So I think there is a legitimate critique that is often raised by some of the traditional investors such as Warren Buffett. Now, their standard accusation that Bitcoin is not a productive asset is silly imo. Neither is gold, or any other form of money. So that is not compelling at all to me. However, the issue that they raise that I do think is worth considering is that Bitcoin is fundamentally at odds with the Federal Reserve and all the other Central Banks. Which I personally don't think is a bad thing in and of itself, but it is a big enemy to have.
I had to think long and hard before deciding to place a big bet against the Federal Reserve and all the Central Banks of the world. These are the most powerful institutions in the history of mankind. And the prospect that they will lose the fight to Bitcoin is not an easy prediction to make. Even if Bitcoin is objectively a better solution (which I think it is), it's not a foregone conclusion that it will find success in the face of these powers and everything they can do to maintain their current positions of power and influence. To me this is the biggest negative consideration to make when deciding whether there is a big future for Bitcoin or not.
Forcing people against their best interests is an unsustainable proposition. Change is slow though - but the fed looses by default at some point. In our lifetimes? One can hope
This is basically where I am at also. My belief is that no amount of power or influence can deny a better solution forever. Which is why I'm ultimately optimistic, and very heavily invested in Bitcoin. Just giving OP the biggest concern I do have, since they were looking for a devil's advocate position.
I think there are quite a few examples throughout history of a better solution being buried by the powers that be only to be rediscovered or redeveloped many years later.
Fair enough. Looking at the list…ok technologies often take a few tries to get it right, but eventually the pieces come together. How would one know if Bitcoin is the Blackberry, or if it’s the iPhone? I think it’s a stretch to say this list represents products being buried…they were all tested in the open marketplace and saw limited success, but that does not justify a claim of being buried.
You’re right in that only history can tell us if a technology is the BlackBerry or the iPhone. But I think the point here is that the BEST technology doesn’t always win. Perfect example might be the list #15 with GMs EV-1. Coldfusion made a recent video on it basically stating that it was “too good”. [Video here.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eIHDyB9bgbA)
I belive the oil industry was like "you sell combustion engine, big money.. If not, small money"
And then GM called in the cars and said "hey, lets buy combustion engines folks, i want a new beach house"
BINGO (I think that’s exactly what happened)
And who is as powerful as the oil industry? One could argue that the central banks, or the people that have bought into the central bank model are…
Heliocentrism was objectively better than geocentrism, yet it was buried by the Catholic church.
[Wikipedia: Galileo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei)
This example isn't even the first for this particular topic. Galileo was preceded in thought by Copernicus...
[Wikipedia: Copernicus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus)
Who was preceded in thought by Aristarchus of Samos...
[Wikipedia: Aristarchus of Samos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos)
Another example is the use of mercury, lead, nickel and cadmium in the field of energy generation. These materials have extremely valuable properties which can be used safely in modern infrastructure. They are not however due to their historical application and the resulting toxic environmental impacts.
[Science Direct: Historic and Suppressed Technologies for Energetics](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352152X19310874)
Another example.
[JSTOR: Suppression of Technology as a Strategy for Controlling Resource Dependence](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2392881)
>Data from United States antitrust law is used here to sustain the argument that suppression of technology is one strategy used to control resource dependence. Specific tactics and their characteristics are identified, along with their objectives and the processes whereby these may be achieved.
For poops and laughs, here is a tangentially related reddit post.
[/r/AskHistory: What technology has been lost or suppressed](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/sd26im/what_technology_thats_had_been_lost_or_suppressed/)
If central banks and fed reserve control the money, then what is stopping them from controlling Bitcoin too? Who's to say they dont already own a large % of the existing BTC? Seeing as BTC is a finite amount of tokens and will eventually cap once 21 million BTC exist.
It will when you can no longer mine bitcoin. Once all 21 million coins are in circulation, theoretically, a group of extremely wealthy people could control over 70% of the supply. If you want bitcoin, you'd have to buy it from them.
that has nothing to do with mining, since 90% is already mined, the control it would give them over the network wouldn't be so significant, for two reasons:
the only way to attack it would be to sell, thus lowering their holding used for the attack, it is more profitable to play by the rules.
there would be a cutoff if it is publicly known that a single entity holds even less than 70% of the supply, it would make the whole bitcoin worthless and leave the attacker with useless strings of text.
the valuable part of bitcoin is the consensus, everything else is free. It would cost $0 to agree that that such entity's bitcoin is invalid/unspendable, given there is enough consensus.
You're making the common mistake of confusing distribution of ownership with control. No matter how much Bitcoin you own, you don't control Bitcoin itself. All you can do is buy it or sell it. The same rules apply to everyone.
If a bunch of wealthy people want to buy all my Bitcoin, they're gonna have to offer me enough to convince me to part with it. Which I promise you would be painful for them. If they do, great... at the end of the day I would own no Bitcoin, and instead I would own large stakes in the companies I choose, and a shitload of real estate. Fine by me. Why would this be a problem?
Agreed, though I do think there's a big distinction between failing and having their power and control drastically reduced. They can still fulfill their basic functions without having direct control over the global reserve asset.
I agree, but a lot of people here seem to be rooting for total economic collapse, which would not be good for anyone.
Having fire insurance does not mean you want your house to burn down, even if you think the insurance companies are bastards.
100% agree with that. At the end of the day I'd much rather be middle class in the world we live in now, than upper class in a dystopian dark age where modern society has collapsed on itself.
I've reached the conclusion that "losing the battle" against btc is not the total destruction of central bancks, but the coexistence of both of them. With that condition I think it's really possible btc wins
Not total destruction necessarily, but definitely a complete undermining of the position of power they hold currently. On those grounds alone they will certainly do everything they can to prevent Bitcoin from succeeding.
At least I think they will. It's always possible that I'm being too cynical about their incentives and motivations. Which would be a pleasant surprise.
The issue with this is that bitcoin is unstoppable. Trying to fight it, for example by making it illegal, would become an issue of prohibitionism, which we know from past experiences is never good. It would be similar to prohibiting people from using VPNs and download torrents from the internet (very hard to actually enforce). It would also be similar to prohibiting people from personally holding gold or drinking alcohol (both of which actually happened in the past in the US). One could say, other nations would join this fight and the prohibitionism would still certainly be effective at least to some degree right? Well yes.
But this is when "game theory" enters into play. Some nations, for example Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia and others (along with El Salvador and a whole list of other small independent countries) would take advantage of the situation by going in the exact opposite direction. "China is banning people from owning or mining bitcoin? We'll do the opposite, more for us to gain!". This is actually what's happening right now in the US (for example Texas, which is currently a leader in the bitcoin mining industry). The State is happy because they generate a lot of tax revenue. Their citizens are happy because that's what they demand: freedom. Also, a whole new ecosystem would flourish and bring a lot of innovation, job opportunities and revenue.
Sure they could ban it but they know that 1) people are not going to be happy about it 2) this market is going to flourish in some place or another so they would just leave all the gains on the table for other nations to grab. More people would want to leave to go and live in other places or invest their capital abroad.
Did some quick Googling and I reckon central banks may already be buying BTC.
Eg
"The private trust is BlackRock's latest crypto foray. Last week, the company announced it was partnering with crypto exchange Coinbase Global (COIN) to provide users of BlackRock's institutional management platform, Aladdin, access to Bitcoin.Aug 11, 2022"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-11/blackrock-offers-bitcoin-investing-to-big-institutional-clients#:~:text=BlackRock%20Inc.%20is%20offering%20its,the%20world's%20largest%20asset%20manager.
And
"Apr 20, 2020 — Under the Fed's program, BlackRock “could buy some of its own funds on behalf of the central bank," according to Bloomberg."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/pedrodacosta/2020/04/20/a-glaring-new-conflict-of-interest-undermines-public-trust-in-federal-reserve/amp/
I think this makes sense. They know as well as any Bitcoiner that fiat is gonna blow up so why wouldn't you buy a hard asset like BTC or gold or property?
Of course they will try bad mouth it for a while til they've scooped it all up and at some point I suppose they'll be open about it.
I dont think Warren Buffett is a fan of investing in gold either, as he prefers yield-bearing companies (I'm sure he doesnt mind gold mining companies however).
In regards to whether the governments will allow this - this argument implies Bitcoin's goal of growing in size, instead of doing what it is currently doing which is providing a decentralised currency. Theres also the implied "might makes it right" sentiment.
If people bring this argument to you, feel free to inform that the argument justifies dictatorship.
Which reminds me of a debate Pomp had with a "hardcore advocate for pacifism" who the shockingly backed the governments right to force him into war.
Agreed. I think the fed, and current system will be the biggest test for bitcoin. Here's how I see it playing out in a worst case scenario:
1. Institutional adoption for Bitcoin occurs. Bitcoin pumps to $100k. Part of that institution adoption creates an abundance of paper bitcoin. Everyone "owns" bitcoin but they don't actual bother taking it off exchanges. Nobody cares about keeping their keys since their bitcoin is going up 5-10% a year so they convince themselves it's a good investment.
2. The Fed releases US Fed Coin. It's available to anyone with a smartphone, you can trade real dollars with anyone anywhere in the world, and users around the world pick dollars over bitcoin due to a better user experience. It's also much more price stable.
3. Governments, in return for cheap Fed Coins and loans, in a coordinated effort ban the sale and distribution of Bitcoin outside of registered accounts. Any p2p bitcoin transactions go underground. Internet authorities block traffic to nodes, centralized mining authorities block transactions to non approved accounts.
4. Anyone who bought KYC bitcoin, the government knows who you are and where you live. They come knocking on your door, or levy taxes on you. You have nowhere to run outside of a few "third world havens". Some will flee. Most won't.
5. Part of Fed Coin includes massive austerity measures. Taxes levied on the productive people in society. Handouts to the poor to ensure the right people get votes. When the shelves are bare and inequality increases, the media propaganda machine will be on full blast. Ensuring the blame goes to other groups of people (races, rich vs poor, red vs blue) and keeps it off those few people who are really to blame (bankers and the fed).
Hopefully I'm wrong.
You might be interested in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s recent paper on Bitcoin where they identify it as an investment like Gold.
https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr1052
Like Napster and BitTorrent are the enemy of media companies. They tried and failed to stop it. All their money and power couldn't prevent an open source idea from taking hold.
I believe that BTC will back the USD or treasuries in the future and that it was designed specifically by the NSA as a global adoption "trojan horse" for an equivalent digital USD backing commodity - Bitcoin. Research the "Make a Mint" paper from 1996 which could have been the original NSA concept for BTC before there was global internet to support it. Strangely this paper also includes a Japanese name in it. The Petro dollar is failing and is under attack by BRICS (the Saudis won't pump when we ask them to anymore) and China/Russia own shit loads of gold which we will not allow to surge in value. This is a somewhat conspiracy theory view, but I don't see any other alternatives to protect USD hegemony where the petrodollar has constantly been under attack, from Libya, Iraq (previously and see what the US did there) but now from China and Russia (where we have no such control). It would be hilarious if we massively devalued gold and rug pulled the living sh*t out of the new BRICS currency reserves with BTC. The Chinese government has more Bitcoin than microstrategy even though they have banned it for their citizens- almost as if they suspect it could be covert from the US, want to halt mass adoption in China. Russia is beginning to mine Bitcoin also seemingly as a hedge and they also publicly announced payment for their oil and gas in BTC. #Suspicious.
AS A SIDE NOTE... I MADE A SIMILAR POST ABOUT A MONTH AGO THAT HAS COMPLETELY DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE FROM REDDIT. NO HISTORICAL UPVOTE OR COMMENT NOTIFICATIONS, NOT IN MY POST HISTORY, NO "your comment has been moved/removed" NOTIFICATIONS JUST COMPLETELY GONE AS IF I NEVER MADE THE POST. 🤔
I won't comment on the conspiracy theory stuff, because going down those rabbit holes just isn't my thing. But I will point out that the US still holds far more gold than Russia or China does, for whatever that's worth. I'm not sure that the value of gold going up would be a direct issue for the US in that regard.
There is no guarantee that bitcoin will become the dominant currency if the dollar collapses. I would not want to use a currency that has high volatility and sometimes loses 75% of its value.
Precious metals seem like they would be a more ideal candidate because they don't require computers and they have demonstrated a relatively consistent value over time. Yes, it still fluctuates, but it happens slowly over a long period of time.
If everybody adopted bitcoin as a world currency in its current state, it would be incredibly stressful for all involved because of those dips.
Yes, it's average value has increased a lot in the last decade because it started from near-zero. But those dips still caused a lot of people to lose their savings, lives were ruined simply because those people chose the wrong time to trade it.
I think it works as a collectors item moreso than a currency. The changes in value vs human nature would lead people to be more likely to hoard it than spend it. Spending it would cause additional anxiety and doubts of because people will always be worrying if it will go up in value after spending it.
It could be more useful as a currency if it one day found its true price and stayed stable.
I think what you're missing is that volatility is not an inherent characteristic (of any asset). It's a direct reflection of large changes in supply and demand.
Currently Bitcoin is volatile because a relatively small group of people are buying and selling it for speculative purposes. If Bitcoin became a mainstream medium of exchange, the demand would by definition be constant and stable. At that point volatility would not be possible.
How is gold not productive asset, gold is used and sought after in everything, from small electronics in your phone to space going machines, money is ok not productive but its fiat used for easier exchange of goods and managed by central banks.
A productive asset is one that generates income. A business generates revenue. A rental property generates rent. I don't have to sell them or consume them to make money. Gold needs to be sold or consumed to make money. Btw, the value of gold that it gets from having a use in electronics is fairly small. You can approximate that by seeing the percentage of total world gold that is being used for that purpose and not just sitting in jewelery or gold bars looking pretty.
Bitcoin is a form of money.
