407 sats \ 4 replies \ @k00b 1 May \ on: Bitcoin paradigm shift thought experiment bitcoin
I have a terrible gauge for what's reasonable. I tend to be pessimistic toward things out of my control. To expect change I have to believe incentives, or their visibility, will change.
For me, time-unbounded maximal success for bitcoin is that it's nearly as easy to use self-custodially as it is custodially. I think this is how it survives all the forces that want to destroy it. I think we can get closer to that in 10 years, but it's unreasonable to think it'll happen unless bitcoin is seriously attacked (and it looks we'll be getting another degree of that "gift" soon). Any other kind of success I can think of likely leads to bitcoin going the way of gold.
If central banks begin holding bitcoin, and bitcoin becomes a sanctioned money, and before we get easy self-custody, (I think) it leads to us trusting entities that aren't invested in bitcoin's long term success and we get soft on the things that make bitcoin valuable.
I think the best possible scenario for bitcoin is it's severely and progressively attacked and we anticipate and adapt to survive it. The worst possible scenario is bitcoin isn't attacked, becomes ubiquitous, and is only then attacked and more people suffer a loss from it.
I think the best possible scenario for bitcoin is it's severely and progressively attacked and we anticipate and adapt to survive it. The worst possible scenario is bitcoin isn't attacked, becomes ubiquitous, and is only then attacked and more people suffer a loss from it.
I had an answer like this in mind, but not as elegant as the way you've put it. I had imagined it as a basketball metaphor:
Think of btc as a team in the NBA at the beginning of the season. The best thing that could happen is if the team faced enough adversity that they were forced to suffer, to scramble, to fight with each other and figure out who to be, but not so much adversity that they were torn apart by it and fell into learned helplessness.
Over the course of the season they slowly improved, with many ups and downs, but got on a run before the playoffs -- they started really putting it together. In the playoffs, every series was close, but high variance -- they won big and they lost big. They faced elimination. They had to manage euphoria. They made adjustments. Round 1 demanded a somewhat different approach than round 2. Different heroes emerged each series. The players grew and evolved and adapted.
They win the title in the end, exhausted but jubilant.
I have a terrible gauge for what's reasonable.
I feel like this is a setup for the punchline "and that's why I was able to create Stacker News." Building a fully functional site with the features it has from the ground up seems like something that would have daunted reasonable people.
I think the best possible scenario for bitcoin is it's severely and progressively attacked and we anticipate and adapt to survive it. The worst possible scenario is bitcoin isn't attacked, becomes ubiquitous, and is only then attacked and more people suffer a loss from it.
This makes sense, and it's an interesting conundrum. BTC needs to be attacked severely to thrive, but we also don't want attacks that fully succeed, either. Sort of like the carnival game where you have to roll the bowling ball hard enough to get over a hump, but if it's just a bit too hard, it ends up where you started.
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I think you are on to something. Its easy to get complacent. Its easy to say you believe or think things but when someone points a gun in your face it becomes all to real. Talk is cheap. Thoughts don't change things. Actions do. It was thinking through game theories that really opened my eyes to bitcoin so I think I'm in agreement with your thoughts here.
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