I wrote a longform piece for Bitcoin Magazine's latest print issue, which includes a series of essays about the world 10 years from now in 2036.

They've put up an online version now too:

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/print/the-2036-issue-what-choices-will-you-make-on-the-way-to-a-multipolar-world

Here's the portion where I talked about risk, about downside scenarios:

"If Bitcoin fails to catch on by 2036, I think it will be because humanity didn’t want it, or wasn’t ready for it. The technology itself is robust. Proof of work helps keep the network secure. Tight limits on bandwidth and storage help keep the network decentralized. Layers built on top of it help provide scaling and privacy. There is more work to do, but the foundation is already strong, open for business, and being used at scale. To the extent that major challenges arise, the network is upgradable whenever sufficient consensus is achieved.

In this latest bull/bear cycle, Bitcoin further separated itself from other cryptocurrencies, but failed to attract many new users. AI services caught on with the public far more quickly, leapfrogging Bitcoin in adoption, because people and businesses could see AI’s immediate benefits to them, while Bitcoin’s benefits were unclear to many who haven’t gone down a rabbit hole of research.

There are many stores of value to choose from, and volatility is painful. In order for Bitcoin to truly catch on, it will need to be because people value financial sovereignty. It will need to be because hundreds of millions of people, not just several million as we have now, appreciate the importance of self-custodied savings, permissionless payments, and financial privacy. Those collectively are the attributes that Bitcoin uniquely provides at scale."

In other words, bitcoin is money. To succeed, it'll be because people value it for its monetary properties.

That doesn't mean I'm against bitcoin companies. Bitcoin is open for anyone, and most things are better when bitcoin is added. And there's no world where bitcoin at scale is only used by people but somehow is magically avoided by companies and governments. I bought MSTR the week they announced their bitcoin strategy back in August 2020. I invite more companies, especially cash-flowing companies, to use bitcoin as a treasury asset.

But it does mean that bitcoin cannot *only* scale that way. Bitcoin's core value is that if you hold it yourself, it gives you a unique superpower: you have debasement-resistant and confiscation-resistant liquid savings, and you can permissionlessly send portions of those savings around the world, and with decent privacy if you use the right tools.

Bitcoin's long-term success relies on one or two more orders of magnitude of people desiring those traits.

TL;DR Bitcoin is money.