It can't happen overnight because multiple things need to happen first. Its like building a house. You can't price it out until you know the cost of the land, all the stupid fees, material costs, labour costs, etc. Under bitcoin, everything has to be repriced. Look at what a private company like Visa has to charge to lend money short term. They know they have losses, they have fees to run the business, profit, etc. So you tell me how the government can do it by setting a rate at 3% for over a decade? Its because its all manipulated. The cost of money, ie. the interest rate, is the most important figure, and we have no idea what it should be because a bunch of yahoos just guess at it, but worse, use it as a manipulation tool to keep everything for themselves and their friends. You can't just swap USD for BTC because Bitcoin is very hard to get. But, Jeff Booth has an amazing quote... "abundance in money creates scarcity everyone else, and scarcity in money creates abundance every else." Once we know what a bitcoin is truly worth, and once we price out the cost of labor, then we can figure out what everything else should cost. Maybe a house should only be 1 year's worth of labor if you have to save for it. Maybe you can't borrow for a house, but only buy one from savings. Maybe lending will be seen as too risky because bitcoins will be too valuable to lose except for someone who has dozens and wants to put them to work in a risky environment. I have no idea. But I can tell you this. If I work for money that the government just prints, they devalue my labor. They steal from me. I want the government to work as hard to get my money as I have to work. Then the people in the government will be more responsible, and less of them, and won't waste it on stupid bullshit. Everything begins to align once you fix the money.
I will also add this. Why is this modern world the way it is? Why did men build so much amazing stuff to make life easy? Its all in the pursuit of sex. If it wasn't testosterone that drives us to have access to women, none of the world we see would exist. It all comes down to access to women. Bitcoin is like that testosterone. It is the basis for how everything will be reshaped going forward. If the new money cannot be manipulated, imagine how that reprices everything. There won't be money for DEI bullshit. There won't be money for government mandates. There certainly won't be billions wasted on Covid shots. Who is going to waste all their bitcoin to fund a war? When you change the entire accounting system of the world to something that is fair, amazing things will happen.
I think you answered your own question in the previous reply. -------------------------------------- You really believe governments cannot manipulate Bitcoin? I think otherwise. Let me outline my thoughts à la Wittgensteinian method. 1) I have no issues with your worldly concerns, eg. FIAT is evil. 2) I have no issues with Bitcoin itself. 3) I do have issues with human beings who own and control Bitcoin. 4) It's human nature to be greedy and that cannot be changed artificially. 5) The monetary policy governing our economy is designed to enrich the elites (rich and powerful). 6) Elites own most of the Bitcoin. 7) It is in the interest of Elites to shape the policy surrounding Bitcoin to further their agenda.
Noah, you're a true Bitcoiner... but imo one area of your belief system is flawed in that you think the "world" and the people are incentivized to become a fair system Think of a politician (not necessarily US or Canada, could be Argentina before Milei) as the people are in hardships due to the high costs of living and low wages, they are able to institute programs to provide assistance and in return they are voted in or stay in position I'm reminded of a lawmaker during the discussion of Andrew Yang Freedom dividend UBI, saying something "but who's going to clean the toilets?" I read something on Twitter that the Egyptian slave worked less hours than the average worker of today... and now everyone doing side hustles Uber, doordash, just to make ends meet... Closer to home, I have families and friends that are struggling, deep in debt, hardships due to inflation, nothing that is not common knowledge... they will not benefit if we get hyper-bitcoinization, even as I tried to convince them for many years If you have not noticed, I've changed my message to ET critics, I always tell them they are too late. they should never buy bitcoin... And they are late... buying bitcoin before the etf's, before the institutions were allowed, was early, now they are too late and they need to be told, they need to be reminded Anyway, maybe I'm wrong, but the world is not incentivized to have less inequality... call it human nature, or information asymmetry or something else...
