What Happened To Bitcoin? - From Everyday Money To Investment/Speculation Asset

[Peter90]

"Those who involved themselves in Bitcoin markets after 2017 encountered a different operation and ideal than those who came before. Today, no one much cares about what came before, speaking of 2010-2016. They are only watching the upward price momentum and are thrilled for the increase in the asset valuation of their portfolio.

Gone is the talk of separating money and state, of a market-based means of exchange, of genuine revolution that would extend from money to the whole of politics the world over. And gone is the talk of changing the operation of money as a means of changing the prospects for freedom itself. The enthusiasts around Bitcoin have different goals in mind.

And during this entire period, the exact time when this digital asset might have protected multitudes of users and businesses from rapacious inflation growing out of the worst and most globalized experience of corporatist statism in modern history, made possible due to the money monopoly of central banks that funded the operation, the original asset that carries the symbol BTC was systematically diverted from its original purpose.

So, yes, I became an early enthusiast, writing hundreds of articles, even publishing a book in 2015 called Bit By Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World.

I could not have known it at the time, but those were in fact the last days of the ideal and just before the protocol came to be controlled by a consolidated group of developers who jettisoned entirely the idea of peer-to-peer cash to turn it into a high-earning digital security, not a competitor with state-based money but rather an asset designed not to use but hold with third-party intermediaries controlling access."

zerohedge.com

[Peter90]

"The story you will read here is of tragedy, the chronicle of an emancipationist monetary technology subverted to other ends. It’s a painful read, to be sure, and the first time this story has been told with this much detail and sophistication. We had the chance to free the world. That chance was missed, likely hijacked and subverted.

Those of us who watched Bitcoin from the earliest days saw with fascination how it gained traction and seemed to offer a viable alternative path for the future of money. At long last, after thousands of years of government corruption of money, we finally had a technology that was untouchable, sound, stable, democratic, incorruptible, and a fulfillment of the vision of the great champions of freedom from all history. At last, money could be liberated from state control and thus achieve economic rather than political goals—prosperity for everyone versus war, inflation, and state expansion.

That was the vision in any case. Alas, it did not happen. Bitcoin adoption is lower today than it was five years ago. It is not on a trajectory of final victory but on a different path to gradually increase in price for its earlier adopters. In short, the technology was betrayed by small changes that hardly anyone understood at the time."

zerohedge.com

[Peter90]

What a coincidence

[TomPluz]

Gone is the talk of separating money and state, of a market-based means of exchange, of genuine revolution that would extend from money to the whole of politics the world over. And gone is the talk of changing the operation of money as a means of changing the prospects for freedom itself. The enthusiasts around Bitcoin have different goals in mind.

As a humble and simple observer of Bitcoin and one who has still many things to learn and understand on this matter, I think there is a big merit to this analysis, much more in 2024 compared to many years preceding. Right now, Bitcoin is officially recognized by the traditional financial sector as an asset - just like gold, stooks or forex - that can be bought, traded and made a good profits from. Many people are associating the value of Bitcoin with its ups and downs on the price and not so much of the things that can benefit the people and the society. I would fairly say that greed is now the moving factor with most of the people involved with Bitcoin and I would also say that it would be this can be true for years to come.

[Lucius]

I think we will very easily agree that we have already moved quite far from the time when Satoshi and Hal paved the way for Bitcoin and that for years (especially after 2017) we have been moving in a direction that takes us away from what Bitcoin should have been. I think that people are generally not ready, or maybe it's better to say that they don't want anything like Bitcoin, because most of them are heavily influenced by their governments and politicians and listen to them in practically everything.

Therefore, it is logical that Bitcoin went in the only possible direction in which it could survive - because if the majority did not want to use it as a currency, and at the same time there was no interest from the big players, I wonder if we would be here today discussing Bitcoin.

Given that I have been with Bitcoin for almost 10 years, I think that, like many others, I remember that time with a bit of nostalgia - because people were with Bitcoin not only because of the price, which was incomparably lower then than today - but because they felt some kind of freedom in in the sense that they can be their own bank.

