The U.S. certainly took seriously the threat of #Bitcoin and #crypto to the dollar supremacy and they acted accordingly by:
- Hijacking Bitcoin’s narrative and roadmap to make it non-competitive as a P2P medium of exchange.
- Acquiring or planning to acquire large quantities of bitcoins that could be used to strengthen the dollar if needed.
- Promoting a cryptodollars era by flooding the crypto ecosystem with dollar-backed #stablecoins.
What else?
Shilling other tokens
Forcing the SEC to overlook blatant fraud and securities
Insider trading
What else?
exactly. US will do everything to strengthen the dollar only
Regulatory capture of all the bitcoin/crypto on-/off-ramps.
Making it a wedge issue between the two parties and then telling bitcoiners they’ll get everything they want but humiliating them by shitcoining instead.
"- Hijacking Bitcoin’s narrative and roadmap to make it non-competitive as a P2P medium of exchange."
I think this is more complicated than just government action, and involves many private sector actors, as well as people within the bitcoin community who identify it as "digital gold"... A phrasing that implicitly excludes bitcoin as a medium of exchange.
What happened is that pre-usable Lightning (basically, any time in the past) it was barely possible to actually use Bitcoin as a medium of exchange... which was, 100% the original idea, and don't let Saylor tell you otherwise...
Back in ~2013-2014 you had a real push to try to get people and merchants to actually use bitcoin for purchases. Like nostr:nprofile1qythwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnswf5k6ctv9ehx2ap0qy88wumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv9uq32amnwvaz7tmjv4kxz7fwv3sk6atn9e5k7tcpz3mhxue69uhkzmr8duh82arcduhx7mn99uq35amnwvaz7tmpveexjcmp9ehx7um5wghx5mmzw4exwtcprpmhxue69uhnzwfj9ccnvwpwx5hrwde6xsurgwp0qyv8wumn8ghj7ct59ehx7um5wfmk7untwvhxxmmd9uq3zamnwvaz7te3xsczue3h0ghxjme0qywhwumn8ghj7ct8v4h8gmmjv9hxwefwdehhxarjxyhxxmmd9uq36amnwvaz7tejxdnk6apwdehhxarj9e6x2cmgdehkcmm80yhsqgqskenqevr4f0acjfj5whtk0q6eaaz7c5nh352zv8gh6rfuk4g8muqn4az7 today you had people selling stuff like Alpaca wool sweaters, etc, advertising on places like the BitcoinTalk forums. You had some coffeeshops and bars that accepted bitcoin pop up in various places in the world.
But it wasn't easy. The UX sucked, transactions on the L1 are inherently slow, and (here's where we get to government) the tax requirements are ridiculous. Even today, despite the "pro-Bitcoin president," you're *legally obligated* to calculate capital gains taxes on a cup of coffee. Doesn't matter the cost, $4 transaction, you've got to break out the spreadsheet and calculate FIFO/LIFO on it.
So all of these factors combine so that by ~2015-2016, VC money was all going to "blockchain not bitcoin," Ethereum, alternative blockchains, etc. Fintech was "hot" but it wasn't about replacing the dollar, it was about using your phone to pay with your existing Visa/MasterCard.
(and fast forward to today): As a result of this ~decade+ of being unusable for point-of-sale transactions, many bitcoiners have actually *internalized* the narrative that it *isn't* suited for these kinds of transactions, even though as we can plainly see on Nostr, Lightning "just works."
You can see this internalized narrative all over the White House "summit." These people want to preserve the dollar as a medium of exchange, and just use Bitcoin as "digital gold." The government didn't do that... we did it to ourselves.
I actually stood up and applauded this! 👏 I haven't personally delved into it that deep, but I have voiced my perspective on the HODL narrative many times.
I have actually stopped watching many of the infloooencers because they keep touting the HODL narrative.
Don't get me wrong. I am not against HODLing as far as a "savings account" for your future. But you also need a "checking account" for everyday needs.
Bitcoin is money, and if you're not using it as such, how do you expect it to be the world's reserve currency?
I've had quite a few ppl that have started orders on my site, and then not finished by paying, because they didn't want to spend their Sats. This mindset is holding us back, not pushing us forward.
I earn, spend whenever I can, and stack in only Bitcoin. I just paid my cloaked wireless bill this morning using Sats that I earned selling soap.
A #circulareconomy is desperately needed.
Buy, spend, replace. Better yet, earn, spend, and stack. Bitcoin is money. Use it the way Satoshi intended.
Do you offer Monero for your products? Usually Bitcoiners prefer saving Bitcoin and spending Monero.
Bitcoin only.
You could try out setting up a profile on https://xmrbazaar.com/. It’s a pretty active #Monero marketplace.
There is definitely a confluence of factors at play here but the shift to the “#Bitcoin digital gold” narrative stalled initiatives aiming to make it a better medium of exchange and apparently this term was first coin by Epstein and Joi Ito.
nostr:note1pxdvw6lpxax9lj9e8m2u02xz88fyr07wl6qkf97nsmen6652zy9s3f7fkw
Suppressing Monero with all means possible.
Weaponising transparent (non-fungible) chains to confiscate money by third parties under the pretense of AML.
Attack on private transactions had definitely been one of their focus.
