitcoin.  But she doesn't even address the theft and fraud so common with bitcoin wallets.

She's super excited about getting Africa into the environmental destruction required to mine bitcoin.  Doesn't seem to be aware the mining bitcoin will end and is not a long term thing.  She also (completely without evidence) says that bitcoin is much better for the environment than all other banking systems.

This goes on and on.



This is one of the most painfully stupid things I've ever sat through.  It's hard to imagine any reasonable person being swayed by this.  Was your post intended as a joke response?

WOw! I didn't think anyone would watch that whole thing, good on you! Yes I also just heard a lot of buzzwords and little substance, surprise! Were coming up on 10 years now (?) of lofty promises, libertarian BS, "soon", etc of how this will revolutionize ... something..? somehow..? This week it crypto is great for: poor people/refugees/investors/oligarchs/oppressed populations > take your pick. We promise it's better than any alternative, we'll let you know how exactly anyday now..
A quick google indicate the interviewer is a prolific crypto-shill.

[JAYSLOL]

... you forgot the kicker, it’s an open source technology that can be easily and cheaply replaced at any time with another coin/token if people so desire

Not "if people desire", but if a majority of the blockchain nodes switch, which is by design.  If you create a few computers running your own blockchain, you are one of thousands of tiny coins that are mostly scams.  I hope people ignore that.

If you instead run alternate software and mine BTC, your version of the open source software needs to have the same results as the rest of the blockchain.  If you do something different, the rest of the blockchain will fail to verify your contribution.  You will be wasting electricity just to be ignored by the rest of the blockchain.

I’m not talking about trying to hack the blockchain with my own Bitcoin, I’m saying anyone can make their own version of crypto.  So why would people 100% stick to the one that has arguably the worst ability to be an actual currency and  some of the highest energy usage?   Even though an identical coin (or better) can be created at any time by almost anyone that does the same function and doesn’t have to be a scam, even though of course that’s mostly what people use crypto for. 

We’ve already been through all this and it looks like we are just going to go in circles with crypto promoters.  Crypto people say “by bitcoin, it’s the best it’s going to take over the world”, then as even a tiny fraction of adoption happens we can easily see it isn’t remotely suited for widespread adoption as a currency, bring that up, and Crypto people go “whoa, you don’t have to worry about that, that’s just bitcoin, Crypto is bigger than just bitcoin”, and then we get 5+ years of the biggest bull run of scams the world has ever seen in shitcoins and pump and dumps and NFTs and shady exchanges and hacks, and Crypto people go “well, what do you expect, you should have just stuck with the trusted Bitcoin this whole time, it’s great and it’s going to take over the world”.  Uh, no.  It literally can’t as a currency for reasons discussed over and over, so I’m not going to bet on that.  “But crypto is bigger than bitcoin”…. and round and round we go. 

[ChpBstrd]

We’ve already been through all this and it looks like we are just going to go in circles with crypto promoters.  Crypto people say “by bitcoin, it’s the best it’s going to take over the world”, then as even a tiny fraction of adoption happens we can easily see it isn’t remotely suited for widespread adoption as a currency, bring that up, and Crypto people go “whoa, you don’t have to worry about that, that’s just bitcoin, Crypto is bigger than just bitcoin”, and then we get 5+ years of the biggest bull run of scams the world has ever seen in shitcoins and pump and dumps and NFTs and shady exchanges and hacks, and Crypto people go “well, what do you expect, you should have just stuck with the trusted Bitcoin this whole time, it’s great and it’s going to take over the world”.  Uh, no.  It literally can’t as a currency for reasons discussed over and over, so I’m not going to bet on that.  “But crypto is bigger than bitcoin”…. and round and round we go.

An excellent point, and well-stated.

Perhaps a follow-up question is why Bitcoin is still the most popular coin, despite being inferior? Certainly the inferior product sometimes wins due to marketing (i.e. Betamax vs VHS) but why would this be the case with something supposedly decentralized, where there's no one organization to do the marketing?*

If crypto were an open market of ideas for solving financial problems, wouldn't the more competent options for solving the problems rise to the surface as they were developed? If crypto were a technology, wouldn't it develop, get better, and see waves of new products replacing the old products in popularity?

It seems to be neither a solution-driven market nor a technology.

*There is a media ecosystem of shills, but they could easily switch to shilling a technically superior cryptocoin if they wanted to. So why don't they? Aren't they worried about holding onto yesterday's tech?

[JAYSLOL]

We’ve already been through all this and it looks like we are just going to go in circles with crypto promoters.  Crypto people say “by bitcoin, it’s the best it’s going to take over the world”, then as even a tiny fraction of adoption happens we can easily see it isn’t remotely suited for widespread adoption as a currency, bring that up, and Crypto people go “whoa, you don’t have to worry about that, that’s just bitcoin, Crypto is bigger than just bitcoin”, and then we get 5+ years of the biggest bull run of scams the world has ever seen in shitcoins and pump and dumps and NFTs and shady exchanges and hacks, and Crypto people go “well, what do you expect, you should have just stuck with the trusted Bitcoin this whole time, it’s great and it’s going to take over the world”.  Uh, no.  It literally can’t as a currency for reasons discussed over and over, so I’m not going to bet on that.  “But crypto is bigger than bitcoin”…. and round and round we go.

An excellent point, and well-stated.

Perhaps a follow-up question is why Bitcoin is still the most popular coin, despite being inferior? Certainly the inferior product sometimes wins due to marketing (i.e. Betamax vs VHS) but why would this be the case with something supposedly decentralized, where there's no one organization to do the marketing?*

If crypto were an open market of ideas for solving financial problems, wouldn't the more competent options for solving the problems rise to the surface as they were developed? If crypto were a technology, wouldn't it develop, get better, and see waves of new products replacing the old products in popularity?

It seems to be neither a solution-driven market nor a technology.

*There is a media ecosystem of shills, but they could easily switch to shilling a technically superior cryptocoin if they wanted to. So why don't they? Aren't they worried about holding onto yesterday's tech?

Because Betamax and vhs weren’t sold as investments to people with the promise to get rich, they needed advertising dollars to back promotion, because nobody in their right mind would run around preaching about how much they love VHS and that it’s going to change the world if they weren’t paid to.  Bitcoin on the other hand, while decentralized, is treated as an investment, so no organization or advertising dollars are required for people to run around preaching the crypto gospel. 
Why don’t people switch to a superior coin?  As long as public backlash to crypto is aimed at the shitcoin scams, NFT scams, hacks and exchange collapses rather than at Bitcoins inadequacy as what it’s promoted to being, people will stick with Bitcoin, and when that flips and and people face the truth of Bitcoin’s inadequacy, then crypto promoters and people that follow them will flip back to whatever Shiny New Alt Coins and Web 3.0 Super Hyped Blockchain Whatevers promise to fix all that and still be an investment to the moon, and when that all turns out to be even more of a scam than Bitcoin, well, you know the cycle

[GuitarStv]

The value of crypto is entirely driven by the number of people you can sell that crypto to.  Bitcoin is the most popular crypto because it was the first.  Being the first, it had the most people who initially became involved in it and had the largest market of greater fools to sell to.  That momentum is still the single greatest driving force behind it's acceptance.

[YttriumNitrate]

Perhaps a follow-up question is why Bitcoin is still the most popular coin, despite being inferior?

I would argue that it's not inferior for its main use today of being a mechanism for betting, or being "a store of value" in tech bro speak.

[Telecaster]

I used to make that same argument, but as I thought about it I concluded the first mover advantage is a legitimate explanation.  The more people who use a particular currency,  then more people will want or need to use it.    Any replacement would have to have some clear advantage. 

But that is also an argument against Bitcoin and crypto in general.  For most people the traditional banking system works just fine.  Bitcoin is actually harder.   There is no need to switch.

 I watched a portion of the video @LateStarter posted.  The interviewee was a political activist from Togo living in exile.  She uses Bitcoin as a way to send money to other political activists.   That sounds like a good use case--but the TAM is pretty small.  She waved away the volatility issue by saying some currencies are even more volatile.  But Togo's currency, the West African Franc, isn't one of those.   It is pretty stable, comparable to the dollar or Euro.   If political activists were saving their Bitcoin for something, they lost a lot of purchasing power.  Even for them, Bitcoin isn't an ideal solution.

[EverythingisNew]

Cathy Wood says Bitcoin could hit $1.5 million by 2030

[seattlecyclone]

Tell me...in which countries does more than 1% of the population routinely use Bitcoin to purchase food?

I don't know. Maybe none. Ask me again in 2 years.

I'm not claiming rampant adoption anywhere . .

Lol. Bitcoin has been around for 14 years. What bloody difference is another two going to make? Back when the technology was actually new I was absolutely willing to entertain the idea that it might find a common use case in (legal) commerce. It has had plenty of opportunity. While Bitcoin has found no shortage of speculators it's still searching for actual users.

[JAYSLOL]

Cathy Wood says Bitcoin could hit $1.5 million by 2030

I don’t know who that is, but the name Cathy Wood sounds like the kind of made up name WhatsApp and Telegram scammers spam the YouTube comments section with lol. 

<insert non-controversial word-salad comment from a spam account about investing>
First reply - Yes the key to financial success is to have a good guide
Second reply - Yes, I use Ms Cathy Wood, I gained $180,000 in four months with my initial $15,000 investment with her. 
Third reply - Wow, I have heard much good things about Ms Cathy Wood from many people

and on and on it goes lol.  I can’t believe people fall for that crap, and I also can’t believe YouTube hasn’t bothered to block them, but I guess since at least half of paid ads across social media are various degrees of scams and they don’t seem to care, then it makes sense they really don’t care what’s in the comments.

[JAYSLOL]

The value of crypto is entirely driven by the number of people you can sell that crypto to.  Bitcoin is the most popular crypto because it was the first.  Being the first, it had the most people who initially became involved in it and had the largest market of greater fools to sell to.  That momentum is still the single greatest driving force behind it's acceptance.

Sooo… a decentralized Ponzi scheme. 

[EverythingisNew]

Cathy Wood says Bitcoin could hit $1.5 million by 2030

I don’t know who that is, but the name Cathy Wood sounds like the kind of made up name WhatsApp and Telegram scammers spam the YouTube comments section with lol. 

<insert non-controversial word-salad comment from a spam account about investing>
First reply - Yes the key to financial success is to have a good guide
Second reply - Yes, I use Ms Cathy Wood, I gained $180,000 in four months with my initial $15,000 investment with her. 
Third reply - Wow, I have heard much good things about Ms Cathy Wood from many people

and on and on it goes lol.  I can’t believe people fall for that crap, and I also can’t believe YouTube hasn’t bothered to block them, but I guess since at least half of paid ads across social media are various degrees of scams and they don’t seem to care, then it makes sense they really don’t care what’s in the comments.

