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I believe bitcoiners are generally wishing for #2, where people adopt bitcoin and ditch fiat.
Really?
Then why do I still see the "$" symbol at all of the Bitcoin conferences? Even Bitcoiners constantly use the words, "$x,xxx amount worth of Bitcoin", instead of using Sats as their base terminology?
Why are Bitcoiners cheering and advertising fiat credit/debit cards?
Why are we almost two decades into this "revolution", and there is still no credible threat to the fiat system because of Bitcoin's existence?
The Bitcoin narratives of the past decade are starting to sound silly. It has become an "investment" in the eyes of 99% of the Bitcoin community, and for 100% of the normies.
Bitcoiners generally claim to believe the dollar has been hyper-inflated, and yet they continue to use it, happily. It Bitcoiners aren't making the switch today, what makes you think they ever will?
Bitcoin is failing, and not even hyper-inflation in fiat-land will be able to save it at this point.
Yes, we have the tech now to use Bitcoin as money in daily life.
What's the problem with Bitcoin? Nothing.
The problem is the Bitcoin community. Obsessed with dollars and fiat valuations. There is no reason to use Bitcoin as currency because they can get Sats back if they use their fiat debit/card instead.
Even Bitcoiners, apparently, don't seem to understand why fiat is so bad. (But it makes a great talking point when selling the idea of Bitcoin to normies).
Even "the ones who get it" aren't fighting very hard to end fiat. They accept fiat as a necessary evil.... and make excuses for why it doesn't make sense to switch to using Bitcoin for anything other than hodling.
True.
But this confirms a trend which is now decidedly negative since July.
Single data points don't mean much. Trends are far more meaningful.
But I'm not dying for it either.
Not dying either.....
but been waiting for it for so long it's starting to feel painful. Going to feel the relief when they roll this out.
Gifts to the Bilderbergs is another purpose.
I'd argue that a central bank supporting government isn't the worst thing about them. It's the secret funding of the richest families on Earth that I find so atrocious. It's also mostly why I think fiat is worse than taxes.
As always, people tend to binary thinkers.
There are the people who dismiss Q-Day as being physically impossible or too far away to care. Which seems to be the majority in the comments here.
Then there are the people whose last remaining reason to not buy Bitcoin is the imminent quantum threat.
Lots of stubborn ignorance on both sides, the way I see it.
Usually, the truth is somewhere in the middle of the extremes.
This is the part I think people on both sides of this debate are missing.
A QC powerful enough to crack 256-EDCSA will probably take something the size of the moon. Due to the amount of error correction and cooling infrastructure to keep that many qubits at absolute zero (which is required for them to remain entangled).
So, yea, the quantum apocalypse is probably not near.
HOWEVER. This viewpoint ignores the possibility of future breakthroughs. It only took a few breakthroughs to go from computers the size of a garage to computers the size of a wallet. And IF a few small breakthroughs happen in Quantum, the path toward a Billion qubit (logical) QC may be trivial.
Good luck with that.
Even Bitcoiners don't really use Bitcoin (for payments). Gonna be hard to convince the normies to do it when we aren't even doing it.
bitcoiners justifying their own desire for fiat wealth
Exactly.
It's funny, though, because Bitcoin upending the fiat system would be the largest single catalyst for NGU. Store-of-value narratives alone won't take Bitcoin to the numbers Mow and Saylor espouse.
In other words, if Bitcoiners want to be incredibly wealthy, stop using fiat for fuck's sake!
Why embrace the system that bitcoin was created to destroy?
This is my beef with the Bitcoin community as a whole.
I have no problem with trad-fi "adopting" Bitcoin. As the Bitcoiners say, it is an inevitable part of Bitcoin's eventual success story.
But what I can't understand is, why those same Bitcoiners are so comfortable using dollars. There isn't any effort from the community to end fiat. On the contrary, they talk about how Bitcoin can be a way to "save the dollar" from collapsing.
What the fuck happened here?
OP, yes, this is what adoption looks like when the Medium-of-Exchange element is suppressed. This is what adoption looks like when Bitcoin is just a Store-of-Value. Look how well that's worked out for gold the past hundred years.
Doesn't matter if the world still views dollars as being the best, most stable, currency to hold and use for trade.
The USA can export its paper, and its inflation, and pretty much win any war via printing the money. Doesn't have to be China; we can buy rare earths elsewhere with our fancy money printer!