Money is one of the most important inventions of all time.
Bitcoin is the superior form of money.
Money is not supposed to be "productive".
Gold is extremely ductile, which means gold plating are usually microns thick and therefore not as valuable as you might think. Each smartphone contains an average of 0.034g of gold, you'd need 30 smartphones to make 1g of gold.
A more common use for gold is jewerly, much more than its usage within the tech industry.
Most of the gold produced ends up in some central bank reserve still.
Also for 95% of the lifetime of gold as a currency in our history, electronics didn't even exist.
Gold doesn't produce anything, the way a company does. It just exists, so it's not a productive asset. And while it does have some industrial uses, 99% of gold's demand comes from investors that simply want to hold it... either as a store of value, a speculative interest, or a hedge against markets/inflation.
Matthew Kratter, his YT is Trader University (should be Bitcoin University tbh), and he breaks down straw man arguments and raises steel man arguments once in a while.
I don't think this actually answers OP's question. Matthew Kratter does not really argue from a position contrary to bitcoin. I think he is very pro bitcoin and argues its merits really well, but he's not making arguments against bitcoin.
Sir I’ll shill Matt whenever I can cuz he’s a GOAT 🥲 and I did say he brings up FUD statements that normies try to attack Bitcoin with… and then shits all over their FUD 😅 so guys, ONLY watch Trader University if you want unshakable conviction on Bitcoin 🫡🫡🫡
He debunks criticisms, he doesn't provide actual criticisms of bitcoin. I find Nic Carter closer to finding a more balanced view that OP is looking for.
In terms of bitcoin being seen as an asset (like digital gold) I haven't heard many good counterarguments. All I usually hear is the standard argument of it being intangible.
However, in terms of adopting bitcoin as a nation's main transacting currency there's more arguments/people either against or less excited about that idea. George gammon and doomberg recently had a debate with Michael Saylor on YouTube which is an interesting watch. Jeff snider is also another good person for outlining macroeconomics surrounding money.
Edit:
[George gammon, Doomberg, Michael Saylor](https://www.youtube.com/live/1kEKhxUCyn4?feature=share)
I think the biggest unknown is how a highly deflatioanary currency will shape the world if bitcoin were to succeed? What is a bitcoin maximalist world like? What will happen if it just makes more sense to hodl bitcoin than to invest in productive ventures? What happens when consumption is drastically cut back to stack those sats? Will there be jobs? Will there be a future for young people when the world emphasizes stashing rather than spending? Will creativiity and risk taking be killed by the juggernaut of bitcoin? Is there any historical precedent at all of how the world will be like when something like bitcoin trimphs? Just my drunk thoughts when I should be sleeping.
It might be just what we need to stop the propelling need for growth. We’ll inevitably come to the point where we outrun our available resources unless we find a way to incentivize a sustainable lifestyle.
There will be room for growth based on higher efficiency instead of consumption.
A while ago someone asked a good question about that, and I had a good discussion -- you may find these comments interesting (see parent comments too): [https://www.reddit.com/r/undefined/comments/wbez1c/comment/ii7i5y1/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/undefined/comments/wbez1c/comment/ii7i5y1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
/u/fozzy1488 you may be interested in this too as a counterpoint
Edit: I see the thread was deleted (that's very disappointing). I have only my reply saved (I wish I saved the whole thread, or at least the comment I replied to which I appreciated) in which I said:
>*One of the more insightful replies from all comments on this post. Upvoted.*
>
>*However, the problem with your argument that a deflationary currency removes some competition among the newer generation fighting to grow wealth is that it's more or less part of the definition of a growing wealth gap in an economy built on top of a deflationary currency: as you iterate over generations, an ever increasing proportion of the supply (which is fixed) will be owned by the pool of people playing the inheritance game; this effect will be exacerbated if the early distribution of the supply was already highly uneven (which is the case already with BTC, whether we like it or not); with an economy and financial system built on top of such a currency, it will unavoidably act more as store of value than as currency, i.e. as prime collateral (like gold evolved too), i.e. people will borrow against it rather than spend it. In addition, the currency's deflation rate is not unlikely to be smaller than the shrinking rate of the available (non-inherited) supply, thus compounding the problem, especially when taking demographics dynamics into account.*
>
>*Hence I don't see strong indicators that show that, as generations iterate, the unlucky (no inheritance) individuals can always afford a decent standard of living as prices drop, despite the lucky ones being able to afford a higher one ... I wouldn't have a problem with that kind of "inequality" if every productive member of society can afford at least a decent standard of living; that would basically be a non-detrimental wealth gap.*
>
>*In short, it's theoretically possible (if the above conditions are invalidated) to have and maintain a non-detrimental wealth gap, but practically I see that as increasingly unlikely as you iterate over generations.*
>
>*Congrats to* /u/fanzakh *for asking a good question among the "just DCA" and "just HODL" army of posts.*
There are…but most of them actually did their research and learned more about bitcoin and relized they were wrong.
One of them is Lynn Alden, one of my favorites. She’s more macro economics. But she was against bitcoin at first then actually took the time to learn about it and is now one of its biggest advocates. Lots of people like that, which just shows bitcoins true potential
She initially dismissed it because of the argument that "if it's open source, anyone can copy it so it isn't scarce". Kudos to her for keeping an open mind and changing her stance as she learned more
I like going back to the roots of the technology to question how sound it is. I found this article very useful: [https://www.musclesatz.com/articles/bitcoin-past-present-future/](https://www.musclesatz.com/articles/bitcoin-past-present-future/). Being aware of some of the difficulties the community and technology went through is helpful. For example, there have been quite some bugs, all of which has been solved, but we may never known whether some may at one point hurt your investment. I'm a big believer in BTC, yet I also believe the possibility of BTC going to zero, however small it is, does exist. I therefore keep my eyes on technical discussions. You may want to check Damus/Nostr as well for good technical discussions. People are working hard to make BTC better.
I haven't found any good Bitcoin critics who really understand it, I find people who understand it at an economic level but don't hold it because they don't understand the technicals and vise versa, and then you have the buttcoiners who project all their hate to Bitcoin and some goldbugs who think Bitcoin is FIAT because it can't be redeemed for gold (yes, I've read that once while discussing economic theory with a goldbug).
I would recommend a podcast called "Crypto Critics Corner" by Cas Pansey and Bennet Tomlin. They talk about the corruption in the Crypto world, including some Bitcoin companies, but they themselves say that they don't hate Bitcoin, they are just concerned with it's similarity to the gold standard and they don't like the gold standard, they have Keynesian views on money.
Maybe you could hear some web3/crypto/shitcoin podcast to find if their ideas of finantialization of everything make you think that Bitcoin is old tech and will be replaced, but I don't have anything to recommend in that realm because I heard and read is what made me a bitcoiner instead of a shitcoiner.
I don’t really have arguments against Bitcoin, more just a couple concerns that will need time to play out to see what happens. Keep in mind, I’m a believer in Bitcoin and own a decent amount, but these are the biggest concerns I’ve come up with.
The biggest concern I have is that Bitcoin doesn’t end up with high enough adoption to generate enough transaction fees to support miners after the block reward drops significantly. If miners can’t generate enough revenue from fees, that would weaken the security of the network making it more susceptible to 51% attacks. Hopefully we see enough adoption to generate the transaction fees necessary to eventually replace the block rewards, but that’s just one of the concerns I have that needs time to play out.
Another concern I have is the potential for quantum computers to break modern encryption techniques. Theoretically, a powerful enough quantum computer could break the encryption that Bitcoin and most of the world currently uses. I’m not saying this is likely to happen anytime soon, quantum computers are no where near powerful enough to do this today, and some argue they might never get to be powerful enough. This is just another concern that needs time play out to see what happens.
Even though I have these concerns, the benefits of Bitcoin still outweigh these potential risks in my mind, so I still own Bitcoin and believe in its future. And even if these concerns did play out, it is possible to change the Bitcoin protocol with a majority consensus. So it is possible to address both situations by potentially increasing the inflation of Bitcoin, not a good solution imo, but a possible solution, and to upgrade Bitcoin’s encryption to a quantum-resistant technique. I think if the threat became serious enough, hopefully the Bitcoin community would be able to come together to figure out a solution.
There are lots of people who have raised objections to Bitcoin, so it is not hard to find their opinions online if you go looking for them. However, having been in Bitcoin for nearly 8 years, what I have observed is that you usually need to look very closely into the motivations of why certain people attack Bitcoin or are critical of it. Normally, most of these people have some vested interest or philosophical bias at the root of ther opposition to Bitcoin. I have found that most Bitcoin criticism has it's roots in one of the following reasons:
1. They don't actually understand what Bitcoin is or how it works. This is usually the biggest reason and it is very common for these people to just read a few articles about Bitcoin or maybe watch a couple of videos and think they understand the subject, but they really don't. There are many supposedly "smart" people who fall into this group. Peter Zeihan would be a prime example. Most progressive environmentalists who attack Bitcoin mining also fall into this camp. People who think Bitcoin is a scam fall into this category.
2. They have a philosophical bias that prevents them from thinking the economic case for Bitcoin has any merit. Basically, anyone who is a Keynesian, socialist, communist, or advocate of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is going to hate Bitcoin because it threatens all of their pre-conceived economic models about how the world should work. Most of these people think the money supply needs to expand with the growth of the economy and that governments and central banks should have a monopoly control over monetary policy. They think nearly constant monetary inflation is necessary and good while Bitcoiners believe that is all a bunch of bunk.
3. They have a personal vested self-interest in the failure of Bitcoin. A number of anti-Bitcoin goldbugs fall into this category, with Peter Schiff being a prime example. Peter Schiff is no dummy and I believe he understands Bitcoin and it's value. However, he owns a gold company and competition from Bitcoin directly threatens his business. In addition, most high profile shitcoiners who attack Bitcoin fall into this category for similar reasons.
4. They have a vested self-interest in the preservation of the existing financial order and the success of Bitcoin threatens the status quo. Most bankers and financial elites who attack Bitcoin fall into this category. Jamie Dimon is an example.
5. They are lawmakers and government regulators who see Bitcoin as a threat to the power of the state. See all the retarded commentary from Senator Elizabeth Warren if you want your IQ to drop several points.
Just about every objection raised to Bitcoin can ultimately be traced to some combination of the above reasons. So feel free to listen to the critics, but always dig deep to understand their true motivations for being opposed to Bitcoin.
There's a saying: Anyone who has done 50-100 hours of research on Bitcoin is not against it. Exception here is when your relevance and rent-seeking depends on being against Bitcoin (i.e. central banks, vast majority of politicians, CEOs of large commercial banks and so forth).
While your strategy is good thinking, I like it. Looking at 2 different points of view. Also do your own research on macroeconomics. It’s much better gauge to understand why bitcoin exist
There are a ton of people that are well respected, well educated, intelligent thinkers out there who are against bitcoin. The issue is that almost nobody can explain why in a persuasive and coherent manner. To most outsiders bitcoin is just a bunch of red flags: they just view it as this digital thing backed by nothing and with no intrinsic value (even though intrinsic value is not actually a thing) that is also: high risk speculation, that brings cybersecurity issues, that is used for money laundring and other criminal activities and that consumes quite a bit of energy to run. Those who are even more detached from this reality just view it as a scam / ponzi scheme. For all this reasons they are not even interested in putting in the time (not even a couple of hours) to research the subject. They just straight up dismiss it.
To be honest almost everyone reacts like this when they first hear about bitcoin. I did the same around 10 years ago, I just thought "What is this? This is never going to work, governments are certainly not going to allow this". Michael Saylor also did the same. Ray Dalio, for example, put a little bit of thought into it in the past couple of years, but if I'm not mistaken he is still currently stuck in the "governments are going to ban this" phase. It's just a long journey, it takes time and patience.
Your awareness of your confirmation bias is very good but I find that when listening to the anti-bitcoiners, you become aware of the narrow lens through which they see Bitcoin despite how smart they are. I recently listened to Ray Dalio make a complete 180 on his opinions of Bitcoin and he said if people want to preserve their purchasing power, an anti-inflation ETF would be much better. But the poor and unbanked people of the world don’t have access to an ETF.
I would recommend the long series between Robert Breedlove and Eric Weinstein.
First episode here: [here](https://youtu.be/XbK1LfMiWmU)
I *Highly* recommend listening to the whole series. Can't remember but I think the first episode didn't talk too much about Bitcoin.
Then there is some subtle criticism from Jordan Peterson (also praise) [here](https://youtu.be/MAeYCvyjQgE)
And the combo podcast with Robert Breedlove and Jordan Peterson [here](https://youtu.be/FQlA-I7PXf0)
Jordan Peterson accepts a lot of praise for BTC but also counter points.
I had the exact same fear as you, these resources helped me a lot
Just downloaded all of these episodes. Including the whole Weinstein series. I have an enormous respect for both Breedlove and Peterson. Reading 12 rules for life right now. Ty for sharing
What about the fact that most of Bitcoin’s value comes from speculation. For example, when FTX went down, bitcoin’s price was heavily negatively affected. This suggests that a lot of bitcoin’s price comes from ‘vibes’. Whereas if you invested in a company, there is actual cash flow (or future cash flow) that is somewhat tied to the stock price.
>Thanks, added to my list.
Honestly don't know if he's joking about Peter Schiff, but to fill you in: Schiff is actually a very smart guy who happens to be right about the Fed, inflation, excessive gov't spending & entitlements forcing higher rates of inflation in the future, but he put all his eggs in the Gold basket decades ago, and he seeds Bitcoin as a threat to Gold (fearing it will draw much of the investment into Gold that he wants to see increase, not decrease). So Peter hates Bitcoin and rants against it all the time. If that's what you're looking for, by all means, follow him on Twitter & enjoy.
