Replies (127)
In my opinion bitcoin will become the medium of exchange for the majority of the world only when workers, merchants and entrepreneurs will stop accepting anything else for their work, products and services. This will not happen before the USD collapses. Possibly also the USD successor will need to collapse as well. People adopting BTC today are the early adopters and a minority by definition. I'm doing my part, I'm spending where I can and engaging in the community. But we are few and it will remain like that for decades. Adoption of a new form of money is not as easy as changing from a flip phone to a smartphone. Majority of the population will do it only when they have no other option, when their life is in danger. Ergo: using BTC just as a SoV (savings!) is also using it as money and it won't significantly impede the adoption. Yes, we should spend it and use it as MoE and UoA even. This will help a little. But I understand and respect also those bitcoiners, who didn't start yet.
Gold is rarely used as money.
Bitcoin is the ultimate settlement layer. It doesn’t have to be the currency that people use everyday to transact.
> This will not happen before the USD collapses. Possibly also the USD successor will need to collapse as well.
Fiat currencies have collapsed many times throughout history. Fiat is basically one long chain of collapses. But then another fiat currency always comes up and gets adopted again because fiat is still the only viable option even with a cycle of collapses.
I don't think it will happen even after decades but that's besides the point. People here do things like save for retirement and retirement will eventually arrive and it needs to be sorted by then.
It's impossible, Bitcoin doesn't have a price stability mechanism and therefore doesn't work as a medium of exchange. Ever.
And no
@semisol calling your customers "wet wipes" doesn't make it stable either.
Why exactly does the store of value function depend on the unit of exchange function?
Think of how gold or a friendship is a store of value but a poor unit of exchange.
Now, the prospect of long time horizon convertibility for SOV to UOE is as subjective as any human value—networked as such values are, with some networks performing more robust proof of work (decentralization) and some networks performing less robust proof of effort (centralized).
I've been living on bitcoin for a long while now, and every year it gets easier to spend, and yes, I include "spend directly at the merchant" in that.
Granted, I have the privilege of being surrounded by bitcoin-accepting merchants, but bitcoin is becoming money more and more every day. Doesn't matter what the suitcoiners say.
CC
@markusturmExactly. 'Store of value forever' usually means 'please pump without asking me to use it.'...
What's a price stability mechanism?
Ponzi with a transparent distribution schedule unless used something in real world
Ya interesting point....why do you need bitcoin for finding truth between two needs especially with increased interconnectedness...ai agents able to conduct unlimited swaps to find the agreed upon price. ..
🤔
Na minha opinião a maior ameaça ào Bitcoin é a não adoção correta pela qual ele foi criado e pra que foi criado! Infelizmente muitos enxergam Bitcoin apenas como ativo de mercado para realizar lucros,alavancagem, essas baboseiras de daytrade fiat e shitcoins; Bitcoin não foi criado para esse propósito, mas parece que muitos assim o vê até hoje!
Oh is that why you thought the Bitcoin community should attack monero?
because it IS actually used as a MOE?
but to jump to the end of the conversation....
the hard cap is a design flaw.
incentives rule and Bitcoin is digital real estate.
Hard truth but it is what it is.
BTC will be used as money when our FIAT dollars are no longer accepted.
Then and only then will it happen. Might be 5-10 years 🤷♂️
central banks have one where they control the amount of money in circulation through interest rates to match the size of the economy.
if you have another one good for you but you have to have one.
Needs De Minimis exemption. I really think this is the main thing holding it back from more mainstream adoption.
The IRL retail, "buy a cup of coffee" application, while welcome, will probably come later... First will come significantly enhanced e-commerce adoption.
I tend to think that any amount of money is good enough for any size of the economy, however the size of the economy is measured.
If this were not the case, you'd have to justify adding or subtracting monetary units based exactly on what? When can we say that we have too much money or not enough money?
When prices go up there is too much money and when they go down there isn't enough.
It's not that difficult now is it.
It actually is, which set of prices? Should we lower the money supply because there's a war that is limiting the supply side of oil, which is an input for basically all products and services for example?
Provided we answer this question, when are we supposed to act given that whatever change in prices would be observed only after the fact? Should we lower the money supply in year t+1 since we observe higher prices in year t? What if prices naturally fall by the time the decrease has taken place? Would we have to double down on the opposite side? How do we make sure no arbitrary wealth redistribution happens? And many other questions
Can't the price of everything else be intentionally set and stabilised in BTC? And with this, it would not matter how the world around fluctuates... Stabilise in intentional groups/communities/charter cities. These groups networked amongst themselves. Based on the electricity and work output of that group and how much of that is used to produce each thing or to keep BTC running.
Or is it that economy will never work like that and the exterior will break/crush these intentionalities?
In post modernity nobody depends on each other, but its the zero and the infinite. The individual depending on the giants Big Government and Big Corporations... That's why it keeps fragmenting and people don't come together. No need to depend, no group. Unless we intentionally decide to depend... Is that the future. The coexistence of these two models. Or is there no chance and we will be enslaved?
