Countering #Bitcoin objections
Listened to a Stefan Molyneux podcast that countered common Bitcoin objections. They were too good not to share, so here’s a summary:
1. Intangible / digital
You can’t touch it, but the same applies to other important things in your life: love, reputation, email, social media, video games, tv-streaming
Trust in something/someone is based on a future expectation of past consistent behaviour
Gold requires paper notes or digital markers since you can’t carry it around
Fiat is 90% digital today
Bitcoin requires energy to get and maintain. It can’t be created out of nothing and it backed by limitation
Same applies to gold which would be worthless if it was laying around everywhere and was easy to attain
2. It relies on electricity & internet
Electricity is easy to generate, there are 3 billion solar panels worldwide
Transactions can be done offline w/ a simple computer or on paper until it it get to an online computer again to get processed
More Bitcoin-capable computers than people on Earth
Decentralised Bitcoin is better than centralised fiat in case of crisis
3. Lack of dual use
Many financial assets have others uses (e.g. real estate) but this is not a strength
Single use is better due to division of labor
Bitcoin is immune to factors impacting physical assets (mining techniques, state seizures, disasters)
Potential for pure price signal for resource allocation
4. Bad for the environment
Consumes less energy than existing system (based on war & debt)
Uses otherwise wasted energy and incentivizes efficiency & innovation in energy production
Bitcoin mining generates heat (can warm homes, dry items)
Debt is the consumption of scarce resources now at the expense of later
Debt in the world is 10x more than GDP, meaning we have consumed 10x more than under Bitcoin
Bitcoin stops over-consumption
Bitcoin uses half the energy of either banking or gold
20x the energy the Bitcoin network uses is lost via transmissions and power lines
Fiat requires state bureaucracies, banks, government buildings, Visa, MasterCard, Venmo, offices, servers, armies, police, extra countries, prisons, etc.
Fiat drives malinvestments (terrible waste!) through false price signals:
Subsidies, tariffs, interest rates, price controls
Governments choose winners and losers via regulation
5. Just for criminals/terrorists
Banks launder more money ($800-$2T) than Bitcoin ($2.9B)
99% of transactions through AML-regulated exchanges
Banks paid $321B in fines since 2008
6. Governments will forbid it
Nations compete and if one bans Bitcoin and the other doesn’t, the brightest citizens move there with their capital (which is mobile)
Impossible for any nation to take over the network (requires too much resources)
Bitcoin network adapts and will work around government intervention