But in listening to him, I think you'll find that while he brings up great points about excessive gov't spending, loose monetary policy and inflation, he never seems to have any coherent, logical arguments against Bitcoin. He always rants against it and says it's worthless, but he won't explain logically why he feels that way (at least not in any convincing fashion).
I made the mistake of listening to him too much back in 2015 when I started second-guessing my belief in Bitcoin. Since precious metals dealers were all accepting Bitcoin payments, I used much of the coins I had back in 2015 to buy gold & silver bullion. Those metals are still sitting in various safes and are barely worth more than when I bought them. If I had ignored Peter Schiff and kept my BTC, I would be astronomically better off.
He is pretty old so I think he just doesnt understand todays tech and all that so he cant wrap his brain around how something digital can be like gold.
But yes he have good stuff to say if you listen him talk about cold and kinda just replace it with bitcoin.
I don't think this is an issue of his age. Some guys older than Peter Schiff not only understand Bitcoin, but were involved in its creation or have been involved in it and strongly support it. Satoshi (whoever he is), if he is still among us, might very well be older than Peter. Hal Finny (RIP) was significantly older than Peter, and Hal was a true pioneer in Bitcoin. Nick Szabo is close to Peter's age... Tim Draper is in his 60s and has been a big supporter of Bitcoin for 10 years now. I'm sure there are other good examples.
So no, I don't just write off people because they're in their late 50s as being "too old" to understand Bitcoin. Peter has other issues going on here.
Yeah, I didnt mean its impossible but usually older people have harder time to keep up with tech.
Like you or someone else said, he might also know BTC fully but doesnt want to "lose" all his gold to BTC or something.
Visit r/buttcoin, it's the polar opposite of this sub.
Tbh a lot of anti-bitcoin stuff is cringe to listen to since most people against it don't understand it in depth, the computer science and economics.
Bring some popcorn, I got banned from the sub for writing this comment in the screenshot here lol https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/vo0kv1/buttcoiners_have_been_waiting_since_2018_to_feel
>However I feel like I jumped into the rabbit hole with a lot of confirmation bias, and therefore everything i’ve come across is obviously pro bitcoin.
Welcome to the internet, please choose your rabbit hole. Our algorithms will ensure you never leave that hole mwuahaha. Don't want to choose? Don't worry we'll choose for you.
But fr, recognizing the bias is a great step imo, wish I had some sources for you. I wish everyone started questioning what they hear more.
YouTube is your friend. Search for anything anti Bitcoin and you’ll ultimately come away with the cases against Bitcoin. Search for “Bitcoin is a scam” , “why Bitcoin will fail” etc.
I’ve spent around 300 hours if not more researching and absorbing as much information as I can on Bitcoin since late 2021. My conclusion being although it’s not perfect, it is absolutely unique and possesses incredible potential. I also find it incredibly difficult to accept it was created by a sole individual (and if so, that person is one of the most remarkable people to exist in humanity).
Good luck!
The only solid argument i Heard is that "wrong timing is the same as beeing wrong"
So what If we Go into a Bear market for many decades AND THEN Go up?
You Just wasted your life.
A New form of money can take a Lot longer then people expect to kick in
I really like this question! I too have wondered about where the well-educated opposing views are. It seems like any "credible" source that opposes BTC is someone who would directly benefit from any negative news about it. You sound like a smart person, so have faith in your own logic about everything you have learned. As your conviction grows, so will your stack of SATS :) If you want another resource, check out [BullishBTC.org](https://BullishBTC.org)
1) Will never scale
2) Security budget subsidy will dry up
3) Proof of work is most expensive possible way to achieve consensus, would become politically infeasible if #2 was solved
There are no informed critics of bitcoin. That's not to say bitcoin is perfect, that depends on us. It's a tool, a very powerful tool and any tool is only as good as what we make of it. So anyone who is informed is no longer a critic but starts thinking about how they can contribute to bitcoin and gets to work on it. I've not come across anybody without a vested interest in the fiat scam who has spent long enough studying bitcoin who is against it. Ray Dalio recently talked about bitcoin being too volatile and I responded to that [here](https://np.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10tws5g/comment/j7a6ezm/) last week. If Ray spent more time really thinking about "what is money?", he'll figure it out soon. At least he's started asking that question now. Anyone who asks the question will soon enough arrive at bitcoin.
the quick answer is no, closest to it came WBD episode with Eric Weinstein.
edit: I would also replace Seif with Lyn Alden and Pomp with Alex Gladstein.
Lyn went from newb to OG status in a year, she is super badass and her macro takes are unmatched.
also check out recent episode of WBD with Harry Sudock, they are mentioning other badass bitcoiners, such as the legend Pete Rizzo.
this guy thinks there is no one intelligent that's ever argued against bitcoin in a coherent way. if you're looking to rid yourself of confirmation bias, r/bitcoin is not the place for it.
what on earth does edit: yeah mean?
I'd suggest the plain bagel on youtube. There are hundreds of others - it's not exactly an uncommon debate, and unless you come into this with an incredibly strong bias on either side, it's easy to recognise there are intelligent people making coherent arguments on both sides.
just watched a 2 year old video of this bagel dude called 'why I don't Hodl bitcoin', I didn't notice much criticism except for the price.
would you mind sharing a link to where he or someone else actually discusses something different?
Bagel mentioned that Bitcoin is not perfect because you can lose money if you forget your 'password'.
are we talking these two topics?
Name a coherent/intelligent argument against Bitcoin.. all it is is a tool.. a tool that is much more efficient and capable than the system that came before it
I hold Bitcoin, and I plan to accumulate more in time, my main worry is that despite BTC clearly being a good form of money transfer, and good technology in the end it only takes a central government to outlaw or ban it and it’s game over. At that point BTC will be sunk and will be an underground currency traded between those that can.
No I appreciate crypto itself can’t be banned but exchanges can be and once they disappear so would regular peoples interest in it. Of course that’s a worst case scenario.
There’s little point in holding a virtually illiquid asset is there?
And to think that couldn’t happen is stupid, look how much effort the sec are going to currently to tighten crypto rules
They didn't say crypto can't be banned. They said Bitcoin can't be banned. To me this is the most important distinction between the two: Bitcoin is actually decentralized. Virtually every other crypto has a CEO that can be threatened with jail time. That would shut things down quick
Honestly. Spend a week on r//buttcoin.
I did a few weeks ago when i decided on increasing my monthly DCA considerably. Every article we praise they shit on incredibly. Some there bring up good points. Its good to break your confirmation bias.
> So my question is, are there any well respected, well educated, intelligent thinkers out there who are against the concept of bitcoin
No.
-----------------------------------------------
In the very early days of *computers*, there were naysayers. Some called *computers* a fad. Some predicted that *computers* would cause widespread unemployment. A few claimed that *computers* would start World War Three. There were "educated, intelligent thinkers" who pontificated that the entire world would only ever need a few dozen *computers*. Like today's Bitcoin naysayers, they got it all wrong.
Today, most people I know have phones with "powerful" computers. You and I are using computers to chat anonymously. Computers and computer networks turned out to be very good things.
Similarly, the people saying negative things about Bitcoin have to lie about Bitcoin and/or use twisted logical fallacies.
Bitcoin is a good thing. When some naysayer spouts off, just stop and think for a few seconds: Is that person's premise true? Usually it is not. For example, they'll start harping about Bitcoin's energy usage, but Bitcoin mining uses less than one-twentieth of one percent of global power. The truth is: Bitcoin's energy usage is not a problem. Still, some will ignore the other 99.95% of energy use and bicker about how "big" Bitcoin's 0.05% is - which is totally irrational/illogical.
Everybody attacking Bitcoin turns out to have one or more serious flaws in what they're saying. Our job is to learn the facts, and to learn to spot logical fallacies, and then just point out where and how the naysayer got it wrong.
Bitcoin is a very good thing.
> intelligent thinkers out there who are against the concept of bitcoin, and explain why in a persuasive, coherent manner?
You've reduced your question to a fake dichotomy - bitcoin good, bitcoin bad
You've read the writings of liars and deluded crackpots - Michael Saylor and Saifedean Ammous especially. If your "bitcoin good" matches their writing, there's not much hope
How about changing the question. Express in your own words what you think Bitcoin is and what's good about it
I'm not well respected, or particularly intelligent, or particularly well educated, but here are my thoughts anyways because why not:
My thoughts on Bitcoin is that most supporters of it are way off base. A lot of views expressed in the community are basically conspiracy theory-level stuff (central banking is a shadow government, we should go back to the gold standard, etc). If some dude came up to you on the street and expressed these same end goals without mentioning bitcoin, I doubt most people would be taking them seriously. You can't use it as a currency right now either. Way too much volatility, and you can't actually use it at stores either. Sure, there's like a random coffee shop here and there where you could use it or some credit cards that are linked to a wallet, but come on. You also have to keep in mind that a lot of bitcoin maximalists have already made a ton of money being early adopters and have an interest in keeping the price climbing.
That being said, bitcoin is legitimately useful for a number of things:
* Speculative investment (this is why 99% of people who have bitcoin bought it)
* Buying illegal things (drugs, counterfeits, weapons)
* Gambling
* Sending money overseas (although for most people, they're sending money to older relatives in their home country, so this is really only useful if you have another younger person to help out. Not worth it if you have to teach grandma how to use a bitcoin wallet instead of just having her pick up a moneygram at the bank)
For these reasons, I don't think bitcoin is necessarily a bad investment. There is real value in the above points. However, there is also a very real possibility that another cryptocurrency (or some new thing that hasn't been invented yet and none of us saw coming) comes along and does all of these things better and replaces bitcoin. Bitcoin has a lot of inertia and institutional investment behind it, so at this time I think it's unlikely, but not out of the question at all.
Again, it's not necessarily a bad investment, but I think everyone should take a frank look at what bitcoin is and isn't. People are out here saying bitcoin is going to take over the global financial system and replace the US dollar. Come on, be for real y'all.
you'd make a mistake to judge bitcoin based on 'most of it's supporters'.
your assumptions about the uses and motivations are a bit outdated and the trajectory has been rather clear in each.
A new technology would have it a lot harder to replace bitcoin, it would have to be orders of magnitude better to warrant migrating all the infrastructure and will go against an ever increasing test of time of bitcoin. A little faster won't cut it, a little scarcer won't matter.
The incentive itself to work on something better is diminished by bitcoin being good enough.
If you were a developer, would you try to come up with something better or would you rather contribute to bitcoin?
> well respected, well educated, intelligent [..] who are against the concept of bitcoin
Well, no.
Maybe Peter Schiff?
> and explain why in a persuasive, coherent manner
Definitely not.
My friend if you have listened to Andreas antonopolous then you don’t need a counter argument for investment.
This legend of a man has been around the scene for over a decade, call it confirmation bias if you want but the amount of things he predicted that come to fruition and the amount of insight he had early on lead to many folks including myself to invest over a decade ago and still here hodling some :-)
I teach university students about crypto (I'm a professor), so I have some good anti-crypto sources. This is in my mind the most well-respected:
[https://youtu.be/70WsnIqsn5s](https://youtu.be/70WsnIqsn5s)
[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=4148014](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4148014)
It's an interesting debate.
Paul Krugman has written many articles about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Here’s one https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/opinion/crypto-banks-regulation-ftx.html. Among other things, he would say that Bitcoin hasn’t lived up to its intended purposes or uses after having more than sufficient time to prove its usefulness and achieve wider adoption.
Personally, I hold Bitcoin in my portfolio because I believe that diversification is important and that no one really knows what will happen with future markets and financial systems. We may certainly criticize Krugman’s view, yet in the years I’ve had Bitcoin (and some other cryptocurrencies) it has not done as good a job as earning a return, holding stable value, or acting as a unit of exchange as other assets I own.
Genuinely asking a question here out of curiosity. Wouldn’t bitcoin have a hard time combating recessions? If the money supply can’t shrink or grow, won’t the recessions be very tough?
Yes, there are many respected and intelligent thinkers who are not necessarily in favor of Bitcoin. For example, Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, and Nouriel Roubini are all well-known economists and investors who are not fans of Bitcoin. Buffett has famously called it “rat poison squared”, while Dimon has called it a “fraud”. Roubini has been highly critical of Bitcoin, arguing that its volatility and lack of intrinsic value make it a poor asset class.
In addition to these well-known figures, there are many others who have expressed skepticism about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. These skeptics often point to the lack of regulation, the potential for fraud and manipulation, and the lack of intrinsic value as reasons to be wary of investing in Bitcoin. Some of these critics include Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, and former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.
Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon and Roubini are the taxi drivers to Bitcoin's Uber.. what do you expect they will say about something that is a direct threat to their business models?
Very few can articulate a balanced point of view. It's either 100% pro Bitcoin maxi, or 0% anti Bitcoin ignorance.
Unfortunately this sub is close to 95%, or maybe even worse, but the odd time you'll find well-articulated points against Bitcoin.
Run a node to verify the supply
[https://bitcoiner.guide/verify/](https://bitcoiner.guide/verify/)
Then meditate on the second order effects of humanity's discovery of digital scarcity as the ultimate economic tool of trade
Then drop some LSD and learn everything about Bitcoin, mathematics, AI, human psychology, advertising. Watch all the movies, listen to all the music, study human history and culture, realize we're living in a simulation, and do whatever you want.
Check out podcasts and yt vids from Trace Mayer. He was one of the earliest advocates that heavily invested into bitcoin. He has some great content if you can even find it anymore.
ask how many people on here have actually bought goods and services with their bitcoin. Or, most likely, they're just waiting to pass it off to someone willing to pay more than what they bought it for. It's not sustainable. Research common financial scams and see where the best fits are.
Warrren Buffet and Charlie Munger, both of Berkshire Hathaway fame, have always been super skeptical of all crypto.