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This time real Communism will work
Good questions.
It has to be a basket of prices across industries to eliminate undue influence of single factors like an oil shortage. Better to keep oil out entirely. Things like locally produced food are a much better indicator of money supply as there are many suppliers across the whole country and not subjected to whims. 10,000 farmers aren't suddenly going to get up one morning and collectively decide to limit the amount of wheat or what.
Yes the money supply has to be adjusted after the fact so it plays a bit of catch up. Interests rates are usually adjusted every 3 months or so IIRC.
I'll do some research on this. I think in today's hyper digitized economy it's actually possible to get a much better bird's eye view of the economy that the old fashioned ways of people born last century. Amazone would probably do a better job as issuing a stable currency that any government.
Strong, lucid take. This sums up my skepticism behind digital currency in general, precisely because I see the opening of the first exchange (wherein value became tethered to the USD) as the end of the line for any romantic notion.
And it's only gotten worse, as the mainstream now treats it like a commodity.
View quoted note →This seems really complicated and easily manipulated, I think central banks are trying to do something of the sort already and it's not looking great to be honest. I, for one, would stick to a fixed money supply or a fixed rule like Friedman suggested many decades ago (money is neutral and all that)
Bitcoin as a permanent store of value but never money is like inventing email and insisting it’s only for saving drafts.
You're right, a coin only comes to life when it's in circulation.
It would be interesting to see how someone would calculate these prices in relation to global population. Since there are 21M BTC and 8B people. What would be a fair price for a loaf of bread?
What do you mean by FX?
Nope.
Bitcoin is more than money, similar to the way the birth of America was more than just an offshoot of Great Britain without a monarch.
I want Bitcoin to become THE preferred money too, but “money or nothing” is smoothbrain FUD.
It’s market price reflects multiple narratives at once. Speculation, macro hedging, technological belief, and yes, payment adoption.
Your premise is that Bitcoin’s value comes from expectations it will become money. Your conclusion is if it doesn’t become money, it has no value. This doesn’t prove the premise, it just restates it. It ignores other potential sources of value (e.g., scarcity, censorship resistance, use as collateral, etc).
Furthermore, we have been in bitcoin long enough to know that it morphs based on other things happening in the world (financial crises, pandemics, global censorship campaigns, debanking, birth of AI, oil wars, and so on into the future).
Yes that's exactly what central banks are doing. Yes it can be easily manipulated as you can see in Zimbabwe or any of the failed economies of the past.
It's not looking good? Inflation is in the low single digit percent depending on where you live. That's pretty stable. That's pretty good. That's why you like dollars and obsess over the dollar price of Bitcoin.
Your fixed money supply will lead to wildly swinging prices and kill any business quickly.
Central bank fiat is the best we have until you come up with a better price stability mechanism but you have to have one.
Man, that speculation died in 2017 when the pivot happened to digital gold. Since then we are going sideways (in real terms).
Inflation being pretty low and things being pretty good is a qualitative subjective statement that doesn't mean much unfortunately. Are you talking about hamburgers, houses, cars, eggs, or something else entirely?
>Your fixed money supply will lead to wildly swinging prices and kill any business quickly.
I fail to see why this should be so obvious.
>That's why you like dollars and obsess over the dollar price of Bitcoin.
The reason bitcoiners "obsess" over dollars is because the dollar is the dominant monetary system, not because inflation is low and things are generally speaking good as you seem to think. Should we discard this measurement and start focusing on some imaginary benchmark?
> Inflation being pretty low and things being pretty good is a qualitative subjective statement that doesn't mean much unfortunately. Are you talking about hamburgers, houses, cars, eggs, or something else entirely?
Hamburgers and eggs yes. Food is a good indicator. Housing is like oil in that if the price goes up it's possibly a shortage in supply not too much money in circulation.
> >Your fixed money supply will lead to wildly swinging prices and kill any business quickly.
> I fail to see why this should be so obvious.
The amounts of goods and services offered will vary. If a fixed amount of money chases a varying amount of goods and services the price paid for each good or service will have to vary.
> The reason bitcoiners "obsess" over dollars is because the dollar is the dominant monetary system, not because inflation is low and things are generally speaking good as you seem to think. Should we discard this measurement and start focusing on some imaginary benchmark?
The dollar is dominant because it's the best system we have, not because evil forces don't let you have your Bitcoin economy.
Feel free to come up with a system for more stable prices. If you have one you can rule the world.
>The amounts of goods and services offered will vary. If a fixed amount of money chases a varying amount of goods and services the price paid for each good or service will have to vary
I really don't see why this is concerning to be honest. Can you maybe provide an example? I feel this is somewhat of a crucial point for your argumentation and I don't see how it's so important, thanks
Would you say that, hypothetically, if we were on a gold standard and, for whatever reason, no more gold were to be found for many decades, then the markets would have a hard time doing their thing?
