0 sats \ 0 replies \ @clr 2 Aug 2023 \ on: No shitcoins! bitcoin
I feel like you, and I wish I could press a magic button and make the dollar go away completely and have a bitcoinized world right now. But it will take time, and the USD as a unit of account will be the last thing to go away during the bitcoinization process.
This is because the unit of account is like an interface (or a language for the expression of value, if you wish). Have you seen how the airline industry still uses interfaces based on Telex for their messages even though the telex networks are long gone? The Telex system is gone, and very likely most or all of their communications go through the internet or maybe private TCP/IP networks, but the interfaces based on telex still remain.
I see a scenario like this playing out: Taproot Assets will enable "stable"coins (like USDT) and things like synthetic dollars to move through the Lightning network, but it will be bitcoin what is actually being transferred underneath. You can have a merchant who has prices in USD and wants to be paid in USD via Lightning (likely because his profit margin is low and his suppliers still price their products in USD). You can send bitcoin from your Lightning wallet and the merchant will receive USDT or whatever. The exchange process will happen automatically in the background, and everybody will be happy.
Remember that bitcoin is not just the unit, but also the network. Both are important. Would you rather have dollars transacted through the open Bitcoin/Lightning network, or bitcoin transacted through their closed, permissioned & KYC'd networks? In the former scenario, you get financial freedom. In the latter scenario, you get financial oppression.
Taproot Assets might well be the trojan horse that will expand the Bitcoin and Lightning network globally. And then, eventually, people will start thinking along the lines of: "Hey, we keep our savings in bitcoin, we are sending all transactions via Lightning, the banks and their old financial networks are long gone, so why are we still pricing things in dollars? Let's get rid of the last vestige of the old system!"