Bitcoin reserve narrative going strong
As we trudge toward a Trump presidency and the impending resignation of the arch nemesis Gensler, The Department of the Treasury issued a report on the trending growth of "digital assets". Never a dull moment during this bull run, and this is the news of the day it seems.
Primary use case for Bitcoin seems to be a store of value...
So now the government is parroting the same message as Larry Fink and other less-informed Bitcoiners. That's interesting. Of course Bitcoin is not a store-of-value at all. This is not a term used to describe other investments like real estate or the stock market; it's specifically a term used to explain gold in most cases. The "digital gold" or "Gold 2.0" narrative is a very reductive one that should only be used to describe the asset to newbies who don't know any better, and maybe not even then because it very much confuses the issue; becoming difficult to unlearn later.
Other confusing terms that are not direct translations:
The name Bitcoin itself misrepresents the truth right off the bat. This is something I learned quickly in my journey watching Andreas Antonopoulos videos in 2018.
Bitcoin is neither a bit nor a coin; it is a simple ledger enforced by a network of trusted redundancy. In this regard Bitcoin is more like a TrustNet.
A wallet isn't a wallet. It does not store "coins". The coins that people think a wallet is storing is available anywhere that has Internet access and anyone can view on a blockchain explorer. In this regard a wallet is more like a Keychain. (Like Hive Keychain)
Mining isn't mining. It's more like a lottery whose currency is energy.
Accounts are not accounts. Bitcoin uses the very unique UTXO model in which every single spend is recorded and secured by individual keys. There are no partial spends and every UTXO that gets spent is completely destroyed while creating new UTXOs.
The goal of a Bitcoin ATM is the same as a regular ATM in that the entire design is tailored to get users in or out of the system as quickly as possible. This is a very inappropriate strategy for a technology that people barely understand and can end in losing all funds due to user error.
The words we use to describe blockchain are extremely flawed.
This makes sense because there is absolutely nothing to compare it to. This inevitably leads to comparing it to things that are incorrect in a feeble attempt to understand the new paradigm. The Gold 2.0 narrative is one that feels old as time, but it falls flat on it's face when actually dissected.
For starters calling Bitcoin a "store-of-value" when it has higher volatility and gains than every stock is just baffling on a couple different levels. Bitcoin is not storing value at all. 1 ounce of gold could buy you a really nice suit 100 years ago and it still can today. THAT'S a store of value. Meanwhile 1 Bitcoin ten years ago could maybe pay someone's rent, and a decade later it can now buy someone's house. That's not storing value that's insane exponential growth on a scale we have a hard time even grasping.
To top it all off calling Bitcoin "Digital Gold" or "Gold 2.0" very heavily implies that Bitcoin and gold are in a huge competition, with Bitcoin being the unlikely underdog that's going to knockout the champ. This is also 100% unequivocally false. Bitcoin and Gold are complimentary. There is no vampire attack going on here. Gold's market cap is not going to get sucked into Bitcoin. It's not happening.
Bitcoin (and blockchain in general) is all about robust redundancy, low time preference, at the sacrifice of efficiency. Gold is the one thing that Bitcoin isn't: physical in nature and unreliant on the Internet. Bitcoin and Gold are like best friends while everyone around them is trying to gaslight them into thinking they are enemies.
If anything Bitcoin can most certainly kill the digital gold market. As in gold derivatives and ETFs. Seeing as these paper markets have been accused of manipulating gold since inception it's impossible to say if this would cause gold's spot price to go up or down. What I do assume is that one day in the next decade or two the peg between the derivative and the physical product will be completely shattered and expose the scam for what it is.
Conclusion
The establishment is no longer fighting Bitcoin. Institutional adoption is blasting through the roof, and the finale is yet to come. 2025 will be known as the year that Big Tech companies like Apple and Microsoft aped in like degenerates while MicroStrategy blows them out of the water with their vampire attack monopoly on the index funds, bond market, and fractional reserve banking.
Go back and take another look at the Treasury infographic. They are literally calling themselves the "legacy financial market". Legacy: as in old, outdated, and in need of an upgrade.
It's hard to know if this guy is serious.
Thanks!
He's deathly serious.
Look at his personal actions.