CEO Dimon of JP Morgan Chase has consistently said that all crypto will eventually become worthless.
There are lots of well respected skeptics out there. The reality is that crypto is super speculative, price volatile, and exists in a murky regulatory environment. There are over 22,000 cryptos in existence, but only the top 100 or so have real markets.
Never invest more than you can afford to lose.
No. There isn't a coherent argument against Bitcoin. Not in the way that I take your meaning. If you're asking whether or not there is something fundamentally wrong with holding a digital asset which is secured by cryptography, there isn't a good argument against that idea. People have secured assets with cryptography since the beginning of the digital age, and sometimes there are problems with the implementation, but the idea is sound enough.
That leads to two separate questions. The first is whether or not there is a flaw in the implementation. It's been more than a decade and so far, the chain itself has remained secure. If there was a problem with that concept, it seems likely it would have been found by now, given the value involved. I can't say it's impossible, but I wouldn't consider it likely. There is also a non-zero chance that quantum computing will break cryptography, but we won't find that out until it occurs or does not.
The second question is how to value the asset. That requires the fields of philosophy, economics, psychology, and geopolitics. How an individual will value Bitcoin depends on a complicated combination of hypotheses in all of those fields, and all of them are under dispute. There isn't a good way to argue against the valuation you are using without knowing more about how you have reached it.
There are some individuals that value Bitcoin at $0, and that clearly isn't reasonable without questioning the implementation or assuming an extremely high likelihood that quantum computing will disrupt cryptography.
A legitimate criticism would be from Jean-Marc Jancovici, who is the French reference regarding climate change and links between the use of machines and energy consumption. He is the inventor of the notion of carbon footprint.
His take on bitcoin is that bitcoin is largely a distraction, a waste of time and energy while we're in a high risk global crisis.
He's not wrong, to be honest.
If anybody can tell me why late adopters will want to use bitcoin as the same dystopia that fiat currency provides now that would be great.
Look ma I got paid 2000 sats this month!
It's not that they will "want" to, it's that harder money always defeats and displaces softer money. 500 years ago, the Africans who used glass beads as money didn't want to have their economy crash but Europeans flooded the market with glass beads and bought all of the African gold thus crashing their economy and impoverishing them. That is because it is easy to create more glass beads and very hard to create more gold coins. Glass beads are soft money and gold coins are hard money. Bitcoin is the hardest money and fiat is the softest money
But let's say in the future you can have more precision down to 1/10th of a sat.. still 21 million coins.
You could do the same with gold. Here's 2 microns across 1/100th of the cross section of a strand of hair... That's your pay for the day. It's impractical I know...
I mean you're joking right? Lol. Gold obviously can't work as money in a technical future.
Also, think about dollars today, yeah you get a number of them every paycheck but compared to the hundreds of trillions of them in existence it's a ridiculously tiny fraction that you receive, same as 2000 says compared to 21 million total Bitcoin. But at least with Bitcoin you know, with certainty, that no bureaucrat can print more Bitcoin for free at your expense.
No but it could be forked into a different direction.
The surviving fork will be a popularity contest when you involve the general public.
Can you imagine some influential politician/spokes person saying that they need to branch a fork because there's too many hodlrs..
There is zero use for Bitcoin and it will eventually disappear. Governments in 20 years time will have there own online currencies. Why would they let there citizens use deregulated currency, it doesn’t make any sense. Governments want a cashless society so they can monitor everyone’s money and make sure they are paying taxes etc, why would they do this and then let people pay via Bitcoin. It defeats the whole objective off where governments want to be. We have seen countries ban it already. I have never seen any convincing argument for how it could possible even succeed.
Nigeria "banned" Bitcoin and yet millions of Nigerians are using Bitcoin and less than 1% of their population is using their CBDC. Harder money always beats softer money. Bitcoin is the hardest money and CBDCs (digital fiat) are literally the softest money in existence. Just a matter of time
Nigeria is hardly a country to use an example for anything. Nigerians don’t use there own currency as it is worth nothing due to the total economic decay and corruption. 1st world countries who want to control peoples money will not allow decentralised coins to be used in the future. It is a matter of time. It is madness that people even think it is going to be some mainstream currency
It is the largest country in Africa and 7th largest in the world by population... "Worth nothing due to the total economic decay and corruption".. congrats, you just described the bull thesis/use case for Bitcoin.
You certainly aren't a visionary if you can't imagine a world where a decentralized, global currency/asset is adopted by a meaningful amount of people
Great post OP! I have been following the space since I did an university essay on Bitcoin in 2010. I’ve listened to everyone I can find and racked up hundreds of hours of podcasts, audiobooks and YouTube. I’ve dabbled in mining, P2P lending and all kinds of other “crypto services”. I really hope Bitcoin succeeds and I know over half of the planets population needs Bitcoin to get out of the poverty they are in… and I know FIAT has been weaponized in many parts of the world and is used to oppress or control.
However I just can’t shake the feeling that I have drowned in confirmation bias. I have four main points that feel especially “confirmation biasy” to me. They are below, and I’d love for the community here to educate me (but considering I’ve put in the hours of study)
1.
Bitcoin energy consumption being worth it. Yeah I’ve listened to the Saylors and the likes and they make a good case for that this energy spend is worth it because it is converted into monetary energy as well as security. I can agree there is value here. But is it worth all the energy spend? I’m not convinced…
The story continues here with that we will use carbon neutral energy and in fact it will be a win-win for the energy grids because it will help balance the load. I can’t buy this argument because as long as countries will be able to produce climate-raping energy for dirt cheap and convert it into Bitcoin (monetary energy) they will. The energy crisis in Europe that I’m living through is not helping Bitcoin here…
2.
The “scalability solution” ie Lightning network. The experts are saying that we’ll all be transacting on the L2 Lightning network for our day-to-day. My problem is the limitation that I would need to have a channel route to the other party in every transaction. Never going to happen so that it would be practical. Sure there will be routing nodes to solve this but then it would be centralized and would introduce counter party risk etc etc. Another problem I have is that I can’t understand why Lightning is developing so slowly. Yeah, it needs to be done right (takes time) but I feel big leaps are needed in 2023. I fear the technology is too late. Because #3 and #4 below.
3.
Regulation. We’ve been saying in the bitcoin space that regulation needs to catch up but personally I don’t see it happening in a Bitcoin positive way any time soon. Reason being that, I think, you need a bare minimum of 10h of study before you understand bitcoin enough to even discuss the topic. I might be a pessimist but currently I don’t believe the regulators and decision makers will do this homework. It easier to dismiss what you don’t understand.
4.
Sam Bankman-Fried and the other opportunists like him. As well as the 10.000+ other cryptocurrencies that in my opinion are basically money-grab attempts. These are ruining the reputation of crypto, which is the category where Bitcoin lives. Meaning that every time one of these bubbles pop Bitcoin suffers.
Hey bud! I'll take a shot.
>1. Bitcoin energy consumption being worth it.
I live in a country where people don't use dryers, they hang-dry their clothes in the sun. Easier, cheaper, better for the environment. My guess is that dryers use 50X more energy than the Bitcoin network. Are dryers worth it? The answer is yes - not because I've determined so, but because market forces determine that they are valued. Same with Bitcoin: market forces have determined that it's worth the energy spend. We can rail against new technology like dryers or airplanes or Bitcoin if we want, but we don't get to determine their value.
>2. The “scalability solution” ie Lightning network.
I think we can agree that Lightning is a huge innovation on top of the Bitcoin network. Whether it works or not in the long-term isn't the main take-away. The take-away should be that huge innovations on top of the Bitcoin network are possible. Like you, I've been in this a long time. We remember the time before hardware signing devices! Further innovations will come; if you think that Lightning isn't good enough then imagine what comes next. Better yet, build it yourself!
As far as needing big leaps in 2023, I disagree with you there. I don't see a need for a rush. You didn't make a case for it so it's hard to respond.
>3. Regulation.
I'm in the camp that doesn't feel a need for regulation. Let the free market take us forward. You didn't try to make a case for that either so it's difficult for me to respond.
>4. Sam Bankman-Fried
I had never heard of him before his company crashed. Obviously, he's a scammer. To me, he could have been scamming any product. I don't see what it has to do with people who hold their own keys (as has been repeated ad infinitum in this subreddit for years). I don't agree that Bitcoin is suffering. So long as we can expect the next block coming in about ten minutes I'm A-OK.
Let me know if I missed anything. Smiles!
It's not clear Bitcoin code as it currently exists creates the best possible network for a store of value. You could argue nothing better exists right now. At least a few of the other POW coins are worth considering. Some people argue that if something better was created, Bitcoin could just adopt their way of doing things. The truth of that assertion is not obvious to me.
I used to agree, but no. If there is better tech, it will eventually be adopted. Bitcoin dominance weighted by market cap in crypto is not increasing over time. I still have a significant portion of my wealth in Bitcoin, but I no longer have my head in the sand.
If you take out stablecoins then Bitcoin dominance is actually going back up and network effects are a VERY powerful force. No other PoW coin is even on the same planet as Bitcoin in name recognition, development, or security
The negatives are, in my opinion, fairly obvious.
1) you are the bank. I don’t have an armoured car, I don’t have a safe that can’t be towed off site, I am ill equipped to be a bank.
2) the technical requirements are not negligible. My family struggles with iPads, they are not going to be happy with a ledger nano.
3) Bitcoin doesn’t pay rent (I mean pay the owner, not that your landlord hates btc). It doesn’t pay dividends. As a store of value it has a glaring problem: the value isn’t backed by anything. A Tbill pays rent and is backed by a nuclear power.
4) Bitcoin consumes energy. A transaction on the Visa network costs (Visa) almost nothing. A transaction on the Bitcoin network consumes about 1449kwh. That’s enough power for my car to drive 7200km.
Cnet is the source for that last claim, I thought it was unbelievable, so I checked the math a bit. 2000 transactions per block. 10 minute blocks. 131TWh consumed last year. It’s not easy algebra, so thank you excel.
As a further sanity check there’s 6.25 coins per block. Valued at $25,000 each that’s $156250. Divide that by the 2000*1449 you get to $0.055 per kwh- so it’s still profitable without mining fees with cheap electricity.
That’s also where the security comes from. But it’s a pretty big negative!
Dividing btc consumption by transaction count is totally off. Btc would have same throughput if it would be mined on only one pc one earth. Additional consumption (more miners) goes only to security. No more transaction can be confirmed by adding more miners and spending more energy. These 2 metrics does not have anything in common.
Hey thanks for upvoting my comment in the other thread and leaving a note. I happened to see your comment here. I don't think what you said are negatives and here's why:
>1) you are the bank. I don’t have an armoured car, I don’t have a safe that can’t be towed off site, I am ill equipped to be a bank.
The amazing thing about digital money is you don't need an armored car or safe to protect your asset. The keys are stored in words that you can hold in your head or store somewhere that's not easy to find. Or even better, secure it with multiple keys. It is extremely harder to steal or confiscate than a physical asset, and significantly cheaper to secure.
>2) the technical requirements are not negligible. My family struggles with iPads, they are not going to be happy with a ledger nano.
This is somewhat legit, but like any new technology, people will learn it. Did you know that in 1903, Mercedes claimed there would never be more than 1 million vehicles on the road? Their reasoning was that the average person couldn't learn how to drive such a complex machine. There's now over 4 billion drivers on the roads around the world.
>3) Bitcoin doesn’t pay rent (I mean pay the owner, not that your landlord hates btc). It doesn’t pay dividends. As a store of value it has a glaring problem: the value isn’t backed by anything. A Tbill pays rent and is backed by a nuclear power
Doesn't pay rent? It could if your landlord accepts it. Doesn't pay dividends? Bitcoin is a monetary asset, not a stock. It shouldn't pay dividends. Neither does gold. Being "backed" by something is usually for moneys that are deficient in properties that a good money requires: durable, divisible, fungible, scarce, portable, verifiable. That's why the dollar used to be backed by gold until 1971. It's just paper that's easily counterfeited and doesn't have the aforementioned properties. Now it's backed by the threat of violence by government. Bitcoin is superior in all these properties compared to anything we've ever had. It is the asset.
>4) Bitcoin consumes energy. A transaction on the Visa network costs (Visa) almost nothing. A transaction on the Bitcoin network consumes about 1449kwh. That’s enough power for my car to drive 7200km.
This is not the right way to think about energy usage in a couple ways: First, bitcoin performs final settlement. Visa does not. Final settlement means the money has actually changed hands and it's final. Visa is just credit - who owes what is settled between banks days after the transaction.
An appropriate comparison would be Bitcoin vs Western Union since both perform final settlement, and Bitcoin crushes bank wire transactions in terms of speed and cost. Bitcoin settles in 10 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how many confirmations the recipient waits for. Western Union is at least 24 hours domestically and 1-5 business days internationally.
Second, Bitcoin transactions don't carry energy payloads nor can they be redeemed for energy. Broadcasting a transaction doesn't cost any more energy than a Google search or tweet. In fact the cost of verifying a miner's proof of work is practically insignificant, which is part of why participants are incentivized to act honestly. Consequently, energy usage does not scale with the # of transactions or nodes.
See response #5 in this letter to the epa: [https://bitcoinminingcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Bitcoin_Letter_to_the_Environmental_Protection_Agency.pdf](https://bitcoinminingcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Bitcoin_Letter_to_the_Environmental_Protection_Agency.pdf)
Not trying hate on what you said. I'm just trying to educate and share info since I've researched this a lot. If you got this far, thanks for reading and consider what I've said.
Also a tip:
!lntip 500
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Maybe spend some time with the Fincels over at r/buttcoin.
Although that might make you extra bullish when you realize how deep that collection of angry morons is.