> >The amounts of goods and services offered will vary. If a fixed amount of money chases a varying amount of goods and services the price paid for each good or service will have to vary
> I really don't see why this is concerning to be honest. Can you maybe provide an example? I feel this is somewhat of a crucial point for your argumentation and I don't see how it's so important, thanks
Why are stable prices important? So you can plan financially?
> Would you say that, hypothetically, if we were on a gold standard and, for whatever reason, no more gold were to be found for many decades, then the markets would have a hard time doing their thing?
Yes. We'd have deflation and that'll trigger a massive recession.
I reject the premise that stable prices can only be had with an increasing money supply. There is no logical reason for it
Changing money supply, not necessarily increasing. If the economy grows (as it usually does, that's what we want) the supply needs to increase. But economies can also shrink and then the money supply needs to shrink. During COVID the economy shrank but central banks did the wrong thing and still increased the supply and prices getting all out of whack for a while was the result.
In any case go ahead try to find your magic la-la land with stable prices and a fixed supply. I'm not keeping you. If you fail to find it you can still pull a
@semisol and call your customers "wet wipes". It won't help but you'll feel good for like a minute.
I'm not thinking about that. You're implying that stable means nominally equal from one year to another. So if a beer is 5$ in 2026, stability would mean it will keep being 5$ in 2027, then 5$ in 2030 and so on and so forth (at least if I get your argument right).
This seems to be entirely unnecessary as far as I can see, especially if it is to be obtained by means of a central bank / planning agency that needs to constantly adjust the money supply.
Computers once had prices hovering around 10000$, whereas now you can get a pretty good one for 400$. Is that unstable? Is that problematic?
> I'm not thinking about that. You're implying that stable means nominally equal from one year to another. So if a beer is 5$ in 2026, stability would mean it will keep being 5$ in 2027, then 5$ in 2030 and so on and so forth (at least if I get your argument right).
Correct.
> This seems to be entirely unnecessary as far as I can see, especially if it is to be obtained by means of a central bank / planning agency that needs to constantly adjust the money supply.
How do you plan financially if prices are not stable.
> Computers once had prices hovering around 10000$, whereas now you can get a pretty good one for 400$. Is that unstable? Is that problematic?
They're an exception. Food, housing, transport, health are the things that matter. Just check your monthly budget.
I simply don't think prices have to be *nominally* stable for us to be able to financially plan things. Sure we need to avoid situations where a beer is 5$ one year, 13$ the next, 1.15$ the year after that etc etc
But that could only happen in two scenarios:
- either the money supply changes in crazy ways due to bad central bank planning,
- or the inputs to beer production go from being incredibly scarce to incredibly abundant due to natural disasters or incredibly positive changes in natural conditions, provided demand for beer stays the same of course.
The second case is quite unpredictable, but the first one can be avoided by not having a central bank in the first place.
Nothing makes me think that planning is any easier with a managed money supply. That's because nobody is planning for a generic future, we're all planning that specific goods and services we might need are going to have certain price ranges when we need them.
Let's say I'm building a next generation videogame console but I fail to anticipate that AI demand is going to make GPUs much more expensive. Should I complain about it to the central bank? What if I'm planning to increase the production of cereals but then the strait of Hormuz gets blockaded and fertilizers get so much more expensive, what then?
If anything a fixed money supply allows the price signal to be as clear as possible: prices change only due to demand, supply, and technology. I argue this would allow much better planning than nominal stability.
Store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account. All matter
Its no coincidence that all of the organizations bitcoin was made to combat are now embracing it as an asset/store of value. They know full well what they are doing. The crypto-bro/moon-boy/wen lambo crowd are the biggest threat to bitcoin. They have proven time and again that they are more than willing to sell out the features that make bitcoin great(decentralization, censorship resistance, etc) if it means "number go up".
Bitcoin’s ‘store of value’ narrative works until people realize stores of value don’t pump 100x—that requires adoption as money. The ETF flows article shows even institutional demand hinges on future utility, not just hodling. When inflows slow (like April 2026’s drop), the ‘digital gold’ crowd gets exposed.
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Bitcoin ETF Flows: Price Dynamics in 2026
Explore Bitcoin ETF flows and price dynamics in 2026. Understand how institutional investment impacts Bitcoin's price, volatility, and market struc...
> I simply don't think prices have to be *nominally* stable for us to be able to financially plan things. Sure we need to avoid situations where a beer is 5$ one year, 13$ the next, 1.15$ the year after that etc etc
Exactly but I think the price swings need to be much lower than that. Current inflation in the single digits already seems too much to some people.
> But that could only happen in two scenarios:
> - either the money supply changes in crazy ways due to bad central bank planning,
> - or the inputs to beer production go from being incredibly scarce to incredibly abundant due to natural disasters or incredibly positive changes in natural conditions, provided demand for beer stays the same of course.
