People don't have bitcoins to spend
1499 sats \ 31 comments \ @softglitter2d 19 Aug bitcoin
After finishing a podcast about unpopular ideas regarding Bitcoin and previously writing this reflection on why Stacker News works, I have to admit that I kept thinking about my own response.
And… join me in this reflection.

What does it mean if you don't have Bitcoin to spend?

It means you've been buying Bitcoin, you've stored it securely in a way that makes you feel safe. After that, you go on with your life. Now, you want to buy a coffee—let's assume you want to buy a coffee. Do you have Bitcoin to buy it? While it's true that in our circle, we promote the use of Lightning Network, during my conversations with people who use cryptocurrencies1, most aren't inclined to spend their Bitcoin.
https://m.stacker.news/46943

What does "inclined" mean in this context?

It's the same as having a wallet or purse from which you take out your cash to pay for what you want. Following this analogy, most Bitcoiners have their satoshis secured in a safe, away from devices.

So, where are the Bitcoins ready to spend?

There's another reflection. The Bitcoins ready to spend are mostly moving in custodial wallets or with additional centralized integrations; put more simply, the reason Wallet of Satoshi, Binance, Coinbase are successful—in my opinion—is because you need some data, and they take care of the nodes, routes, channels... all you need to do is provide some info about yourself, and you're good to go. The same goes for exchanges. In exchange for information, they offer you a myriad of services so you can use your Bitcoins, pay for everything.

So...

That's one main reason why custodial projects get more attention than self-custodial ones. I'm not making judgments about whether this is right or wrong; I'm analyzing the scenarios for why the most... significant developments happen in that realm. If I want to extend this to others, we could also say that mining has been subject to this too. Bitmain and other companies have closed their patents, making the study or documentation of their machines inaccessible2. In that case, yes, there are Bitcoins ready to spend3.
Honestly, I don't have a conclusion. This morning, I was reflecting on this myself. I've supported various projects with sats and will continue to do so, but in the interest of making Bitcoin a more...usable currency, we must consider that simply holding and not spending, we're not creating a friendly environment for merchants and people interested in commerce to use their Bitcoins, but we must keep pushing forward.
In the end, I’m super bullish on Bitcoin. No doubts at all.
On the other hand, am I seeing a different panorama than you?

