Topic: Bitcoin was created to reform money and provide financial freedom - page 3. (Read 1546 times)

Great points. I agree with you completely oktana.

The truth remains that no matter how many centralized exchanges, users always have the choice to use decentralized wallets and exchanges. No matter what happens, Bitcoin’s features are permanent and can’t be modified. The bad part of the Bitcoin ETF approval is that it will draw attention so people will rather use Bitcoin as an investment other than a currency. And if a bigger percent of holders think that way then we may never fully grow as a currency.

I really appreciate your optimism.  It is my hope that Bitcoin can eventually provide that "purely peer-to-peer form of electronic cash" the creators envisioned.

When you add up all of the things that prevent Bitcoin from being used as a peer-to-peer electronic cash it gets harder and harder to see that happening.
Bitcoin is fast becoming a tool for the rich to use to profit off of the middle class.  The is happening one fence post at a time.

1. centralized exchanges with KYC laws..
2. Every third party app is using a centralized node.
3. Layer 2 solutions are centralizing transactions through channel providers and additional fees.
4. Payment processors are offering Bitcoin payments through 3rd parties with additional fees.
5. Developers added ordinal functionality and increased the block size which has increased fees and will bloat the blockchain.
6. The SEC approved ETFs no real benefit to the purchaser except to create a centralized, trusted, monitored securities that might go up in price.  The only one guaranteed to make money when you buy a Bitcoin ETF is the financial institution selling it.

It doesn't seem like there is not much support for Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system and the financial institutions are moving it quickly into a centrally controlled security.

There are a lot of people who believe in the financial freedom and sovereignty that Bitcoin can provide and it is time that they started pushing back in order to preserve the founders vision

Bitcoin is a decentralized, peer-to-peer form of electronic cash with a limited supply to prevent devaluation.

Maybe things are not like that, but entities and institutions have found a way to be Able to have money , but we see from the point of view that it can bring Bitcoin in general benefits in particular, and that benefit is that it rises Price , we have not yet seen the Effect of the bitcoin ETF and its approval, no, but we can study that we are people who have even 1mBTC minimum of Bitcoin and if the price rises then it will be something great, because many will have profits , many will be able to generate the difference, and what matters most now is that the bitcoin rises in price, because the majority of people work in reverse, instead of buying Bitcoin at the moment, which is before an ATH, they buy it when it rises Price.

So we have to take from the bad the good and what matters to us and if Bitcoin goes up, at some point they will realize that Bitcoin will be the only means of Payment , of Money that will never have a neighbor and will suffer from inflation or something like that, it is Future.

In addition, the propaganda machine controlled by these financial institutions, who now have a financial interest in Bitcoin,  are promoting their ETFs as if they were Bitcoin and it could not be further from the truth.  Purchasing the Bitcoin ETFs provides none of the benefits Bitcoin was intended to provide.  ETFs are bank securities that are trusted, centralized and monitored by the institution and the government. They provide no sovereignty or financial freedom and this use of Bitcoin does not prevent currency devaluation.
 

Of course. Things are changing. But in a bad way because institutional investors and governments are acquiring most of the BTC. This concentration of supply among a few will drive away Bitcoin from its original purpose. Satoshi won't be happy with this one bit. I know many are saying the network itself is decentralized (where nodes and miners take part in the consensus process), but don't stakeholders have a say too?

Without BTC available for the "average Joe", we would be making crypto/Blockchain tech unequal. You only have freedom when you eliminate third-parties (banks, governments, companies) from the system. Only time will tell us what will happen with Bitcoin. No one can predict the future, so lets hope for the best.

You can buy the GLD ETF at whatever fraction you want, and this is all done on the Internet. But sure, if you don't like gold, there are millions of other investments you can try (and you can buy REIT shares if you want to expose yourself to real estate, for instance). Some instruments will go up in value, some will go down. The reasons for each instrument's performance will always be very complicated.

If you are convinced Bitcoin will go up in value, then by all means invest. I'm not here to tell anybody Bitcoin is a good or bad investment per se, only that it stands along side every other investment out there, and nobody can perfectly predict the future.
 


