Good morning Sorin,
- I love your writing and thinking! 😊
- I'm looking forward to a "devil's advocate" conversation on related aspects like
2.a) "winner takes all" and the tendency for products to evolve into single solutions. (will decentralisation help an economy evolve into product diversity on the demand's side as on the offer's side?)
2.b) you seem to write a truth about the "Bitcoin maxis" by pointing out the centralised character of their objectives (and their presence in it), but is this really the case? They are quite opposed to centralised power, aren't they? - I fear your writings because each time they open up a whole load of new ideas -additionally the endless list I already got in front of me- to dig into 😉😂
Wishing you an excellent day!
Wim
Hello Wim, thank you for your comments
I think economy and society are usefully thought of as being "layered" - just like the 7-layers of the OSI model for networks. You can decentralise at one layer (say, infrastructure), but you must be wary not to end up centralising at a different (upper or lower) layer. Bitcoin for instance decentralised mining but economies of scale led to 90% the miners running the same machines with the same ASIC (so centralised the lower, hardware layer)
I call "Bitcoin maxis" people who imagine more and more economic transactions (up to all of them) being facilitated by Bitcoin as MoE. They usually call any other crypto (including, and perhaps especially ETH) "a shitcoin" and believe they are all "scams". When you confront them, they usually adapt the definition of "scam" so as to mean "anything which is not exactly BTC".
There are several problems with the vision of such "Bitcoin maxis" (as I call them), but the scalability of the Bitcoin blockchain is the last of them (because they are quick to point to the Lightning network).
The accusation I level at them is that they are in truth opposed to the current, existing centralised power because they are outside of it. But if their vision came true and BTC were to become "the new money protocol", that would automatically create a new, very steep and rigid hierarchy of wealth, means and power, a hierarchy where they, the Bitcoin maxis, would be on top. And it is the lack of competition (from the "shitcoins") which would be instrumental in such an outcome.
A great day to you too!