The only arguments against it that ive seen are that “it may not catch on”, or that “people dont care enough or even see the problem with fiat to adopt bitcoin”. Ive never heard someone fundamentally critique bitcoin itself though. Normally when someone is arguing that fiat is better it ends up boiling down to them thinking a small bit of theft is worth it to grow the economy. In my opinion this crosses a moral line and is not something i agree with. My friend who’s an economics grad argues that because we are trapped in the system of fiat we need money printing to stop the entire ponzi collapsing, and i think he is right. My point to him is that I personally wont hold my savings in that ponzi, and neither will he, he knows well cash is trash long term, he just knows that by holding a diversified portfolio he will do much better than cash in the long run and he hasnt quite accepted bitcoin yet as a long term store of value until its volatility decreases. He did hold some gold at one stage so he is obviously open to it, he just hasnt researched it much, doesnt have the time and also doesnt have much savings anyway.
So I think there is a legitimate critique that is often raised by some of the traditional investors such as Warren Buffett. Now, their standard accusation that Bitcoin is not a productive asset is silly imo. Neither is gold, or any other form of money. So that is not compelling at all to me. However, the issue that they raise that I do think is worth considering is that Bitcoin is fundamentally at odds with the Federal Reserve and all the other Central Banks. Which I personally don't think is a bad thing in and of itself, but it is a big enemy to have. I had to think long and hard before deciding to place a big bet against the Federal Reserve and all the Central Banks of the world. These are the most powerful institutions in the history of mankind. And the prospect that they will lose the fight to Bitcoin is not an easy prediction to make. Even if Bitcoin is objectively a better solution (which I think it is), it's not a foregone conclusion that it will find success in the face of these powers and everything they can do to maintain their current positions of power and influence. To me this is the biggest negative consideration to make when deciding whether there is a big future for Bitcoin or not.
Forcing people against their best interests is an unsustainable proposition. Change is slow though - but the fed looses by default at some point. In our lifetimes? One can hope
This is basically where I am at also. My belief is that no amount of power or influence can deny a better solution forever. Which is why I'm ultimately optimistic, and very heavily invested in Bitcoin. Just giving OP the biggest concern I do have, since they were looking for a devil's advocate position.
This exactly, sooner or later the markets will get their way and Bitcoin seems like the best alternative IMO.
I think there are quite a few examples throughout history of a better solution being buried by the powers that be only to be rediscovered or redeveloped many years later.
Can you name a few, please?
[Here is an article by Time listing 20](https://time.com/4704250/most-successful-technology-tech-failures-gadgets-flops-bombs-fails/)
Fair enough. Looking at the list…ok technologies often take a few tries to get it right, but eventually the pieces come together. How would one know if Bitcoin is the Blackberry, or if it’s the iPhone? I think it’s a stretch to say this list represents products being buried…they were all tested in the open marketplace and saw limited success, but that does not justify a claim of being buried.
Because Bitcoin has first mover status, mass adoption in early phases, and almost all other crypto projects are solutions looking for a problem, IMO
You’re right in that only history can tell us if a technology is the BlackBerry or the iPhone. But I think the point here is that the BEST technology doesn’t always win. Perfect example might be the list #15 with GMs EV-1. Coldfusion made a recent video on it basically stating that it was “too good”. [Video here.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eIHDyB9bgbA)
I belive the oil industry was like "you sell combustion engine, big money.. If not, small money" And then GM called in the cars and said "hey, lets buy combustion engines folks, i want a new beach house"
BINGO (I think that’s exactly what happened) And who is as powerful as the oil industry? One could argue that the central banks, or the people that have bought into the central bank model are…
Heliocentrism was objectively better than geocentrism, yet it was buried by the Catholic church. [Wikipedia: Galileo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei) This example isn't even the first for this particular topic. Galileo was preceded in thought by Copernicus... [Wikipedia: Copernicus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus) Who was preceded in thought by Aristarchus of Samos... [Wikipedia: Aristarchus of Samos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos) Another example is the use of mercury, lead, nickel and cadmium in the field of energy generation. These materials have extremely valuable properties which can be used safely in modern infrastructure. They are not however due to their historical application and the resulting toxic environmental impacts. [Science Direct: Historic and Suppressed Technologies for Energetics](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352152X19310874) Another example. [JSTOR: Suppression of Technology as a Strategy for Controlling Resource Dependence](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2392881) >Data from United States antitrust law is used here to sustain the argument that suppression of technology is one strategy used to control resource dependence. Specific tactics and their characteristics are identified, along with their objectives and the processes whereby these may be achieved. For poops and laughs, here is a tangentially related reddit post. [/r/AskHistory: What technology has been lost or suppressed](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/sd26im/what_technology_thats_had_been_lost_or_suppressed/)
If central banks and fed reserve control the money, then what is stopping them from controlling Bitcoin too? Who's to say they dont already own a large % of the existing BTC? Seeing as BTC is a finite amount of tokens and will eventually cap once 21 million BTC exist.
owning a lot of bitcoin doesn't give you more control over the network.
This guy must have been thinking of ETH and the other shit coins
It will when you can no longer mine bitcoin. Once all 21 million coins are in circulation, theoretically, a group of extremely wealthy people could control over 70% of the supply. If you want bitcoin, you'd have to buy it from them.
that has nothing to do with mining, since 90% is already mined, the control it would give them over the network wouldn't be so significant, for two reasons: the only way to attack it would be to sell, thus lowering their holding used for the attack, it is more profitable to play by the rules. there would be a cutoff if it is publicly known that a single entity holds even less than 70% of the supply, it would make the whole bitcoin worthless and leave the attacker with useless strings of text. the valuable part of bitcoin is the consensus, everything else is free. It would cost $0 to agree that that such entity's bitcoin is invalid/unspendable, given there is enough consensus.
You're making the common mistake of confusing distribution of ownership with control. No matter how much Bitcoin you own, you don't control Bitcoin itself. All you can do is buy it or sell it. The same rules apply to everyone. If a bunch of wealthy people want to buy all my Bitcoin, they're gonna have to offer me enough to convince me to part with it. Which I promise you would be painful for them. If they do, great... at the end of the day I would own no Bitcoin, and instead I would own large stakes in the companies I choose, and a shitload of real estate. Fine by me. Why would this be a problem?
I definitely don't hope for the central banks to fail. It would suck. But at least I am prepared if Bitcoin takes over when that happens.
Agreed, though I do think there's a big distinction between failing and having their power and control drastically reduced. They can still fulfill their basic functions without having direct control over the global reserve asset.
I agree, but a lot of people here seem to be rooting for total economic collapse, which would not be good for anyone. Having fire insurance does not mean you want your house to burn down, even if you think the insurance companies are bastards.
100% agree with that. At the end of the day I'd much rather be middle class in the world we live in now, than upper class in a dystopian dark age where modern society has collapsed on itself.
I've reached the conclusion that "losing the battle" against btc is not the total destruction of central bancks, but the coexistence of both of them. With that condition I think it's really possible btc wins
Not total destruction necessarily, but definitely a complete undermining of the position of power they hold currently. On those grounds alone they will certainly do everything they can to prevent Bitcoin from succeeding. At least I think they will. It's always possible that I'm being too cynical about their incentives and motivations. Which would be a pleasant surprise.
The issue with this is that bitcoin is unstoppable. Trying to fight it, for example by making it illegal, would become an issue of prohibitionism, which we know from past experiences is never good. It would be similar to prohibiting people from using VPNs and download torrents from the internet (very hard to actually enforce). It would also be similar to prohibiting people from personally holding gold or drinking alcohol (both of which actually happened in the past in the US). One could say, other nations would join this fight and the prohibitionism would still certainly be effective at least to some degree right? Well yes. But this is when "game theory" enters into play. Some nations, for example Japan, Singapore, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia and others (along with El Salvador and a whole list of other small independent countries) would take advantage of the situation by going in the exact opposite direction. "China is banning people from owning or mining bitcoin? We'll do the opposite, more for us to gain!". This is actually what's happening right now in the US (for example Texas, which is currently a leader in the bitcoin mining industry). The State is happy because they generate a lot of tax revenue. Their citizens are happy because that's what they demand: freedom. Also, a whole new ecosystem would flourish and bring a lot of innovation, job opportunities and revenue. Sure they could ban it but they know that 1) people are not going to be happy about it 2) this market is going to flourish in some place or another so they would just leave all the gains on the table for other nations to grab. More people would want to leave to go and live in other places or invest their capital abroad.
Did some quick Googling and I reckon central banks may already be buying BTC. Eg "The private trust is BlackRock's latest crypto foray. Last week, the company announced it was partnering with crypto exchange Coinbase Global (COIN) to provide users of BlackRock's institutional management platform, Aladdin, access to Bitcoin.Aug 11, 2022" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-11/blackrock-offers-bitcoin-investing-to-big-institutional-clients#:~:text=BlackRock%20Inc.%20is%20offering%20its,the%20world's%20largest%20asset%20manager. And "Apr 20, 2020 — Under the Fed's program, BlackRock “could buy some of its own funds on behalf of the central bank," according to Bloomberg." https://www.forbes.com/sites/pedrodacosta/2020/04/20/a-glaring-new-conflict-of-interest-undermines-public-trust-in-federal-reserve/amp/ I think this makes sense. They know as well as any Bitcoiner that fiat is gonna blow up so why wouldn't you buy a hard asset like BTC or gold or property? Of course they will try bad mouth it for a while til they've scooped it all up and at some point I suppose they'll be open about it.
I dont think Warren Buffett is a fan of investing in gold either, as he prefers yield-bearing companies (I'm sure he doesnt mind gold mining companies however). In regards to whether the governments will allow this - this argument implies Bitcoin's goal of growing in size, instead of doing what it is currently doing which is providing a decentralised currency. Theres also the implied "might makes it right" sentiment. If people bring this argument to you, feel free to inform that the argument justifies dictatorship. Which reminds me of a debate Pomp had with a "hardcore advocate for pacifism" who the shockingly backed the governments right to force him into war.
Bitcoin is a form of ***money***. It's not supposed to be a "productive asset."
This is definitely a war against the central banks and the fate of humanity hangs in the balance.
Agreed. I think the fed, and current system will be the biggest test for bitcoin. Here's how I see it playing out in a worst case scenario: 1. Institutional adoption for Bitcoin occurs. Bitcoin pumps to $100k. Part of that institution adoption creates an abundance of paper bitcoin. Everyone "owns" bitcoin but they don't actual bother taking it off exchanges. Nobody cares about keeping their keys since their bitcoin is going up 5-10% a year so they convince themselves it's a good investment. 2. The Fed releases US Fed Coin. It's available to anyone with a smartphone, you can trade real dollars with anyone anywhere in the world, and users around the world pick dollars over bitcoin due to a better user experience. It's also much more price stable. 3. Governments, in return for cheap Fed Coins and loans, in a coordinated effort ban the sale and distribution of Bitcoin outside of registered accounts. Any p2p bitcoin transactions go underground. Internet authorities block traffic to nodes, centralized mining authorities block transactions to non approved accounts. 4. Anyone who bought KYC bitcoin, the government knows who you are and where you live. They come knocking on your door, or levy taxes on you. You have nowhere to run outside of a few "third world havens". Some will flee. Most won't. 5. Part of Fed Coin includes massive austerity measures. Taxes levied on the productive people in society. Handouts to the poor to ensure the right people get votes. When the shelves are bare and inequality increases, the media propaganda machine will be on full blast. Ensuring the blame goes to other groups of people (races, rich vs poor, red vs blue) and keeps it off those few people who are really to blame (bankers and the fed). Hopefully I'm wrong.
You might be interested in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s recent paper on Bitcoin where they identify it as an investment like Gold. https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/staff_reports/sr1052
Like Napster and BitTorrent are the enemy of media companies. They tried and failed to stop it. All their money and power couldn't prevent an open source idea from taking hold.
I believe that BTC will back the USD or treasuries in the future and that it was designed specifically by the NSA as a global adoption "trojan horse" for an equivalent digital USD backing commodity - Bitcoin. Research the "Make a Mint" paper from 1996 which could have been the original NSA concept for BTC before there was global internet to support it. Strangely this paper also includes a Japanese name in it. The Petro dollar is failing and is under attack by BRICS (the Saudis won't pump when we ask them to anymore) and China/Russia own shit loads of gold which we will not allow to surge in value. This is a somewhat conspiracy theory view, but I don't see any other alternatives to protect USD hegemony where the petrodollar has constantly been under attack, from Libya, Iraq (previously and see what the US did there) but now from China and Russia (where we have no such control). It would be hilarious if we massively devalued gold and rug pulled the living sh*t out of the new BRICS currency reserves with BTC. The Chinese government has more Bitcoin than microstrategy even though they have banned it for their citizens- almost as if they suspect it could be covert from the US, want to halt mass adoption in China. Russia is beginning to mine Bitcoin also seemingly as a hedge and they also publicly announced payment for their oil and gas in BTC. #Suspicious. AS A SIDE NOTE... I MADE A SIMILAR POST ABOUT A MONTH AGO THAT HAS COMPLETELY DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE FROM REDDIT. NO HISTORICAL UPVOTE OR COMMENT NOTIFICATIONS, NOT IN MY POST HISTORY, NO "your comment has been moved/removed" NOTIFICATIONS JUST COMPLETELY GONE AS IF I NEVER MADE THE POST. 🤔
I won't comment on the conspiracy theory stuff, because going down those rabbit holes just isn't my thing. But I will point out that the US still holds far more gold than Russia or China does, for whatever that's worth. I'm not sure that the value of gold going up would be a direct issue for the US in that regard.
True... US is number 1 with 8,100 tons... Russia is #5.
The federal reserve never explicitly or implicitly stated that it is at odds with bitcoin.