Lots and lots of investors have been burned throughout the years by being convinced, "it will never go down" when discussing their favorite thing to invest in. I guess all I could say is, be careful with that, and keep a diverse portfolio. No financial instrument is "invulnerable".

Bitcoin is a currency, and it is the hardest or strongest currency humanity has ever had.
For the people who think Bitcoin has somehow changed or failed...think about the purpose of strong money.


Strong money is useful for transacting and storing wealth.

When people invest they are trying to store (including growing) wealth. So using Bitcoin as an investment, whether you are buying it directly and storing it yourself, buying it directly and storing it with a third party, or buying it indirectly through a financial product like an ETF, all these are using Bitcoin to store and grow wealth, which is one of the two purposes of money.

Meanwhile, no matter how people decide to use Bitcoin, Bitcoin remains the same thing it always has, a p2p decentralized currency. Nothing about the way people choose to use Bitcoin has changed how it works. Just like what you choose to do with your dollars doesn't change how the dollar system works.




For people who are into this currency that gives people more freedom over their money, it is always amazing to me that these same people whine and complain when other people make their own decisions on how to use Bitcoin. Like y'all believe in freedom only when people make the exact same decisions as you lol.



If someone buys as BTC ETF, they want to use bitcoin purely as an investment and they don't want to bother with keys and stuff and just want an investment firm to handle all that for them while they get Bitcoin's advantages as a perfectly supply capped financial asset. Great. That's perfectly fine.

If someone wants to buy BTC and keep it on an exchange or something, because they want to have actual Bitcoin, not a financial product that wraps Bitcoin, but they also don't want to deal with key management, and they are free to sell or use that bitcoin in the future either through the company or on their own by moving it to their own wallet, great, that's perfectly fine. If they some day sell bitcoin for fiat instead of using bitcoin for payments, that's fine.

If someone wants to buy BTC and keep it in their own addresses, taking full advantage of Bitcoin's capacity as sovereign money, fantastic, That's perfectly fine. If they some day sell bitcoin for fiat instead of using bitcoin for payments, that's fine. Everyone can use Bitcoin in any way they want, that's freedom.


All these ways are fine uses of Bitcoin. Sure we *want* people to use Bitcoin with all its advantages by buying it and putting it in their own addresses. But everyone is free to make their own choice and not everyone is going to make the choice you want them to. And that is perfectly fine. Anyone using Bitcoin in literally any of these ways means they are spreading Bitcoin adoption, and therefore helping Bitcoin mature and grow into the world's alternate currency for the digital age. If someone else has weighted the advantages and disadvantages of those various scenarios, and decides that using Bitcoin in a way different than you is how they want to do it, that is perfectly acceptable. Anyone who buys Bitcoin and leaves it on an exchange knows they are trading away some personal responsibility for some risk. Anyone who buys a Bitcoin ETF knows they are trading away all the the advantages of bitcoin the currency in order to conveniently make use of its store of value properties. As long as people know what they are doing, what they are doing is just fine. There is so much hate and fear and nonsense in this community around people using Bitcoin in different ways. It's honestly stupid. Bitcoin is gonna keep being Bitcoin, its gonna keep being decentralized, its gonna keep being a currency, its gonna keep being p2p, ETFs or people using it only as an investment doesn't change anything at all about Bitcoin. Stop trying to control other people and stop making up nonsense reasons why Bitcoin is no longer decentralized or a currency or whatever lol. Just live you life and enjoy the fact that you live in a time when a truly decentralized, hard capped, p2p currency exists, AND you live in a time where you were lucky enough to get in on it early so you get vast wealth gains from it as well.

- You cannot send gold via the Internet. It is not easy to divide it in separate pieces. It is difficult and expensive to transfer. You cannot own exactly 0.01567 ounces of gold. You don't know much gold there is. You cannot have divided possession with gold, and the list goes on and on.
- Stocks can be inflated if the company decides to raise capital, which will dilute the value of the existent stocks.
- Land can be confiscated. You cannot own 12.345678% of a house. You cannot transfer a house unless the buyer will come and live in that location. It is also very expensive to own and preserve a house.