[MrSpasybo]

I think we will very easily agree that we have already moved quite far from the time when Satoshi and Hal paved the way for Bitcoin and that for years (especially after 2017) we have been moving in a direction that takes us away from what Bitcoin should have been. I think that people are generally not ready, or maybe it's better to say that they don't want anything like Bitcoin, because most of them are heavily influenced by their governments and politicians and listen to them in practically everything.

Therefore, it is logical that Bitcoin went in the only possible direction in which it could survive - because if the majority did not want to use it as a currency, and at the same time there was no interest from the big players, I wonder if we would be here today discussing Bitcoin.

Given that I have been with Bitcoin for almost 10 years, I think that, like many others, I remember that time with a bit of nostalgia - because people were with Bitcoin not only because of the price, which was incomparably lower then than today - but because they felt some kind of freedom in in the sense that they can be their own bank.

Yeah, as Satoshi laid out: BTC can be anything that is useful to the world in the future, the potential of BTC is not just limited to a means of payment or the ability to transfer money across borders. BTC can be used for Inscription or something more interesting, so I believe that every decision of the community is the best thing for the future of BTC, including the decision to keep the block size the same in 2017.

BTC is for everyone, which means that large organizations can also participate in the BTC ecosystem: buying or selling BTC, accumulating BTC, manipulating the BTC price. They can do whatever they want, just like I can transfer my BTC without asking for permission from BlackRock or the US government. That is the decentralized and neutral nature of BTC, and while we respect it, we must also accept the participation and impact of bigboys in the market.

[electronicash]

gone are the days when the silent revolution supposedly grow after KYC and then it becomes the normal already where its now suppress. in fact more people are siding governments because of the thinking that we need the government for the adoption of crypto.

there is truth to it though but still BTC can stand on its own without the government but then the community becomes more divided when there were forks done.

[Google+]

gone are the days when the silent revolution supposedly grow after KYC and then it becomes the normal already where its now suppress. in fact more people are siding governments because of the thinking that we need the government for the adoption of crypto.

there is truth to it though but still BTC can stand on its own without the government but then the community becomes more divided when there were forks done.

The public deliberately encourages the government to provide support for cryptocurrency, but you must know that the government will not make decisions without considering the risks that might occur. The government is aware that the unstable movement of up and down cryptocurrency prices is very dangerous for its citizens.

[Lucius]

~snip~
BTC is for everyone, which means that large organizations can also participate in the BTC ecosystem: buying or selling BTC, accumulating BTC, manipulating the BTC price. They can do whatever they want, just like I can transfer my BTC without asking for permission from BlackRock or the US government. That is the decentralized and neutral nature of BTC, and while we respect it, we must also accept the participation and impact of bigboys in the market.

There is no doubt about that, the market is completely open and everyone can participate in it - but it is also an indisputable fact that in this, if we can call it a competition, ordinary people have little or almost no chance compared to the big players. It seems to me that more and more BTC ends up in the hands of those who do not see the problem in the fact that 1 BTC costs $60k, while such a high price for ordinary people mostly results in the expression "it's simply expensive". Of course, everyone can buy only a small part of BTC, but people have a tendency to believe that 1 (any coin) is more than, say, 0.0054748 BTC, which is often not true.

What I want to say is that the high price of BTC pushes more and more people towards altcoins, and that more and more BTC ends up in the hands of rich people who will probably own a significant number of BTC in the years to come.
When we add to that that companies like BlackRock are buying significant shares in the largest mining farms, it becomes a little clearer in which direction Bitcoin could go.

[Peter90]

Great posts everybody


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So, I feel confident in saying that the adoption of BTC as everyday money - 15 years after its launch - is basically zero.
Where I live, if my only money were BTC I'd starve.
Or have a very limited, exotic diet 

As an investment, BTC has been a success story.
As a currency, a failure.


I'm a fan of good money, money which doesn't lose purchasing power.
I'm a fan of p2p - which means privacy, not secrecy.
BTC was hope.