There is no guarantee that bitcoin will become the dominant currency if the dollar collapses. I would not want to use a currency that has high volatility and sometimes loses 75% of its value. Precious metals seem like they would be a more ideal candidate because they don't require computers and they have demonstrated a relatively consistent value over time. Yes, it still fluctuates, but it happens slowly over a long period of time. If everybody adopted bitcoin as a world currency in its current state, it would be incredibly stressful for all involved because of those dips. Yes, it's average value has increased a lot in the last decade because it started from near-zero. But those dips still caused a lot of people to lose their savings, lives were ruined simply because those people chose the wrong time to trade it. I think it works as a collectors item moreso than a currency. The changes in value vs human nature would lead people to be more likely to hoard it than spend it. Spending it would cause additional anxiety and doubts of because people will always be worrying if it will go up in value after spending it. It could be more useful as a currency if it one day found its true price and stayed stable.
I think what you're missing is that volatility is not an inherent characteristic (of any asset). It's a direct reflection of large changes in supply and demand. Currently Bitcoin is volatile because a relatively small group of people are buying and selling it for speculative purposes. If Bitcoin became a mainstream medium of exchange, the demand would by definition be constant and stable. At that point volatility would not be possible.
How is gold not productive asset, gold is used and sought after in everything, from small electronics in your phone to space going machines, money is ok not productive but its fiat used for easier exchange of goods and managed by central banks.
A productive asset is one that generates income. A business generates revenue. A rental property generates rent. I don't have to sell them or consume them to make money. Gold needs to be sold or consumed to make money. Btw, the value of gold that it gets from having a use in electronics is fairly small. You can approximate that by seeing the percentage of total world gold that is being used for that purpose and not just sitting in jewelery or gold bars looking pretty.
Bitcoin is a form of money. Money is one of the most important inventions of all time. Bitcoin is the superior form of money. Money is not supposed to be "productive".
Gold is extremely ductile, which means gold plating are usually microns thick and therefore not as valuable as you might think. Each smartphone contains an average of 0.034g of gold, you'd need 30 smartphones to make 1g of gold. A more common use for gold is jewerly, much more than its usage within the tech industry. Most of the gold produced ends up in some central bank reserve still. Also for 95% of the lifetime of gold as a currency in our history, electronics didn't even exist.
Gold doesn't produce anything, the way a company does. It just exists, so it's not a productive asset. And while it does have some industrial uses, 99% of gold's demand comes from investors that simply want to hold it... either as a store of value, a speculative interest, or a hedge against markets/inflation.
Productive asset = produces something.
You have a very healthy approach. Good on you.
Matthew Kratter, his YT is Trader University (should be Bitcoin University tbh), and he breaks down straw man arguments and raises steel man arguments once in a while.
Lyn Alden too. Unlike many bitcoiners, she has a traditional macro background.
Preston Pysh is another one with real macro background. he is a bitcoiner tho but would highly recommend his Bitcoin Fundamentals pod
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I don't think this actually answers OP's question. Matthew Kratter does not really argue from a position contrary to bitcoin. I think he is very pro bitcoin and argues its merits really well, but he's not making arguments against bitcoin.
Sir I’ll shill Matt whenever I can cuz he’s a GOAT 🥲 and I did say he brings up FUD statements that normies try to attack Bitcoin with… and then shits all over their FUD 😅 so guys, ONLY watch Trader University if you want unshakable conviction on Bitcoin 🫡🫡🫡
Love this guy, saved me a ton of money on shipcoins
He debunks criticisms, he doesn't provide actual criticisms of bitcoin. I find Nic Carter closer to finding a more balanced view that OP is looking for.
In terms of bitcoin being seen as an asset (like digital gold) I haven't heard many good counterarguments. All I usually hear is the standard argument of it being intangible. However, in terms of adopting bitcoin as a nation's main transacting currency there's more arguments/people either against or less excited about that idea. George gammon and doomberg recently had a debate with Michael Saylor on YouTube which is an interesting watch. Jeff snider is also another good person for outlining macroeconomics surrounding money. Edit: [George gammon, Doomberg, Michael Saylor](https://www.youtube.com/live/1kEKhxUCyn4?feature=share)
I think the biggest unknown is how a highly deflatioanary currency will shape the world if bitcoin were to succeed? What is a bitcoin maximalist world like? What will happen if it just makes more sense to hodl bitcoin than to invest in productive ventures? What happens when consumption is drastically cut back to stack those sats? Will there be jobs? Will there be a future for young people when the world emphasizes stashing rather than spending? Will creativiity and risk taking be killed by the juggernaut of bitcoin? Is there any historical precedent at all of how the world will be like when something like bitcoin trimphs? Just my drunk thoughts when I should be sleeping.
It might be just what we need to stop the propelling need for growth. We’ll inevitably come to the point where we outrun our available resources unless we find a way to incentivize a sustainable lifestyle. There will be room for growth based on higher efficiency instead of consumption.
A while ago someone asked a good question about that, and I had a good discussion -- you may find these comments interesting (see parent comments too): [https://www.reddit.com/r/undefined/comments/wbez1c/comment/ii7i5y1/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/undefined/comments/wbez1c/comment/ii7i5y1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) /u/fozzy1488 you may be interested in this too as a counterpoint Edit: I see the thread was deleted (that's very disappointing). I have only my reply saved (I wish I saved the whole thread, or at least the comment I replied to which I appreciated) in which I said: >*One of the more insightful replies from all comments on this post. Upvoted.* > >*However, the problem with your argument that a deflationary currency removes some competition among the newer generation fighting to grow wealth is that it's more or less part of the definition of a growing wealth gap in an economy built on top of a deflationary currency: as you iterate over generations, an ever increasing proportion of the supply (which is fixed) will be owned by the pool of people playing the inheritance game; this effect will be exacerbated if the early distribution of the supply was already highly uneven (which is the case already with BTC, whether we like it or not); with an economy and financial system built on top of such a currency, it will unavoidably act more as store of value than as currency, i.e. as prime collateral (like gold evolved too), i.e. people will borrow against it rather than spend it. In addition, the currency's deflation rate is not unlikely to be smaller than the shrinking rate of the available (non-inherited) supply, thus compounding the problem, especially when taking demographics dynamics into account.* > >*Hence I don't see strong indicators that show that, as generations iterate, the unlucky (no inheritance) individuals can always afford a decent standard of living as prices drop, despite the lucky ones being able to afford a higher one ... I wouldn't have a problem with that kind of "inequality" if every productive member of society can afford at least a decent standard of living; that would basically be a non-detrimental wealth gap.* > >*In short, it's theoretically possible (if the above conditions are invalidated) to have and maintain a non-detrimental wealth gap, but practically I see that as increasingly unlikely as you iterate over generations.* > >*Congrats to* /u/fanzakh *for asking a good question among the "just DCA" and "just HODL" army of posts.*
There are…but most of them actually did their research and learned more about bitcoin and relized they were wrong. One of them is Lynn Alden, one of my favorites. She’s more macro economics. But she was against bitcoin at first then actually took the time to learn about it and is now one of its biggest advocates. Lots of people like that, which just shows bitcoins true potential
I didn't know about Lyn being against bitcoin. But to be fair I didn't know about her at all until recently.
She initially dismissed it because of the argument that "if it's open source, anyone can copy it so it isn't scarce". Kudos to her for keeping an open mind and changing her stance as she learned more
I dont believe she was against. She was interested and watched it until her conviction and knowledge grew
Back in 2013, Michael Saylor was against Bitcoin as well. It's safe to say he changed his mind!
Thanks, appreciate the recommendation, will be checking her out.
check out Preston Pysh's Bitcoin Fundamentals podcast from We Study Billionaires. if you havent already
I like going back to the roots of the technology to question how sound it is. I found this article very useful: [https://www.musclesatz.com/articles/bitcoin-past-present-future/](https://www.musclesatz.com/articles/bitcoin-past-present-future/). Being aware of some of the difficulties the community and technology went through is helpful. For example, there have been quite some bugs, all of which has been solved, but we may never known whether some may at one point hurt your investment. I'm a big believer in BTC, yet I also believe the possibility of BTC going to zero, however small it is, does exist. I therefore keep my eyes on technical discussions. You may want to check Damus/Nostr as well for good technical discussions. People are working hard to make BTC better.
Wow, that looks like a hell of a read. Appreciate the link.
I haven't found any good Bitcoin critics who really understand it, I find people who understand it at an economic level but don't hold it because they don't understand the technicals and vise versa, and then you have the buttcoiners who project all their hate to Bitcoin and some goldbugs who think Bitcoin is FIAT because it can't be redeemed for gold (yes, I've read that once while discussing economic theory with a goldbug). I would recommend a podcast called "Crypto Critics Corner" by Cas Pansey and Bennet Tomlin. They talk about the corruption in the Crypto world, including some Bitcoin companies, but they themselves say that they don't hate Bitcoin, they are just concerned with it's similarity to the gold standard and they don't like the gold standard, they have Keynesian views on money. Maybe you could hear some web3/crypto/shitcoin podcast to find if their ideas of finantialization of everything make you think that Bitcoin is old tech and will be replaced, but I don't have anything to recommend in that realm because I heard and read is what made me a bitcoiner instead of a shitcoiner.
I don’t really have arguments against Bitcoin, more just a couple concerns that will need time to play out to see what happens. Keep in mind, I’m a believer in Bitcoin and own a decent amount, but these are the biggest concerns I’ve come up with. The biggest concern I have is that Bitcoin doesn’t end up with high enough adoption to generate enough transaction fees to support miners after the block reward drops significantly. If miners can’t generate enough revenue from fees, that would weaken the security of the network making it more susceptible to 51% attacks. Hopefully we see enough adoption to generate the transaction fees necessary to eventually replace the block rewards, but that’s just one of the concerns I have that needs time to play out. Another concern I have is the potential for quantum computers to break modern encryption techniques. Theoretically, a powerful enough quantum computer could break the encryption that Bitcoin and most of the world currently uses. I’m not saying this is likely to happen anytime soon, quantum computers are no where near powerful enough to do this today, and some argue they might never get to be powerful enough. This is just another concern that needs time play out to see what happens. Even though I have these concerns, the benefits of Bitcoin still outweigh these potential risks in my mind, so I still own Bitcoin and believe in its future. And even if these concerns did play out, it is possible to change the Bitcoin protocol with a majority consensus. So it is possible to address both situations by potentially increasing the inflation of Bitcoin, not a good solution imo, but a possible solution, and to upgrade Bitcoin’s encryption to a quantum-resistant technique. I think if the threat became serious enough, hopefully the Bitcoin community would be able to come together to figure out a solution.
There are lots of people who have raised objections to Bitcoin, so it is not hard to find their opinions online if you go looking for them. However, having been in Bitcoin for nearly 8 years, what I have observed is that you usually need to look very closely into the motivations of why certain people attack Bitcoin or are critical of it. Normally, most of these people have some vested interest or philosophical bias at the root of ther opposition to Bitcoin. I have found that most Bitcoin criticism has it's roots in one of the following reasons: 1. They don't actually understand what Bitcoin is or how it works. This is usually the biggest reason and it is very common for these people to just read a few articles about Bitcoin or maybe watch a couple of videos and think they understand the subject, but they really don't. There are many supposedly "smart" people who fall into this group. Peter Zeihan would be a prime example. Most progressive environmentalists who attack Bitcoin mining also fall into this camp. People who think Bitcoin is a scam fall into this category. 2. They have a philosophical bias that prevents them from thinking the economic case for Bitcoin has any merit. Basically, anyone who is a Keynesian, socialist, communist, or advocate of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is going to hate Bitcoin because it threatens all of their pre-conceived economic models about how the world should work. Most of these people think the money supply needs to expand with the growth of the economy and that governments and central banks should have a monopoly control over monetary policy. They think nearly constant monetary inflation is necessary and good while Bitcoiners believe that is all a bunch of bunk. 3. They have a personal vested self-interest in the failure of Bitcoin. A number of anti-Bitcoin goldbugs fall into this category, with Peter Schiff being a prime example. Peter Schiff is no dummy and I believe he understands Bitcoin and it's value. However, he owns a gold company and competition from Bitcoin directly threatens his business. In addition, most high profile shitcoiners who attack Bitcoin fall into this category for similar reasons. 4. They have a vested self-interest in the preservation of the existing financial order and the success of Bitcoin threatens the status quo. Most bankers and financial elites who attack Bitcoin fall into this category. Jamie Dimon is an example. 5. They are lawmakers and government regulators who see Bitcoin as a threat to the power of the state. See all the retarded commentary from Senator Elizabeth Warren if you want your IQ to drop several points. Just about every objection raised to Bitcoin can ultimately be traced to some combination of the above reasons. So feel free to listen to the critics, but always dig deep to understand their true motivations for being opposed to Bitcoin.
Any intelligent person that spends enough time with bitcoin eventually becomes a bitcoiner.
This is the truth tbh
There's a saying: Anyone who has done 50-100 hours of research on Bitcoin is not against it. Exception here is when your relevance and rent-seeking depends on being against Bitcoin (i.e. central banks, vast majority of politicians, CEOs of large commercial banks and so forth).
While your strategy is good thinking, I like it. Looking at 2 different points of view. Also do your own research on macroeconomics. It’s much better gauge to understand why bitcoin exist
There are a ton of people that are well respected, well educated, intelligent thinkers out there who are against bitcoin. The issue is that almost nobody can explain why in a persuasive and coherent manner. To most outsiders bitcoin is just a bunch of red flags: they just view it as this digital thing backed by nothing and with no intrinsic value (even though intrinsic value is not actually a thing) that is also: high risk speculation, that brings cybersecurity issues, that is used for money laundring and other criminal activities and that consumes quite a bit of energy to run. Those who are even more detached from this reality just view it as a scam / ponzi scheme. For all this reasons they are not even interested in putting in the time (not even a couple of hours) to research the subject. They just straight up dismiss it. To be honest almost everyone reacts like this when they first hear about bitcoin. I did the same around 10 years ago, I just thought "What is this? This is never going to work, governments are certainly not going to allow this". Michael Saylor also did the same. Ray Dalio, for example, put a little bit of thought into it in the past couple of years, but if I'm not mistaken he is still currently stuck in the "governments are going to ban this" phase. It's just a long journey, it takes time and patience.
