bitcoin, you are now 16 years old, you are already in your teens. These are usually the years in which, for many people, without even being aware of it, they usually make the decisions that will mark the course of the rest of their life. It is incredibly rare for someone to get a “do over” to reverse decisions that tie them to a certain path in life.
I fear that you, or rather Bitcoiners, are in the process of making one of those monumental mistakes that will have serious consequences for the rest of your existence.
We are seeing unprecedented growth right now. Price is near all-time highs, finally surpassing 100,000, major nations are debating the prospect of creating strategic bitcoin reserves, we are reaching escape velocity. As a result, people have become totally dependent on the narrative that we already won.
They cannot sleep at night without telling themselves “we already won.”
Meanwhile, bitcoin is totally unscalable. If the world realizes tomorrow that they need bitcoins, everyone will be stuck holding their coins at Coinbase or JP Morgan, because the system doesn't scale enough for everyone to have their own coins. All these people will be monitored, they will not have freedom, their coins may be arbitrarily confiscated at any time by order of the government. They won't be able to start a business or build anything innovative, they won't be able to spend their money however they want, without government permission.
“Well, sovereignty is not for everyone, it is a responsibility. “They wouldn’t have wanted it anyway.” Those few “elites” will not have a much better situation either. They may not be able to confiscate a self-custodial user's coins as easily as a custodian user's, but they don't have to. They can just take over you. They can track you, watch you everywhere, and when they realize you're trying to do something they disapprove of, they take you to jail. That will hang over the head of anyone who tries to innovate or build in a way that is not approved by the government.
Stablecoins are even actively facilitating new avenues of demand for US Treasuries as our enemies have begun to reduce their purchasing. The things that bitcoin has been born into this ecosystem, out of necessity to help the bitcoin market survive, I might add, are actively helping to maintain the dollar. They are doing the opposite of the long-held promise to overthrow the dollar.
That is the path we are on. One where bitcoin allows Government surveillance and controls. Where those things really help. Why are we on that path? bitcoin doesn't scale enough, and there are no sustainable, privacy-incentive-friendly tools (i.e., that are simple enough and not cost-prohibitive enough to disincentivize people who don't actively pursue it for privacy reasons).
Right now, the path we're on is people willing to simply turn around, give up on any future where bitcoin creates formative change, and do what the government wants to get rich. Beyond that, nothing will fundamentally change when it comes to people's financial lives and their relationship with the government. We need to recognize these problems and actually support solutions to lessen their severity, not just sing ourselves to sleep with “bitcoin already won.”
bitcoin has the potential to bring about many positive changes in the world, but it won't if we become overconfident, arrogant, and apathetic when it comes to solving problems we'd rather pretend don't exist. Listening exclusively to the arrogance of youth rarely suits the party in question.
bitcoin is too important to make the same kind of impetuous mistakes that teenagers make. So don't do it.
This article is a Carry. The opinions expressed are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of btc Inc or bitcoin Magazine.