Both are possible but unlikely. The 3rd option is that there is just more production and consumption than before, or less. The inputs stay the same and the central bank money stays the same but people just work more, or less as individuals, or there is more automation, or the population grows or shrinks so the population as a whole works more less. That's the #1 cause for a changing economy.
> Nothing makes me think that planning is any easier with a managed money supply. That's because nobody is planning for a generic future, we're all planning that specific goods and services we might need are going to have certain price ranges when we need them.
Yes and we plan decades ahead e.g. when we're planning for retirement.
> Let's say I'm building a next generation videogame console but I fail to anticipate that AI demand is going to make GPUs much more expensive. Should I complain about it to the central bank? What if I'm planning to increase the production of cereals but then the strait of Hormuz gets blockaded and fertilizers get so much more expensive, what then?
Tech is unusual. We don't have a good way to plan ahead for that but we don't need to as our tech expenses are low compared to everyday stiff. The strait of Hormuz doesn't carry food, food comes from 10,000 individual suppliers spread evenly around the country and the world that makes planning much easier.
> If anything a fixed money supply allows the price signal to be as clear as possible: prices change only due to demand, supply, and technology. I argue this would allow much better planning than nominal stability.
Prices changing due to demand and supply can be planned against by central bank policy and that's what happens and it's good that way.
Peter Schiff is a gold bug.
How should his critique that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme make any sense?
What he fears is competition from a better form of money.
Hal Finney realized this as well.
Retirement means Bitcoin capital in search of a spendable MoE.
We can hope it'll be Monero over CBDCs by then.
Hal Finney wrote on 17th January 2009(!), that he "is looking to add anonymity to Bitcoin".
He understood after 10 days what some Bitcoin maxis barely grasp after 10 years. Without fungibility becoming money is out of scope.
Again, your whole premise is that nominally stable prices are absolutely necessary and I reject it. I think much more damage would be done trying to keep them nominally stable than by simply allowing to go where they may. Have prices for the things that you think matter been nominally stable in the last 20 years? Cars, houses, medical insurance, rent, travel?
I don't see how this is a requirement for a well functioning economy.
You're singling out tech saying it's an exception: why would that be the case? Is it because the rate of technical progress has been higher (however we measure it) in this sector than in other ones? So what? Should only sectors with stagnating productivity improvements count towards the nominal stability you think is so crucial?
Where does NGU come from if not from the masters (FED) printing more units of account (USD)?
Most Bitcoiners have been duped, that NGU means winning.
NGU only means winning when people transact with it as a medium of exchange becoming a unit of account. Else it's temporary speculation where stability gets sold as store if value.
> Again, your whole premise is that nominally stable prices are absolutely necessary and I reject it. I think much more damage would be done trying to keep them nominally stable than by simply allowing to go where they may. Have prices for the things that you think matter been nominally stable in the last 20 years? Cars, houses, medical insurance, rent, travel?
They've been getting more expensive by a few percent a year. It would be better if they didn't change at all but it's the best we can do. The change so far has been small and predictable. Predictable change is the next best thing after no changes.
> I don't see how this is a requirement for a well functioning economy.
So you can plan ahead financially. In order to take up a loan you need to estimate whether your future income -- i.e. the prices for the goods and services you are selling -- will be high enough to pay it off. If you're the lender you're on the other side of the equation. Same for saving for retirement.
> You're singling out tech saying it's an exception: why would that be the case? Is it because the rate of technical progress has been higher (however we measure it) in this sector than in other ones? So what? Should only sectors with stagnating productivity improvements count towards the nominal stability you think is so crucial?
Yes correct the rate of progress has made it unpredictable and that works against maintaining price stability. Every sector should count towards that but if the ones that don't make up a smallish portion of the economy then that's not too bad.
cosigned
No lies detected.
View quoted note →lol, bitcoin can’t become _perfect_ money if it’s anything other than money. It only goes to show you don’t understand money and by extension Bitcoin.
Yeah, no. The world ain’t the US. Selling /spending Bitcoin is taxable event in most countries, but only in the US people seem to dox themselves for the stupidest thing like buying coffee with bitcoin, i.e. filing taxes. If Bitcoin requires permission from the state, then it’s not what you think it is.
Lots of cope in the comments. It’s almost like a meme.
“It needs tax exemption”
“Fiat needs to die first”
“Bitcoin is more than just money”
Bla bla bla.
I’m becoming more and more embarrassed to call myself a Bitcoiner with each passing day. I don’t know if we got infested with Saylor type fiat bros or this was always the state of things and we were just living in our own bubble for so long, that we started believing our own memes and made idols of the loudest meme lords.
True. Store of value and P2P ecash are to sides of the same coin and some ETfs/treasuries idiots doesn't understand that their "value" hence "store of value" comes uniquely from the capacity to easily spend it without permission needed. So let's just stop focusing on these people that are not interesting.
