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I've spent a lot of time on shitcoin Twitter, bitcoin Twitter, and Reddit's r/wallstreetbets in the past. Nothing is more common among these places than the diamond hands/paper hands narrative, with some variations of the hands type like weak, strong, lettuce, etc. Also, everybody saw memes like 300 Spartans holding their bags or something like that.
At the same time, we have another narrative where money is a store of value, medium of exchange, and unit of account. And Bitcoin is money, it's generational wealth, it's everything divided by 21M, right?
So how do we do diamond hands to medium of exchange shift? Some might argue, that if you buy goods and services in bitcoin, it's not selling, so you just keep your diamond hands title and sprinkling your dust diamonds on sellers while you are passing by in a carriage and they bring you goods to your citadel later. And then they go and sell it for Micky Mouse money. In other words, if you buy something in Bitcoin, but the seller instantly sells it after for fiat - isn't it same as selling? Not taxwise, but a philosophical question here. Or you "don't care / never sell"?
So you sell 1st and then buy - paper hands You buy 1st and then the seller sells - diamond hands.
Ok, some might argue let's call it spending and converting, spending on goods and services is fine, converting to fiat to buy goods and services is bad. You need to support a circular economy, and to support it - it needs to exist or you need to create it. How do you create it - you spend your bitcoin.
Cause if you are holding your diamond balls in your diamond hands sitting in your half-built citadel nothing is going to change. It's like wanting revolution while sitting in your castle and waiting for others to do the job. We need revolutionists, we need actions. We needed Laszlo_Hanyecz. And all these heroes (or call them misfits) of revolution will bleed, they will bleed so others can learn from them. They will fuck up their lightning nodes, get hacked, and people will laugh at them as they zapped the whole kids' college fund on a single meme and spent the whole block subsidy of 2084 on a cup of coffee. But without spenders nothing will happen.
So the whole diamond hands/paper hands narrative is broken, leave this meme for shitcoinery, it doesn't help Bitcoin in the long run. When people hear this there is a strong connection with stocks and shitcoins. And Bitcoin is not another asset in your portfolio. It's your future life. And in your future life, you are going to spend, sell, convert, earn, save, you gonna do all these things. Because if you don't do it it will just not work. And there will be no future we hope for.
Now, some toxic spenders will spend their Bitcoin to buy goods from you or return the money for a coffee and then shame and bully you in oblivion if you try to sell your Bitcoin. Fine, we need them too, shame your friends, just don't make it a global narrative. Cause Bitcoin is for our kids and grandkids.
I can't tell my kids to have diamond hands and shame them for the paper hands later, that's ridiculous. Remember when you were a kid and you were saving money for something, not saving money for the sake of money? They are these kids now. They are getting their Bitcoin piggy bank that they will break one day to buy a bike/doll / Playstation / whatever the f they want. And then they start saving again. Ok, maybe the second time they won't have too much Bitcoin, ok maybe you need to sit and lecture them about the time preference - "In 5 years you will be able to get 100 bikes, son!" - "But Dad, I need a new bike now when I'm 15, I don't need 100 bikes when I'm 20." Kids can't have the same time preference as you are. 5 years for you is maybe 10% of your lived life. 5 years for them is like 35%. They cannot wait another 35% to get a bike, all friends will be gone by then and you will ride in the park alone on your 100 bikes.
So kids will not have diamond hands or paper hands, kids just want to use it. Spend it, sell it, save it. Cause at the end you are not converting/selling your Bitcoin for fiat. You use your fiat as an extra medium of exchange. So when my kids need a bike they don't choose between bike for bitcoin or no bike, they choose between 2 paths here - Bitcoin -> Bike and Bitcoin -> Fiat -> Bike. And if the 1st option is not available they will just switch to the second and go on with their life. And please don't do this "it's just slavery with extra steps" meme here. It is for now, but we are gonna remove these extra steps sooner or later, one at a time.
this territory is moderated
It's your money, you can do whatever the fuck you want with it. That's the whole point.
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That's exactly true, but if you are in this space for a while there is quite a strong narrative not to spend a single satoshi and I think this is wrong idea for the newcomers, so instead both spending and hodling should be encouraged
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Maybe holding is the right idea for a newcomer who has trouble saving money. Different people have different personalities and objectives. There's no point in encouraging people to do anything if you don't know their individual circumstances.
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I think it's better advice for newcomers than those who've hodled for 10 years. In a few years, today's newcomers may feel different about their stacks and their actions will reflect that.
