🚩 Scaling, Fees, and Custody 1. “The limiter … is not how many people can self-custody bitcoin. It’s how many people want to.” ✘ Misleading: The actual limiter is both technical (running a node, limited throughput, UTXO set growth) and user preference. It’s not just a matter of willpower — scaling constraints are real. 2. “Bitcoin currently processes about as many transactions per year as Fedwire.” ✘ False. • Bitcoin: ~350,000 transactions per day → ~130 million/year. • Fedwire: ~200 million/year. ✔ She’s right they’re in the same order of magnitude, but Fedwire clears $1 quadrillion vs Bitcoin’s ~$12 trillion annual settlement. That’s almost 100× higher per dollar volume, and the average Fedwire tx is ~$5 million vs Bitcoin’s ~$90,000. 3. ”…open-source global Fedwire with low fees despite it being a $2T network.” ✘ Misleading. Bitcoin isn’t equivalent to Fedwire: • Fedwire is final settlement for banks with virtually no reorg risk; Bitcoin is probabilistic settlement. • Bitcoin fees are currently low mainly due to demand not exceeding blockspace, not inherent scalability. ⸻ 🚩 Custodial Layers and “Paper Bitcoin” 4. “Paper bitcoin holders add to stability and network size without clogging it.” ✘ Misleading/False. • Custodial IOUs don’t strengthen Bitcoin’s security model; they introduce counterparty risk, weaken censorship-resistance, and often end in blowups (Mt. Gox, FTX). • Hal Finney did speculate about Bitcoin banks, but that was not an endorsement that custodial Bitcoin was good for the system. ⸻ 🚩 Market Size and Capitalization 5. ”$2T network.” ✘ Misleading. Bitcoin’s market cap ≈ $2T at times, but the network value ≠ Fedwire settlement throughput. Fedwire moves orders of magnitude more in annual settlement volume than Bitcoin. 6. “Entering into a global fiat network of hundreds of trillions.” ✘ Misleading. The “$hundreds of trillions” claim lumps M2 money supply, credit, bonds, and derivatives together. Bitcoin is not directly comparable. ⸻ 🚩 Technical Development 7. “The technical foundation is good … scale has reached institutions.” ✘ Misleading. Institutional adoption of custodial Bitcoin products (ETFs, exchanges, custodians) ≠ scaling of the base layer. The base protocol itself still has the same throughput limits (7 tps theoretical, ~350k/day). 8. “Low base-layer fees” as a permanent feature. ✘ Misleading. Fees are only low during periods of low demand. During the Ordinals / BRC-20 craze in 2023, average fees spiked above $30. ⸻ 🚩 Government & Privacy 9. “The real battle is government crackdown on privacy.” ✔ True that privacy crackdowns are real, but ✘ misleading to imply Bitcoin is in a “good technical place” on privacy. • Bitcoin’s base layer offers very weak privacy (pseudonymous, chain-analytic vulnerable). • It’s incorrect to suggest the only issue is regulation; the protocol itself leaks data massively. ⸻ 🚩 Rhetorical Framing 10. “We live in a sweet spot … golden age.” ✘ Subjective, but misleadingly dismisses structural risks: centralization of mining, mempool congestion, reliance on custodians, and fee market sustainability are unresolved. ⸻ ✅ In short: • She overstates Bitcoin’s parity with Fedwire, • confuses market cap with settlement volume, • downplays real scalability and privacy limitations, • misrepresents custodial IOUs as beneficial, • and frames low fees as intrinsic rather than demand-driven.