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2700 sats \ 20 comments \ @tomlaies 7h bitcoin

zaps forwarded to @stack_harder (33%)

Just listened to the Stacker News Live Podcast about if value for value has failed or not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCUg25RmTEo&ab_channel=StackerNewsLive

The main response, in the podcast and in the original Post #853884 seems to be that

Is it still early tho?

This talking point in general. About Bitcoin in general. It's something I probably said in 2020. But it has been half a decade since then. Half a decade. And there are no Lightning terminals in 7/11 or Walmart or Lidl or Carrefour. There doesn't have to be a Lightning terminal in all of these places, just give me one (1) only one. But there aren't.

Normally technologies should adopt fast like a virus. Sure, the internet existed in the 90s and in 2007 few people already owned a smartphone. But software on the internet should adopt faster than that. At the moment I'm not even sure if it's growing (in terms of number of people) at all. Maybe it's already shrinking in # people and only growing in $$ because people stack and hodl their paychecks.

Also the market cap of Bitcoin of 2 Trillion does not make it sound like we're still early. Maybe we have lost a lot of Bitcoin to broken laptops in 2011, burned paper wallets and incompetence, maybe it's 1 Trillion market cap. Still not early anymore.

So what

I don't want to be a pessimist. Pessimism is often a coping mechanism and a gut reaction of the human mind. My fear is more that we do have to come to terms with the possibility of Bitcoin staying an underground technology. In the past I thought about this possibility like a choice. Maybe it isn't our choice, maybe that's what Bitcoin naturally is. In its very nature.

Prefer Underground-Bitcoin over Hyperbitcoinization?

#56336

Are You a Bitcoin Advocate or a Underground Bitcoiner

#205973

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54 sats \ 3 replies \ @NovaRift 6h

This is true; we are much more than what it should be called early (less than 1.5% of the world population has bitcoins). And it's strange that even after 1.5 decades have passed since Bitcoin's launch, we still have so many fewer adopters.

Ironically, if we combine Bitcoin plus other coins in terms of adopters, it's approximately 7%, which means shitcoins are way more adopted than bitcoins.

What kind of world is this?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Coinsreporter 4h

The kind that you live in!

Shitcoins aren't way more adopted than Bitcoin. It's a big fat lie. Bitcoin's market cap is the proof of this lie.

Do you have anything to support your numbers for 1.5% or 7%?

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @NovaRift 4h

The kind that you live in!

In 2024, approximately 562 million people own some type of cryptocurrency, equal to 6.8% of the global population. As the price of bitcoin has more than doubled this year, global crypto ownership has increased by 33% since 2023 alone.

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/crypto-ownership-growth-by-region/ https://www.triple-a.io/blog/crypto-ownership-report

If true, it means about 1.3% of the world's population owns bitcoin https://bitbo.io/how-many-users/

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 4h

Wow! They surveyed 7000 people around the world and came to conclude these numbers.

Near 7% is quite bullish. But to say that Bitcoin is only owned by less than 1.5% is quite bearish.

Don't you think that a big percentage of shitcoiners also have Bitcoins, less or more?

If true, it means about 1.3% of the world's population owns bitcoin.

This isn't true and can't be true. There is a big number of people who still hold Bitcoins on exchanges. But they aren't counting them.

48 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 6h

I'm with you on this. Look at the map for Bitcoin accepting businesses and there are almost zero in South East Asia. Not one in China either. If it's not something that's where the population is most concentrated, where do you think it should.

I think the world need to be more open about holdings, if we're just remaining underground out of fear, this isn't gonna help. We need to face the challenges in the open, otherwise this will go down as sleeping revolution in the history.

17 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 4h

I think most normie people would compare Bitcoin directly to... Digital Gold. Yes it's so much more than that (divisible, transportable, electronic, stored on an iphone or hardware wallet... not to mention unconfiscatable using Bip39 etc...)

So assuming that Bitcoin matches Gold's Market Cap - Gold's Market Cap is around 13.7 trillion.

Bitcoin's today is 2.07 trillion at 104k USD per Bitcoin.