Oops I spelled her name wrong: Cathie Wood. She is all over the news because she is a female investor. Her fund is Ark Invest (ARKK). I always find her advice and stock picks to be idiotic.

[Telecaster]

Cathy Wood says Bitcoin could hit $1.5 million by 2030

Let's look at the five year performance of her flagship ETF, ARKK vs. the Nasdaq index

Nasdaq:  78.9%
AARK:   -0.2%

I'm not sure Cathie Woods is a good source of investment advice. 
____________

Edit:  I thought you were being serious!    I'll just leave this up there. 

[GuitarStv]

The value of crypto is entirely driven by the number of people you can sell that crypto to.  Bitcoin is the most popular crypto because it was the first.  Being the first, it had the most people who initially became involved in it and had the largest market of greater fools to sell to.  That momentum is still the single greatest driving force behind it's acceptance.

Sooo… a decentralized Ponzi scheme.

You're not supposed to remark on the nakedness of the emperor.

[ChpBstrd]

I used to make that same argument, but as I thought about it I concluded the first mover advantage is a legitimate explanation.  The more people who use a particular currency,  then more people will want or need to use it.    Any replacement would have to have some clear advantage. 

First mover advantage seems to work best with brand names, which is perhaps the primary thing Bitcoin is. That's why we still tend to think "Tide" for laundry detergent and "Ziplock" for resealable plastic bags.

For a technology, however, the new tends to displace the old. Yahoo! was the first mover in the search engine space, but they were quickly replaced by Google. MySpace was early to the social media game, but they were quickly replaced by Facebook, which is now being replaced by TikTok. So Bitcoin more resembles a brand than a technology.

Bitcoin is turning 14 this year, has yet to be adopted by basically anyone for trade, and there are thousands of competing cryptocurrencies out there. Yet we're still talking about the Bitcoin brand.

There are unbranded products, but Bitcoin might be the world's first brand without a product.

[LateStarter]

Tell me...in which countries does more than 1% of the population routinely use Bitcoin to purchase food?

I don't know. Maybe none. Ask me again in 2 years.

I'm not claiming rampant adoption anywhere . .

Lol. Bitcoin has been around for 14 years. What bloody difference is another two going to make? Back when the technology was actually new I was absolutely willing to entertain the idea that it might find a common use case in (legal) commerce. It has had plenty of opportunity. While Bitcoin has found no shortage of speculators it's still searching for actual users.

Routine use of Bitcoin to purchase food requires Lightning. Lightning hasn't been around for 14 years, it's still pretty new but it's developing fast. I think there's a pretty good chance that progress will be quite visible in 2 years - in developing nations.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Tell me...in which countries does more than 1% of the population routinely use Bitcoin to purchase food?

I don't know. Maybe none. Ask me again in 2 years.

I'm not claiming rampant adoption anywhere . .

Lol. Bitcoin has been around for 14 years. What bloody difference is another two going to make? Back when the technology was actually new I was absolutely willing to entertain the idea that it might find a common use case in (legal) commerce. It has had plenty of opportunity. While Bitcoin has found no shortage of speculators it's still searching for actual users.

Did you know about Bitcoin 14 years ago?  No, it was a hobby / computer program on one person's computers. If you go back that far you need to acknowledge how far it came from then.  I would interject my view from an earlier post, that mainstream awareness is only about 5 years old.

When did mainstream awareness of Bitcoin start?  My approach tracks each time its market cap rose 10x.  The data from this link [1] goes back to 2013, the year Greyscale Bitcoin Trust was created, when Bitcoin had a $1 billion market cap (which is the number of BTC that exist times their price in USD).  My take is that Bitcoin awareness (mostly hatred) has been around about 5 years.

Oct 2016 : reaches $10 billion
Nov 2017 : reaches $100 billion
2021-2022 : some spiking above $1 trillion

[1]
https://www.globaldata.com/data-insights/financial-services/bitcoins-market-capitalization-history/

[MustacheAndaHalf]

... you forgot the kicker, it’s an open source technology that can be easily and cheaply replaced at any time with another coin/token if people so desire

Not "if people desire", but if a majority of the blockchain nodes switch, which is by design.  If you create a few computers running your own blockchain, you are one of thousands of tiny coins that are mostly scams.  I hope people ignore that.

If you instead run alternate software and mine BTC, your version of the open source software needs to have the same results as the rest of the blockchain.  If you do something different, the rest of the blockchain will fail to verify your contribution.  You will be wasting electricity just to be ignored by the rest of the blockchain.

I’m not talking about trying to hack the blockchain with my own Bitcoin, I’m saying anyone can make their own version of crypto.  So why would people 100% stick to the one that has arguably the worst ability to be an actual currency and  some of the highest energy usage?   Even though an identical coin (or better) can be created at any time by almost anyone that does the same function and doesn’t have to be a scam, even though of course that’s mostly what people use crypto for. 

We’ve already been through all this and it looks like we are just going to go in circles with crypto promoters.  Crypto people say “by bitcoin, it’s the best it’s going to take over the world”, then as even a tiny fraction of adoption happens we can easily see it isn’t remotely suited for widespread adoption as a currency, bring that up, and Crypto people go “whoa, you don’t have to worry about that, that’s just bitcoin, Crypto is bigger than just bitcoin”, and then we get 5+ years of the biggest bull run of scams the world has ever seen in shitcoins and pump and dumps and NFTs and shady exchanges and hacks, and Crypto people go “well, what do you expect, you should have just stuck with the trusted Bitcoin this whole time, it’s great and it’s going to take over the world”.  Uh, no.  It literally can’t as a currency for reasons discussed over and over, so I’m not going to bet on that.  “But crypto is bigger than bitcoin”…. and round and round we go.

To your first paragraph, on creating new coins to compete with Bitcoin, that has been done literally thousands of times [1].  This is not something new.

Your second paragraph is filled with things I never said.  You can read what I said, not "Crypto people say".  Where did I say "by bitcoin" or "it’s going to take over the world"?  Can you quote any of the things you discuss in your second paragraph, or are you just inventing things to argue with yourself?

[1]
https://coinmarketcap.com/?page=89

[LateStarter]

I didn't hear any even a half decent attempt to address the concerns of wallets and volatility in the video.  Mostly the volatility response was that the same volatility and devaluation of African currencies that she's hoping will drive people to bitcoin mean that the volatility of bitcoin doesn't matter.  ???

I did hear some total bullshit though.

"[Bitcoin is] a currency that can be moved easily without creating any extra fees and constraints"

Then she goes on to indicate how there are no conversion fees changing from her currency (franc) to bitcoin [No she didn't - she said no such thing] because it's "free money, and independent currency, a currency that's not created specifically to control people".

She indicates that 70% of the people in her country do not have bank accounts, and thus would be perfect to convert over to using bitcoin.  But she completely glosses over the little point of exactly how to do this.  How are they going to convert their current cash holdings into bitcoin?  Can't transfer funds from their bank, obviously.  Later there's mention of magical technologies that will allow people without phone or computer access to easily and safely access bitcoin without risk. [No there's not - there's no mention of any such thing]  I'd like to hear a lot more about that though, since it sounds like bullshit but no further discussion involved that point.  Instead she just says that bitcoin is like internet and electricity.  And we leave it there.

She also doesn't address how the people who move their fortunes over to bitcoin are supposed to pay their taxes.  Or buy groceries.  Or buy anything, since bitcoin isn't commonly accepted anywhere in the country.  I guess the theory is that everyone will instantly switch over nationally? [No, there was no suggestion of immediate total adoption - people will still have fiat]

She also talks about how a huge problem for these African countries is that they can't pay their international debts.  They don't produce anything of value, so can't generate the money needed to pay their loans.  That's what's causing the devaluation of their currencies.  But she just ignores this completely in relation to bitcoin.  How does bitcoin fix these debts?  Well, it doesn't.  So the fundamental problem causing the poorness remains. [No. Nobody claimed Bitcoin was a panacea for ALL ills. What is ?]

She talks about how people in Africa now are buying land and cattle to transfer wealth to their children and hopes that they'll change from doing this to something so much safer and better protected - bitcoin.  But she doesn't even address the theft and fraud so common with bitcoin wallets.

She's super excited about getting Africa into the environmental destruction [No, not so] required to mine bitcoin [with sustainable solar and hydro, and bringing electricity to those that have never had it].  Doesn't seem to be aware the mining bitcoin will end and is not a long term thing [No. Bitcoin rewards will end but 'mining' will continue].  She also (completely without evidence) says that bitcoin is much better for the environment than all other banking systems.

This goes on and on.

This is one of the most painfully stupid things I've ever sat through.  It's hard to imagine any reasonable person being swayed by this.  Was your post intended as a joke response?

With respect, the above post does not demonstrate intellectual curiosity and is in no way an attempt to argue in good faith. It's very easy to construct strawmen or plain make stuff up but that's not intelligent discussion. It's little more than school playground name-calling.

It is commonly asked in this topic "if Bitcoin's so great, why is it taking so long ?". I would suggest it's at least partly because the subject has become so emotive, and rational discussion is very difficult.
In the wider world, the major media outlets are generally very negative about it - a search for "Bitcoin [major news outlet of your choice]" on Google News calls up a long list of tales about scams and losses and environmental outrage. That's all that most people see, and that's all they know about it, and Bitcoin=crypto=dogCoins=FTX=monkeyjpegs=cryptoBros=haveFunStayingPoor, etc. - it all looks the same, so the default attitude is to be very suspicious and/or hate on it. I guess that's just how it is - no point in sweating over it.
Closer to home, I'm genuinely surprised at how difficult it has been to have respectful and rational discussion about it here - with the open-minded, norm-challenging and generally pretty smart MMM gang.

Credit where it's due, the anti-Bitcoin campaign has, so far, been very effective.

On the plus side, Bitcoin doesn't care. It keeps churning away, quietly expanding and advancing, applications keep developing and improving, . . .

[JAYSLOL]

... you forgot the kicker, it’s an open source technology that can be easily and cheaply replaced at any time with another coin/token if people so desire

Not "if people desire", but if a majority of the blockchain nodes switch, which is by design.  If you create a few computers running your own blockchain, you are one of thousands of tiny coins that are mostly scams.  I hope people ignore that.