Imo BTC has failed as currency because of its volatility.
Think of a business - a dentist, barber, taxi driver, shoe seller - having on average a 3-5% profit out of each transaction.
Accepting BTC he could lose - given BTC volatility - all of that within 1 day.
Nobody likes to work for nothing.
Why take the risk.
Why accept BTC and then be forced to convert it as quick as possible in a stable currency.

[yhiaali3]

In fact, it is a painful article, but it is very expressive of the bad reality that Bitcoin has reached after it was hijacked by some greedy people, and now things are getting worse because of governments that have begun to contain Bitcoin in a circumventing way.

Most people currently only care about the price of Bitcoin and do not care about the other unique features of Bitcoin, and because of their greed, governments have been able to control Bitcoin by controlling centralized and decentralized third-party services.

I see that Satoshi's dream is about to be lost, and Bitcoin today is very different from Satoshi's vision when it was created

[LUCKMCFLY]

Well, when talking about bitcoin, yes, it is normal that many people, institutions, because it is something that can be done focused only on the price, the only interest is that the investment goes up and up, it is an asset that is given by speculation of the market, Regarding the characteristics and everything that Bitcoin represents, there are many things that people do not know, but also some services have been in charge of privatizing certain things that have to do with Bitcoin, the fact of complying with KYC and the fact Doing all kinds of things focused on knowing who handles bitcoin is what has also damaged this, there are many things that Satoshi would not have liked and that continue to happen he

[Lucius]

So, I feel confident in saying that the adoption of BTC as everyday money - 15 years after its launch - is basically zero.
Where I live, if my only money were BTC I'd starve.
Or have a very limited, exotic diet 
As an investment, BTC has been a success story.
As a currency, a failure.

I would not agree that the adaptation in terms of using it as a currency is completely zero - but that it still depends on where you are and how big the crypto community is around you. If there are enough people who want to pay with crypto-currencies and they organize themselves and visit merchants with a request to add such a payment method, sometimes it happens.

I don't know how familiar you are with the example of Arnhem Bitcoin City, but I heard that there are similar places in the EU where Bitcoin really took off because people asked for it and sellers recognized it.

Imo BTC has failed as currency because of its volatility.
Think of a business - a dentist, barber, taxi driver, shoe seller - having on average a 3-5% profit out of each transaction.
Accepting BTC he could lose - given BTC volatility - all of that within 1 day.
Nobody likes to work for nothing.
Why take the risk.
Why accept BTC and then be forced to convert it as quick as possible in a stable currency.

Volatility is an advantage when trading, but of course a disadvantage when paying with Bitcoin - but that's why there are payment processors that serve to overcome that problem. The buyer pays with cryptocurrency, and the seller gets fiat, so it's a win-win situation for both.

It is true that there are not too many physical stores that accept BTC because we also have the problem that on-chain transactions are not instant, but that is why we have thousands of online sellers that accept BTC. Imagine living in a country where you can buy almost anything you want for BTC, and you don't have to pay taxes if 2+ years have passed since you invested in any cryptocurrency - it seems unrealistic, but it's true

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

"Those who involved themselves in Bitcoin markets after 2017 encountered a different operation and ideal than those who came before. Today, no one much cares about what came before, speaking of 2010-2016. They are only watching the upward price momentum and are thrilled for the increase in the asset valuation of their portfolio.

Have you then consider the reason why many people do this, its because they have realized that the past is gone already and there is nothing you can do towards that again, but we all have the ability to influence the future right now from our decision taken today, that is why those that invested lately never consider themselves as late investors, because they realized that opportunity in bitcoin network is a continuous expectation they can always achieve with time.

[bayu7adi]

Honestly, your dedication to spreading knowledge about Bitcoin deserves to be appreciated. Yes, I also realize that cryptocurrency users are currently experiencing a quite worrying transition, where currently many people are more interested in making price predictions and taking advantage of using exchanges. Few care about financial freedom or the decentralized mechanisms that Satoshi Nakamoto is trying to put forward today.

But neither we nor Satoshi can prevent this, because according to his predictions, Bitcoin in the future will have two possibilities, namely dying or becoming as big as it is now. And I think the status of Bitcoin right now is to be big.