I was thinking about current situation. Couple days ago there were news that binance is under the pressure, and their CEO immediately told that they would open an office in Malta. And blockstream immediately told that they have an office
there As I understand, serious people from crypto-world, at thegoverment level with officials make laws for themselves. Miners, meanwhile, are sitting in Canada with their farms and somewhere else. It turns out that the entire bitcoin infrastructure is safe: devs can still code, investors still could invest, miningfarms are also under protection with a reliable guarantor. So technically now there are no critical threats for bitcoin.
But with bitcoin we have an interesting situation. Firstly, it was just digital currency, then it became "the store of value", and now it converts into programmable platform. Honestly, nobody will pay for beer or coffee with bitcoin, people are too greedy, and buy something big is still a problem, also because of high volatility. I cannot say that it won't work, but the time hasn't become for it, nevertheless there are already things like houses and cars that you can buy for bitcoin, but this position is till too weak. We have a couple really strong positions : corruption, black market, semi-legal schemes for taxes and guys that buy everything if it is in trend. I think it is pretty cool, but still not enough for full common life integration, cause crypto-hipsters don't have enough financial volumes, and illegal world has its own structure, that could increase the volume, but not to the moon.
And and seemed like there is no light at the end of tunnel, if bitcoin hasn't started to transform in programmable platform. Recently there was an announcement from
FileBazaar And today the new word appeared
LApps - applications on lightning. FileBazaar is the first one LApp - in couple of words, it is a platform for digital content, for which authors are paid in bitcoin via the lightning channels. And it is undeniably cool, because recently were invested 1.5m$ in lightning.And it is not a funny project like crypto-kittens. And as you understand, there are no tokens given in exchange for anyone or anything. Those, this is a really considered decision.
Bitcoin is almost completed technically, some issues are still remaining, but there is a much strong need in marketing, promoters and sales managers. We need to adapt it for common people, we need contracts for use, paying terminals, possibility to buy everyday products. In this way bitcoin cash has higher rates and possibilities. But today it seems to be almost impossible due to unpredictable laws, and inconvenient transactions. With value storage we also have problems, because different officials and event mass media can drop the bitcoin´s exchange rate, hamsters and dummy investors start panic sell. Centralized exchanges the only place where the rate is established - are under the pressure of whales and big corporations, the real liquidity of the market under big question. Hence we have problems with bitcoin´s usability, hamsters cannot continue provide the fuel for bitcoin, and other population of our planet is still too uneducated in cryptoworld a lot of people still think that it is a kind of pyramid or soap bubble), they cannot understand it and sometimes even hate it. And the new breath of bitcoin is a wonderful way around all these problems - the programmable platform does not let developers to go down (their investment is invaluable), at the same time, as we noted above, at the levels of closed meetings with the heads of some countries, new economic zones are opened for the further work of firms. Devs have something to work on , companies still receive their benefits, conservative investors can invest in real propety, miners are in safe position also. It could be real the second breath of cryptocurrencies , and much stronger, binance at the state level reveals an economic zone with the size of the country. Lets see what will be on Malta in next couple of years.
Let's not forget that bad guys can also help survive the cryptocurrencies. After all, this is a great way to "launder money", from illegal sources, which sinful high officials of all heads of state. So I would not be afraid of special sanctions, because there is someone to resist and fight. And if you say that bitcoin is not so anonymous, then there are still anonymous altcoins, and if there will be a strong need, there will be guys who will sponsor completely anonymous protocols that can be defeated only by disabling the Internet.
All in all I think that lightning with proper marketing can give the second breath for bitcoin. What´s your opinion guys?
1.A co-ordinated group of private institutions speculating on a sharp fall in the value of Bitcoin.
2. A contender “altcoin” network intending to replace Bitcoin as the dominant cryptocurrency.