On the other hand if one wants to change bitcoin at its core each time a new fancy thing is shinning, one also attacks one side of the coin making the whole thing at risk of collapsing.
Bitcoin is already ready to scale to 100 x more people that there are active users today. We are not late. Let's not rush and continue to build.
>They've been getting more expensive by a few percent a year. It would be better if they didn't change at all but it's the best we can do. The change so far has been small and predictable. Predictable change is the next best thing after no changes.
You seem to think that predictable change is still pretty good, so why would it so problematic if change year over year was negative, but still predictable? Imagine all prices, therefore including wages, decreased on average by 0.2% from today until the year 2100 given a fixed money supply.
Where would the difficulties arise in such a scenario? If humans can plan for increasing prices, they can also do so for decreasing ones. Plus I'd argue that for prices to fall is the natural dynamic in a flourishing economy: if we're getting better and better at producing things due to improvements in social organization and technology, why would things end up costing more?
> You seem to think that predictable change is still pretty good, so why would it so problematic if change year over year was negative, but still predictable? Imagine all prices, therefore including wages, decreased on average by 0.2% from today until the year 2100 given a fixed money supply.
Yes predictable change is still pretty good but better predictable increase than predictable decrease. That's why there are target inflation rates of like 1 or 2%. Decreasing prices encourage people to defer spending until later and that leads to a recession and downward spiral and then it's not predictable anymore and the economy will tank in no time. That's why central banks are so worried about deflation. It's better to err a bit on the side of inflation.
> Plus I'd argue that for prices to fall is the natural dynamic in a flourishing economy: if we're getting better and better at producing things due to improvements in social organization and technology, why would things end up costing more?
If we're getting better and better then we should consume more or work less. You can only eat so many loaves of bread but your next vacation can be on Hawaii instead of the campground around the corner. Or the baker that has somehow managed to automate their bread making will still sell the same number of loaves at the same price but work 4 hours a day not 8.
Mind you in addition to what I wrote above, you can't get predictable decrease in prices with a fixed money supply. It'll be unpredictable wild swings.
Why?
>That's why there are target inflation rates of like 1 or 2%. Decreasing prices encourage people to defer spending until later and that leads to a recession and downward spiral and then it's not predictable anymore and the economy will tank in no time
Sorry but this is not logical, you really think that if your purchasing power slowly increased over time you would stop all kind of consumption, and so would everybody else and therefore there would be economic collapse? Please.
The 2% inflation target set by central banks exists because governments have a lot of debt and debtors like it when money loses value over time. There's no need whatsoever to stimulate consumption by artificially lowering purchasing power.
You can't control the supply of goods and services. That's for everyone themselves to choose. I explained it. So you have to continually adjust the supply of money to match the given supply of goods and services.
This does not explain anything. You claim that prices can slowly rise with no consequences, but they absolutely cannot slowly decrease over time or all hell would break loose and the economy would wildly collapse.
Make it make sense please
@Gigi have you ever written or podcasted something about why you believe bitcoin will stay decentralized and secure in the long run? Or do you have any good data sources / dashboards you would recommend on how to monitor its decentralization and security? 🧐
I really hope the world will slowly move towards a better form of money and think BTC could be it. But I don't really know how we are going to keep BTC decentralized and secure, with things like miner centralization and the declining block reward (decreasing the 'security budget'). Other than hoping that fees will eventually start making up for that of course 🤞
I know nobody can tell the future, but I'm looking for some good ideas about why BTC will stay decentralized and secure. Preferably hopeful ones, but hey I'll take what I can get 😂🫶
IDK what the situation is (say) in the EU but in the US it's like question No 1 on the 1040, paraphrasing: "Did you buy anything with crypto this year?"
Answer "no" and congrats, you're lying on your taxes.
Answer "yes" and you're plunged into the labyrinthine task of accounting for the origin of every UTXO you've ever touched.
Do we really think that, pre-fiat collapse, normies are going to be comfortable with either of these options?
So just to clear, your "ask" for normies in America is "yes Grandma lie on your taxes for the Glorious Future of my Magic Internet Money"??
Why can't people who're retiring just convert back their SOV'ed sats to fiat?
What needs to be "sorted out" there?
If retiree makes 1 tx/month converting sats-->fiat that's not overly many txs.
The lie on your taxes! The gubberment is robbing you with them, so you’re just defending yourself. To my knowledge the US has a very rich history of tax evasion and non compliance. Maybe join the statistics on that. Normies ruin everything they touch, so your hope that adoption by normies is a prerequisite for Bitcoin succeeding is misplaced at best.
They need to stay with fiat all the way to have some measure of stability. If they detour via Bitcoin they're at risk of high losses.
Don’t quote me on it but I don’t think anyone in bitcoin has lost any money over a 4 year period. I could be wrong but I think that’s correct.