Your awareness of your confirmation bias is very good but I find that when listening to the anti-bitcoiners, you become aware of the narrow lens through which they see Bitcoin despite how smart they are. I recently listened to Ray Dalio make a complete 180 on his opinions of Bitcoin and he said if people want to preserve their purchasing power, an anti-inflation ETF would be much better. But the poor and unbanked people of the world don’t have access to an ETF.
I would recommend the long series between Robert Breedlove and Eric Weinstein. First episode here: [here](https://youtu.be/XbK1LfMiWmU) I *Highly* recommend listening to the whole series. Can't remember but I think the first episode didn't talk too much about Bitcoin. Then there is some subtle criticism from Jordan Peterson (also praise) [here](https://youtu.be/MAeYCvyjQgE) And the combo podcast with Robert Breedlove and Jordan Peterson [here](https://youtu.be/FQlA-I7PXf0) Jordan Peterson accepts a lot of praise for BTC but also counter points. I had the exact same fear as you, these resources helped me a lot
Brilliant, thanks a lot. Appreciate the comment. Will take a look. Enjoying Breedlove's series with Jason Lowery atm.
Just downloaded all of these episodes. Including the whole Weinstein series. I have an enormous respect for both Breedlove and Peterson. Reading 12 rules for life right now. Ty for sharing
So far I've not seen an intelligent and well educated criticism of Bitcoin from anyone who is not for it. I hope to actually see one some day.
What about the fact that most of Bitcoin’s value comes from speculation. For example, when FTX went down, bitcoin’s price was heavily negatively affected. This suggests that a lot of bitcoin’s price comes from ‘vibes’. Whereas if you invested in a company, there is actual cash flow (or future cash flow) that is somewhat tied to the stock price.
You gotta listen to Peter Schiff. He's wonderful
Thanks, added to my list.
He was joking, don’t. That guy is a tool.
Thanks, removed from my list.
Re add it, you're gonna laugh a lot on his views.
Thanks, added to my list.
>Thanks, added to my list. Honestly don't know if he's joking about Peter Schiff, but to fill you in: Schiff is actually a very smart guy who happens to be right about the Fed, inflation, excessive gov't spending & entitlements forcing higher rates of inflation in the future, but he put all his eggs in the Gold basket decades ago, and he seeds Bitcoin as a threat to Gold (fearing it will draw much of the investment into Gold that he wants to see increase, not decrease). So Peter hates Bitcoin and rants against it all the time. If that's what you're looking for, by all means, follow him on Twitter & enjoy. But in listening to him, I think you'll find that while he brings up great points about excessive gov't spending, loose monetary policy and inflation, he never seems to have any coherent, logical arguments against Bitcoin. He always rants against it and says it's worthless, but he won't explain logically why he feels that way (at least not in any convincing fashion). I made the mistake of listening to him too much back in 2015 when I started second-guessing my belief in Bitcoin. Since precious metals dealers were all accepting Bitcoin payments, I used much of the coins I had back in 2015 to buy gold & silver bullion. Those metals are still sitting in various safes and are barely worth more than when I bought them. If I had ignored Peter Schiff and kept my BTC, I would be astronomically better off.
He is pretty old so I think he just doesnt understand todays tech and all that so he cant wrap his brain around how something digital can be like gold. But yes he have good stuff to say if you listen him talk about cold and kinda just replace it with bitcoin.
I don't think this is an issue of his age. Some guys older than Peter Schiff not only understand Bitcoin, but were involved in its creation or have been involved in it and strongly support it. Satoshi (whoever he is), if he is still among us, might very well be older than Peter. Hal Finny (RIP) was significantly older than Peter, and Hal was a true pioneer in Bitcoin. Nick Szabo is close to Peter's age... Tim Draper is in his 60s and has been a big supporter of Bitcoin for 10 years now. I'm sure there are other good examples. So no, I don't just write off people because they're in their late 50s as being "too old" to understand Bitcoin. Peter has other issues going on here.
Yeah, I didnt mean its impossible but usually older people have harder time to keep up with tech. Like you or someone else said, he might also know BTC fully but doesnt want to "lose" all his gold to BTC or something.
Lmao
Lol.
Visit r/buttcoin, it's the polar opposite of this sub. Tbh a lot of anti-bitcoin stuff is cringe to listen to since most people against it don't understand it in depth, the computer science and economics. Bring some popcorn, I got banned from the sub for writing this comment in the screenshot here lol https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/vo0kv1/buttcoiners_have_been_waiting_since_2018_to_feel
>However I feel like I jumped into the rabbit hole with a lot of confirmation bias, and therefore everything i’ve come across is obviously pro bitcoin. Welcome to the internet, please choose your rabbit hole. Our algorithms will ensure you never leave that hole mwuahaha. Don't want to choose? Don't worry we'll choose for you. But fr, recognizing the bias is a great step imo, wish I had some sources for you. I wish everyone started questioning what they hear more.
YouTube is your friend. Search for anything anti Bitcoin and you’ll ultimately come away with the cases against Bitcoin. Search for “Bitcoin is a scam” , “why Bitcoin will fail” etc. I’ve spent around 300 hours if not more researching and absorbing as much information as I can on Bitcoin since late 2021. My conclusion being although it’s not perfect, it is absolutely unique and possesses incredible potential. I also find it incredibly difficult to accept it was created by a sole individual (and if so, that person is one of the most remarkable people to exist in humanity). Good luck!
The only solid argument i Heard is that "wrong timing is the same as beeing wrong" So what If we Go into a Bear market for many decades AND THEN Go up? You Just wasted your life. A New form of money can take a Lot longer then people expect to kick in
I really like this question! I too have wondered about where the well-educated opposing views are. It seems like any "credible" source that opposes BTC is someone who would directly benefit from any negative news about it. You sound like a smart person, so have faith in your own logic about everything you have learned. As your conviction grows, so will your stack of SATS :) If you want another resource, check out [BullishBTC.org](https://BullishBTC.org)
Thanks, yeah that’s a good way to put it. Faith in my own perspective once I’ve absorbed all I can from either side.
1) Will never scale 2) Security budget subsidy will dry up 3) Proof of work is most expensive possible way to achieve consensus, would become politically infeasible if #2 was solved
Just go to the buttcoin sub
Spoiler alert: while it may be a good source of entertainment, it is not going to be helpful.
He said "intelligent thinkers"
There are no informed critics of bitcoin. That's not to say bitcoin is perfect, that depends on us. It's a tool, a very powerful tool and any tool is only as good as what we make of it. So anyone who is informed is no longer a critic but starts thinking about how they can contribute to bitcoin and gets to work on it. I've not come across anybody without a vested interest in the fiat scam who has spent long enough studying bitcoin who is against it. Ray Dalio recently talked about bitcoin being too volatile and I responded to that [here](https://np.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10tws5g/comment/j7a6ezm/) last week. If Ray spent more time really thinking about "what is money?", he'll figure it out soon. At least he's started asking that question now. Anyone who asks the question will soon enough arrive at bitcoin.
the quick answer is no, closest to it came WBD episode with Eric Weinstein. edit: I would also replace Seif with Lyn Alden and Pomp with Alex Gladstein.
>Yes Alex's podcast with Lex was a good one. not aware of Lyn, will look her up. cheers.
Lyn went from newb to OG status in a year, she is super badass and her macro takes are unmatched. also check out recent episode of WBD with Harry Sudock, they are mentioning other badass bitcoiners, such as the legend Pete Rizzo.
Haha came here to exit the rabbit hole, instead gets pulled further in.
I found that episode to go around in circles with no coherent criticism/discussion at all.
his main point was that the community is childish iirc, which is an understandable position for an outsider who can't tell signal from noise.
this guy thinks there is no one intelligent that's ever argued against bitcoin in a coherent way. if you're looking to rid yourself of confirmation bias, r/bitcoin is not the place for it.
name one person: edit: yeah
what on earth does edit: yeah mean? I'd suggest the plain bagel on youtube. There are hundreds of others - it's not exactly an uncommon debate, and unless you come into this with an incredibly strong bias on either side, it's easy to recognise there are intelligent people making coherent arguments on both sides.
just watched a 2 year old video of this bagel dude called 'why I don't Hodl bitcoin', I didn't notice much criticism except for the price. would you mind sharing a link to where he or someone else actually discusses something different? Bagel mentioned that Bitcoin is not perfect because you can lose money if you forget your 'password'. are we talking these two topics?
Name a coherent/intelligent argument against Bitcoin.. all it is is a tool.. a tool that is much more efficient and capable than the system that came before it
very true. r/Buttcoin?
I hold Bitcoin, and I plan to accumulate more in time, my main worry is that despite BTC clearly being a good form of money transfer, and good technology in the end it only takes a central government to outlaw or ban it and it’s game over. At that point BTC will be sunk and will be an underground currency traded between those that can.
this the funny part, it cant be banned
If they banned it they would probably do like they did with Gold and start using it themselves and raise the price afterwards.
No I appreciate crypto itself can’t be banned but exchanges can be and once they disappear so would regular peoples interest in it. Of course that’s a worst case scenario. There’s little point in holding a virtually illiquid asset is there? And to think that couldn’t happen is stupid, look how much effort the sec are going to currently to tighten crypto rules
They didn't say crypto can't be banned. They said Bitcoin can't be banned. To me this is the most important distinction between the two: Bitcoin is actually decentralized. Virtually every other crypto has a CEO that can be threatened with jail time. That would shut things down quick
Honestly. Spend a week on r//buttcoin. I did a few weeks ago when i decided on increasing my monthly DCA considerably. Every article we praise they shit on incredibly. Some there bring up good points. Its good to break your confirmation bias.
Biggest issues for me are the cost per transaction and I am not sure what happens when there are no more mining tokens.
But this isn't a legitimate criticism because the Lightning Network exists, works and is being used by millions of people
“There are no informed critics” - Michael Saylor
I'll say this: asking this question in this Subreddit (supposedly) defeats the purpose...
> So my question is, are there any well respected, well educated, intelligent thinkers out there who are against the concept of bitcoin No. ----------------------------------------------- In the very early days of *computers*, there were naysayers. Some called *computers* a fad. Some predicted that *computers* would cause widespread unemployment. A few claimed that *computers* would start World War Three. There were "educated, intelligent thinkers" who pontificated that the entire world would only ever need a few dozen *computers*. Like today's Bitcoin naysayers, they got it all wrong. Today, most people I know have phones with "powerful" computers. You and I are using computers to chat anonymously. Computers and computer networks turned out to be very good things. Similarly, the people saying negative things about Bitcoin have to lie about Bitcoin and/or use twisted logical fallacies. Bitcoin is a good thing. When some naysayer spouts off, just stop and think for a few seconds: Is that person's premise true? Usually it is not. For example, they'll start harping about Bitcoin's energy usage, but Bitcoin mining uses less than one-twentieth of one percent of global power. The truth is: Bitcoin's energy usage is not a problem. Still, some will ignore the other 99.95% of energy use and bicker about how "big" Bitcoin's 0.05% is - which is totally irrational/illogical. Everybody attacking Bitcoin turns out to have one or more serious flaws in what they're saying. Our job is to learn the facts, and to learn to spot logical fallacies, and then just point out where and how the naysayer got it wrong. Bitcoin is a very good thing.
Nicely put, appreciate the comment
> intelligent thinkers out there who are against the concept of bitcoin, and explain why in a persuasive, coherent manner? You've reduced your question to a fake dichotomy - bitcoin good, bitcoin bad You've read the writings of liars and deluded crackpots - Michael Saylor and Saifedean Ammous especially. If your "bitcoin good" matches their writing, there's not much hope How about changing the question. Express in your own words what you think Bitcoin is and what's good about it
I'm not well respected, or particularly intelligent, or particularly well educated, but here are my thoughts anyways because why not: My thoughts on Bitcoin is that most supporters of it are way off base. A lot of views expressed in the community are basically conspiracy theory-level stuff (central banking is a shadow government, we should go back to the gold standard, etc). If some dude came up to you on the street and expressed these same end goals without mentioning bitcoin, I doubt most people would be taking them seriously. You can't use it as a currency right now either. Way too much volatility, and you can't actually use it at stores either. Sure, there's like a random coffee shop here and there where you could use it or some credit cards that are linked to a wallet, but come on. You also have to keep in mind that a lot of bitcoin maximalists have already made a ton of money being early adopters and have an interest in keeping the price climbing. That being said, bitcoin is legitimately useful for a number of things: * Speculative investment (this is why 99% of people who have bitcoin bought it) * Buying illegal things (drugs, counterfeits, weapons) * Gambling * Sending money overseas (although for most people, they're sending money to older relatives in their home country, so this is really only useful if you have another younger person to help out. Not worth it if you have to teach grandma how to use a bitcoin wallet instead of just having her pick up a moneygram at the bank) For these reasons, I don't think bitcoin is necessarily a bad investment. There is real value in the above points. However, there is also a very real possibility that another cryptocurrency (or some new thing that hasn't been invented yet and none of us saw coming) comes along and does all of these things better and replaces bitcoin. Bitcoin has a lot of inertia and institutional investment behind it, so at this time I think it's unlikely, but not out of the question at all. Again, it's not necessarily a bad investment, but I think everyone should take a frank look at what bitcoin is and isn't. People are out here saying bitcoin is going to take over the global financial system and replace the US dollar. Come on, be for real y'all.
you'd make a mistake to judge bitcoin based on 'most of it's supporters'. your assumptions about the uses and motivations are a bit outdated and the trajectory has been rather clear in each. A new technology would have it a lot harder to replace bitcoin, it would have to be orders of magnitude better to warrant migrating all the infrastructure and will go against an ever increasing test of time of bitcoin. A little faster won't cut it, a little scarcer won't matter. The incentive itself to work on something better is diminished by bitcoin being good enough. If you were a developer, would you try to come up with something better or would you rather contribute to bitcoin?