If you instead run alternate software and mine BTC, your version of the open source software needs to have the same results as the rest of the blockchain.  If you do something different, the rest of the blockchain will fail to verify your contribution.  You will be wasting electricity just to be ignored by the rest of the blockchain.

I’m not talking about trying to hack the blockchain with my own Bitcoin, I’m saying anyone can make their own version of crypto.  So why would people 100% stick to the one that has arguably the worst ability to be an actual currency and  some of the highest energy usage?   Even though an identical coin (or better) can be created at any time by almost anyone that does the same function and doesn’t have to be a scam, even though of course that’s mostly what people use crypto for. 

We’ve already been through all this and it looks like we are just going to go in circles with crypto promoters.  Crypto people say “by bitcoin, it’s the best it’s going to take over the world”, then as even a tiny fraction of adoption happens we can easily see it isn’t remotely suited for widespread adoption as a currency, bring that up, and Crypto people go “whoa, you don’t have to worry about that, that’s just bitcoin, Crypto is bigger than just bitcoin”, and then we get 5+ years of the biggest bull run of scams the world has ever seen in shitcoins and pump and dumps and NFTs and shady exchanges and hacks, and Crypto people go “well, what do you expect, you should have just stuck with the trusted Bitcoin this whole time, it’s great and it’s going to take over the world”.  Uh, no.  It literally can’t as a currency for reasons discussed over and over, so I’m not going to bet on that.  “But crypto is bigger than bitcoin”…. and round and round we go.

To your first paragraph, on creating new coins to compete with Bitcoin, that has been done literally thousands of times [1].  This is not something new.

Your second paragraph is filled with things I never said.  You can read what I said, not "Crypto people say".  Where did I say "by bitcoin" or "it’s going to take over the world"?  Can you quote any of the things you discuss in your second paragraph, or are you just inventing things to argue with yourself?

[1]
https://coinmarketcap.com/?page=89

Yes I know all about the many thousands of alt coins available, that’s why I brought it up.
Yes I’m not literally quoting you in particular.  Never said I was.  My problem is I hear people moving the goal posts of the rationalization for crypto.  So, if you want to clarify your opinions so I’m not misquoting or lumping you in with what I hear from a lot of crypto folks, I’d love to hear you (and also others) share beliefs on the following
- Is Bitcoin the cryptocurrency you are betting your own money on?  Why or why not?
- If Bitcoin is not what you bet your own money on, what crypto is?  And why?
- Is the value of crypto in the utility of blockchain technology or in the value of the coins themselves? 
- Is Crypto predominantly a technology or a get rich scheme? 
- If Crypto is a technology and NOT a get rich scheme, why invest in a particular coin?  Because of future market adoption and therefore demand?  Or? 
- If Crypto is a technology and NOT a get rich scheme, why would people not switch to a superior coin or blockchain system over an established but inferior one when available? 
- If Crypto is a technology and NOT a get rich scheme, why is there more emphasis on Bitcoin and other “investment” cryptocurrencies over the utility that stablecoins or other non-investment focused cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology could offer?

[Scandium]

With respect, the above post does not demonstrate intellectual curiosity and is in no way an attempt to argue in good faith. It's very easy to construct strawmen or plain make stuff up but that's not intelligent discussion. It's little more than school playground name-calling.

It is commonly asked in this topic "if Bitcoin's so great, why is it taking so long ?". I would suggest it's at least partly because the subject has become so emotive, and rational discussion is very difficult.
In the wider world, the major media outlets are generally very negative about it - a search for "Bitcoin [major news outlet of your choice]" on Google News calls up a long list of tales about scams and losses and environmental outrage. That's all that most people see, and that's all they know about it, and Bitcoin=crypto=dogCoins=FTX=monkeyjpegs=cryptoBros=haveFunStayingPoor, etc. - it all looks the same, so the default attitude is to be very suspicious and/or hate on it. I guess that's just how it is - no point in sweating over it.
Closer to home, I'm genuinely surprised at how difficult it has been to have respectful and rational discussion about it here - with the open-minded, norm-challenging and generally pretty smart MMM gang.

Credit where it's due, the anti-Bitcoin campaign has, so far, been very effective.

On the plus side, Bitcoin doesn't care. It keeps churning away, quietly expanding and advancing, applications keep developing and improving, . . .

Ok then. Can you address the problems with using BTC as a currency? Slow/low bandwidth, concentration, insufficient technological access in developing nations, not widely adopted (chicken/egg). And why it's any better than almost every other effort to improve poor people's lives? You know; give people with no money, access to a highly volatile scam-currency that's a total PIA to use, and has extremely limited use anyway. VS I don't know; give them money ($$)? food?

The reason for the snarky, and in your opinion, "not serious" discussion of crypto is because we've heard all this bullshit before, over and over and over and over and over and over and again. Perfectly legitimate points are raised; deflections and endless "you're FUDing!", "not serious!" come back, with zero actual repose to the most basic practical and logistical issues that are brought up. So no, most of use ("haters"..) don't really feel like engaging. It's just more fun to make fun of these delusional justifications for a seemingly endless (so far..) ponzi scheme with absolutely zero practical application (and thank god for that, as a world where BTC is the main currency sounds like a nightmare!)

[Scandium]

- If Crypto is a technology and NOT a get rich scheme, why is there more emphasis on Bitcoin and other “investment” cryptocurrencies over the utility that stablecoins or other non-investment focused cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology could offer?

To be fair, there is tons (millions$$) of hype around various stablecoins as well! Most of which have failed hard, for various reasons. (Unless of course the goal is to funnel "investor" money to the pyramid-top persons starting the scheme, paying insta-celebs to hype it, faking assets, etc. In that case some of them have been successful.)
Just take a peek through coffeezilla's coverage of several of them. Hilarious stuff!
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=coffeezilla+stablecoin

Celsius: $9 billion owed/lost
Luna:  $60 billion lost
Tether/bitfinex: $10 billion lost (?unclear)
Titan; promised 206% APY! Pumped by Mark Cuban, lost all his investments (Ok, I can support this one *golfclap) https://youtu.be/9DjeS4hTltI

[GuitarStv]

I didn't hear any even a half decent attempt to address the concerns of wallets and volatility in the video.  Mostly the volatility response was that the same volatility and devaluation of African currencies that she's hoping will drive people to bitcoin mean that the volatility of bitcoin doesn't matter.  ???

I did hear some total bullshit though.

Yep.  Bullshit - or 'demonstrably false' if cussing upsets delicate sensibilities.  Like this excerpt from the podcast:

"Interestingly, when you look at all the various forms of money that we use today whether it is cash or whether it is the Visa cards for example, Bitcoin consumes the least amount of energy of all of them.  In fact, the production of cash and the transportation of cash and the distribution of cash requires 30 times more energy than bitcoin does."

Which aligns rather poorly with reality:

BTC has nearly 3x environmental cost [than cash] per 1$ of value

https://sites.tufts.edu/digitalplanet/how-green-is-the-greenback-an-analysis-of-the-environmental-costs-of-cash-in-the-united-states/

Cash is currently higher in energy consumption overall , but that's only because bitcoin transactions are so comparatively rare.  The argument that bitcoin is lower energy cost than cash is therefore demonstrably bullshit false.

"[Bitcoin is] a currency that can be moved easily without creating any extra fees and constraints"

Then she goes on to indicate how there are no conversion fees changing from her currency (franc) to bitcoin [No she didn't - she said no such thing] because it's "free money, and independent currency, a currency that's not created specifically to control people".

Yes she does.  Direct quote:
"[Bitcoin is] um a currency that can uh be moved easily without creating any extra fees and constraints to the people because when you look at the countries that face the highest constraints on moving money is the African uh is it the people living in diaspora sending money back home because sometimes the remittance fees go as high as 20 percent consume 30 in both the fees and the uh um um the conversion rate.  So at that point I was like uh ah the person or the people who invested Bitcoin of [sic] having free money, having independent currency, a currency that is not created specifically by some people to control others."

She very explicitly talks about the horrors of currency conversion rates when transferring money from African currencies to other denominations to send through banks, and in the same breath talks about how there are no fees associated with Bitcoin.  The only conclusion one can reasonably draw from this is that she believes the fees for currency conversion do not exist for Bitcoin.  Or that she's intentionally trying to make the traditional banking system seem worse than it is in an effort to push bitcoin.

She indicates that 70% of the people in her country do not have bank accounts, and thus would be perfect to convert over to using bitcoin.  But she completely glosses over the little point of exactly how to do this.  How are they going to convert their current cash holdings into bitcoin?  Can't transfer funds from their bank, obviously.  Later there's mention of magical technologies that will allow people without phone or computer access to easily and safely access bitcoin without risk. [No there's not - there's no mention of any such thing]  I'd like to hear a lot more about that though, since it sounds like bullshit but no further discussion involved that point.  Instead she just says that bitcoin is like internet and electricity.  And we leave it there.

"I actually forgot to mention one of the uh greatest products that was introduced at the conference is uh manchankura which is uh uh created by an uh amazing Bitcoin and uh developer we call him KG um it actually allows people to buy bitcoin as a USS USSD uh just like regular scratch cards where you can just type USSD codes and then boom you have the bitcoin in your wallet so in amazing solutions are being made and you're like wow this is so cool this is going to make it so much easier for everyone"

Yes, there is regular mention and misrepresentation* of technology that will safely and easily allow African people to access bitcoin.  That's the whole underpinning of how the person being interviewed describes the shift to bitcoin happening across the continent.

*It's the misrepresentation that makes the technology 'magical'.  Interesting that she fails to mention the 1% fee for anyone using this service.  Or the various hosting fees for moving bitcoin from a wallet to create a transaction.  Almost like there is a clear pro-bitcoin agenda being pushed.

She also doesn't address how the people who move their fortunes over to bitcoin are supposed to pay their taxes.  Or buy groceries.  Or buy anything, since bitcoin isn't commonly accepted anywhere in the country.  I guess the theory is that everyone will instantly switch over nationally? [No, there was no suggestion of immediate total adoption - people will still have fiat]

But then bitcoin would solve no problem at all.  All of the pie in the sky bitcoin related 'freedom' that is being discussed for African people being held hostage by their fiat currency fails to materialize if the people are still being held hostage by their fiat currency.

She also talks about how a huge problem for these African countries is that they can't pay their international debts.  They don't produce anything of value, so can't generate the money needed to pay their loans.  That's what's causing the devaluation of their currencies.  But she just ignores this completely in relation to bitcoin.  How does bitcoin fix these debts?  Well, it doesn't.  So the fundamental problem causing the poorness remains. [No. Nobody claimed Bitcoin was a panacea for ALL ills. What is ?]

