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28 sats \ 5 replies \ @fiatbad 25 May \ on: Banned from r/bitcoin. Freedom of speech is dead there. Makes me thankful for SN bitcoin
This is a major part of Roger Ver's argument in "Hijacking Bitcoin". It's also a major talking point by the Bitcoin-Cash community. While I'm not a "casher" and own zero BCH myself, I perk up when I see their points validated.
We are walking a fine line....
I agree that Bitcoin has been hijacked but I dont think in the way that Ver would suggest.
IMO BTC has been hijacked by a narrative that is essentially one of BTC being a speculative commodity, not a currency for use p2p.
This speculative commodity narrative largely neutralises any threat BTC poses to the legacy fiat operators MoE hegemony which is the basis of their power and wealth - in fact it enables them to charge punters for custody of ETFs, pump share prices as in Microstrategy and in the case of governments to impose KYC and tax.
The use of Bitcoin as a P2P payments protocol is now largely obstructed- in 'western liberal democracies' by sly tax recording requirements that make use of BTC as a MoE extremely burdensome to the point of any use either being illegal or marginal in terms of convenience- in autocracies Bitcoin is mostly outright banned for use as a MoE.
Even discussing such viewpoints is now basically impossible on r/bitcoin - its a shame as r/bitcoin is a huge narrative channel.
r/bitcoin has become a mindless narrative about ngu with sweet f.a. serious and in depth content.
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unfortunately the least 'knowledgeable' about Bitcoin... go to reddit first. Or just post nonsense fiat NGU stuff on there. But it's not the whole picture.
During a long bear market r/Bitcoin is much, much better and people actually focus on their values and what Bitcoin means to them. Way less speculation.
And even then recently there was a significant post (I have to find it) about how and why 'paying taxes' and accounting for spending 5$ on a cheesburger at Steak and Shake isn't right. It's not ethical or practical and most people realize this. Capital gains taxes on fries - really?
In defense of r/Bitcoin... there are many, many spammy posts and the mods there are completely overwhelmed. They have to walk a really fine line between allowing 'everything in' and being swamped with low-value AI spam... and only allowing 'certain' things and in fact censoring. What r/Bitcoin needs (and Bitcoin provides) is a proof-of-work filter that's "pay to post". Which is what SN has and why we are all here...
As far as the "P2P payments protocol is now largely obstructed" recognition yes that is true to some extent... however it's not the whole story?
There was an article in Bloomberg recently -
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-24/crypto-is-infiltrating-the-dollar-s-hegemony-says-ken-rogoff
Ken Rogoff on How Crypto Is Cutting Into the Dollar’s Hegemony
Q: And will crypto’s dominance continue to grow? A: Absolutely. Crypto’s going to continue taking over the global underground economy on transactions. There are people who think that crypto is going to go to the moon, but there plenty of people — Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, Jamie Dimon, Warren Buffett — who said pretty recently that they think crypto is just a scam. In the crypto chapter, I explain why that’s completely wrong. Because if the underground economy is 20% of global GDP that makes it — depending on the value of the dollar — a $20-to-$25 trillion economy. And if you’re providing the means of exchange, that’s a value proposition. Crypto has value. It’s used for transactions. There’s a big piece of the economy, which even if crypto’s heavily regulated, the government is going to have difficulty controlling. So it’s not worthless. There’s a lot at stake there.
Basically 20% of the world economy by GDP that's 'underground' or 'cash only' and "crypto" (mostly Bitcoin obviously) will absorb that over time. Pretty powerful to see in Bloomberg
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Yes fascinating reading Rogoffs book 'Our Dollar, Your Problem'. He is right inside the fiat monetary system working for the IMF and associates for decades and he clearly is sold on the fiat narrative- claiming that a Bitcoin Standard would not leave governments with any substantive way to respond to market crises ignoring the fact that the fiat standard leave huge debt spread across the system with the wealthy who can access debt using it to leverage bets on assets that might appreciate in value relative to fiat money thus making market crises much more likely- Similarly with government if they operated on a Bitcoin Standard they would have much greater incentive to accumulate liquid capital in advance of crises and would thus be much less indebted and prone to crises!
But good to see he does at least acknowledge both the predominant role of the USD in illegal/grey/black market transactions and Bitcoins utility there- he does not anywhere I have seen acknowledge the sly obstruction of Bitcoin MoE via tax recording and reporting obligations.
His explanation of how Japan was removed as a threat to USD hegemony in the 1980s and 1990s demonstrates how the US exerts pressure on any threat to its USD hegemony- but in the case of China I believe it is going to be much more difficult for the US to contain Chinas rise.
Yes the tax on 'steak and fries' (consumer MoE use of BTC) is a most sly and imo deliberate means of obstructing Bitcoins use as a MoE competitor to fiat and we need to both be aware of the problem and raise awareness of the problem. It may have been raised on r/Bitcoin once or twice but the predominant narrative there is so much NGU BS that any more substantive posts that get through the moderators are swamped and do not gain sufficient momentum for enough Bitcoiners to be aware and act on that awareness.
r/bitcoin needs to delete all mindless NGU posts (which are perhaps 80% of current content) and allow posts that address the real challenges Bitcoin faces.
I do not believe the r/bitcoin mods are benign in this but that they are actively and deliberately obstructing a free and open exchange and contest of ideas in the global bitcoin community.
Hope I am wrong in this but my experience trying to raise politically controversial issues such as the sly tax obstruction of Bitcoin MoE use, and being banned very quickly for raising the issue of censorship itself, strongly indicates otherwise. They just want banal mindless 'engagement' in trivia but nothing controversial that might frighten anyone or make anyone think beyond NGU.
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I believe that one day, perhaps many years from now, the "stacker news" model will be the model of the internet. It is just so superior, so value-embedded, just so "common sense" better than the current "filters" and "incentives of the Internet..."
The whole internet will be like Stacker News. But of course it will take time.
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You are probably right...I certainly hope so!
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