Meaning at a Gold Market Cap Bitcoin would be 6.6x its current value? So 6.6 x 104K is 686k USD per Bitcoin.

That's just Bitcoin as a store of value. As a 'medium of exchange' Bitcoin could far exceed gold because it's digital... use of the comparison between Blockbuster (analog) vs Netflix (Digital) makes sense.

So it could far exceed that in my opinion eventually.

Anecdotally how many people in your day-to-day life have anything other than a cursory understanding of what Bitcoin is or how it works? How many use Lightning or have paid for something in Bitcoin?

Furthermore... see the WSJ comments section on any crypto or Bitcoin-related news article. It is filled with anti-Bitcoin nonsense, myths, claims of it being hacked 'any day now', the central computer 'going down' tulips etc etc...

Most comments call it a scam like FTX or say "there is no there, there..." Have any of these people ever used Bitcoin? No. Rolled a seed phrase? No. Run a node? No (they don't know what that is). And have they ever, universally even once heard of Lightning. Well no.

Does that mean we are 'early'? I don't know you be the judge.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @PictureRoom 1h

Well said. It's difficult to measure how "early" or not this is based on what you've mentioned there

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @ama 6h

The actual important question isn't really whether we are still early or not, but that it'll never be late. Bitcoin will always be better than any fiat alternative, so it'll never be late to convert whatever you have and save it in Bitcoin. You'll always do better that way, no matter when you (start to) do it.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 6h

We are still early. When it is early, everyone doubts. As it picks up in the next few years, you will understand we were still early. And everyone is late. Everyone has heard about bitcoin in the news for 10 years.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BallLightning 2h

I don't know if bitcoin will become widespread, but 5 years is very short term. I think you should be thinking in multidecades instead of years. And btw i think there already are places in the world where there are lightning terminals in shops.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cleaningup12 4h

If you look at the rate of adoption of AI versus Bitcoin

AI has been given a green light to exponentially spread throughout culture, but it's UX is similar to custodial on ramps

Bitcoin on the other hand is held back at every opportunity by regulatory hurdles in regards to mainstream adoption, and that's without mentioning the elephant 🐘 in the room which is Bitcoin dethroning the very essence of what all power hungry global psychopaths, cannot bear the very thought of, losing control of the monetary system

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @zapsammy 4h

the mind control is very strong. a bitcoiner is morally obligated to train and educate harder.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder fwd 4h

i think technically, we are early in bitcoin as a global currency and probably still early to see mega spike in NGU terms.

it just never feels early.

the reality is, out there in normie land, most people don't have the slightest clue about bitcoin

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @flat24 4h

Underground Bitcoiner

I am definitely one of these "Underground Bitcoiners."

I think incognito mode is what will keep us safe in the future.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Aardvark 4h

It's still outpacing other assets significantly. Unless it shows an extreme decline in yearly growth I'd say yes, still very early.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheBTCManual 4h

I think we're still early 2 trillion in global cash balances in an asset is a relative drop in the bucket, plenty of upside to go.

Of those cash balances how many are individuals who have no other cash balance to spend? I venture to say very few, once your fiat cash doesn't get you jack shit, which is coming for me sooner than those in developed nations I will have to be prepared to use my Bitcoin.

If I just look at my personal experience if I spend Bitcoin i'm replacing immediately, because I still have the luxury of fiat income I want to spend the bad money first and also secure as many sats so I have a bigger pool to draw down from since there's no yield on Bitcoin

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 5h

My fear is more that we do have to come to terms with the possibility of Bitcoin staying an underground technology.

Or a different fear: that btc is amazing and gets widely adopted, but by mega-scale entities like corporations and governments. It would still do something in the world, but it could be quite indirect, and with a lot of normal people bitter about their stranded sats.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 6h

We are still WAY early if this thing becomes a global reserve currency used by 8 billion or this is the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time. You decide

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @stack_harder fwd 6h

this is cool, how come sats are being forwarded to me? didn't even know such a thing was possible

37 sats \ 0 replies \ @tomlaies OP 6h

You can do this on the "options" tab of a post. I chose 1/3 since I linked 3 posts and one of them is yours.