Bitcoins "Layered Approach" to speed and privacy need way more marketing attention. The block wars were won by the small blockers because we made the argument clear but its vision seems to have been somewhat faded in the price runup to $100k.
Thoughts on the Roger Ver/Tucker Carlson interview
First, let me be clear, I've had a somewhat combative history with Roger [1], but the man does not deserve to be in prison. The US Government's contention that a non-citizen can be guilty of tax evasion is just laughable on its face.
That said, there are a whole lot of lies and half-truths in that interview. First, Roger still seems to be giving himself credit for Bitcoin's early success. Yes, he promoted it a lot on different platforms, and indeed he was known as "Bitcoin Jesus" for a bit for his almost incessant proselytizing. But he wasn't the reason for Bitcoin's success and it was this belief that led him to say "I made Bitcoin what it is today and I'll do the same with Bitcoin Cash." Years of languishing BCH price (literally the same price as it was 2017 and that's not taking inflation into account) hasn't humbled the guy one bit.
He also shilled a lot of different altcoins, mostly focused around privacy. One of his goals on the show seems to have been to pump his bags and for him, it's probably not very different than his early Bitcoin advocacy. He's still a classic altcoin promoter and despite his utter lack of success the last 7 years, he continues down this path.
But the most egregious lie is this idea that his new book is the reason why everything is happening to him, implying that he has something so important to say that the US government must shut him down. The suggestion is that somehow Bitcoin was taken over by the US government and that they needed to suppress his book for the sake of government policy.
The lie wouldn't be so egregious if he sincerely believed it. But I don't think that's the case. Why? Because he still owns Bitcoin. The man is a salesman first, and his public pronouncements are almost always spin to get other people to buy what he's selling.
Personally, I don't think his arguments were compelling and he kept saying "cryptocurrency" which grated on my ears, but who knows how many people will be convinced by him? But then again, I always thought CSW was a fraud, but there were a surprising number of people that fell for his claims (including Ver, at least for a time).
Regardless, I don't think this presages some sort of Roger Ver comeback as he's been irrelevant for a long time. Yes, he may go to prison and become something like a celebrity cause, and he certainly has enough money to promote his suffering. And yea, he may get some fame from being something like political prisoner of the deep state. But it won't make his opinions any more palatable because they're demonstrably dumb.
[1] https://jimmysong.medium.com/bitcoin-cash-is-a-fiat-money-39626c002f77
Discussion
Layered approach for privacy is just fancy word salad for opt-in privacy which is known to not work at all and even endanger people through wrong assumptions.
Most humans in the future will not own on-chain UTXOs. It will be layers on top that service the billions of people in the future who will own Bitcoin. Something like CTV can allow them to share their UTXOs collaboratively so they can access lightning channels. For them it will be private by default because their entry was via post Bolt12 Lightning.
It is hard to fight outright lies from idiots to other idiots. I hear ever day that "Lightning doesn't work" in spite of receiving an average of well over 100 transactions a day.
Lots of 🐂 💩 FUD too about "hubs" and "banks" and "kyc", mostly by shitcoiners that don't even run a node for their shit coin of choice that is "gonna change the world man".
I free pretty certain we are going to get a purchase amount that is non taxable per event in the coming administration, that will do a LOT of good to help things.
The reason people don't take bitcoin isn't' fees, it isn't difficulty, it is in the real world it is a tax nightmare. You know who doesn't take bitcoin for what their company sells? MicroStrategy.
nostr:npub15dqlghlewk84wz3pkqqvzl2w2w36f97g89ljds8x6c094nlu02vqjllm5m has stated, "accepting it is an accounting nightmare as is paying employees in it".
Jack Mallers has a similar view, he even enables you to be paid in BTC if you want via strike but that is because employers don't want to do it.
When someone wants bitcoin I pay them with dollars that become bitcoin when I make the payment, not from my stack. It isn't just HODL never SODL, it is if I do this with things other than zaps the accounting is just a fricken mess.
