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Mike Brock 2y ago

If you are only able to view Bitcoin’s potential for success vis-a-vis the US Dollar, you’re really missing out on most of what bitcoin’s short-to-medium term potential actually is.

Hate me if you want, but I think hyperbitcoinization is currently not in the cards. Never say never. But if that’s what you expect to happen in the coming months and years, I think you’re just completely wrong about that.

At the same time, Bitcoin is going to keep growing and filling in gaps all around the world, where financial access is far more adversarial. It’s also going to revolutionize the reach of global payments, secure identities, and I believe things like Lightning are going to become ways to accept global payments from anywhere in the world for services, tips, and things like zaps!

Many people will convert their payments back into local fiat. Some will save in bitcoin. That’s okay! Measuring Bitcoin’s success or failure in absolute terms just causes serious distraction from what the near-term opportunities are.

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Discussion

Mike Brock 2y ago

Apologies for the narrative-violation, etc.

signal_and_rage 2y ago

dedigitaldollarization gonna be lit tho

Disestablishcentralbankarianism.

I tend to agree (currently). I think Bitcoin/Lightning becoming the native currency of the internet is more than enough. There's so much potential just in that.

Mike Brock 2y ago

People need to realize that hyperbitcoinization is largely a political ideology. It's not a thing that's bound to happen "because math". While I appreciate the enthusiasm, I also think advancing bitcoin happens far more effectively when one is dispassionate about such things.

nothenry 2y ago

But to what extent does math influence people’s political ideology?

Mike Brock 2y ago

Very little, unfortunately. Hence all the irrational policy preferences.

A difficult ask; to separate passion from the hopes and dreams for one’s children.

Mike Brock 2y ago

The only way to make the world better, is to do a little bit every day. Waiting for one-fell-swoop revolutions to sweep away that bad, has been among the most seductive impulses in human history, that has unfortunately led to perpetual disappointment and often ruin.

True true. That said, I was listening to a podcast the other day about the Russian Revolution and apparently Lenin, who was exiled in Switzerland, never anticipated the Bolsheviks would take control of Russia in his lifetime and he even made speeches saying so.

Yet, things unwound fast. Hence his famous quote, “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

I'm with you though, I wouldn't hold my breath. :)

Mike Brock 2y ago

We romanticize revolutions. The problem is most revolutions have been quite shitty for everyone involved in history. The French Revolution, American Revolution and the Color Revolutions are actually the exceptions to the rule, historically.

Were they shitty for the descendants of the victors?

Mike Brock 2y ago

What’s the latest on the Arab Spring? The Iranian Revolution? China? Russia? Venezeula? North Korea?

Mike Brock 2y ago

Tearing down institutions doesn’t always turn out well!

Psychiatric hospitals torn down/ replaced by jails is where my mind went on this one. Not sure why but it did.

A monetary revolution is different from an ideological one too I suppose.

The dollar surpassed the pound with no bloodshed.

You beat me to it. That’s why it was considered a sacrifice to fight. It was something you did to benefit your descendants.

Mike Brock 2y ago

Like the Bolsheviks, the Ayatollah, Mao, Chavez, Kim Il-Song, Pol Pot, etc?

Mike Brock 2y ago

… Castro, Ceaușescu, etc?

The revolution against Ceaușescu was a positive though. Many Romanians will attest.

Mike Brock 2y ago

Yeah. Of course things got better. My point is just that thinking revolutions are good things as a general rule is just silly. By count, most liberty-minded people would not think most revolutions were good. That's my point. It should cause someone to question the whole romance of the idea.

I agree, revolutions are bloody and messy, and lots of people die. I'm not sure if hyperbitcoinzation as a revolution would be similar to past political revolutions. Could even be worse.

The presence of evil in this world does not mean good men should do nothing. I am not naive. I know the good guys don’t always win. But they never do if they don’t fight.

How many of these repressive regimes have historically been overthrown through diplomacy?

Mike Brock 2y ago

Yeah, I think the idea we need to overthrow Western democracies in revolutions is absolutely fucking crazy. I’m not going to mince words here. FUCKING. CRAZY.

I don’t think anyone suggested this?

Mike Brock 2y ago

Oh, some are!

I don’t doubt it, but not in this thread 😜. But thinking we can convince the very people who benefit disproportionately from the current system that bitcoin is a better path seems to be a fools errand.

Define western democracy.

Are you lumping the Constitutional Republic in with that?

Are you indicating the values in the founding documents of the countries in question, or how they operate now and at some theoretical point in the future?

Where is the line between a functional “democracy” and a totalitarian state?

At what point does oppression move from acceptable to unacceptable?

What about the consent of the governed?

Is forced “democracy” intrinsically different from a totalitarian state?

Something something time preference.

“The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future.”

— Jordan Peterson

I'm definitely not and what followed the Russian Revolution was decades of horror. The repercussions of it are arguably still being played out in Ukraine today.

As a Brit, I disagree with the American Revolution being a positive though (joke).

Never say never I suppose but the transition would be terrible

Mike Brock 2y ago

I feel that there are a lot of people in this conversation who would read what I said in the OP and describe that as a catastrophic failure for bitcoin. I think that’s silly, absurd, and actually the kind of thing holding bitcoin back from advancing.

Crazy. Becoming the currency of the internet is good enough I think

I would call what's happening in El Salvador hyperbitcoinization. It's going to take the rest of the world decades to catch up though.

Mike Brock 2y ago

I wouldn’t.

Maybe I don't get what hyperbitcoinization is. I was thinking it was a very fast rate is adoption, and El Salvador is the place with the highest rate by far. I guess some people think of it as the end state of Bitcoin adoption where every other type of currency is dead and gone. If that's the definition then, yeah, it's probably never happening.

When large paradigm shifts have occured historically, it is a rule rather than an exception that the incumbents fail to adapt and instead the new leaders emerge from the periphery. It happened so many times from the roman empire to the brittish empire.

With regards to a potential hyperbitcoinization - it should be viewed as a similar historical paradigm shift - and as such - it would be wise to assume that the liberal democracies of the west will not promote and facilitate such a paradigm shift. In fact, it is indeed clear that they are doing the exact opposite - they are resisting the change.

So from a historical perspective, the west would be the wrong place to look for, if you are looking for signs of hyperbitcoinization. Instead, the global south is likely the place.

Mike Brock 2y ago

I’m not even sure that unmolested market forces would automatically trend in that direction, either. I think that’s largely an article of faith. I know Austrian School types think otherwise. But I should re-assert that I don’t think their arguments are right.

People will adopt and use this as they see fit. What are the incentives of the individual/entities to use BTC. It seems to me it’s a Swiss Army knife at this point and will be used as such. What problem are you trying to solve? What are you optimizing for? I think in the distant future it becomes self evident to most that it was always on its own trajectory, but we are comparing it to what we already know. Time will sort this out.

We don’t see bitcoin as it is, we see it as we are.

Tbh, I don’t really get how it’s going to help with identity. Anything you recommend me checking out on that?