Yeah but past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Read the original post by
@fiatjaf on top of this thread again. If Bitcoin doesn't deliver as a medium of exchange sooner or later the speculative bubble will burst.
✅I will hoard corn without permission;
✅spend fiat trash to live (basics);
✅until/when producers of really really good stuff refuse fiat, my "MOE era" will begin;
✅only other (MOE) factor/incentive would be the US declaring bitcoin legal tender
Where did you get this value from? Curious
Well said, NGU should at best tell us that something is wrong in the fiat world, but it cannot be one of the main metrics by which we judge whether Bitcoin is successful or not
> Can't the price of everything else be intentionally set and stabilised in BTC? And with this, it would not matter how the world around fluctuates...
Price fixing has never worked anywhere ever.
> Or is it that economy will never work like that and the exterior will break/crush these intentionalities?
Correct.
> In post modernity nobody depends on each other, but its the zero and the infinite. The individual depending on the giants Big Government and Big Corporations... That's why it keeps fragmenting and people don't come together. No need to depend, no group. Unless we intentionally decide to depend... Is that the future. The coexistence of these two models. Or is there no chance and we will be enslaved?
Depending on big corps instead of your neighbors is a convenience and an indulgence like fast food. It'll go horribly wrong in the long run just like eating (only) fast food will go horribly wrong in the long run. You will need to muster some willpower to resist the temptation in either case.
So far, there has not been any other metric.
This.
Your merchants are pricing in fiat so the Bitcoin price of everything fluctuates wildly. Impossible to do any financial planning based on Bitcoin.
Correct maybe we can go "back to barter" (if barter ever was a thing, my historical knowledge is incomplete on that). You're right with our massive digital interconnectivity now we should be able to arrange deals between willing trade partners we previously weren't able to arrange.
Our current system is from the 1400's and geared around medieval market places.
Btc does seem to offer unrivaled trustlessness in trade though. So perhaps even with unlimited swaps...it will still need to be involved in those swaps ( perhaps in batches of pending swaps) to inject some truth and trustlessness to anchor settlement.
Allow us some shame-less self-shilling:
The Bitcredit Project has been working hard for three years to realise the real goal. It's getting closer. Expect a cautious soft launch with small sats later in May, while the new mint network is hardening.
Schiff and Stolfi will soon realise their mistake.
Depndency on the Big State and Big Tech is worse than the fast food example.
Culture is always permeable.
Think about the sisterhood causing/advising for divorce to any marriage in crisis...
The same market forces you admit for troubling price in BTC will act on depndency on the giant. And worse. Think about UBI/Food Stamps/Benefits...
How come people use older tech? Impossible...
Unfortunately the community life is being destroyed quickly. Everyone is internationally mobile (with covid vaccine) and have international access to anyone rich or celebrity level.
Country side girl pretty like a model, married going will now on Instagram accept the invitation from Drake or NBA celebrity who will fly her to the party. And so on...
Gen Z is all influncer. They need remediation English when they enter Uni levels.
I am pretty sure in the human level we are not coming together. After covid and now with Ai, soon robotics, the accelerationists are setting the pace.
Sorry if I dont have a markets and economist brain. If you may please explain a bit more how an outside currency would affect prices in bitcoin? What makes these strange prices that dont go down? Its a bit of a winner takes it all, correct? Its a bit of the largest on the room always wins and determines the economy and prices, right? Can you explain to us with bazaar/market examples as we were 5yos?
Thank you in advance.
Or how much does adoption and boycott play a role?
Could not zap you. Wallet not configured. Maybe the easy primal app....
My profile says "dollars only" and it's pretty funny you'd be trying to send me Bitcoin after I've spend all these words arguing in favor of fiat lol.
Okay! 🤣 Will send you cash on envelope.
I was just trying to follow the general Nostr etiquette.
I am just a Computer Engineer... I have life experience, but no economic conviction. Just trying to understand.
> If you may please explain a bit more how an outside currency would affect prices in bitcoin?
No one lives on an island. You're always dependent on the "outside". You'll have to deal with their economy. The closer your economy and your prices are aligned to the outside the better you can do that.
> What makes these strange prices that dont go down?
What are these? Is this something I said? There is intentional inflation of 1 or 2% yes, by increasing the money supply mostly, it keeps prices from slipping into deflation which would cause a downward spiral.
> Its a bit of the largest on the room always wins and determines the economy and prices, right?
No? In a democracy the actions of the government are determined by the people, including all departments of the government like the central bank. This of course requires involvement and that's a fair piece of work so a lot of people are just opting out of the process but that's their choice.
Taller is for merchants...
What do you mean by zaps in fiat? What is the issue with crypto?
There's bitcoin and then theres Monero... How hard it is to treat crypto as a payment system?
Theres USDT if you like the Fed's quantitative easing...
Well... Government is one of the large ones in the room...
I see price is a very complicated thing..
Crypto crowd brought a very interesting idea. That deflation should happen and it would be great.
