Regardless of the latest drop, I don't think Bitcoin is the future. It is a technology which will be made antiqued by the next generation of money.
Discussion
has anyone invented a new internet yet? no? okay
In your analogy, "the internet" would be cryptocurrencies. And the internet has seen many early players surpassed. http, MySpace, Geocities, even Yahoo used to be the biggest search engine before Google.
So yes, there is a lot of scope for Bitcoin to become antiquated, and maybe cryptocurrencies as we know it will become antiquated too.
This is why gold persists for thousands of years -- it is analogue. Technology becomes obsolete much more quickly.
Wrong. The internet is not crypto. the internet is Bitcoin. Cryptos are the various private and proprietary networks that tried to compete with the internet, but we don’t even remember a single one of them now do we? The same fate befalls on the shitcoins.
"The internet is not crypto. the internet is Bitcoin" -- Sorry but this is just cultish talk. We saw what happened to MySpace, Nokia, and the horse & cart. Technology always gets surpassed. What happens to Bitcoin then?
Upgraded and built upon, exactly as what’s happening now
You could say that about cash. Coins and notes have better forge-protections built upon it than in previous times, but the concept of cash has been surpassed as technology moved on.
Ok so now your point is?
Look man I don’t have time to explain to you if you couldn’t get it. Protocols and technologies are fundamentally different. One’s winner take most, other is winner takes all. You either learn about it or don’t. Cheers and have a great week ahead.
My point was to address your argument that BTC gets upgraded and built upon. That is not a safeguard against being surpassed by newer technologies. That is the very nature of technological advancement.
It's like saying iPhone is a store of value because it has network effect, and is being upgraded and built upon via the iPhone 17, then the iPhone 18, etc. Both iPhone and Bitcoin could go the way of Nokia dumbphones.
Another analogy that tries to lump Bitcoin with technologies instead of a protocol.
Base 10 math is a protocol, all the theorems and formulas emerge from that. Base 10 math does not get replaced.
The internet is a protocol. Websites and apps emerge from that. The internet does not get replaced
It is easy to confuse bitcoin as a technology to be replaced rather than a protocol to have other things built upon.
It's the same dilemma -- The protocol can be usurped by evolving ideas & technologies, like the "protocol" of telephone communications have been usurped by evolving ideas & technologies.
Telephone communications could not be built upon, unlike the internet, and bitcoin.
Bitcoin performs the base layer function of storing and transferring value in a decentralised and secure manner perfectly, and that’s all it needs to do.
Privacy tech or faster transactions are already built on layer 2.
If theres any more technological innovations on money, it will be built upon the bitcoin stack.
If the innovation is not about money, it won’t compete with bitcoin.
Just like how any communications innovation, like Nostr, is built on top of the internet stack, instead of inventing a whole new protocol that competes with the internet.
But telephone communications has been built upon. First with mobile phones, then text messages, then internet calls on WhatsApp, plus social media, banking apps, Discord chat rooms, etc., have all been built on top of what was just a telephone. Satoshi is like Alexander Graham Bell, except technology is moving much faster today than in Bell's day.
It is very hard to be confident than BTC's vision of money will still apply in the years to come.
To clarify, that leaves Bitcoin as a coin open to being dropped.
And other protocol's could surpass Bitcoin's. Ethereum is a separate protocol, for example. Who knows what will be created in the coming years.
Sorry for the multiple posts. You may just answer my longer post to keep the thread tidy.
As I said, when the internet first came about, there were many other companies trying to create intranets and market them as a service. The open decentralised one won.
When bitcoin first came about, there were many other companies trying to create their own protocols and market them as having a unique use case. Will the open decentralised secure protocol bounded by energy win? Or is this time different?
I don't expect anything to be different, I expect it to be the same old story -- new tech antiquates the old tech.
Bitcoins value is in the network security.
As long as hashrate is high its hard to see something else taking its place.
Watch the hash.
There are already more secure cryptos than Bitcoin. Given that the masses are in Bitcoin at all is because of NGU, the hashrate is not the selling point. If the next big profit opportunity comes along, those people will move their money over. What happens to Bitcoin then?
And that's just one scenario.
*Gestures broadly at all the shitcoins bleeding against bitcoin*
Idk bro you tell me
The next big thing could be a more advanced cryptocurrency, or it may be a different means of money altogether.
Given that technology is advancing at record speed these days, including with AI, I wouldn't be so sure that the BTC style of transacting will still be in play in the future.
exactly which crypto has better security guarentees than Bitcoin?
Ill wait.
Proof of stake...
Then you haven’t really understood proof of work and why it is the real innovation.
huh?
so you're saying "PoS is more secure that PoW because you can trust the stakeholders to play fairly"
for real??
Ethereum is considered by many as more secure than Bitcoin due to its PoS consensus mechanism. That's just ETH, let alone what tomorrow's tech will bring.
lol "people are saying"
ok we're done here. you're still trusting 3rd parties.
You are saying something too. The task you have is to argue how BTC is the most secure crypto. It's not even private, which is a cornerstone of security.
Its secure because you'd have to build the electrical infrastructure of a small country and somehow aquire a billion dollars worth of ASICs to even attempt to alter the record of transactions.
Now you.
Let me share this in advance, in case any fools come along with his argument, posing cunning questions like "Have we reinvented the internet?" This devotion to dogma and rhetoric among these Baitcoiner simpletons is non-existent even in Abrahamic religions.
You're arguing that Bitcoin will be the peak of monetary technology in perpetuity. This denies the nature of technological advancement.
Cash had network effect until it didn't. Who uses cash now? So what happens to Bitcoin when the next big thing comes along?
I'm not arguing that. You've misunderstood me. Bitcoin is insignificant to me, and even harmful. Because it's a network that jeopardises all the privacy and liberty of its users. Bitcoin is obsolete. Monero is the only way.