Bitcoin cannot scale globally on the base chain and even if it could not everyone is going to be able to afford their own UTXO. Layer 2s are going to have to be used but no one wants liquid, people crap on eCash, and hosting a lightning node is expensive, technically difficult, and there are very few decent self custody wallets.
Discussion
This is what people should mean when they say the institutions are coming.
This is very discussed, it's just that nobody likes the conclusions it comes to.
I'm optimistic though. Incremental imporvements made by small groups of people over a long period of time is how we create sustained progress.
If the money printer is going QE infinity to service debt that can never be paid back and Bitcoin is going to $250k, $500k, $1M this cycle then we do not have a long period of time.
Yes, but right now there is no issue because block space meets demand well. Mempool is essentially empty in the grand scheme of things.
More of what I'm saying is that most people do not want the responsibilities of self custody, let alone even understand Bitcoin as money. We cannot compromise the great network we currently have to achieve a goal which isn't even currently desired.
I have not suggested a solution or advise that we sacrifice anything. I'm only saying that this is a problem. We all know it's a problem. There is no simple solution or we would have figured it out by now. And I think the problem will be on top of us before we realize it.
We owe it to future bitcoiners to be building out proper non-custodial solutions now, up to and including layer 1 improvements that will enable things like UTXO sharing. It's just now dawning on many they need Bitcoin, yet Satoshi had the foresight over 15 yrs ago to create this life changing technology. We need to practice the same future thinking and not get distracted by NGU and institutions/governments rolling in.
Bingo. It feels like most Bitcoiners think we have many years before most are priced out of miner fees. The topic may be well discussed, but I'd argue it hasn't exactly been fruitful and is mostly regarded as a distant problem.