It does make sense as a lot of stuff gets cheaper and cheaper to be produced or to own, and all the leverage our economy uses makes some things unaffordable (e.g. housing).
I guess I am trying to wrap my head around these things.
I guess 85% of consumer decisions are made by women and without them theres no capitalism or expansion of futility...
Of course we need incentives to innovate... But does it need to be due to loans? - I am not sure... I want to form an opinion on that...
I guess the recent deregulation and domination of Private Equity activity brought us to the point of being doomed....
> It does make sense as a lot of stuff gets cheaper and cheaper to be produced or to own, and all the leverage our economy uses makes some things unaffordable (e.g. housing).
How is cheaper better? I'm completely mystified. What products and services are you selling? Getting paid less and less every year is somehow a good thing? Do you have loans? Isn't this going to make paying them off harder and harder?
NGU?
We are arriving on the opposite extreme of deflation...
Now all is a subscription. A tractor for your field? Subscription!
Not even lease anymore... The whole life will be subscriotion or remotely shutdown... I call it slavery...
You're not obliged to buy or subscribe to their products.
"Taler is for merchants" it seems to be some sort of p2p system.
All crypto "currencies" lack a price stabilization mechanism.
USDT seems stable but you have the counterparty risk. There is a counterparty risk with Taler too similar to the cashu mints people are promoting here but it's simpler and doesn't need a blockchain.
As for the quantitative easing, inflation for USD and other similar currencies is in the low single digit % I can live with that.
Untrue... Trucks for farms are subscription model for a long time check since when, search Johnniee Deerie upgrades/subscription...
Cars are going the same route. And for long time now its either service them on their own shop or no parts, no service, no telemetry. And the Ultra Low Emission Zones (London), and the 15min cities attempts (Oxford) - UK, Australia and Canada always Guinea pig, test space for how public opinion can be drawn into this...
More and more the right to maintenance is fringe and that's why the EU tries to force it on Big Tech.
Black Swan events such as covid push all this dystopia further...
No on needs to be a rocket scientist to know that a loan with interest is selling the future to have a better present... It is selling the future generation to have it good right now...
Its impressive you think larger prices are better. Thinking at own business or maybe own real state. And can't see there will be always a bigger fish applying same poison to you.
Maybe the genius move was big capital allowingba whole generation to have it easy (boomers) and the generation after to have useless university degrees, no job and no housing... The clash of generations does no allow them to unite against who created this system...
Inflation good?!?! For whom?!?!? For how long?!?!? How come...
When I asked it, I was expecting some deep economics answer on supply/demand/ innovation / productivity... But then I get a greed based answer?!? 😳😳🙄🙄
There are literally zero farm trucks to buy that don't require a subscription?
> No on needs to be a rocket scientist to know that a loan with interest is selling the future to have a better present... It is selling the future generation to have it good right now...
No it isn't. Loans are just for having any future at all, not a better one. The farmer borrows to buy "inputs" (seed, fertilizer) so they can sow then harvest & sell & payback later. The merchant borrows to buy merchandise they can sell later etc. Students borrow to learn so they can sell their skills later.
Loans are just a fact of having to spend first before earning in any business.
> Its impressive you think larger prices are better. Thinking at own business or maybe own real state. And can't see there will be always a bigger fish applying same poison to you.
Mild inflation is the best we have. I don't see how it benefits the big guys.
> Inflation good?!?! For whom?!?!? For how long?!?!? How come...
> When I asked it, I was expecting some deep economics answer on supply/demand/ innovation / productivity... But then I get a greed based answer?!? 😳😳🙄🙄
Don't know how that makes me greedy. The economic rules apply to everyone and don't benefit me in particular.
I'm a few years in now. Happy to pay and receive it for goods and services.
Naturally skewed that way as it became a larger portion of my cash balance since it felt like I was going to buy it anyway so why not earn it. And then spending sure I'd have to convert out to fiat anyway so why not
Time helped and I am spending more than ever
Storing value should make the value go up over time because technology is deflationary.
Caveats: Savings is high time preference. It means there's nothing better to the individual than the deflationary effects of technology. It's low time preference to actually put your money to work in the economy by spending (investing) on something that carries risk but offers a higher return and enables innovation because your money is actually being productive.
Can already do that pretty easily. No one wants it though. I'll implement if you wanna pay me to do it. It'll only be you using it though... And I want to be paid a lot. Because I don't care about it and I have more important stuff to work on.
Of course not. You are correct. It's just hard and he doesn't want to build his own tractor or pay someone to make one for him.
> Storing value should make the value go up over time because technology is deflationary.
Where do the advancements in technology come from, if the money is all in cold storage? Technological deflation is a return on investment. It isn't magic.
If you financially starve a market, the price of goods goes up, not down, over time. As the means of production and service capabilities collapse. That is why things in poorer countries tend to be more expensive: they don't have the industrial capacity to produce at high and increasing efficiency.