I'm going to ignore your straw man here - I didn't claim that the person being interviewed made the statement you're railing against.

The ills that the person being interviewed was describing though, the ones that she was giving as an example of the need to push everyone towards bitcoin . . . those all stem from this fundamental problem.  And bitcoin won't solve it.  This renders a the majority of her pro-bitcoin argument moot.

She's super excited about getting Africa into the environmental destruction [No, not so] required to mine bitcoin [with sustainable solar and hydro, and bringing electricity to those that have never had it].

No mention of solar is made in this discussion.  I encourage you to go back and listen carefully.  Hydro electricity in Kenya is mentioned, as is 'bringing electricity to those who have never had it' . . . but zero mention of details or realistic plans to do this comes up, which seems to be a theme here, and part of the reason that it was so very disappointing to listen to.

Will bitcoin mining be done sustainably in Africa?  Maybe.  But no mention of how, why, the costs involved, the projects proposed to make this happen come up.  Will bitcoin mining result in electricity for poor people who couldn't afford it before?  Maybe?  But again, no discussion of any details/reasoning takes place.  Just the statement and expectance that we will all accept it like lemmings.  Not very convincing.

Doesn't seem to be aware the mining bitcoin will end and is not a long term thing [No. Bitcoin rewards will end but 'mining' will continue].  She also (completely without evidence) says that bitcoin is much better for the environment than all other banking systems.

This is certainly an unproven theory that bitcoin advocates believe.

With respect, the above post does not demonstrate intellectual curiosity and is in no way an attempt to argue in good faith.

I watched your video in good faith under the assumption that it was going to be relevant, factual, and informative.  Posting an hour and a half conversation between two people who appear to have little understanding of the topic being discussed and certainly no facts/data to support their theories is not an attempt to argue in good faith.

It's very easy to construct strawmen or plain make stuff up but that's not intelligent discussion. It's little more than school playground name-calling.

Agreed.  Stop using straw men.  If you're going to post a video, maybe quickly check through the video first to see if it's sourced and referenced with claims made being reasonably supported rather than made up with no evidence.  That video was intellectually very disappointing with little factual information available to debate.

[seattlecyclone]

Tell me...in which countries does more than 1% of the population routinely use Bitcoin to purchase food?

I don't know. Maybe none. Ask me again in 2 years.

I'm not claiming rampant adoption anywhere . .

Lol. Bitcoin has been around for 14 years. What bloody difference is another two going to make? Back when the technology was actually new I was absolutely willing to entertain the idea that it might find a common use case in (legal) commerce. It has had plenty of opportunity. While Bitcoin has found no shortage of speculators it's still searching for actual users.

Did you know about Bitcoin 14 years ago?  No, it was a hobby / computer program on one person's computers. If you go back that far you need to acknowledge how far it came from then.  I would interject my view from an earlier post, that mainstream awareness is only about 5 years old.

My first Bitcoin transaction was in 2011. I read Satoshi Nakamoto's original paper and it seemed like an intriguing idea, so I decided to experiment a bit with it. At the time the Bitcoin Core wallet had a "mine Bitcoins" option you could click to have your CPU crank away at some hashes. If you got really lucky you could win 50 BTC. Even at the time that was kind of a fool's errand. I instead joined up with a mining pool with my relatively beefy CPU and earned some 0.02 BTC per day. After a few weeks of suffering degraded computer performance in exchange for <$1 (at the time) per day, I considered the experiment over and shut down the mining. I remember being able to put transactions on the chain in a relatively timely manner for no transaction fee because the capacity wasn't maxed out yet.

So...I'm not exactly a newcomer to this space. I acknowledge that there's been a bunch of infrastructure built up around the trading/speculating side of things since that time. Traction for use as an actual currency has been slow enough that I'm not at all bullish on the matter.

[Telecaster]

First mover advantage seems to work best with brand names, which is perhaps the primary thing Bitcoin is. That's why we still tend to think "Tide" for laundry detergent and "Ziplock" for resealable plastic bags.

For a technology, however, the new tends to displace the old. Yahoo! was the first mover in the search engine space, but they were quickly replaced by Google. MySpace was early to the social media game, but they were quickly replaced by Facebook, which is now being replaced by TikTok. So Bitcoin more resembles a brand than a technology.

Bitcoin is turning 14 this year, has yet to be adopted by basically anyone for trade, and there are thousands of competing cryptocurrencies out there. Yet we're still talking about the Bitcoin brand.

There are unbranded products, but Bitcoin might be the world's first brand without a product.

I was trying to steel man the argument.  I was thinking of it more like VHS vs. Beta.   We all know the story.  Beta was the superior technology, but there were more and cheaper VHS players.   More VHS players meant more VHS movies.   More movies meant VHS was the better options for new consumers, and so on.   People chose to use VHS because people were already using VHS.  You could probably make that argument about CPM vs. DOS, as well.   Bitcoin is the biggest crypto by far, the most liquidity, most users, etc.    So if you want an economic system centered around crypto, that's the one to choose.   It is possible a new, better crypto could be created, but it won't be enough, just like Beta.   

That said, something else has even a bigger first mover advantage:  The USD (at least where I live).   Everyone already accepts it, and the financial infrastructure works just fine for what I need it to do. Bitcoin isn't a better currency than the USD, it is worse.     Bitcoin provides no advantage for most people (including the unbanked) and so its use will always be limited to niche cases. 

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Yes I’m not literally quoting you in particular.  Never said I was.  My problem is I hear people moving the goal posts of the rationalization for crypto.  So, if you want to clarify your opinions so I’m not misquoting or lumping you in with what I hear from a lot of crypto folks, I’d love to hear you (and also others) share beliefs on the following
- Is Bitcoin the cryptocurrency you are betting your own money on?  Why or why not?
- If Bitcoin is not what you bet your own money on, what crypto is?  And why?

You replied to my post, and then said things that had nothing to do with my post.  It would be clearer if you didn't do that in questions you address to everyone.

The recent discussion has devolved back to people who hate crypto repeatedly calling it a fraud or ponzi scheme, so I don't see the point of providing my nuanced view.  Instead I need to oversimplify and be brief to avoid being quoted out of context.  I am currently "adding a low%" (thread title) of ETH, but not "adding a low%" of BTC.

[Telecaster]

I'd like to hear the nuanced view, if you don't mind.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Tell me...in which countries does more than 1% of the population routinely use Bitcoin to purchase food?

I don't know. Maybe none. Ask me again in 2 years.

I'm not claiming rampant adoption anywhere . .

Lol. Bitcoin has been around for 14 years. What bloody difference is another two going to make? Back when the technology was actually new I was absolutely willing to entertain the idea that it might find a common use case in (legal) commerce. It has had plenty of opportunity. While Bitcoin has found no shortage of speculators it's still searching for actual users.

Did you know about Bitcoin 14 years ago?  No, it was a hobby / computer program on one person's computers. If you go back that far you need to acknowledge how far it came from then.  I would interject my view from an earlier post, that mainstream awareness is only about 5 years old.

My first Bitcoin transaction was in 2011. I read Satoshi Nakamoto's original paper and it seemed like an intriguing idea, so I decided to experiment a bit with it. At the time the Bitcoin Core wallet had a "mine Bitcoins" option you could click to have your CPU crank away at some hashes. If you got really lucky you could win 50 BTC. Even at the time that was kind of a fool's errand. I instead joined up with a mining pool with my relatively beefy CPU and earned some 0.02 BTC per day. After a few weeks of suffering degraded computer performance in exchange for <$1 (at the time) per day, I considered the experiment over and shut down the mining. I remember being able to put transactions on the chain in a relatively timely manner for no transaction fee because the capacity wasn't maxed out yet.

So...I'm not exactly a newcomer to this space. I acknowledge that there's been a bunch of infrastructure built up around the trading/speculating side of things since that time. Traction for use as an actual currency has been slow enough that I'm not at all bullish on the matter.

I asked "Did you know about Bitcoin 14 years ago?", not if you are "a newcomer" (your word).  My point is that when Bitcoin was unknown and unused 14 years ago, it was not realistic to expect things from it.  The price history of BTC on Yahoo Finance and even CoinDesk only goes back to Nov 2014, suggesting it still wasn't used much even then (Personally, I tried buying legal goods and services back at $250 per BTC, and found that very difficult).

I believe when Bitcoin rose above $10 billion or maybe $100 billion market cap, the mainstream media finally noticed.  Both of those milestones were about 5 years ago, which is why I argue Bitcoin should be measured relative to the last 5 years.  And if you agree with that, then 2 years doesn't seem that long (unless you're watching C-span).

[MustacheAndaHalf]

I'd like to hear the nuanced view, if you don't mind.

I'll try it with as much controversy stripped out as possible.


I suspect the future looks brighter for Ethereum than it does for Bitcoin.  Ethereum has lowered its energy usage by 99.95% through switching how it allows transactions to be verified.  Most new things, which would be controversial to mention, are being done on Ethereum.  On Bitcoin's blockchain, they need an entirely new transaction system to be adopted and trusted.  Meanwhile, Ethereum has 4x higher transaction counts (the number, not cash value) than Bitcoin.

Younger generations have much greater numbers of people buying Bitcoin, and care about the environment in greater numbers.  Those beliefs are in conflict - holding both could be considered hypocrisy.  Maybe they can ignore that, or maybe that hypocrisy will drive many from BTC to ETH.

My view represents disagreement with both sides of the debate.  Crypto haters may cheer any dislike of Bitcoin - but they hate other crypto as well.  Most crypto fans like Bitcoin, the #1 crypto currency.  They can point to the CBOE options exchange of Bitcoin futures, or ETFs based on those futures - neither of which ETH has going for it.  Ethereum, viewed in terms of mainstream acceptance, is a step backwards from Bitcoin.

Since all of this adds up to thinking the future favors ETH and not BTC, I plan to hold zero BTC from here on.  I have been buying some ETH every week for the past few weeks, but it still represents a rounding error of my NW.  I do not expect Ethereum's "infinite supply" to matter, but if I'm wrong I'll lose in proportion to the % of ETH inflation.

The larger idea, that ETH overtakes BTC for the #1 spot by market cap, is captured in a new term I learned: "the flippening".  This link has only a brief description - it is mostly graphs tracking progress of ETH overtaking BTC in various ways.
https://www.blockchaincenter.net/en/flippening/

[JAYSLOL]

Yes I’m not literally quoting you in particular.  Never said I was.  My problem is I hear people moving the goal posts of the rationalization for crypto.  So, if you want to clarify your opinions so I’m not misquoting or lumping you in with what I hear from a lot of crypto folks, I’d love to hear you (and also others) share beliefs on the following
- Is Bitcoin the cryptocurrency you are betting your own money on?  Why or why not?
- If Bitcoin is not what you bet your own money on, what crypto is?  And why?