Saylor is very consistent:
There have been a lot more news stories lately about crypto as well. It's that time of year again. Unfortunately, they seem to be leaning hard towards the FUD narrative again.
News is irrelevant.
If it's the FUD narrative and nothing is happening it just confirms the bull market.
The price always goes in the direction it was going to go anyway.
The news just gets it there a bit faster and acts as a catalyst.
We can get 20 really bad news events and 1 okay piece of news and price spikes in the bull.
Opposite is true in the bear.
The setup for next year is going to melt faces and will come from Bitcoin instead of alts most likely!!! haha I would say Bitcoin is a store of value, but the exponential gains are because the tech is not fully adopted yet. Early Google or Apple investors get huge gains whereas now they are more modest.
A lot of the original value will come from Bitcoin but the splash out to everything else will dwarf BTC gains just like it does every boom cycle. For example someone only has to pump a couple million dollars into Hive for it to pull triple digit percentage gains.
yes, I can concede that. But will everyone gain on alts, or just a small %?
I've been in this game since 2017 and I've played it quite badly.
And yet I'm still at six-figures and almost guaranteed to hit 7 next year.
Considering I was only working a part time job for $15 an hour from 2017-2021 I'd say I'm doing pretty good. So what is the time preference here? 1 year? 5? 10? New users tend to lose money because they join at peak FOMO.
That's pretty good going. Certainly you won't get any near success from the s&p 500.
Would you argue that computers will stop doubling their speed at half the cost every two years after full adoption? Same concept applies to tech that can't be printed to infinity.
I couldn't say, computer tech should keep improving for sure and is of course a factor.. how do you think it would play out then?
My thoughts are more looking at the value proposition as I think there is a finite amount of value that will be stored in Bitcoin. So once it reaches its equilibrium (swallowing real estate monetisation), there may not be such exponential gains to be made because this would entail that it would not be worth for anybody to do anything because just holding Bitcoin would make you higher returns. It must come to a point where you can earn more through work and effort, creating the value..
Chart courtesy of Wicked Bitcoin. He has shown his wages decreased 80% in the last 2 years. At some point, this should stabalise and we will see similar to pre 1913, very stable numbers for things (thats the theory anyhow). Or maybe it never stabalises?
You've answered your own question within the question.
Too many people think the value of Bitcoin comes from value outside the network pumping the price. All of Bitcoin's value is derived from within the network. Humanity is currently operating at 1% potential. Crypto allows this number to rise significantly while creating flywheels we can't even dream of within the current setup.
The system we are in can not scale because it always becomes top-heavy and collapses. Crypto creates a foundation that allows the tower of finance to reach far greater heights before it topples over.
The bear market is an essential piece of the puzzle. The free market is flushing all the bullshit out of the system every four years allowing exponential growth to continue. Meanwhile zombie corporations are kept on life-support indefinitely, which doesn't allow any competition to grow within legacy systems.
Ah makes sense, that is a good way of looking at it. It will be amazing to behold so many people being freed from the fiat enslavement. Hopefully they didn't sell at $100k.
It shouldn't matter if people sold at this or that price.
In the end the only thing that matters is to earn money.
One of the big reasons why Hive is my main platform.
Crypto in general would do better creating NEW words to describe the attributes of crypto, but of course everyone likes familiar words like "wallet" and "account". Now that BTC has reached 100K, and people are talking about it (who usually don't talk about it) it's gotten the attention of high-level people who feel obligated to "do something", even though they are mostly powerless to do anything. Except propaganda, that's about it.
Gold and silver ETF have to go. They are a fraudulent asset. Precious metal ETF that are not backed are like banks in the old west with the impressive (but empty) bank vault handing out "certificates" as good as the real thing. What happens when the towns-folk discover the truth? They'll be run out of town so fast, tarred and feathered if caught.
I submit that would be a good thing for all concerned including those allowed to live by merely being tarred and feathered instead of hanged by the neck until dead.
any recent updates on the cbdc situation?
i still feel it has been the plan all along to establish the legacy cryptos as the norm, and to use the cbdc scare to do so.
as for btc, the transactions sre so expensive and sluggish,i still see no good reason why btc should be so highly valued apart from - of course - the recognizability branding.
any time i do transactions with hive i am amazed by how much better it is, technically, when compared to eth layer2 tokens or grandma btc