signing devices > hardware wallets nostr:note1juh447z22meyu6qt3hl50ngsfd26nsj24hkqqyzgxq93fykyvvpsweplru

What device do you recommend?

It's a product of the fiat bubble - a capture mechanism for excess fake credit - another epicycle in the fiat theory of money

Bitcoin might even go up in real terms before fiat completely dies, just like there can be fiat deflation before the end

Give up on decentralization.

Give up on "trustless" currency.

We have to build trustworthy systems to do real commerce.

If you want to ship oil or grains or manufactured goods around the world you need trustworthy security & dispute resolution.

If you have trustworthy security & dispute resolution we can also ship precious metal around the world.

If you can ship precious metal around the world in a trustworthy way, then you can transact in electronic claims on precious metal.

If you can transact in trustworthy electronic claims on precious metal, there is no need for irredeemable cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin is an elegant solution to the wrong problem.

It is technologically sophisticated but economically illiterate.

Like Karl Marx, Bitcoiners (typically) assume that the difficulty of producing a good imparts that good with value. Marx was focused on human labor while Bitcoiners are focused on machine labor (energy). But this is simply not a coherent theory of value. If all goods can be reduced to a single scale of value, then why does exchange occur at all? Exchanges become more for less (exploitative) or equal for equal (pointless) rather than A for B (mutually beneficial).

The labor theory of value was rightly discarded for subjective theory of value. For exchange to make sense in the first place, the parties must disagree on the relative valuation of the goods or services exchanged. I prefer a snack of cookies to carrots, you prefer carrots to cookies, and so we trade. If we agreed on the relative valuation, the individual who had the more-valuable-to-him good would not give it up for a less-valuable-to-him alternative.

So the value of a good is the highest use to which the individual can put it, which varies from person to person. For Bitcoin, this is only the ability to trade it on to the next fellow. So long as there is an infinite chain of fellows, this works well enough.

But, the acceptability of Bitcoin right now depends on fiat, which depends on gold. If I want my business to accept Bitcoin I can take it and exchange it rapidly for fiat (including collateralized stable coins). So I don't have to care whether my supplier takes Bitcoin. But if fiat collapses & my supplier does not take Bitcoin, I need to find a new supplier or stop accepting Bitcoin. And my supplier is in the same boat, and his supplier, and so on. Unless you have a local economy which is self-sufficient and where everyone takes Bitcoin without exchanging it for fiat, Bitcoin acceptance will likely diminish dramatically during a fiat collapse. Only the "true believers" will take it.

The rest of us will turn to physical barter and rebuild a monetary system (likely) based on precious metals. We could then have markets which exchange Bitcoin for precious metals (or claims on metals). But again, what would be the point of Bitcoin in a world where we have trustworthy electronic claims on precious metals?

So the question is - how do you ever get to hyperbitcoinizatjon? How do you ever get to general acceptance of Bitcoin without some other underlying money or currency which people regard as the real deal? How do you make everyone a "true believer"?

Since I’m banned on Nostr I’ve decided to destroy my keys and return to maths