You replied to my post, and then said things that had nothing to do with my post.  It would be clearer if you didn't do that in questions you address to everyone.

The recent discussion has devolved back to people who hate crypto repeatedly calling it a fraud or ponzi scheme, so I don't see the point of providing my nuanced view.  Instead I need to oversimplify and be brief to avoid being quoted out of context.  I am currently "adding a low%" (thread title) of ETH, but not "adding a low%" of BTC.

FWIW, my first reply was adding a comment to someone else’s post, which you replied to, so I replied back and expanded on why I added that comment, and even though I admittedly made some generalizations about things “crypto people” have said in my experience, it was never meant to be taken as me quoting you. 
I don’t actually hate the technology of crypto as a tool, but for the relatively weak benefits I see compared to its downsides, I don’t think it’s a good thing overall for society in its current form. 

[JAYSLOL]

I'd like to hear the nuanced view, if you don't mind.

I'll try it with as much controversy stripped out as possible.


I suspect the future looks brighter for Ethereum than it does for Bitcoin.  Ethereum has lowered its energy usage by 99.95% through switching how it allows transactions to be verified.  Most new things, which would be controversial to mention, are being done on Ethereum.  On Bitcoin's blockchain, they need an entirely new transaction system to be adopted and trusted.  Meanwhile, Ethereum has 4x higher transaction counts (the number, not cash value) than Bitcoin.

Younger generations have much greater numbers of people buying Bitcoin, and care about the environment in greater numbers.  Those beliefs are in conflict - holding both could be considered hypocrisy.  Maybe they can ignore that, or maybe that hypocrisy will drive many from BTC to ETH.

My view represents disagreement with both sides of the debate.  Crypto haters may cheer any dislike of Bitcoin - but they hate other crypto as well.  Most crypto fans like Bitcoin, the #1 crypto currency.  They can point to the CBOE options exchange of Bitcoin futures, or ETFs based on those futures - neither of which ETH has going for it.  Ethereum, viewed in terms of mainstream acceptance, is a step backwards from Bitcoin.

Since all of this adds up to thinking the future favors ETH and not BTC, I plan to hold zero BTC from here on.  I have been buying some ETH every week for the past few weeks, but it still represents a rounding error of my NW.  I do not expect Ethereum's "infinite supply" to matter, but if I'm wrong I'll lose in proportion to the % of ETH inflation.

The larger idea, that ETH overtakes BTC for the #1 spot by market cap, is captured in a new term I learned: "the flippening".  This link has only a brief description - it is mostly graphs tracking progress of ETH overtaking BTC in various ways.
https://www.blockchaincenter.net/en/flippening/

I appreciate hearing the more nuanced view, and I actually wouldn’t be surprised if you were right about ETH taking #1 at some point because of many of the points you bring up, but I guess my original reservations stands that if people are willing to abandon BTC for ETH, then what’s to stop them from abandoning ETH for ??? down the line when something else comes in? 

[LateStarter]

I didn't hear any even a half decent attempt to address the concerns of wallets and volatility in the video.  Mostly the volatility response was that the same volatility and devaluation of African currencies that she's hoping will drive people to bitcoin mean that the volatility of bitcoin doesn't matter.  ???

I did hear some total bullshit though.

Yep.  Bullshit - or 'demonstrably false' if cussing upsets delicate sensibilities.  Like this excerpt from the podcast:

"Interestingly, when you look at all the various forms of money that we use today whether it is cash or whether it is the Visa cards for example, Bitcoin consumes the least amount of energy of all of them.  In fact, the production of cash and the transportation of cash and the distribution of cash requires 30 times more energy than bitcoin does."

Which aligns rather poorly with reality:

BTC has nearly 3x environmental cost [than cash] per 1$ of value

https://sites.tufts.edu/digitalplanet/how-green-is-the-greenback-an-analysis-of-the-environmental-costs-of-cash-in-the-united-states/

Cash is currently higher in energy consumption overall , but that's only because bitcoin transactions are so comparatively rare.  The argument that bitcoin is lower energy cost than cash is therefore demonstrably bullshit false.

No sensibilities were harmed. I was borrowing your text as a sort of header to to my reply.

Yes, there were a couple of quite extreme and unsubstantiated statements re. energy. I'm not defending them. I've steered clear of most of the environmental discussions as the bs-factor looks extremely high on both sides. Bitcoin both eats the world and saves the world, and both sides have endless figures to prove it.
I've glanced at that article and it looks pretty measured. I'll read it properly later - thanks.

"[Bitcoin is] a currency that can be moved easily without creating any extra fees and constraints"

Then she goes on to indicate how there are no conversion fees changing from her currency (franc) to bitcoin [No she didn't - she said no such thing] because it's "free money, and independent currency, a currency that's not created specifically to control people".

Yes she does.  Direct quote:
"[Bitcoin is] um a currency that can uh be moved easily without creating any extra fees and constraints to the people because when you look at the countries that face the highest constraints on moving money is the African uh is it the people living in diaspora sending money back home because sometimes the remittance fees go as high as 20 percent consume 30 in both the fees and the uh um um the conversion rate.  So at that point I was like uh ah the person or the people who invested Bitcoin of [sic] having free money, having independent currency, a currency that is not created specifically by some people to control others."

She very explicitly talks about the horrors of currency conversion rates when transferring money from African currencies to other denominations to send through banks, and in the same breath talks about how there are no fees associated with Bitcoin.  The only conclusion one can reasonably draw from this is that she believes the fees for currency conversion do not exist for Bitcoin.  Or that she's intentionally trying to make the traditional banking system seem worse than it is in an effort to push bitcoin.

I took it in the context of people receiving Bitcoin remittances and then spending Bitcoin. No CFA conversion = no conversion fee.

She indicates that 70% of the people in her country do not have bank accounts, and thus would be perfect to convert over to using bitcoin.  But she completely glosses over the little point of exactly how to do this.  How are they going to convert their current cash holdings into bitcoin?  Can't transfer funds from their bank, obviously.  Later there's mention of magical technologies that will allow people without phone or computer access to easily and safely access bitcoin without risk. [No there's not - there's no mention of any such thing]  I'd like to hear a lot more about that though, since it sounds like bullshit but no further discussion involved that point.  Instead she just says that bitcoin is like internet and electricity.  And we leave it there.

"I actually forgot to mention one of the uh greatest products that was introduced at the conference is uh manchankura which is uh uh created by an uh amazing Bitcoin and uh developer we call him KG um it actually allows people to buy bitcoin as a USS USSD uh just like regular scratch cards where you can just type USSD codes and then boom you have the bitcoin in your wallet so in amazing solutions are being made and you're like wow this is so cool this is going to make it so much easier for everyone"

Yes, there is regular mention and misrepresentation* of technology that will safely and easily allow African people to access bitcoin.  That's the whole underpinning of how the person being interviewed describes the shift to bitcoin happening across the continent.

*It's the misrepresentation that makes the technology 'magical'.  Interesting that she fails to mention the 1% fee for anyone using this service.  Or the various hosting fees for moving bitcoin from a wallet to create a transaction.  Almost like there is a clear pro-bitcoin agenda being pushed.

My point was that she made no claims of 'without phone or computer access' technology.
Well no, she didn't mention the 1% charge, but it was a chat about new 'exciting' things that are happening. Was it a carefully calculated/cunning omission ? I think she was just more interested in describing how people, esp. Africans themselves, are creatively using technology to overcome the many barriers that exist in Africa.
They are both very clearly, explicitly and openly pro-Bitcoin - take it for what it is. Good luck finding much agenda-free stuff in this area.

She also doesn't address how the people who move their fortunes over to bitcoin are supposed to pay their taxes.  Or buy groceries.  Or buy anything, since bitcoin isn't commonly accepted anywhere in the country.  I guess the theory is that everyone will instantly switch over nationally? [No, there was no suggestion of immediate total adoption - people will still have fiat]

But then bitcoin would solve no problem at all.  All of the pie in the sky bitcoin related 'freedom' that is being discussed for African people being held hostage by their fiat currency fails to materialize if the people are still being held hostage by their fiat currency.

I just don't get this all or nothing theory. Her goal for Togo is displace the CFA, but not in one fell swoop - as you noted, how on earth would/could that work ?
A gradual transition seems perfectly logical and possible. Some people start to acquire Bitcoin. Some shops start to see value in accepting Bitcoin. More people start to acquire Bitcoin. More shops start to . . etc. And, gradually, the CFA is pushed aside.

I let it go in my first response, but I did have a laugh at your objection to an activist, who's been frightened out of her country by threats of violence from an oppressive government/military, not placing a high priority on paying taxes to said regime :-)

She also talks about how a huge problem for these African countries is that they can't pay their international debts.  They don't produce anything of value, so can't generate the money needed to pay their loans.  That's what's causing the devaluation of their currencies.  But she just ignores this completely in relation to bitcoin.  How does bitcoin fix these debts?  Well, it doesn't.  So the fundamental problem causing the poorness remains. [No. Nobody claimed Bitcoin was a panacea for ALL ills. What is ?]

I'm going to ignore your straw man here - I didn't claim that the person being interviewed made the statement you're railing against.

The ills that the person being interviewed was describing though, the ones that she was giving as an example of the need to push everyone towards bitcoin . . . those all stem from this fundamental problem.  And bitcoin won't solve it.  This renders a the majority of her pro-bitcoin argument moot.

Oops, it's a fair cop! Reprimand accepted.

I know very little about Togo and the CFA. Assuming what she says about the CFA is broadly true, then displacing it seems like a good step in the right direction.

She's super excited about getting Africa into the environmental destruction [No, not so] required to mine bitcoin [with sustainable solar and hydro, and bringing electricity to those that have never had it].

No mention of solar is made in this discussion.  I encourage you to go back and listen carefully.  Hydro electricity in Kenya is mentioned, as is 'bringing electricity to those who have never had it' . . . but zero mention of details or realistic plans to do this comes up, which seems to be a theme here, and part of the reason that it was so very disappointing to listen to.

Will bitcoin mining be done sustainably in Africa?  Maybe.  But no mention of how, why, the costs involved, the projects proposed to make this happen come up.  Will bitcoin mining result in electricity for poor people who couldn't afford it before?  Maybe?  But again, no discussion of any details/reasoning takes place.  Just the statement and expectance that we will all accept it like lemmings.  Not very convincing.