Bitcoin is invulnerable to all sorts of previous financial instrument drawbacks.

I don't think Coca Cola's formula is exactly the same as it was when it was presented as medicine. Either way, my point is that the utility of Bitcoin hasn't changed. It remains peer-to-peer cash, that is socially resistant to any sort of governmental intervention. It's just that more people view it as an investment.

If you want an investment instrument that is not effected by monetary policy, there are literally millions of such investments. Gold, stocks, commodities, land, betting, and hundreds of other categories. Basically any investment instrument that is not the particular currency that is effected by monetary policy is a hedge against that monetary policy. In other words, the only investment that is exposed to monetary policy is cash. Everything is a different instrument that may have some relation to said policy (or no relation at all), but is not itself an investment in that currency.

From the standpoint of investment, "US Dollars" is just another horse to bet on, as are Euros, Pesos, gold, land, soybean futures, Bitcoin, Legiteum, or whatever.


I'll take "censorship-resistant" to be a synonym for what I wrote Bitcoin was designed to do: thwart government oversight into transactions. That is, and remains, blockchain's only appropriate application.


The formula for Coca Cola and Viagra hadn't changed either, it's just that mainstream users used them for something other than what they were invented for. Bitcoin is still the same system it's always been, but people mostly use it for something the inventors didn't anticipate. (And for the thing they actually did anticipate, people had to build upon their invention to fully accomplish what they wanted to do e.g. Monera et. al.).

And Satoshi was talking about a numerically delineated value transfer system that scaled to the levels necessary for him and his friends who had the very specific need of being government-resistant, not as a mainstream means of transacting, which I am sure Satoshi would concede is impossible using the blockchain architecture.

So in summary, today Bitcoin is not used for what it was intended by almost any of its users. The reasons for this are twofold:

1. Technical: Bitcoin has been "figured out" by authorities making it unsafe to use for those wishing to evade a government, so it is not, specifically, the right choice for that purpose (although the blockchain, generally, can still support that and does in the form of other products e.g. Monera).

2. Popularity: 99% of the additional users beyond the ones from the original times use the product for something different, e.g. speculation.

Given our advancement in science, we understand today that Coca Cola doesn't help with a cold, and Viagra doesn't lower your blood pressure--or maybe they do a little bit, but not as well as new products made for this purpose. But both are wildly popular for other reasons. Bitcoin is in the exact same situation.

It remains inaccessible in terms of monetary policy, though, and I think that's the game changer. The fact that everyone can view the ledger was a feature from the very first day. Privacy techniques were developed later on.

Satoshi created a peer-to-peer electronic cash system for those in need, and it remains with these characteristics. The fact that a few people (or the majority, if you wish) see it as an investment instrument doesn't change the fact that it is censorship-resistant, borderless cash. Therefore, the Coca Cola and Viagra analogies are flawed, because the concept of Bitcoin hasn't changed since it was set in stone. Only the interpretation of its intrinsic value might have changed (i.e., better store of value than cash), which if you read more about it, you will notice it was part of the concept as well:

   One of the main reason for digital currency was expected to give conventional pay system that can function free of control/outside a legal tender, instead it is being used like the traditional currencies.

   Bitcoin happens to be the first cryptocurrency institute publicly in 2009,it's popularity has increased and gone viral in the globe and it's uses of Blockchain technology has being broadened,it uses cryptography to direct the production and management instead of depending on central authorities, it was at first planed as a means of exchange but now primarily Known as a store of value.One of the main reason for digital currency was expected to give conventional pay system that can function free of control/outside a legal tender, instead it is being used like the traditional currencies.

   Bitcoin happens to be the first cryptocurrency institute publicly in 2009,it's popularity has increased and gone viral in the globe and it's uses of Blockchain technology has being broadened,it uses cryptography to direct the production and management instead of depending on central authorities, it was at first planed as a means of exchange but now primarily Known as a store of value.

   When Bitcoin are mined newly,as a mining process,the miners whose computer system validate transactions are rewarded. Bitcoin first transaction happened on May 22,2010, which is known to Bitcoin enjoyers,now as Bitcoin Pizza Day .

