Mark Cuban went from BTC skeptic to now complimenting BTC Hodlers. I'm looking forward to the day where Ray Dalio will say he is hodling bitcoin, wants it to go to the moon so he can buy a lambo
"This is how dollarization, which was deemed “unconstitutional” by Nicolás Maduro, became an “escape valve” for the economic crisis, as the chavista leader himself admitted in front of the media on December 9th. And, while Maduro insists on saying that “we don’t have a dollarization of the economy because our official currency isn’t, and never will be, the dollar,” in every corner of the country you can pay in dollars; from a simple snack to fuel, food, and entertainment services. Henkel García, president of the economic firm Econométrica, says that there are between 2 billion and 4 billion dollars currently circulating in Venezuela, as opposed to the equivalent of 500 million dollars in bolivars in circulation in cash or electronic money." https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2021/01/30/no-change-in-dollars-a-new-challenge-for-venezuelans/ So, something unconstitutional is the basis of the Venezuela economy, its hard to ban things people want to use a reserves or money. I bet if the US were to try to ban Bitcoin, it would be similar. People would continue to buy (through services like localbitcoins or through new services that would appear) and funds would incorporate in the Cayman to have their 'crypto arm'. Or they would just buy European ETPs, ETNs, ETFs.
Yup, its a process. First the person is open the idea, then they study a bit, then they buy some, then they start to make money, soon the person becomes a fan, then they start to defend it against 'perma bubblers', then they buy more, etc etc Of course, I said it as a joke but I dont doubt Dalio will be pumping BTC on CNBC at some point in the coming year, so far he still quite reserved. he is too afraid to be buying the top, but he will lose his shyness when he makes his first billion on it
The truth is that in no moment will the fundamentals of BTC matter when Ray goes through this changes, nor it matters for most people. BTC is the same from the very first day he heard about it (ok now there is Segwit and the Lightning network but I bet he doesnt even understand it). What will change are his emotionals biases enabling him to see the facts with an open mind, up to now he had been a idiotic contrarian but now he is beginning to see the light
Bitcoin is doing a pretty good job so far of keeping fees under control. When I use a segwit address (bc1) I can get my fees down to $1-2 and still get confirmed in a resonable amount of time. The median and average fee is only higher because most people are dumb and use Legacy or Segwit (3xxxx) addresses . There is also the Lightning Network, which is awesome and cost like nothing But Ethereum is having issues. Right now a trade on Uniswap costs $40 and a ether transfer costs $8, an alt season will only make it worse. Lots of tokens and ETH will be locked up in accounts, unable to move as it becomes uneconomical for small investors/traders I'm hoping something like ZKSwap (a layer 2 type of uniswap) can solve this. I even bought some ZKSwap tokens. Fees would dramatically decrease if people started to use this service But its difficult because all the liquidity/pools are on Uni, if they dont move to ZK, then ZK is worthless. Its a self-fulfilling prophecy But its important to keep this in mind, when the market tops out, it will be expensive to move crypto (maybe even more than $100 per transfer). But I will pay the cost and accept it. Its like a miner capital gain tax