I thought I heard 'solar' but I'll take your word for it. It's struck out above.

I believe Gridless, or similar, is what she was referring to - and, yes, they are hydro-only.

Doesn't seem to be aware the mining bitcoin will end and is not a long term thing [No. Bitcoin rewards will end but 'mining' will continue].  She also (completely without evidence) says that bitcoin is much better for the environment than all other banking systems.

This is certainly an unproven theory that bitcoin advocates believe.

It's a bit more than that. Barring any major protocol changes (pretty unlikely), Bitcoin is stone dead without miners. Of course, post 21M, strictly speaking, they won't 'mining' new Bitcoins, they will just be confirming transactions.

With respect, the above post does not demonstrate intellectual curiosity and is in no way an attempt to argue in good faith.

I watched your video in good faith under the assumption that it was going to be relevant, factual, and informative.  Posting an hour and a half conversation between two people who appear to have little understanding of the topic being discussed and certainly no facts/data to support their theories is not an attempt to argue in good faith.

I don't think either of them have "little understanding". It was a reasonable discussion in it's own high level context. My reason for posting the video was simply to demonstrate that things are happening in the developing world and that local people are involved in driving it and developing it. I think it did that.

I get that you want to dig into the details and learn exactly how these grand plans are supposed to happen, but that's a different question. There's plenty of information out there.

It's very easy to construct strawmen or plain make stuff up but that's not intelligent discussion. It's little more than school playground name-calling.

Agreed.  Stop using straw men.  If you're going to post a video, maybe quickly check through the video first to see if it's sourced and referenced with claims made being reasonably supported rather than made up with no evidence.  That video was intellectually very disappointing with little factual information available to debate.

I've acknowledged my misdemeanour, and I'm hanging my head in shame.

As above, it was posted as part of a broad discussion about whether or not Bitcoin is taking root as a currency in developing nations.

[LateStarter]

- If Crypto is a technology and NOT a get rich scheme, why is there more emphasis on Bitcoin and other “investment” cryptocurrencies over the utility that stablecoins or other non-investment focused cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology could offer?

To be fair, there is tons (millions$$) of hype around various stablecoins as well! Most of which have failed hard, for various reasons. (Unless of course the goal is to funnel "investor" money to the pyramid-top persons starting the scheme, paying insta-celebs to hype it, faking assets, etc. In that case some of them have been successful.)
Just take a peek through coffeezilla's coverage of several of them. Hilarious stuff!
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=coffeezilla+stablecoin

Celsius: $9 billion owed/lost
Luna:  $60 billion lost
Tether/bitfinex: $10 billion lost (?unclear)
Titan; promised 206% APY! Pumped by Mark Cuban, lost all his investments (Ok, I can support this one *golfclap) https://youtu.be/9DjeS4hTltI

And, speaking for Bitcoin only . . .

The Bitcoin scene is quite heavy on Austrian Economics and is generally opposed to centrally controlled fiat currency debasement.

From that perspective, Bitcoin (decentralised, 21M) offers potential utility, but even the most rock-solid USD stablecoin offers zero utility.

[seattlecyclone]

My first Bitcoin transaction was in 2011. I read Satoshi Nakamoto's original paper and it seemed like an intriguing idea, so I decided to experiment a bit with it. At the time the Bitcoin Core wallet had a "mine Bitcoins" option you could click to have your CPU crank away at some hashes. If you got really lucky you could win 50 BTC. Even at the time that was kind of a fool's errand. I instead joined up with a mining pool with my relatively beefy CPU and earned some 0.02 BTC per day. After a few weeks of suffering degraded computer performance in exchange for <$1 (at the time) per day, I considered the experiment over and shut down the mining. I remember being able to put transactions on the chain in a relatively timely manner for no transaction fee because the capacity wasn't maxed out yet.

So...I'm not exactly a newcomer to this space. I acknowledge that there's been a bunch of infrastructure built up around the trading/speculating side of things since that time. Traction for use as an actual currency has been slow enough that I'm not at all bullish on the matter.

I asked "Did you know about Bitcoin 14 years ago?", not if you are "a newcomer" (your word).  My point is that when Bitcoin was unknown and unused 14 years ago, it was not realistic to expect things from it.  The price history of BTC on Yahoo Finance and even CoinDesk only goes back to Nov 2014, suggesting it still wasn't used much even then (Personally, I tried buying legal goods and services back at $250 per BTC, and found that very difficult).

I believe when Bitcoin rose above $10 billion or maybe $100 billion market cap, the mainstream media finally noticed.  Both of those milestones were about 5 years ago, which is why I argue Bitcoin should be measured relative to the last 5 years.  And if you agree with that, then 2 years doesn't seem that long (unless you're watching C-span).

Five years is an eternity when it comes to mass-market technology adoption. Five years after the iPhone came out I was in the minority by not having a smartphone. Five years after the Mac, most personal computers used a graphical interface. Five years after the introduction of the first consumer web browser, school children across the country routinely used the web as a tool for class projects.

That is, five years is an eternity when the technology is clearly better than what came before. Five years after the Kindle a lot of people still read paper books (and still do to this day) because the paperless experience seemed better to some and worse to others. The Kindle performs the same function as a paper book. Five years after the Tesla and people are still buying gasoline vehicles because at the end of the day an electric vehicle performs the same function as a gasoline vehicle. Same with VHS vs. Betamax: the two things perform the same function. People go with what's most convenient and cost-effective most of the time even if that means accepting a slightly lower level of quality.

So where are we with Bitcoin? Even if we grant that the first few years of its existence can be written off as a research project (similar to Xerox Alto as a precursor to the Mac, or Tim Berners-Lee's research browser as a precursor to Mosaic and Netscape), there has been plenty of time after widespread mainstream attention for people to adopt Bitcoin into their daily lives. The problem is Bitcoin largely still performs the same function as incumbent financial services, and it has the disadvantage of being slower and more expensive to use for most transactions.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

...  My point is that when Bitcoin was unknown and unused 14 years ago, it was not realistic to expect things from it.  The price history of BTC on Yahoo Finance and even CoinDesk only goes back to Nov 2014, suggesting it still wasn't used much even then (Personally, I tried buying legal goods and services back at $250 per BTC, and found that very difficult).

I believe when Bitcoin rose above $10 billion or maybe $100 billion market cap, the mainstream media finally noticed.  Both of those milestones were about 5 years ago, which is why I argue Bitcoin should be measured relative to the last 5 years.  And if you agree with that, then 2 years doesn't seem that long (unless you're watching C-span).

Five years is an eternity when it comes to mass-market technology adoption. Five years after the iPhone came out I was in the minority by not having a smartphone. Five years after the Mac, most personal computers used a graphical interface. Five years after the introduction of the first consumer web browser, school children across the country routinely used the web as a tool for class projects.

That is, five years is an eternity when the technology is clearly better than what came before. Five years after the Kindle a lot of people still read paper books (and still do to this day) because the paperless experience seemed better to some and worse to others. The Kindle performs the same function as a paper book. Five years after the Tesla and people are still buying gasoline vehicles because at the end of the day an electric vehicle performs the same function as a gasoline vehicle. Same with VHS vs. Betamax: the two things perform the same function. People go with what's most convenient and cost-effective most of the time even if that means accepting a slightly lower level of quality.

So where are we with Bitcoin? Even if we grant that the first few years of its existence can be written off as a research project (similar to Xerox Alto as a precursor to the Mac, or Tim Berners-Lee's research browser as a precursor to Mosaic and Netscape), there has been plenty of time after widespread mainstream attention for people to adopt Bitcoin into their daily lives. The problem is Bitcoin largely still performs the same function as incumbent financial services, and it has the disadvantage of being slower and more expensive to use for most transactions.

Personally I agree with your main idea that Bitcoin largely performs the same function as it did 5 years ago.  Bitcoin fans will argue we should wait for the Lightning network - but that's an entirely new thing I have to trust, and has to go through the phases of adoption.  And maybe that's the problem with Bitcoin: it is stuck in an early phase of adoption, rather than "Crossing the Chasm" as a book on the topic once laid out.

And the year after releasing the Mac, Steve Jobs was pushed out of Apple, and the company began its slide downwards.  Within a decade, Apple was struggling, and I recall watching to see if it would go under (as a canary in a coal mine, where others would follow it).  Successful technology, but company at risk of collapse (before the 1990s bull market and iPhone).

Comparing Bitcoin to Ethereum, I argue Bitcoin is overvalued.  Ethereum has various innovations built on it (various coins, digital receipts of artwork, etc) while Bitcoin has stayed the same.  Ethereum performs more transactions, and has a lower market cap.  So Bitcoin could be overvalued while Ethereum might not be.

[LateStarter]

...  My point is that when Bitcoin was unknown and unused 14 years ago, it was not realistic to expect things from it.  The price history of BTC on Yahoo Finance and even CoinDesk only goes back to Nov 2014, suggesting it still wasn't used much even then (Personally, I tried buying legal goods and services back at $250 per BTC, and found that very difficult).

I believe when Bitcoin rose above $10 billion or maybe $100 billion market cap, the mainstream media finally noticed.  Both of those milestones were about 5 years ago, which is why I argue Bitcoin should be measured relative to the last 5 years.  And if you agree with that, then 2 years doesn't seem that long (unless you're watching C-span).

Five years is an eternity when it comes to mass-market technology adoption. Five years after the iPhone came out I was in the minority by not having a smartphone. Five years after the Mac, most personal computers used a graphical interface. Five years after the introduction of the first consumer web browser, school children across the country routinely used the web as a tool for class projects.

That is, five years is an eternity when the technology is clearly better than what came before. Five years after the Kindle a lot of people still read paper books (and still do to this day) because the paperless experience seemed better to some and worse to others. The Kindle performs the same function as a paper book. Five years after the Tesla and people are still buying gasoline vehicles because at the end of the day an electric vehicle performs the same function as a gasoline vehicle. Same with VHS vs. Betamax: the two things perform the same function. People go with what's most convenient and cost-effective most of the time even if that means accepting a slightly lower level of quality.

So where are we with Bitcoin? Even if we grant that the first few years of its existence can be written off as a research project (similar to Xerox Alto as a precursor to the Mac, or Tim Berners-Lee's research browser as a precursor to Mosaic and Netscape), there has been plenty of time after widespread mainstream attention for people to adopt Bitcoin into their daily lives. The problem is Bitcoin largely still performs the same function as incumbent financial services, and it has the disadvantage of being slower and more expensive to use for most transactions.