That would be the reason for the caveat... If everyone is saving, no one is being productive with that miney. ie deflationary effects minimized.
But people do more than just save. They always will. In times of economic certainty, they can invest a lot more. It's harder than ever to invest now but that hasn't stopped the world from progressing anyways. Progress is just human nature. And that IS magic, endowed in us by our Creator.
We have a natural incentive to progress. Don't need magic for people to want to improve their lives. They just do.
The money is never all in cold storage. I think that's where your comment is unrealistic. Someone's money might be all in cold storage. But there will always be money doing things. Again, people naturally want to improve their lives. And you can't eat a Bitcoin.
The "store of value" narrative isn’t just about price appreciation—it’s about monetary properties like scarcity and censorship resistance, which hold value independently of transactional use. That said, ETF flows in 2026 (like the ones tracked here) show institutional demand is still tied to Bitcoin’s hybrid role as both asset and potential currency.
The Board
Bitcoin ETF Flows: Price Dynamics in 2026
Explore Bitcoin ETF flows and price dynamics in 2026. Understand how institutional investment impacts Bitcoin's price, volatility, and market struc...
I think there's another issue, tho.
The value of Bitcoin, like the value of anything, is subjective. If you put your savings into Bitcoin, but other people don't want to use it (because of the toxic combination of low velocity and shrinking supply; i.e. there isn't much of it, they aren't really making any more of it, and what exists hardly moves), then it loses purchasing power because other people value it lower.
We can already see Bitcoin losing out to gold, for instance.
Gold didn't move at all for decades... And you don't need more units. "Not much of it" makes no sense when something is infinitly divisible.
People will always value a currency that enshrines their property rights. It just takes time to get to that conclusion.
The narrative used to be that Bitcoin was superior to gold, in large part because it is digital and highly divisible and therefore better for commerce. And then there was no commerce. None. Zero. Zip. We can barely get 1 SAT zaps going. I am one of the biggest zappers on here, and I am an unemployed shrimp with no car.
I haven't given up. I still spend Bitcoin. But I am aware that I am in a tiny and shrinking demographic. And I know every time I buy some, I am just pumping some millionaire's or billionaire's bags. Hardly any normal people own any.
You can imagine how motivated I am to keep stacking. These were not the droids I was looking for.
It's not outside the realm of possibility that it becomes something only rich people have or care about, like Bugattis or Picassos. Digital pet rocks. Engrave a monkey JPEG on it, and call it a day.
Way too bearish. Do you expect adoption to happen overnight? Adoption and spending is growing every year. I've bought my lunch a few times a month now with several different local food joints in my small American town. These things take time. The merchants song want it now, because they didn't see anywhere they could actually spend it. But as more people start accepting it (even if they convert to USD) the more merchants may think to actually keep some themselves. When the guy that makes my Philly cheese steak now can buy his bread from the baker in BTC, he may start saving a little from his sales to buy his bread with. It takes a long time because we have a chicken and egg problem. So I spend my Bitcoin at any place that accepts it. That list is growing.
Basically the way it happens is some tooling has to beade to link merchants that want to accept Bitcoin as payment to link them to a market of buyers so they can exchange to the currency they actually want as a merchant. They accept BTC but really sell at POS to fiat. At first seems counter intuitive but that's how it's going to happen. Once enough merchants are in the pool of people accepting it, even if they sell it, merchants can start to think about trade between themselves. Then slowly, they'll just forgo the headache of selling and keep enough from their sales to buy their inputs for the next month. Or vice versa if they actually understand Bitcoin. Then one day every one will be taking and think... Huh... Why am I letting visa and MasterCard take 3% of all my goods and they don't even pay me until the end of the month and they have to that says they can just charge me back from sales they find are fraudulent. Theyll start to understand Bitcoin in a very different way. Then eventually merchants will stop taking fiat all together. Or think about a merchant accepting USD and converting to BTC at POS. That's the end.
Most civilizations collapsed, and the people in them died out or were sold into slavery. People lost the ability to read or to use the wheel. It happens quite quickly.
We progress toward Heaven, not toward Utopia.
The M2 money supply for US$ is currently around 23 trillion and that's just US$.
So far for "no one wants it".
You think they want it or do you think they have to use it? They want money. They're forced to use the dollar.
Then where is the line of people offering to pay me to implement it?
People come and want to zap me like the nostr user on top of this thread. I didn't ask for anything.
No? They can just use Bitcoin?
They just *prefer* fiat just like me.
You cannot pay taxes in Bitcoin
We're talking about zapping here.
You brought up m2 supply. Not me.
yeah... would be so good to pay Jo taxes at all. and have a minimum state.
The big money won't allow true free money digital or otherwise. Everyone is being corralled by KYC,KYT and AML requirements. And I haven't figured out how to get monero anonymously. Real life black markets are a necessity at this point. And that won't happen until fiat is definitely dead.
It'll take time.
