Imagine this scenario, completely hypothetical
- Antonopoulos's prediction that two kinds of Bitcoin will coexist has come true. Indeed, state-approved Bitcoin and self-hosted Bitcoin are happily coexisting.
- It has become impossible to transit between the two kinds, indeed, exchanges only allow for Bitcoin that has no dirty history. The tools to track this have become perfectly reliable.
- Surprisingly, state-approved bitcoins are worth millions in today's dollars. Self-hosted Bitcoin has become nearly worthless, a few dollars per Bitcoin.
- The state still cannot block people from using self-hosted Bitcoin, as intended. Yet, people are sheep, other than a few idealists, everyone is happily using state-approved Bitcoin as it has shown its value as a store of value and as a medium of exchange.
- Self-hosted Bitcoin is almost useless. Except for the few idealists, no one accepts it. You can barely buy things with it as most shops have decided to use the state-approved Bitcoin.
This is the background of the scenario.
Now, the government has decided they want to have full control over all 21M Bitcoin. They want to merge the self-hosted Bitcoin network into the state-approved Bitcoin.
For this, they've decided to use the time-tested approach of giving amnesty. Indeed, in the before-times, in countries where guns were illegal, giving amnesty was the best way to get people to turn in their guns. It had a 99% success rate.
Similarly, they intend that by having people transfer all the self-hosted Bitcoin into the state-approved network, without penalty or punishment, many people will do so.
By choosing to transition to the state-approved Bitcoin, the dollar value of your Bitcoin suddenly goes up in value, say by a factor of 1 million. You become a dollar-millionaire or even a billionaire. You are rich beyond the grave. However, this comes at the cost that you forsake your values. You betray everything Bitcoin stands for. You can only use Bitcoin for state-approved transactions.
You should also make the assumption that you are not a criminal. For some hypothetical reason, you have no need to evade taxes. You can buy everything you need and want in the legal circuit.
Adding the additional assumption that you can trust the state not to punish you and that this is a true amnesty, how would you answer the poll?
Summary of your choices
- I stay in the self-hosted network. Bitcoin the way it was intended. You are poor, your Bitcoin is nearly worthless, you can transact with it freely with fellow idealists.
- I move to the state-approved netwrok. You move to the 0.1% of the super-rich. Bitcoin is not being used the way Satoshi intended it. It is a great store of value, but the government can tax it, the government can block you from buying drugs or anything else they deem illegal. They will not confiscate your Bitcoin however.
Purpose of this hypothetical
By adding all these, probably not-so-realistic assumptions that you can trust the state to abide by a true amnesty, I want to see how many of us are in it for a number-go-up (NGU) scenario, and how much actually care about a decentralized, permissionless, and trustless network.
Disclaimer
This is just for fun. My definition of fun might be different from yours. I do know all these assumptions are not realistic. I would imagine that in reality, the permissionless network will be more valuable than the state-approved one. In reality, you should also not trust the state to change the rules a posteriori.
I stay in the self-hosted network80.0%
I move to the state-approved network20.0%
30 votes \ poll ended