Personally I agree with your main idea that Bitcoin largely performs the same function as it did 5 years ago.  Bitcoin fans will argue we should wait for the Lightning network - but that's an entirely new thing I have to trust, and has to go through the phases of adoption.  And maybe that's the problem with Bitcoin: it is stuck in an early phase of adoption, rather than "Crossing the Chasm" as a book on the topic once laid out.

And the year after releasing the Mac, Steve Jobs was pushed out of Apple, and the company began its slide downwards.  Within a decade, Apple was struggling, and I recall watching to see if it would go under (as a canary in a coal mine, where others would follow it).  Successful technology, but company at risk of collapse (before the 1990s bull market and iPhone).

Comparing Bitcoin to Ethereum, I argue Bitcoin is overvalued.  Ethereum has various innovations built on it (various coins, digital receipts of artwork, etc) while Bitcoin has stayed the same.  Ethereum performs more transactions, and has a lower market cap.  So Bitcoin could be overvalued while Ethereum might not be.

Why is Bitcoin adoption slow, or slower than many think it should be ? Maybe . . .

In the wealthy world:

Main use-case now is speculation and/or store of value. Maybe in the future, a currency.

I think the issue is that Bitcoin is radically different to anything seen before. On first hearing about it, people are naturally very sceptical: a bunch of bits having value ? that's absurd ! And almost everything they hear is lurid (and largely true) tales about all the scams and frauds that are rife in the crypto world. It's not very attractive - the barrier to entry is high. Consequently, only a few take the trouble to learn about it.

Rough guess based on personal experience / anecdata:
<10% of people have some understanding of Bitcoin - the theory, the tech, the mission, etc.
>90% know virtually nothing about Bitcoin and just assume the entire space is all the same and is all just as terrible as they read/heard in the news headlines. Complacency and lethargy are not toooo damaging for wealthy folks - they continue to get by, so there's no great urgency for change.

The iphone was an impressive advance in technology, but it wasn't a paradigm shift. Most people immediately started salivating on first sighting a shiny iphone. It's not a good comparison.

In the poor world:

Main use-case now is currency and store of value. Maybe with a bit of savings, some speculation.

Bitcoin needs a Layer2, eg.  Lightning, to operate as a currency. Lightning is new, but it has now reached a stage where it can provide a useful service and things are beginning to happen.

There is, quite naturally, a keen and active grass roots interest in finding an alternative to a terrible fiat currency and/or terrible banking. Complacency is low, and motivation is high. Watch this space.

[waltworks]

I know a decent number of people who understand BtC just fine, but think it's a bad design and/or too volatile to ever work as a currency.

It's a shame, if it weren't for the weirdo libertarian/goldbug aspect of the design that limits the number of coins, it could potentially be great. But it's not well designed for being a currency, yet sucks all the oxygen out of the room for things that might actually work. A shame, really.

-W

[MustacheAndaHalf]

...  My point is that when Bitcoin was unknown and unused 14 years ago, it was not realistic to expect things from it.  The price history of BTC on Yahoo Finance and even CoinDesk only goes back to Nov 2014, suggesting it still wasn't used much even then (Personally, I tried buying legal goods and services back at $250 per BTC, and found that very difficult).

I believe when Bitcoin rose above $10 billion or maybe $100 billion market cap, the mainstream media finally noticed.  Both of those milestones were about 5 years ago, which is why I argue Bitcoin should be measured relative to the last 5 years.  And if you agree with that, then 2 years doesn't seem that long (unless you're watching C-span).

Five years is an eternity when it comes to mass-market technology adoption. Five years after the iPhone came out I was in the minority by not having a smartphone. Five years after the Mac, most personal computers used a graphical interface. Five years after the introduction of the first consumer web browser, school children across the country routinely used the web as a tool for class projects.

That is, five years is an eternity when the technology is clearly better than what came before. Five years after the Kindle a lot of people still read paper books (and still do to this day) because the paperless experience seemed better to some and worse to others. The Kindle performs the same function as a paper book. Five years after the Tesla and people are still buying gasoline vehicles because at the end of the day an electric vehicle performs the same function as a gasoline vehicle. Same with VHS vs. Betamax: the two things perform the same function. People go with what's most convenient and cost-effective most of the time even if that means accepting a slightly lower level of quality.

So where are we with Bitcoin? Even if we grant that the first few years of its existence can be written off as a research project (similar to Xerox Alto as a precursor to the Mac, or Tim Berners-Lee's research browser as a precursor to Mosaic and Netscape), there has been plenty of time after widespread mainstream attention for people to adopt Bitcoin into their daily lives. The problem is Bitcoin largely still performs the same function as incumbent financial services, and it has the disadvantage of being slower and more expensive to use for most transactions.

Personally I agree with your main idea that Bitcoin largely performs the same function as it did 5 years ago.  Bitcoin fans will argue we should wait for the Lightning network - but that's an entirely new thing I have to trust, and has to go through the phases of adoption.  And maybe that's the problem with Bitcoin: it is stuck in an early phase of adoption, rather than "Crossing the Chasm" as a book on the topic once laid out.

And the year after releasing the Mac, Steve Jobs was pushed out of Apple, and the company began its slide downwards.  Within a decade, Apple was struggling, and I recall watching to see if it would go under (as a canary in a coal mine, where others would follow it).  Successful technology, but company at risk of collapse (before the 1990s bull market and iPhone).

Comparing Bitcoin to Ethereum, I argue Bitcoin is overvalued.  Ethereum has various innovations built on it (various coins, digital receipts of artwork, etc) while Bitcoin has stayed the same.  Ethereum performs more transactions, and has a lower market cap.  So Bitcoin could be overvalued while Ethereum might not be.

The iphone was an impressive advance in technology, but it wasn't a paradigm shift. Most people immediately started salivating on first sighting a shiny iphone. It's not a good comparison.

In the poor world:
Main use-case now is currency and store of value. Maybe with a bit of savings, some speculation.

Bitcoin needs a Layer2, eg.  Lightning, to operate as a currency. Lightning is new, but it has now reached a stage where it can provide a useful service and things are beginning to happen.

Your iPhone comment is strong enough to "trigger" me, partly because I strongly disagree with the statement, but also because I believe you're being reasonable and may listen.  The smart phone and internet are the largest paradigm shifts in the past 25 years.  Look at people on a bus 25 years ago and now - what do you see?  Cell phones.  Young people in school talking 25 years ago... now texting and sharing videos on their phones.  Smart phones, starting with the iPhone, have had an enormous impact and caused significant changes.  In case we're talking about different words, here is the first entry for paradigm:

1: EXAMPLE, PATTERN
especially : an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paradigm
 
We have some overlap in beliving Bitcoin can help countries with hyperinflation or repeated currency defaults.  Those are a subset of poor countries where a savings account in local currency may be higher risk than Bitcoin.  I think your effort is better spent getting others to agree with you that far, than convincing me further.  I'd consider myself in the 10% who have some understanding of Bitcoin, to save you some time.

Many years ago, the Bitcoin Core Team had a schism, with one member arguing for larger block sizes, and the others arguing to wait for a Lightning Network type solution.  The thing is, everyone in agreement on Lightning all worked for the same company that was developing Lighting!  So much for decentralized, when their salaries and stock options resulted in group think on the Bitcoin Core Team.  So I may not be the target audience for Lightning Network, as I felt larger block sizes were the answer (and given Bitcoin's ramp up, I was probably wrong, unless block sizes could be extended 1000x without it being unreasonable).

My past two posts both compare Ethereum to Bitcoin, because in my view Ethereum could have future potential while Bitcoin treads water.  I'm not aware of new coins on Bitcoin's blockchain, but I know that dozens (hundreds?) have been launched by borrowing from Ethereum's blockchain.  NFTs, controversial as they are, were launched on Ethereum's blockchain.  I'm less confident that DeFi has been partly based off Ethereum, and heard that DAO may use Ethereum.  Ethereum won't be involved in every single new effort, but it seems to be involved in most innovation attempts in crypto.  Add in proof of stake replacing proof of work, and I think there is a compelling argument that ETH should be valued more than BTC.

[shortduck]

I have it, but a very small %

[LateStarter]

I know a decent number of people who understand BtC just fine, but think it's a bad design and/or too volatile to ever work as a currency.

Absolutely. I wasn't conflating understanding with being a fan. Most posters in this topic are part of that 10% imo. [  They just don't understand it well enough yet  :-)  ]

It's a shame, if it weren't for the weirdo libertarian/goldbug aspect of the design that limits the number of coins, it could potentially be great. But it's not well designed for being a currency, yet sucks all the oxygen out of the room for things that might actually work. A shame, really.

-W

I think it's largely the 'weirdo libertarian/goldbug aspect' that has given Bitcoin the power it has attained. I'm confident that we'll see it working well as a currency soon enough. Time will tell.

[LateStarter]

...  My point is that when Bitcoin was unknown and unused 14 years ago, it was not realistic to expect things from it.  The price history of BTC on Yahoo Finance and even CoinDesk only goes back to Nov 2014, suggesting it still wasn't used much even then (Personally, I tried buying legal goods and services back at $250 per BTC, and found that very difficult).

I believe when Bitcoin rose above $10 billion or maybe $100 billion market cap, the mainstream media finally noticed.  Both of those milestones were about 5 years ago, which is why I argue Bitcoin should be measured relative to the last 5 years.  And if you agree with that, then 2 years doesn't seem that long (unless you're watching C-span).

Five years is an eternity when it comes to mass-market technology adoption. Five years after the iPhone came out I was in the minority by not having a smartphone. Five years after the Mac, most personal computers used a graphical interface. Five years after the introduction of the first consumer web browser, school children across the country routinely used the web as a tool for class projects.

That is, five years is an eternity when the technology is clearly better than what came before. Five years after the Kindle a lot of people still read paper books (and still do to this day) because the paperless experience seemed better to some and worse to others. The Kindle performs the same function as a paper book. Five years after the Tesla and people are still buying gasoline vehicles because at the end of the day an electric vehicle performs the same function as a gasoline vehicle. Same with VHS vs. Betamax: the two things perform the same function. People go with what's most convenient and cost-effective most of the time even if that means accepting a slightly lower level of quality.

So where are we with Bitcoin? Even if we grant that the first few years of its existence can be written off as a research project (similar to Xerox Alto as a precursor to the Mac, or Tim Berners-Lee's research browser as a precursor to Mosaic and Netscape), there has been plenty of time after widespread mainstream attention for people to adopt Bitcoin into their daily lives. The problem is Bitcoin largely still performs the same function as incumbent financial services, and it has the disadvantage of being slower and more expensive to use for most transactions.

