MSTR is a public company and as such it is of course "state sanctioned". That doesn't mean there would be any shady backroom plans going on.
They've just actively played by the rules the whole time. Public companies have no other choice and are kept in check by the financial system every step of the way. That's the nature of being public.
I'm not saying this to defend MSTR (don't own any, and I don't like that much BTC concentrating in any one entity), just an observation.
I see MSTR as a test of the US justice system. If it holds, the BTC indirectly owned by those who own MSTR get to keep their price exposure to BTC. If it fails, it has to fail in a lot of different, major ways for MSTR to implode. Extremely unlikely, but not impossible.
The only exception to the above would be if the BTC gets technically pilfered somehow. That's probably the biggest risk, and difficult to quantify as we don't know how the BTC is secured.
It's what everyone else is doing! Most people think that means that it can't fail...
Is now a good time to buy bitcoin?
Well, you guys in Nostr probably already know this stuff, but I'll still post this as a pointer for newbies!
Before anything else, you should understand the main reason why bitcoin exists in the first place:
The money is broken.
What you think of as "money" (fiat money), is actually a clever scheme to quietly rob you of your purchasing power - and purchasing power is the whole point of having money in the first place!
You don't want money for the sake of having money, you want the things that money will buy you. Money is just an option to get other stuff later.
Fiat money (dollars, euros etc) buys you ever less. I'm sure by now you've noticed this!
Money is half of every trade, and it being broken affects everything in our societies negatively. We can fix it - but it is up to each individual.
You need to put on your own oxygen mask first. Nobody's coming to put it on for you.
The stock market is also broken
While the causation here is quite complex, the correlation is extremely clear and tells you everything you need to know:
The stock market as a whole isn't going up in purchasing power - it only goes up with the amount of money that is printed.
In other words, you can maintain your purchasing power by investing in stocks. That's essentially saving, not investing - but you do still have to carry the risk of owning those companies, many of which are zombie companies.
Savers shouldn't have to suffer that risk!
What about bonds?
If you "invest" in government paper (bonds), you can count on your purchasing power getting diluted.
The governments are essentially bankrupt, and are mathematically unable to do anything else than to pay you less in purchasing power than what you originally gave them. Not a great trade!
Real estate?
This is a longer story, but the base logic is the same as with stocks: you can perhaps maintain your purchasing power, but carry risks that savers shouldn't have to think about.
Real estate is more often saving than investing.
Well, is now a good time to buy bitcoin?
The thing is that nobody can answer that for you - not necessarily because there wouldn't be an answer, but because of an ironclad rule I've observed over the last 10 years:
Those who do understand bitcoin (at least well enough), can and do hold onto it and are able to maintain and increase their purchasing power.
Those who don't understand bitcoin, are unable to hold onto it and get burned by the volatility: price goes temporarily down after they buy, they panic and sell at a loss, and blame whoever convinced them to buy.
There are very little exceptions to this rule, so you just have to study bitcoin to understand it. Don't just "ape in".
Asking people to buy it before they are mentally ready for the ride is a recipe for disaster, so I won't do that.
You can earn sats through zaps right here in Nostr - that's the best way to get bitcoin!
This post was a short version of my blog post, in which I answer the question:
"If the government can print money, why do you need to pay taxes?"
...among other important things. You might want to read it!
https://www.sovereignlanding.com/high-future-preference/is-it-time-to-buy-bitcoin-ultimate-answer/
A dollar buys less than a 1000 sats... sat/cent parity next!
After that, hopefully some more meaningful measurement of purchasing power?
Both are just extreme forms of totalitarian statism. Same shit, different flavor.
Can you open that BitVM part a little bit, is it "live" and usable?
PSA it is your duty to neutralize these poison-sprayers anytime you see them https://nostpic.com/media/0018b7ee33fb253843639c62e292fec700a69a93b08ee374c5bda971c9b39564/df47f337cb101193c6de7f87d226a2b3233a1d47fa5e36873b61d0dbff94fad4.webp
I really don't get how people voluntarily buy these.
Or I do get it, they want to change the way the place smells, but like... eh... no. Smelly poisons are not the way.
Such dumb, such fiat.
A lot of the replies here seem to answer "what bitcoin is" (yes, it's freedom money). But the question was "what's the POINT of bitcoin"?
I don't think it's enough to focus on "what problems of our current world will bitcoin fix". There are many!
What happens after those problems are fixed, and the world gets to run on a fair and efficient bitcoin standard for a while, maybe a long while?
I'd say that the POINT of bitcoin is to bring about a literal Star Trek future, where humanity flourishes on Earth, spreads out into the universe and climbs up on the Kardashev scale.
I'm not sure if looking at it that way is helpful. Most people in the world:
1) Are mathematically unable to ever use the base chain (not enough space)
2) Don't need the expensive security assurances of the base chain
3) Are not interested in that level of self-sovereignty, probably for valid reasons
4) Will not be spinning up the tech stack required for "full" self-sovereignty
...and they can still escape the curse of central banking with this "not bitcoin" - which carries like 90% of the value promise of on-chain bitcoin.
I get the "technical" point, I just think we should be mindful of our focus.
I wonder what amount of the effect of chemotherapy is due to it taking appetite away...
Not that I think that fasting would be a sufficient cure on its own after cancer has already formed, would just be interesting to know.
I need to listen to this today. This presentation was a powerful one: https://youtu.be/U2YnBrSDmoE
Milei is in a man in the arena, doing things in real life, making real progress. It is always messy and imperfect, but at least he's in the arena.
Perfection is for the realm of ideas.
False dichotomy perhaps?
Bitcoin is for everyone, including enemies. Bitcoin fixes them, eventually.
This absolutely needs some kind of a solution!
Storing any master keys in a BROWSER EXTENSION feels like such a bad idea... I understand that this is early days and this is not a simple problem to solve.
I think this is why the "Network States" idea, especially the book, is such word salad.
The whole idea seems to ride on somehow having some magical iMmUt4bL3 relationship between real world possessions and tHe bL0CkCh4iN.
Such ethreium.
The pharma companies finance the news so they can control the messaging.
I heard RFK is planning to make that illegal and the pharma companies are in panic mode.
Everyone gets bitcoin at the price they deserve, and what's going on now doesn't change that one bit.
Also, the "Blackrocks of the world" buying bitcoin doesn't mean that "Blackrock the entity" would own all that corn. They buy it for their customers, many of whom are - at the end of the day - the average people you talk about.
Those average people can later sell their "Blackrock wrapped bitcoin" (even if they do so at a premium) and buy real bitcoin, at least assuming that the legal contracts hold.
There is a balance though. When the temperatures start getting anywhere above 25c my brain starts to slow down, and above 30c the higher functions basically turn off.
AC helps ofc but then you're restricted indoors...
Damn this is powerful stuff. What a presentation! Makes me think...