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Few are going to want to accept bitcoin until they need to accept it. Guns/ammo, drugs or goods from disfavored countries…all use cases where Bitcoin shines and as governments get more desperate, BTC economies will get more circular.
There is no need to wear a life preserver in a kiddie pool - in fact it is very cumbersome and less fun. You probably want it if you are in the middle of the ocean, though. Right now we are still in the kiddie pool (in the west), the fiat flood is not here yet.
If you aren’t buying things that require Bitcoin, maybe you just aren’t ungovernable enough yet.
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I like this idea, only people who really need bitcoin spend bitcoin...
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🖐️🎤
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Why can't we spend some of them? Spending doesn't make us lose hands. Holding is one way to support it but spending establishes its use case.
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That's what I'm talking about;)
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I believe we should hold most of our Bitcoin, but we should also spend some to support the bitcoin circular economy.
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Sure, that's the point of savings, you save them to spend them on something later. You cannot only hold.
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Are you worried we're going to reach immortality and lower our time preference to zero? Relax, people will continue to die in accidents.
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Sure, Just make sure you have an inheritance plan)
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10 sats \ 4 replies \ @OT 24 Jul
I think hodling is still a worthy cause. Of course its good to support businesses that provide a good product or service with a purchase in precious sats. However, if you live in an area will little to no businesses accepting bitcoin its better to hodl until they do.
As for the kids I can pretty much agree. I still think they should save a portion of their income/pocket money in bitcoin. Maybe no less than 10% (Check out The Richest Man in Babylon). As Bitcoin becomes less volatile it should start making more sense to use it as a medium of exchange.
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its better to hodl until they do. Isn't it a chicken or an egg problem here? I think it comes from your needs, if you put this aside and hold forever - you can pass it to your grandkids, but if you save to buy something - you can't really wait for them to accept it
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no less than 10%
I just told my 40 year old son that "tithing" 10 percent of his income in Bitcoin would be a good idea for a retirement plan. He has never saved anything for retirement and his Social Security probably won't amount to much. I told him 401K was gambling but Bitcoin is gambling on a sure thing that you can own and keep no matter what happens.
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"tithing" Interesting choice of words, so Bitcoin is a religion after all=) But jokes aside, retirement and social security are going to shit, for example Germany recently calculated that the retirement payment in Germany is between 1200 EUR and 1600 EUR monthly. Inflation will it that in couple of years, Bitcoin is the only hope.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 24 Jul
Sounds like a plan!
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So you sell 1st and then buy - paper hands You buy 1st and then the seller sells - diamond hands.
You forgot third option:
You buy 1st and then the seller HODLs - double diamond hands.
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Nice read. I think some Stackers find it hard to spend the sats they earn here - people who are attuned to The Bitcoin Standard. I think unless there is a drastic change in life circumstances, most people wouldn’t want to spend their sats
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Diamond hands in the context of bitcoin = Only “spend” your bitcoin if you’re transacting with bitcoin.
Don’t ever sell your bitcoin for USD or any other currency. Buy bitcoin, transact with bitcoin for goods, buy more bitcoin.
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In my opinion, diamond hands just represent the idea you won't be shaken out by fear. You will hold until you find something you value more than the Bitcoin, not until the market coerces you to. That's the way I look at it anyways.
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So how do we do diamond hands to medium of exchange shift?
Who is "we"? I don't feel the need to do any "shift". I'll use my bitcoin as I see fit.
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Right, that what should everybody do We - people sitting by the fire and talking about bitcoin, kids and philosophy=)
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Depends on where you are at in the adoption cycle and often how much wealth you’ve built up.
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How can you be certain where you are in the cycle? Or could you give couple of examples what do you mean by this?
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Your personal adoption cycle of Bitcoin. If you joined 10 years ago it’s much easier to spend it now. If you joined 3 years ago like me not as much, but 7 years from now I’ll spend more of it in a circular economy. This assumes Bitcoin dies it’s thing and Fiat does it’s thing
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Got it, well it doesn't really work like this for me, it's doesn't make it easier for me to spend regardless if the DCA price is 10% or 50% below the current price which kind of brings us to the question of "unit of account". 100k sounds like a lot of money, even if you are a multimillionaire=) I don't know, maybe if your DCA price will be 1% or the market price the perception changes. We'll see.
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One percent Five percent Ten percent or less
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Spend and replace.
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How do you see it - like spend and immediately replace?
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stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.