Fascinating conversation today with a friend that got into Bitcoin way early on with me in 2014 and now is no longer. He doesn’t see the utility for himself. We talked about sovereignty and even how till this day he self-hosts and backs up his own email. He also accepts how his money is not sovereign in the banking system. However he sees it as a problem related to the country he chooses to live in. The argument was that the state can warrant a confiscation of your Bitcoin just the same. So I asked why not just hedge against the small risk of that and he suggested that a USD account or stablecoins do a good enough job of that. When challenged by Gold confiscation in the 30s - he agrees it happened and insists it was quite voluntary and therefore not a strong argument.
That said, he accepted my premise of not being able to build an interest-free system on a fiat, fractional reserve system and even agreed on the distortion of markets and resource allocation, but argued that taxes already distort it and socialist policies help correct it enough. Further he is concerned that Bitcoiners just hoard money and do nothing productive in society, not out of blame, but out of the incentive mechanism of fixed supply. He expressed clearly what would in fact allow him to change his mind and return to Bitcoin though: if he sees Bitcoin-driven investments and innovations increase despite a higher overall “risk-free” rate. We’ll need to get more specific in defining that next time we meet though. I cited that historic periods of sound money did in fact drive huge innovations and he wasn’t too convinced.
Overall, my argument and what I’d love for him to take away is that Bitcoin reduces the cost of capital and the cost of doing business. “Number go up” and lived experiences of losing sovereignty may really be the best and only ways to truly connect with Bitcoin long term. I’ve come to really understand now why orange-pilling may not be worth the effort and why @teepolitics talks about nothing dramatically changing for people until and unless they are faced with a real dollar crisis.
That said, he accepted my premise of not being able to build an interest-free system on a fiat, fractional reserve system and even agreed on the distortion of markets and resource allocation, but argued that taxes already distort it and socialist policies help correct it enough. Further he is concerned that Bitcoiners just hoard money and do nothing productive in society, not out of blame, but out of the incentive mechanism of fixed supply. He expressed clearly what would in fact allow him to change his mind and return to Bitcoin though: if he sees Bitcoin-driven investments and innovations increase despite a higher overall “risk-free” rate. We’ll need to get more specific in defining that next time we meet though. I cited that historic periods of sound money did in fact drive huge innovations and he wasn’t too convinced.
Overall, my argument and what I’d love for him to take away is that Bitcoin reduces the cost of capital and the cost of doing business. “Number go up” and lived experiences of losing sovereignty may really be the best and only ways to truly connect with Bitcoin long term. I’ve come to really understand now why orange-pilling may not be worth the effort and why @teepolitics talks about nothing dramatically changing for people until and unless they are faced with a real dollar crisis.
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