Personally I agree with your main idea that Bitcoin largely performs the same function as it did 5 years ago.  Bitcoin fans will argue we should wait for the Lightning network - but that's an entirely new thing I have to trust, and has to go through the phases of adoption.  And maybe that's the problem with Bitcoin: it is stuck in an early phase of adoption, rather than "Crossing the Chasm" as a book on the topic once laid out.

And the year after releasing the Mac, Steve Jobs was pushed out of Apple, and the company began its slide downwards.  Within a decade, Apple was struggling, and I recall watching to see if it would go under (as a canary in a coal mine, where others would follow it).  Successful technology, but company at risk of collapse (before the 1990s bull market and iPhone).

Comparing Bitcoin to Ethereum, I argue Bitcoin is overvalued.  Ethereum has various innovations built on it (various coins, digital receipts of artwork, etc) while Bitcoin has stayed the same.  Ethereum performs more transactions, and has a lower market cap.  So Bitcoin could be overvalued while Ethereum might not be.

The iphone was an impressive advance in technology, but it wasn't a paradigm shift. Most people immediately started salivating on first sighting a shiny iphone. It's not a good comparison.

In the poor world:
Main use-case now is currency and store of value. Maybe with a bit of savings, some speculation.

Bitcoin needs a Layer2, eg.  Lightning, to operate as a currency. Lightning is new, but it has now reached a stage where it can provide a useful service and things are beginning to happen.

Your iPhone comment is strong enough to "trigger" me, partly because I strongly disagree with the statement, but also because I believe you're being reasonable and may listen.  The smart phone and internet are the largest paradigm shifts in the past 25 years.  Look at people on a bus 25 years ago and now - what do you see?  Cell phones.  Young people in school talking 25 years ago... now texting and sharing videos on their phones.  Smart phones, starting with the iPhone, have had an enormous impact and caused significant changes.  In case we're talking about different words, here is the first entry for paradigm:

1: EXAMPLE, PATTERN
especially : an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paradigm

We're speaking the same language but I still disagree with the specific iphone comparison. Many people already had mobile phones - the iphone was a 'just' a much better and sexier version of something we already had.

Maybe Bitcoin is better compared to the mobile phone in general. The first commercial 1G network was launched in 1979, and the iphone appeared in 2007. By that measure, 14 years in, we're currently in the clunky, simple, utilitarian Nokia 101 era, and the whizz-bang sexy iphone era won't start until 2037. I'm more optimistic about the pace of future progress than that, but that's a fairer comparison imo.

We have some overlap in beliving Bitcoin can help countries with hyperinflation or repeated currency defaults.  Those are a subset of poor countries where a savings account in local currency may be higher risk than Bitcoin.  I think your effort is better spent getting others to agree with you that far, than convincing me further.  I'd consider myself in the 10% who have some understanding of Bitcoin, to save you some time.

Ha - I have little expectation of converting any posters here. I like to challenge the posts I think are wrong, and I like to have my own views challenged.

Back to your point though, and I'm repeating myself, my expectation is that with time Bitcoin gets better (more established, less volatile and thus less risky) and most fiats get worse (more debased). If I'm right, the Bitcoin line on the 'useful as currency vs time' chart will progressively cross the lines of the fiats. Bolivar today, Peso next year, Dinar in 8 years, USD well maybe never but you get my point.

Many years ago, the Bitcoin Core Team had a schism, with one member arguing for larger block sizes, and the others arguing to wait for a Lightning Network type solution.  The thing is, everyone in agreement on Lightning all worked for the same company that was developing Lighting!  So much for decentralized, when their salaries and stock options resulted in group think on the Bitcoin Core Team.  So I may not be the target audience for Lightning Network, as I felt larger block sizes were the answer (and given Bitcoin's ramp up, I was probably wrong, unless block sizes could be extended 1000x without it being unreasonable).

My past two posts both compare Ethereum to Bitcoin, because in my view Ethereum could have future potential while Bitcoin treads water.  I'm not aware of new coins on Bitcoin's blockchain, but I know that dozens (hundreds?) have been launched by borrowing from Ethereum's blockchain.  NFTs, controversial as they are, were launched on Ethereum's blockchain.  I'm less confident that DeFi has been partly based off Ethereum, and heard that DAO may use Ethereum.  Ethereum won't be involved in every single new effort, but it seems to be involved in most innovation attempts in crypto.  Add in proof of stake replacing proof of work, and I think there is a compelling argument that ETH should be valued more than BTC.

All reasonable points, but I've come to the opposite conclusion. I value Bitcoin's proof of work solidity, the small block facilitated decentralisation, and the stubborn resistance to (much) change / additional complexity. Bitcoin's value (imo) is largely based on it's simple, sturdy and resilient foundation. Additional (L2, etc.) complexity belongs on top of that sturdy foundation, without compromising/risking it.

I was initially interested in Ethereum too but got turned away by it's centralised/centralising tendencies, especially the excessive influence of a small group of insiders and proof of stake. Also, a lot of risky fragile complexity at the base level.

Who knows though ? It'll be interesting to watch.

[seattlecyclone]

Back to your point though, and I'm repeating myself, my expectation is that with time Bitcoin gets better (more established, less volatile and thus less risky) and most fiats get worse (more debased). If I'm right, the Bitcoin line on the 'useful as currency vs time' chart will progressively cross the lines of the fiats. Bolivar today, Peso next year, Dinar in 8 years, USD well maybe never but you get my point.

I think you're conflating two separate concepts: utility as a currency and utility as an investment. For what it's worth, I think it's reasonably likely that 1 BTC will be worth more USD in a decade than it is now. So what? That has no bearing on how useful BTC is as a currency relative to USD. A useful currency is one in which the value is relatively stable over time (so that people can set their prices and sign contracts in terms of that currency), and one in which transactions can be completed simply and quickly. BTC is way too volatile. Even if the Lightning network solves the transaction cost/speed problem, nobody's going to sign a contract denominated in a currency whose purchasing power regularly swings back and forth 3x over the course of a year.

[BicycleB]

Back to your point though, and I'm repeating myself, my expectation is that with time Bitcoin gets better (more established, less volatile and thus less risky) and most fiats get worse (more debased). If I'm right, the Bitcoin line on the 'useful as currency vs time' chart will progressively cross the lines of the fiats. Bolivar today, Peso next year, Dinar in 8 years, USD well maybe never but you get my point.

I think you're conflating two separate concepts: utility as a currency and utility as an investment. For what it's worth, I think it's reasonably likely that 1 BTC will be worth more USD in a decade than it is now. So what? That has no bearing on how useful BTC is as a currency relative to USD. A useful currency is one in which the value is relatively stable over time (so that people can set their prices and sign contracts in terms of that currency), and one in which transactions can be completed simply and quickly. BTC is way too volatile. Even if the Lightning network solves the transaction cost/speed problem, nobody's going to sign a contract denominated in a currency whose purchasing power regularly swings back and forth 3x over the course of a year.

@seattlecyclone, what in your view will likely cause 1 BTC to be worth more USD in a decade than it is now?

[seattlecyclone]

Back to your point though, and I'm repeating myself, my expectation is that with time Bitcoin gets better (more established, less volatile and thus less risky) and most fiats get worse (more debased). If I'm right, the Bitcoin line on the 'useful as currency vs time' chart will progressively cross the lines of the fiats. Bolivar today, Peso next year, Dinar in 8 years, USD well maybe never but you get my point.

I think you're conflating two separate concepts: utility as a currency and utility as an investment. For what it's worth, I think it's reasonably likely that 1 BTC will be worth more USD in a decade than it is now. So what? That has no bearing on how useful BTC is as a currency relative to USD. A useful currency is one in which the value is relatively stable over time (so that people can set their prices and sign contracts in terms of that currency), and one in which transactions can be completed simply and quickly. BTC is way too volatile. Even if the Lightning network solves the transaction cost/speed problem, nobody's going to sign a contract denominated in a currency whose purchasing power regularly swings back and forth 3x over the course of a year.

@seattlecyclone, what in your view will likely cause 1 BTC to be worth more USD in a decade than it is now?

Continued speculation. Note that my definition of "reasonably likely" isn't ">50% probability," it's more a statement of "I would be mostly unsurprised if this happened." In my view, any fundamental changes in the utility of a Bitcoin token explain little (if any) of the price swings in recent years. Given prior history I would hesitate to make any bets against the ability of the hype machine to bring in a new round of "greater fools" to pump the price up again and again. That's why I consider it reasonably likely that the price will increase. I also think it's reasonably likely that the price will decrease. The price of a Bitcoin has previously been something that defies most logical analysis, and I expect this trend to continue.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

LateStarter - Interesting, it does seem internet browsers existed on phones, so your point about iPhone makes more sense.  Maybe the iPhone interface drove adoption?  Worldwide, I believe iPhone currently has a fairly small market share of a very large market.  So definite mitigating factors in calling iPhone a paradigm shift, when "phones with internet browsers" might be a clumsy but more accurate term.

Also, did you forget to distort something or take it out of context?  :)  Thanks for not doing that - it is rare.

You take the opposite view on Bitcoin small block size, and I agree that does give Bitcoin stability.  You said "small block size drives decentralization", which I don't understand - maybe you could expand on that?

Five BTC mining pools account for 87.4% of the hashrate.  I speculate that the people in charge of each mining pool can make centralized decisions for Bitcoin, like which forks to accept.  Members of the mining pool need to be willing to switch if the pool makes a bad decision, and I suspect most people don't pay much attention and are not very involved.  So this may be where Bitcoin is centralized.  Last I checked, the Bitcoin core team & Lightning Network authors were the same small group of people.  Those are the areas where I argue Bitcoin has centralization.
https://btc.com/stats/pool

Ethereum has concentration of it's own from "proof of stake", with 64% of ETH staked by five entities.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/64-of-staked-eth-controlled-by-five-entities-nansen

I don't know which factors are associated with Bitcoin adoption, which in turn suggests which factors could drive Bitcoin growth of market cap.  One in your favor is age - younger people like Bitcoin more than older people.  As people grow up, they may stay loyal to Bitcoin, while younger people adopt it.  I speculate that hyperinflation + currency collapse increase Bitcoin adoption, and these factors are not likely to be big enough to drive growth.  There are likely other factors that I do not know about, and which could expand the discussion.  I also don't know the weight of each factor, which matters.