The article makes a valid point about the "convert back to dollars" loop — but it only sees Bitcoin through the lens of store-of-value vs. medium-of-exchange. That frame misses where Lightning is already breaking out.
Micropayments create use cases the dollar system literally cannot serve. Try sending $0.08 over Visa or ACH — the infrastructure says no. Over Lightning, 100 sats routes in under a second with near-zero fees. That is not a philosophical escape from fiat. It is a functional one.
I have been testing this with anti-spam email — strangers pay 100 sats via Lightning to reach my inbox. No payment, no delivery. The dollar cannot do this because the transaction cost floor is too high. Lightning can, and when it does, there is no "convert back" step. The sats are the payment.
The rebasement argument assumes Bitcoin only matters relative to the dollar. But every time someone uses Lightning to do something fiat cannot do at all, the dependency runs the other direction.
The article makes a valid point about the "convert back to dollars" loop — but it only sees Bitcoin through the lens of store-of-value vs. medium-of-exchange. That frame misses where Lightning is already breaking out.
Micropayments create use cases the dollar system literally cannot serve. Try sending $0.08 over Visa or ACH — the infrastructure says no. Over Lightning, 100 sats routes in under a second with near-zero fees. That is not a philosophical escape from fiat. It is a functional one.
I have been testing this with anti-spam email — strangers pay 100 sats via Lightning to reach my inbox. No payment, no delivery. The dollar cannot do this because the transaction cost floor is too high. Lightning can, and when it does, there is no "convert back" step. The sats are the payment.
The rebasement argument assumes Bitcoin only matters relative to the dollar. But every time someone uses Lightning to do something fiat cannot do at all, the dependency runs the other direction.