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everything has changed if it's performing when it's literally never been better conditions for it (macro, education/info, gold etc). The discrepancy between need/value/use case and actual reality has never been greater, I think.
- And what does the overall Bitcoin industry/influenzors/royalty (#1409654) spend the entire last year doing? Fucking around with financial engineering and Core/Knotzi nonsense. Very, very unimpressive.
And really sad to see literally everyone who bought bitcoin in the last 14-15 months have their value debased and economic worth eroded. It's like the opposite of what we're here for
So what would you say changed for you? Did you learn something new about the bitcoin influencer space? Or perhaps you learned something new about governments' view of bitcoin as a reserve asset / dollar hedge? Or the priorities of the bitcoin developers?
For me, I never expected much out of the influencer space or from state actors. The Core/Knots controversy, while annoying, is a necessary unavoidable debate over Bitcoin's future. Bitcoin's claim to better money is a function of its attributes, not a function of how others are acting in the moment.
I do believe that whether Bitcoin's attributes will necessarily lead to widespread adoption and value accumulation is an open question. For various reasons, a socially preferable money may not be preferable at the individual level given current circumstances, leading to a "failure to launch" situation. So maybe what changed is the assessment of the launch probability?
In any case, I think I personally always maintained a somewhat low weight / long time horizon on Bitcoin's launch potential, which may be why I'm not really surprised by Bitcoin's sudden downward price movement.
I made this point somewhere else recently, but the long time horizon part is pretty important.
Let's say everyone believes in eventual hyperbitcoinization, but the expected timeframe shifts out from 50 years to 80. That will have a dramatic effect on current prices, but it doesn't really change anything about bitcoin.
What happened that suddenly shifted that collective estimation/timeframe shift? (Or would warrant such a shift).
All the things I'm seeing, at least compared to these prices a year or five ago, are much better... So what am I missing? What does the world know that I don't?
Not sure
Same. That really bugs me too, and why I find this so much worse than 2022... Back then, we learned quickly what was up when various shitty behaviour (yield, Financialization, fraud) blew up and mechanically shoved price down by fire selling.
Now? I'm at a loss to explain wth is happening
Financialization
Now we have:
- Saylor
- ETFs
- This obsession with borrowing fiat against bitcoin.
We need less of those and more circular economy. Just hold bitcoin and use it as MoE rather than letting third parties treasure it.
And the blockchain is being used to store graffiti because the bitcoin community has stopped caring about the movement and just trust the church (Core). Client monoculture is the elephant in the room we don't want to talk about.
Yes, and it's also why I don't advise people putting 100% of their portfolio into Bitcoin. Who knows how long it'll takes to reach widespread adoption, and the twists and turns to get there? If it even gets there in our lifetime?
Kids still gotta eat
Two weeks, or no dice
25 years.
Bitcoin's claim to better money is a function of its attributes, not a function of how others are acting in the moment.
You answered it pretty well, I'd say. The collective "we" don't want it — rather do all kinds of stupid things, in fiat and in Bitcoin — resulting in failure to ever become what its attribute allows (achieve its destiny etc).
biggest thing that changed: environment. Macro, rates, cycle timing, educational and services available, gold/geopolitics, no more chokepoint.
Basically, EVERYTHING pointing in the right direction (minus treasury company debacle), yet price going increasingly backwards.
I dunno, this is just not a mature, grown-up, respectable asset behaving like that. (Neither is gold, admittedly).
The whims of the market are inscrutable to me, but I don't think anything has changed about Bitcoin itself. Maybe the gold dump spooked people and now the fire sale is here. Feels like the kind of dump you get before everyone realizes that actually they do want some Bitcoin. Even if it isn't, I'd rather hold sats than dollars.
I'm curious: would you be happy to hold Bitcoin if it had no volatility? Say it traded at $124k for the next hundred years?
Or do you see price increase as a necessary part of bitcoin's value proposition?
I would still hold some bitcoin. I can't think of a better "escape" asset. I also always wonder what Weimar Germany would have been like if they had a bitcoin option during their hyper inflation.
I also want more places to accept bitcoin as payment. It is faster cheaper and more convenient than fiat. But maybe a bit less safe because there's no recourse if you make a mistake
It is worse as escape money in direct tandem to falling purchasing power. A bitcoin that commands markedly less goods, is a worse asset to escape w basically
But @Scoresby explicitly said, what if Bitcoin had no price volatility? So my point was that Bitcoin has a reason for existing even without any expectation of increasing purchasing power.
I agree, the current volatility makes it less useful as an escape asset, but weren't you the one who posted some quote about how you can't use Bitcoin price patterns under a fiat standard as an appropriate inference to how it might behave under an alternative standard?
Yes.
I mean that would instantly make it a superior money and remove the biggest economist concern.
But yes, price increase is necessary, foundational to realize all the ( empty?) words against debasement and eroded value and yada yada
Nothing has changed.
The truth is, Bitcoin's price is currently untethered to any fundamentals. There aren't any significant contracts denominated in bitcoin that tie its price to tangible value. So it fluctuates wildly based on Keynesian beauty contest dynamics. That's the only point I'll concede to the likes of Warren Buffet who see this lack of tethering to "fundamentals" as a problem.
But if you believed in Bitcoin's core thesis, which is that it's better money, nothing's changed that should make you second guess that core thesis.