I guess I'm looking at the possible end result, but getting there will be tricky. Humans are the weakest link, so that is why we take them out of the equation as much as we can. The issuance schedule of bitcoin is fixed, as is the max supply. With these two factors set in stone, humans have to work around these constraints. With fiat, of course the solution is to always print more, which devalues anyone who doesn't have assets. The rich people get the asset appreciation, the poor people get the inflation. 3. So I'm not sure how much you can control bitcoin. Of course we are a bit at the mercy of what developers do, and also a bit at the mercy of the miners, but if there is ever any fork, you have a choice about which fork to follow if you don't like the changes. The majority will actually win out eventually. Everyone who took the "bitcoin cash" fork is heavily down as an example. 4. Greed is good. The problem is that with fiat, that greed gets you to have an unfair advantage. Like I explained... poor people get the inflation, rich people get the asset appreciation. You start a fake war, leads to government spending, leads to inflation, and the losses are socialized but profits are privatized. With bitcoin, you're already going to have to shrink the size of government. When you do this, you're already limiting how many people get to feed at the government trough. Would Elon Musk get $8k of government subsidies for every Tesla sold if it wasn't so easy for the government to just print that money? I don't think so. Nobody will support an $8K rebate on EVs with governments running $2T deficits that cannot be printed. The money just isn't there and there is no point in even voting on it. 5. It is, and under bitcoin, we would need a new monetary policy. Imagine if governments gave out food the way they give out money. If you saw rich people walking away with 10 times their allotment of wheat, they would be very quickly dealt with. But the system we have now is that all the money is easily sprinkled to all the elite. I just don't see how that is possible when the ledger is global and can't be manipulated. Sure, governments can still award contracts to their friends and the taxes they collect in bitcoin can be redistributed unfairly, but at least this will be transparent. Its not transparent when the money is printed, or people don't seem to mind as much. Once again, the inflation we all accept seems less painful. A bitcoin world is actually deflationary. 6. This might be so, and the smart people will always get the most. Heck, its even been shown that dumb people end up poor after winning the lottery, so there is no hope for them. But its still more fair to do it the bitcoin way vs. the fiat way. 7. Agreed. But they can only exert influence that they have. If the government is small, how much money will they spend to change the rules with diminishing returns? If the government has much less power in your life, what will they gain? Imagine a parking ticket Baron who controls all the parking laws. Maybe one day the government has no money for parking ticket officers. With parking infractions becoming obsolete, what purpose does it serve to keep manipulating parking rules? (its a horrible example, but all I can quickly come up with) I do appreciate all the push back. It helps to form my thought process. We have never had the type of money that bitcoin is, so its difficult to imagine the type of world it can lead to. But just the simple act of removing the ability to print money will have profound implications on everything in life. We all know how the fiat experiment ends because its been done many times. We also know what happens when gold currencies start to be debased with the chipping of coins and adding impurities. It all ends the same. But what we don't know is how things will be when you stick to the most honest ledger ever designed.
Agreed, and thank-you... so lets explore this. If bitcoin is the currency in play, how will governments provide assistance? They won't have it to distribute. Then everyone will wonder, if I pay my taxes, what am I getting? People will be able to add it all up. What they can't add up is the theft through inflation and money printing. Now clearly an authoritative government will just do what it wants, but this is a fringe case. I think with the combination of the internet, we all have access to information. Only North Korea who has blocked all this still has ultimate control. The internet is always the first things turned off in these oppressive regimes, but even that is changing with Starlink. This clearly takes decades to fix, but I think a combination of access to information and a money system that cannot be manipulated will rebalance the whole equation. Totally agree. But its like that whole argument about fairness being equal outcome vs. equal opportunity. Idiots think that equal outcome is what we should be striving for, but this is wrong. We just want to make sure everyone has a chance. We all did with bitcoin, and everyone can still buy it now. They can easily buy 10 if they have the funds and the heart to do it. Obviously none of this will change overnight, but as we hit 6 figures and more people wake up, and as the government clearly stumbles, more people will be brought on board. That certainly makes the case for bitcoin even stronger, right? I know that nothing in this life is fair, but the race is already lost if you start out in a fiat world. In the boomer times, an 18 year old kid could move out, get a job, and live a decent life working a regular job. Now, that 18 year old kid will probably never move out of the house since there won't be a good job for him and he will never afford real estate. The start is already fucked. But I have no doubt that the push back is coming, and it will be severe, and well deserved, and when people wake up and understand what bitcoin is, then they will realize its the only way forward. Oh.. and about your picture about slaves... right on! In fact, what I read was that back then, slaves were at least provided food and shelter. Today, even with a job some people can't afford both food and shelter! (obviously slavery shouldn't be trivialized like this, but its an interesting perspective)
I realize that my mention of "cleaning the toilets" and slaves/slavery are a bit harsh and may make others uncomfortable, but not me... I cleaned my own toilet, cleaned my own place, did my own laundry, worked for companies and bosses, got told what to do, I was deep in debt, I was a slave of the system, if I wanted a roof over my head, or food to eat and I'm not afraid to go back to work, to be a slave again, it is what it is, have to do what it takes to survive and support my family... I guess my point in my previous post is that you wish to make it fair for everyone, to help everyone get a fair shot... but I'm sorry to say, I want those closest to me, my friends, my family, to have an advantage I'm incentivized in my own selfish ways to help them first. Yes there's injustice everywhere, the French still using their colonial powers to buy all the expensive resources in Africa using the equivalent of "glass beads", do I want to help them , sure, but my friend, I gotta help my friends and family first who are deep in debt, struggling and experiencing difficulties... I hope you understand
When it comes to btc, now is the decision time: Either it goes up, and keeps the narrative (chart TA), or, it needs to just go sideways, and breaks the narrative. If it confirms, and goes up, and really goes up, there is nothing to stop btc from going to 100k. Once made, it becomes a really serious asset. If not, and breaks the narrative, its toast. Weeks ahead are fundamentally important for btc and crypto in general. A likelihood of Trump winning, can support it on its way up. So, difficult (dangerous) to trade with leverage, but thats the way it is now... On the other hand, I am not surprised if Trump creates this btc reserve, and crypto becomes sort of a daily thing. However, dollar could lose some weight...
I understand fully... and I think will be just fine since I got to front run most of the world... but I also think that everything will be better for me simply from the system getting a much needed upgrade. Don't get me wrong, I want to come first, but as they say, a tide lifts all boats, so I can't wait for the tide to come in!