I say that somewhat tongue-in-cheeck, because I know that such a war would destroy America. They might be strong for a while, with nothing but money printing to back itself up... and trust in the currency would break down eventually.
The only question I have is: Why isn't trust in the dollar already breaking down? (or rather, breaking down so slowly). Even Bitcoiners seem to like dollars more than Sats, when the music stops playing. It's weird.
I want to get to a world where we use a better measuring stick than fiat to measure our life's time/labor.
My dream will never come to fruition until enough of us agree to stop using the old measuring tool, and start using the new one. Obviously, it's really hard to do currently, because there is no market for Real Estate (or anything really) using Sats.
But the reason there are no markets denominated in Sats is because the people with the Sats are still using, and thinking, in dollars (for some wild, and completely illogical reason that I cannot figure out). We have a chicken and egg problem that can/will only be solved by individuals with strong enough will to force a major change.
"Jack Dorsey stated that Bitcoin could fail if it isn't used as a medium of exchange. Do you agree?"
John's answer to this was good, but I think he and I take Jack's statement from completely different perspectives.
I think Satoshi was quite clear that Bitcoin's goal is about ending fiat. I think that was his/her/them's greatest motivation. I think that should be the number one goal of any self-respecting Bitcoiner today. If Bitcoin is not threatening the dollar (after becoming nothing more than "digital gold") then Bitcoin HAS failed. Hard stop.
I think that's probably what Jack meant, also. He was channeling Satoshi when he said that.
If "digital gold" is Bitcoin's future, then I may as well just trade all my Bitcoin for physical gold right now.
For me, it was Eckhart Tolle's books. "The Power of Now", and "A New Earth".
And the book "Awakening the Buddha Within" by Lama Surya Das.
But nothing builds humility more than science. Learning how the universe works, and how small you are in the grand scheme of things, is powerful. Thus, the books from Richard Dawkins, such as "The God Delusion" can be incredibly humbling. Nothing can be less humble than a belief in the supernatural.... especially a god belief.
I tried hard for a few hours trying to get my node connected for spending on SN. Nothing worked.
It wasn't for lack of trying. I've successfully connected my node to dozens of apps in the past.
I run my node on StartOS, which is natively over Tor. I frequently have issues connecting mobile apps to my node at home. Tor is probably one of the major reasons.
I tried using NWC, but then was told it was deprecated. I used Zues with the Lightning Terminal app on my node, which usually worked, but not reliably. Alby Hub was one of the best solutions, for a while, until it also stopped working.
My LN connections always stop working right when I need them, too. I go to pay at a merchant, and something fails connecting to my node. It's absolutely infuriating.
The only thing that's been absolutely reliable is to connect to my node from my laptop over Tor, then launch one of the LN wallet apps there. I can do this from anywhere in the world, and it always works. But it's not a mobile solution. I need something for my phone.
Mobile connections always have issues. These app connections are never reliable for very long.
I gave up trying to get SN to work with my Start9 node. It's been a year since I tried, but honestly, I've grown sick of trying to make LN work on my node.
Yes, I understand that revolutions are contentious because they challenge deeply entrenched systems.
That's why revolutionists do what they do on principle, and on faith. They know the odds are against them, yet they move forward anyway.
Many revolutions, in history, have succeeded against impossible odds. Many have not.
Within the Bitcoin community, there simply is no revolution against fiat. Bitcoiners have nothing more than talking points and narratives. But they DO NOT live what they preach. They love to preach how bad fiat is on shows like Simply Bitcoin, right before pitching a fiat-focused ad from Fold, or spending an hour focused on NGU garbage.
I understand that we aren't going to upend the fiat system over a short period of time. But what I do not understand is why we aren't building more Bitcoin circular economies. Why we aren't building new communities together where Bitcoin is the monetary blood for trade. Why are we, as Bitcoiners, accepting fiat as a "necessary evil"?
You are describing to me why the world isn't moving to a Bitcoin Standard. But I'm asking, "Why aren't Bitcoiners moving to a Bitcoin standard?". See the difference?
BTW, I have visited Madiera, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Roatan etc..... I have spent a lot of Bitcoin at hundreds of vendors. I know there are some places trying to work on this problem. But where is the revolutionary spirit within the US and Europe? Where are the people building communities? Where are the Bitcoiners who are actually trying to use Bitcoin as money? Because if we aren't doing it.... what makes us think the rest of the world EVER will? It will remain nothing more than an "investment" if there aren't brave people who stand up and fight. The idea of a "peaceful revolution" in Bitcoin is just a cope.