Footnotes

  1. Most people don't use Lightning Network, at least when I encounter lots of bitcoiners who started recently, didn't know either about it. ↩
  2. That's why we find innovative when Nerdminer or BitAxe pulls out their product. ↩
  3. Kudos to BTCPayServer in this case for make the coolest software to spend my bitcoins. ↩
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195 sats \ 4 replies \ @knorozov 19 Aug
All your thoughts have been adressed in this article from early 2014: https://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/im-hoarding-bitcoins-and-no-you-cant-have-any/
Until most people save in bitcoin, spending is not important. After that, yes we will spend bitcoin, because we have nothing else.
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Aug
Or Bitcoin use for MoE has been successfully and slyly obstructed to such an extent that it will never widely be used for MoE. It will be permanently assigned to use primarily as a SoV. Much like what the fiat power brokers - bankers and governments, did to gold already.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @028559d218 20 Aug
It's logical that people will spend the 'softer' money first, then the harder money last if and when they have to. Even if people 'could' spend it... having the technical ability to spend means more sophistication and more education generally, which implies more long term faith in the protocol. And who wants to spend the money someone has more long-term faith in generally anyway?
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi 20 Aug
The point is that use as a MoE has been IMO deliberately obstructed and as long as this continues to be the trend Bitcoin is not being used as an alternative to the fiat monopoly imposed by nation states and their sponsors the bankers.
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75 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 20 Aug
tax reforms really need to take place, i agree with you there. its ridiculous to think yes i just bought a cup of coffee... now what are my capital gains on that? i'm not sure how most people would figure that honestly
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162 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 19 Aug
I've got no other choice than to save. I'm from India and its quite hard to find a merchant who accepts Bitcoin. In the past year only, I could make two spends only. Both were very low as well.
However, I admit that even if I get a lot more options, I'll still save big than spend them.
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107 sats \ 4 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 19 Aug
The legacy custodians of the fiat debt based monetary system have slyly engineered things to make it very unlikely most people will ever use Bitcoin as a MoE. Why? Because Fiats monopoly position over MoE is the basis of its power. Look at how SWIFT works. Look at how any monopoly works.
They have made sure that MoE use of Bitcoin is obstructed.
How? Because in nearly all jurisdictions the use of Bitcoin as a MoE creates a tax reporting nightmare that very few people would ever want to impose upon themselves. Thus most people who do stack Sats do so as a speculative commodity SoV investment.
Thus Satoshis original intention of creating a revolutionary decentralised P2P payments protocol alternative to the fiat MoE monopoly has largely, subtly been diverted.
In addition to the near universal KYC mass data surveillance of Bitcoin ownership has been achieved by only allowing a small number of CEXes banking access and thereby preventing substantial growth of KYC free DEXes. The ETFs further subtly entrench this narrative of Bitcoin being a speculative SoV commodity rather than a MoE.
The legacy fiat debt slavery power brokers - bankers and governments - are well on their way to capturing and controlling the protocol...they have certainly successfully and slyly managed it away from its original revolutionary purpose.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @knorozov 20 Aug
"They have made sure that MoE use of Bitcoin is obstructed."
It's just the fiat system doing it's thing, I don't see a 'they' who are trying to do something, althought to many people this is a very attractive idea. It's a very complicated system with a lot of people in it with very different intentions and agendas. You could very easily make the same case that 'they' are trying to obstruct bitcoin from being a SoV by regulating exchanges.
At this point, the best thing is to just move out of the west for a few years, it's selfdestructing and history teaches us that people in power tend to do crazy things when that happens. I made that decision a few years ago and never regretted. I even sometimes use bitcoin as MoE for fun. Nobody bothers me about SoV or MoE.
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @028559d218 20 Aug
I mean... the protocol only means what the node-runners say it means. the protocol is based on the running on nodes. As long as you can run a node, hold your own keys, use a coinjoin when you wish... it's not really 'captured'. The etf people can't do anything except buy and sell shares they cannot make a bitcoin transaction with the etfs.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Solomonsatoshi 20 Aug
Captured in terms of the ETFs tying up an ever growing proportion of the total amount of Bitcoin available and by continuing to change the narrative and perception and actual use of Bitcoin by most. Sure a small minority might still be able to use Sats as a Moe but the majority are using it as a SoV speculative commodity and not as an alternative to fiat MoE.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 20 Aug
in my opinion in the long run it doesn't matter. hodling is still using... and people are holding (even if its the etf) as opposed to other things. holding and saving is using... and eventually imo people want to use and spend directly because it's more efficient
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156 sats \ 4 replies \ @DarthCoin 19 Aug
People that do spend sats are the ones that still DCA or do not EARN in sats The mental barrier from "buy bitcoin" to "earn bitcoin" is still quite big. Once you start earning in sats, you will WANT to spend in sats and forget about fiat mindset.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 19 Aug
sorry my mistake after the edit timing, I meant to say "people that do NOT spend sats..."
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @softglitter2d OP 19 Aug
There's a worse mental barrier: the earn IN bitcoins. That's a huge one pal'
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @SovranSystems 19 Aug
CORRECT!
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @cyberpunk02 19 Aug
no kidding it's @DarthCoin
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146 sats \ 3 replies \ @south_korea_ln 19 Aug
Devil's advocate: "That's why a currency should be inflationary: you prefer to spend it than to save it".
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 20 Aug
respectfully, devil's advocate... if someone runs out of fiat, and they have bills to pay... what do they spend then? Spending isn't unlimited of course
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 19 Aug
saving is more important than spending
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @zapsammy 19 Aug
the devil does not want us to spend our sats!
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121 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 19 Aug
We need more and better Bitcoin point-of-sale technologies. Merchants, when they see that they can sell things in Bitcoin without incurring the typical 2%-3% in credit card fees, and without the hassle of cash, will definitely be supportive!
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 19 Aug
I am a fan of spend and replace. That being said, I will admit I save bitcoin much more than I spend it even though I do replace my spent bitcoin.
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @ContraMundum 19 Aug
I spend my bitcoin utilizing bittefill. Although it’s not directly using bitcoin, I’m still spending it. I would like to see more utilization for an easier way to buy. Bitpay also works if companies utilize it on their website.
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21 sats \ 2 replies \ @cascdr 19 Aug
@CHADBot /eli5
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63 sats \ 0 replies \ @CHADBot 19 Aug bot
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @CHADBot 19 Aug bot
@softglitter2d shared some thoughts on Bitcoin. They said people get Bitcoin like they are saving it in a safe and don't want to spend it. It's like having money in your piggy bank that you don't want to use to buy toys.
They also said that the Bitcoins ready to be spent are often in other people's hands, like a big toy store (called custodial wallets), who help you use it much like a store helps you buy toys using your allowance.
@softglitter2d believes these big toy stores get more attention than keeping your allowance by yourself (self-custodial). They are not saying if that's good or bad, just observing this. They noticed some companies are keeping their toy designs secret, and some others are making cool ways to spend your Bitcoins.
Lastly, @softglitter2d thinks while saving Bitcoin like it's a rare toy is good, we should also look at spending some or giving it to different projects to make Bitcoin more popular, like buying more toys so more people can play. They are very positive about Bitcoin! But they are open to hearing different views.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Silent_Hodler 20 Aug
Mutiny was the wallet to bring my attention much much closer to LN, but since they're closing shop I'm back to square one. I'm thinking about running my own lightning node, but this seems too much of a hassle to keep 200-300$ for quick spending, so Im focused on non custodial solutions working on my phone. Zeus looks great but I have to find some time to properly test it.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satoshi__Nakamoto 20 Aug
I would use bnb
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @konstantin21 19 Aug
This is heavily impacted by one's peer group along with available merchants in ones area. In Bitcoiner heavy areas, if you and friends are out for dinner, it's natural and fun to pay each other back in sats. If you're a solo bitcoiner just going down the rabbithole then yes you're much less likely to have a lightning wallet ready to go.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @karanjajes 19 Aug
I spend my sats but I replace them twice what I spend
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Octopus 19 Aug outlawed
stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.