Bitcoin is actually fine using p2p payment system also there is no central bank or any specific human control in cryptocurrency system. In this no country or government can track and stop crypto transactions. Crypto coins are getting more popular from time to time due to this convenience. Everyone is able to trade in bitcoin independently without having to be accountable to anyone.

I'd take that a step further and point out that Bitcoin's transformation into a speculation instrument has effectively killed it's original purpose in popular lore because for most its users today, decentralization not a value to them (e.g. they invest in Bitcoin through a broker or the ETF). And the only reason the blockchain architecture even exists is because of decentralization--centralized blockchain is a waste of time and resources.

Today, in actual reality, Bitcoin is basically a meme investment instrument: people investing in the brand name, "Bitcoin".

Satoshi et. al. created Bitcoin as a boutique means of value transfer for those who could not safely use a means of value transfer accessible to the government (and it's worth noting that Bitcoin mostly failed in this goal because of the public ledger can be triangulated by the authorities). It was never meant as a mainstream everyday means of transacting since the architecture makes such scale absolutely unthinkable. It was not created as a "get rich quick" scheme. It was never meant to be used the way it's used today wherein most people keep their Bitcoin holdings in a centralized database just like any other investment.

Coca Cola started off as cold medicine. Bubble Wrap started off as wallpaper. Viagra was a treatment for high blood pressure. Bitcoin was a p2p numerically delineated value transfer mechanism made to evade government oversight.

These things happen...

I don't know if Y3shot has read the whitepaper of bitcoin and if he has not read it, he should do well to go and read it and understand the reason why bitcoin was created to support the fiat currency in the world. By the way let me brief him again and again because I have said it before. Bitcoin was created with the core mandate for p2p transaction of buying and selling of goods and services. And that was why the man who used it to buy 2 pizza with 10 BTC was on the test stage and it was successful. And I don't know where the financial freedom he mentioned came from. It is through the decentralized exchange process that lead to the financial freedom because nobody can control your funds if you use non custodial wallets but if your use custodial wallets then your freedom is limited. And if you use cex then your freedom has also limited.

So the best two options to use bitcoin is p2p of using it to buy and sell things online and also for the investment that has taken over the p2p of buying and selling of goods and services online.

It wasnt that created for financial freedom because it was never been that an investment in the first place. Bitcoins existence is written solidly into its whitepaper which do pertains about p2p transactions
without 3rd party involved on which this had been that the main reason about its existence. It did really just turn out that it becomes a demand and recognition is really that high which it
ends up on having that rising value and to those who had been able to accumulate into those early years are the ones who did make out such huge money and this is something
that it is really worth for the trust that they do have in Bitcoin into those early days on which that brings out that financial freedom into those people who had accumulated.

The reason why bitcoin was created is not just for p2p or for buying goods and services. Bitcoin was created for freedom,  for people to handle their money without going through stress like how we stress ourselves to get our money back from the bank.  Bitcoin was also created to gain better financial height because the traditional currency have no value. Bitcoin is here to add value to the money that we have .

I wouldn't say that the transaction fee is the big problem per se. People generally don't want to rely on a property that is so volatile. They would rather use a currency that is devaluating (but in a slow and constant rate), than bet their operations in a currency that has no representatives to guarantee stability. Only if the fiat currencies completely collapse, similarly as to Zimbabwean dollars, then they'll switch to cryptocurrencies.

I obviously will not like a volatile currency because it will seriously negate buying and selling. But in the end, all fiat currencies are volatile. Although, their volatility doesn't happen very fast, rather over the time. Even if the currency denomination is the same, its purchasing power will reduce as the time goes.
Maybe there's a stage adoption will get to, bitcoin volatility will reduce drastically. But I doubt this will happen since bitcoin has a limited supply.

Yeah though Bitcoin was really intended to be used as p2p payment system but the limited supply it has is what turns it into more of an investment as price skyrocketed from a value of a penny into $66k+ as what we have today. The only problem with Bitcoin as a payment system is that fee is quiet high compared to the traditional payment system which is fiat but still it is for me the best if we treat it as an asset. It will still benefit the Bitcoin community in the long run.