Explain to me how the technology of a fixed supply, adjustable proof of work difficulty level, ability for any individual to connect to the network themselves and verify everything, and the most unhackable network is slowly disappearing? Oh, and also the ability for it to be permissionless and not have to rely on any third party to transact. What is replacing it? What I find so sad is that the people who attack bitcoin, for the most part, are also victims of the current system, but they might just not know it yet. Sure, the elite and politicians are happy for the current system to continue, but 99% of us are hurt by Fed policy. And yet, so many people fight in favor of oppression and less freedoms. Its baffling.
If nobody is using it as intended, (aka adoption is dying) isn't that the definition of disappearing? Now tell me personally you, why don't you switch to a better crypto? Don't you like technology?
It's an analogy... But I think that nobody should try to "save" anyone... Natural selection should and will take it's normal course...
And one day you will realize that Bitcoin is part of the very same system, with centralized exchanges, corporations controlling the price, retail traders losing everything they have at sudden volatility events that no one can explain. It is just another market. I am going to say the same sentence again, the one that I have been repeating for months "Bitcoin is a distraction, we will never make any progress if we continue fooling ourselves"
One thing Bitcoin has for it is first-mover advantage. This is what gives it name-brand recognition... something Buffett refers to as a moat. That said, there is also a warning in tech, about never being the FIRST or the LAST mover.
How is adoption dying when every week there is a new announcement of some major fund getting into crypto since their customers are asking for it? Also, there continue to be more and more countries that are exploring using crypto or have already made firm commitments. What is better than bitcoin if we consider the decentralization aspect? Or how about the fact that it can't be hacked? Or the fact that the government can't stop it? Or that fact that there isn't VC money behind it and able to control the direction of advancement? When I see hashrate continue to increase, does this tell me the technology is dying? Please at least answer this one question. If you make a statement that the technology is dying, tell me why hashrate is going up? What other system do we have where every single person can participate and doesn't need permission to do so? You see all the bank runs in Lebanon right now? People trying to get their own money out? You see the bank runs in China just a couple of months ago, with the tanks called in? Tell me who is going to stop you from using your bitcoin? Tell me how secure those people feel with their governments and central banks and all that technology. More like technology used to enslave them. It is so ignorant to complain about the technology of bitcoin when what bitcoin does right is light years ahead of the other coins. Sure, they may have better technology in a small subset of characteristics that will one day prove useful, but nothing comes close to bitcoin in areas that matter most.
You do understand that each and every person can take bitcoin off an exchange and it won't matter one bit to the bitcoin network, right? This is impossible to do with fiat. When I started doing my research, I was amazed at how far it has come from the days of having to buy it on shady exchange or on Ebay, or having to print out a paper wallet. Keep fooling yourself, it doesn't matter one bit to me.
For well over a year, you have been able to buy dozens of different spot ETH or BTC exchange-traded funds now, and you can legally do this within a registered account. Some pay distributions, other ETFs just hodl, some are currency hedged, etc. You can mix & match, they've even got woke ESG ETFs for crypto, LOL. That said, I just got a letter from one of my brokers yesterday. They wanted to give me a heads' up that I may be receiving more dividend payouts from my Ethereum now that the Merge was 100% complete. Apparently, they updated their documentation/red-tape but I don't have to do a single thing, or sign anything. Just wait for the dividends to come rolling in. That said, I am still playing the wait & see approach before doubling down on ETH again...Macro is so fucking terrible right now, the US and Europe are pretty much the sick-dogs of the Western world now. How times have changed!
Well, it certainly did not hurt Apple and IBM for being first movers in hardware, and Microsoft for software.
None of the very first people of BTC (CW, Nick Szabo, Satoshi) are super rich or very happy, hell some of them are dead. On the other hand the maker of Litecoin cashed out close to the top and pretty damn rich. Ethereum came 4 years later, yet one of the most traded and well known crypto including high price. So people can shovel first mover advantage up their asses. Myspace also has entered the chat.