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This is a good read. Bitcoin was always going to become a power struggle at the nation state level. Anything capable of challenging the monetary system was eventually going to attract attempts to control it. At least for now, Bitcoin creates money through work rather than debt. But what is the end goal? Simply killing Bitcoin would not remove the threat. The idea would remain, and destroying the dominant cryptocurrency could just clear the field for something harder to control. Maintaining Bitcoin’s dominance while limiting what it can actually be used for makes far more sense. That means restricting peer to peer use through regulation, while preserving enough transparency to make those restrictions enforceable. Transparency does not stop P2P. Regulation does. Transparency makes the regulation enforceable. The declining block subsidy creates another vulnerability. As it falls, the cost of supporting or influencing hash power becomes smaller relative to the financial system around Bitcoin. If maintaining influence over mining has strategic value, it does not necessarily have to be funded by mining revenue alone. Banking revenue can subsidise it to maintain control. This is why I think Knots was too inconsequential. If it was going to seriously challenge Bitcoin’s direction, it should have thrown down the gauntlet. Privacy at the base layer, making peer to peer cash much harder to regulate through surveillance. Then a small tail emission, maintaining a permanent market for proof of work and making it harder for mining to become dependent on external financial interests as the block subsidy disappears. But the more fundamental defence against capture is competition outside Bitcoin. Maximalism is what enables capture. When one network becomes the overwhelmingly dominant alternative, controlling that network becomes disproportionately valuable. The answer is not to replace Bitcoin maximalism with Monero maximalism. It is to make sure there are always credible alternatives. Bitcoin should be challenged by Monero, and both should be challenged by everything else capable of doing the job. Different systems should compete on privacy, censorship resistance, security and their ability to function as actual peer to peer cash. Cryptocurrency was always destined to become squad wealth. There is a natural economic force behind this. A challenger has enormous potential upside if it takes ground from an incumbent. Its users, holders and developers share in that upside, attracting capital, labour and attention. An incumbent that already dominates has much less upside simply from maintaining its position. By contrast, smaller or emerging systems offer asymmetric returns: if they succeed, early participants are rewarded far more than those in established networks. That dynamic turns participation itself into a form of aligned speculation, where belief, contribution and ownership reinforce each other. That creates a persistent incentive to back credible underdogs. It can be suppressed through regulation, misinformation or force, but the incentive itself remains. So perhaps the best thing for Bitcoin is not permanent dominance at all. For Bitcoin to succeed as peer to peer cash, it may need to lose its monopoly on the idea. The goal is not the end of government. The goal is honest money, accountable government and the end of usury. That does not require one cryptocurrency to win forever. It requires credible alternatives so neither governments nor monetary networks can assume people have nowhere else to go. The threat of exit is the tension that maintains the balance. View quoted note →

This is a must read. Bitcoin was always going to turn into a power struggle between nation states, but this power is very centralised. At least for now, bitcoin requires work for the new coins, so thee is no free ride. But what's the end goal. If it is to kill bitcoin it wont work because the idea remains a latent threat. Bitcoin losing dominance will only open up a path for other cryptocurrency to fill its place. The goal must be to control bitcoin and ensure its dominance while limiting its p2p capacity and ensure it remains transparent. Once the mining reward diminishes, mining can be subsidised by bankingbrevinue to ensure a control of hash power. This outlines how important altcoins are for bitcoins survival as p2p electronic cash. Knots shouldn't have forked to prevent spam, it should have thrown the gauntlet and introduced shielded transactions as mandatory and a small tail emission to ensure proof of work remains a profitable incentive to compete for hash power. View quoted note →

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