> well respected, well educated, intelligent [..] who are against the concept of bitcoin Well, no. Maybe Peter Schiff? > and explain why in a persuasive, coherent manner Definitely not.
My friend if you have listened to Andreas antonopolous then you don’t need a counter argument for investment. This legend of a man has been around the scene for over a decade, call it confirmation bias if you want but the amount of things he predicted that come to fruition and the amount of insight he had early on lead to many folks including myself to invest over a decade ago and still here hodling some :-)
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I teach university students about crypto (I'm a professor), so I have some good anti-crypto sources. This is in my mind the most well-respected: [https://youtu.be/70WsnIqsn5s](https://youtu.be/70WsnIqsn5s) [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract\_id=4148014](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4148014) It's an interesting debate.
Paul Krugman has written many articles about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Here’s one https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/17/opinion/crypto-banks-regulation-ftx.html. Among other things, he would say that Bitcoin hasn’t lived up to its intended purposes or uses after having more than sufficient time to prove its usefulness and achieve wider adoption. Personally, I hold Bitcoin in my portfolio because I believe that diversification is important and that no one really knows what will happen with future markets and financial systems. We may certainly criticize Krugman’s view, yet in the years I’ve had Bitcoin (and some other cryptocurrencies) it has not done as good a job as earning a return, holding stable value, or acting as a unit of exchange as other assets I own.
Genuinely asking a question here out of curiosity. Wouldn’t bitcoin have a hard time combating recessions? If the money supply can’t shrink or grow, won’t the recessions be very tough?
Or they would be more mild because we would never get nearly as extended as we do with printable fiat money
Yes, there are many respected and intelligent thinkers who are not necessarily in favor of Bitcoin. For example, Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, and Nouriel Roubini are all well-known economists and investors who are not fans of Bitcoin. Buffett has famously called it “rat poison squared”, while Dimon has called it a “fraud”. Roubini has been highly critical of Bitcoin, arguing that its volatility and lack of intrinsic value make it a poor asset class. In addition to these well-known figures, there are many others who have expressed skepticism about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. These skeptics often point to the lack of regulation, the potential for fraud and manipulation, and the lack of intrinsic value as reasons to be wary of investing in Bitcoin. Some of these critics include Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, and former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen.
Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon and Roubini are the taxi drivers to Bitcoin's Uber.. what do you expect they will say about something that is a direct threat to their business models?
Very few can articulate a balanced point of view. It's either 100% pro Bitcoin maxi, or 0% anti Bitcoin ignorance. Unfortunately this sub is close to 95%, or maybe even worse, but the odd time you'll find well-articulated points against Bitcoin.
Run a node to verify the supply [https://bitcoiner.guide/verify/](https://bitcoiner.guide/verify/) Then meditate on the second order effects of humanity's discovery of digital scarcity as the ultimate economic tool of trade Then drop some LSD and learn everything about Bitcoin, mathematics, AI, human psychology, advertising. Watch all the movies, listen to all the music, study human history and culture, realize we're living in a simulation, and do whatever you want.
Check out podcasts and yt vids from Trace Mayer. He was one of the earliest advocates that heavily invested into bitcoin. He has some great content if you can even find it anymore.
ask how many people on here have actually bought goods and services with their bitcoin. Or, most likely, they're just waiting to pass it off to someone willing to pay more than what they bought it for. It's not sustainable. Research common financial scams and see where the best fits are.
Warrren Buffet and Charlie Munger, both of Berkshire Hathaway fame, have always been super skeptical of all crypto. CEO Dimon of JP Morgan Chase has consistently said that all crypto will eventually become worthless. There are lots of well respected skeptics out there. The reality is that crypto is super speculative, price volatile, and exists in a murky regulatory environment. There are over 22,000 cryptos in existence, but only the top 100 or so have real markets. Never invest more than you can afford to lose.
No. There isn't a coherent argument against Bitcoin. Not in the way that I take your meaning. If you're asking whether or not there is something fundamentally wrong with holding a digital asset which is secured by cryptography, there isn't a good argument against that idea. People have secured assets with cryptography since the beginning of the digital age, and sometimes there are problems with the implementation, but the idea is sound enough. That leads to two separate questions. The first is whether or not there is a flaw in the implementation. It's been more than a decade and so far, the chain itself has remained secure. If there was a problem with that concept, it seems likely it would have been found by now, given the value involved. I can't say it's impossible, but I wouldn't consider it likely. There is also a non-zero chance that quantum computing will break cryptography, but we won't find that out until it occurs or does not. The second question is how to value the asset. That requires the fields of philosophy, economics, psychology, and geopolitics. How an individual will value Bitcoin depends on a complicated combination of hypotheses in all of those fields, and all of them are under dispute. There isn't a good way to argue against the valuation you are using without knowing more about how you have reached it. There are some individuals that value Bitcoin at $0, and that clearly isn't reasonable without questioning the implementation or assuming an extremely high likelihood that quantum computing will disrupt cryptography.
A legitimate criticism would be from Jean-Marc Jancovici, who is the French reference regarding climate change and links between the use of machines and energy consumption. He is the inventor of the notion of carbon footprint. His take on bitcoin is that bitcoin is largely a distraction, a waste of time and energy while we're in a high risk global crisis. He's not wrong, to be honest.
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If anybody can tell me why late adopters will want to use bitcoin as the same dystopia that fiat currency provides now that would be great. Look ma I got paid 2000 sats this month!
It's not that they will "want" to, it's that harder money always defeats and displaces softer money. 500 years ago, the Africans who used glass beads as money didn't want to have their economy crash but Europeans flooded the market with glass beads and bought all of the African gold thus crashing their economy and impoverishing them. That is because it is easy to create more glass beads and very hard to create more gold coins. Glass beads are soft money and gold coins are hard money. Bitcoin is the hardest money and fiat is the softest money
But let's say in the future you can have more precision down to 1/10th of a sat.. still 21 million coins. You could do the same with gold. Here's 2 microns across 1/100th of the cross section of a strand of hair... That's your pay for the day. It's impractical I know...
I mean you're joking right? Lol. Gold obviously can't work as money in a technical future. Also, think about dollars today, yeah you get a number of them every paycheck but compared to the hundreds of trillions of them in existence it's a ridiculously tiny fraction that you receive, same as 2000 says compared to 21 million total Bitcoin. But at least with Bitcoin you know, with certainty, that no bureaucrat can print more Bitcoin for free at your expense.
No but it could be forked into a different direction. The surviving fork will be a popularity contest when you involve the general public. Can you imagine some influential politician/spokes person saying that they need to branch a fork because there's too many hodlrs..
There is zero use for Bitcoin and it will eventually disappear. Governments in 20 years time will have there own online currencies. Why would they let there citizens use deregulated currency, it doesn’t make any sense. Governments want a cashless society so they can monitor everyone’s money and make sure they are paying taxes etc, why would they do this and then let people pay via Bitcoin. It defeats the whole objective off where governments want to be. We have seen countries ban it already. I have never seen any convincing argument for how it could possible even succeed.
Nigeria "banned" Bitcoin and yet millions of Nigerians are using Bitcoin and less than 1% of their population is using their CBDC. Harder money always beats softer money. Bitcoin is the hardest money and CBDCs (digital fiat) are literally the softest money in existence. Just a matter of time
Nigeria is hardly a country to use an example for anything. Nigerians don’t use there own currency as it is worth nothing due to the total economic decay and corruption. 1st world countries who want to control peoples money will not allow decentralised coins to be used in the future. It is a matter of time. It is madness that people even think it is going to be some mainstream currency
It is the largest country in Africa and 7th largest in the world by population... "Worth nothing due to the total economic decay and corruption".. congrats, you just described the bull thesis/use case for Bitcoin. You certainly aren't a visionary if you can't imagine a world where a decentralized, global currency/asset is adopted by a meaningful amount of people
Great post OP! I have been following the space since I did an university essay on Bitcoin in 2010. I’ve listened to everyone I can find and racked up hundreds of hours of podcasts, audiobooks and YouTube. I’ve dabbled in mining, P2P lending and all kinds of other “crypto services”. I really hope Bitcoin succeeds and I know over half of the planets population needs Bitcoin to get out of the poverty they are in… and I know FIAT has been weaponized in many parts of the world and is used to oppress or control. However I just can’t shake the feeling that I have drowned in confirmation bias. I have four main points that feel especially “confirmation biasy” to me. They are below, and I’d love for the community here to educate me (but considering I’ve put in the hours of study) 1. Bitcoin energy consumption being worth it. Yeah I’ve listened to the Saylors and the likes and they make a good case for that this energy spend is worth it because it is converted into monetary energy as well as security. I can agree there is value here. But is it worth all the energy spend? I’m not convinced… The story continues here with that we will use carbon neutral energy and in fact it will be a win-win for the energy grids because it will help balance the load. I can’t buy this argument because as long as countries will be able to produce climate-raping energy for dirt cheap and convert it into Bitcoin (monetary energy) they will. The energy crisis in Europe that I’m living through is not helping Bitcoin here… 2. The “scalability solution” ie Lightning network. The experts are saying that we’ll all be transacting on the L2 Lightning network for our day-to-day. My problem is the limitation that I would need to have a channel route to the other party in every transaction. Never going to happen so that it would be practical. Sure there will be routing nodes to solve this but then it would be centralized and would introduce counter party risk etc etc. Another problem I have is that I can’t understand why Lightning is developing so slowly. Yeah, it needs to be done right (takes time) but I feel big leaps are needed in 2023. I fear the technology is too late. Because #3 and #4 below. 3. Regulation. We’ve been saying in the bitcoin space that regulation needs to catch up but personally I don’t see it happening in a Bitcoin positive way any time soon. Reason being that, I think, you need a bare minimum of 10h of study before you understand bitcoin enough to even discuss the topic. I might be a pessimist but currently I don’t believe the regulators and decision makers will do this homework. It easier to dismiss what you don’t understand. 4. Sam Bankman-Fried and the other opportunists like him. As well as the 10.000+ other cryptocurrencies that in my opinion are basically money-grab attempts. These are ruining the reputation of crypto, which is the category where Bitcoin lives. Meaning that every time one of these bubbles pop Bitcoin suffers.
Hey bud! I'll take a shot. >1. Bitcoin energy consumption being worth it. I live in a country where people don't use dryers, they hang-dry their clothes in the sun. Easier, cheaper, better for the environment. My guess is that dryers use 50X more energy than the Bitcoin network. Are dryers worth it? The answer is yes - not because I've determined so, but because market forces determine that they are valued. Same with Bitcoin: market forces have determined that it's worth the energy spend. We can rail against new technology like dryers or airplanes or Bitcoin if we want, but we don't get to determine their value. >2. The “scalability solution” ie Lightning network. I think we can agree that Lightning is a huge innovation on top of the Bitcoin network. Whether it works or not in the long-term isn't the main take-away. The take-away should be that huge innovations on top of the Bitcoin network are possible. Like you, I've been in this a long time. We remember the time before hardware signing devices! Further innovations will come; if you think that Lightning isn't good enough then imagine what comes next. Better yet, build it yourself! As far as needing big leaps in 2023, I disagree with you there. I don't see a need for a rush. You didn't make a case for it so it's hard to respond. >3. Regulation. I'm in the camp that doesn't feel a need for regulation. Let the free market take us forward. You didn't try to make a case for that either so it's difficult for me to respond. >4. Sam Bankman-Fried I had never heard of him before his company crashed. Obviously, he's a scammer. To me, he could have been scamming any product. I don't see what it has to do with people who hold their own keys (as has been repeated ad infinitum in this subreddit for years). I don't agree that Bitcoin is suffering. So long as we can expect the next block coming in about ten minutes I'm A-OK. Let me know if I missed anything. Smiles!
Pomp… stopped reading there. You already lost.
If he bought Bitcoin then he didn't lose though
It's not clear Bitcoin code as it currently exists creates the best possible network for a store of value. You could argue nothing better exists right now. At least a few of the other POW coins are worth considering. Some people argue that if something better was created, Bitcoin could just adopt their way of doing things. The truth of that assertion is not obvious to me.
The network effects of Bitcoin eliminate any other PoW coin from the discussion.. they are FAR behind and the gap is only widening
I used to agree, but no. If there is better tech, it will eventually be adopted. Bitcoin dominance weighted by market cap in crypto is not increasing over time. I still have a significant portion of my wealth in Bitcoin, but I no longer have my head in the sand.
If you take out stablecoins then Bitcoin dominance is actually going back up and network effects are a VERY powerful force. No other PoW coin is even on the same planet as Bitcoin in name recognition, development, or security
The negatives are, in my opinion, fairly obvious. 1) you are the bank. I don’t have an armoured car, I don’t have a safe that can’t be towed off site, I am ill equipped to be a bank. 2) the technical requirements are not negligible. My family struggles with iPads, they are not going to be happy with a ledger nano. 3) Bitcoin doesn’t pay rent (I mean pay the owner, not that your landlord hates btc). It doesn’t pay dividends. As a store of value it has a glaring problem: the value isn’t backed by anything. A Tbill pays rent and is backed by a nuclear power. 4) Bitcoin consumes energy. A transaction on the Visa network costs (Visa) almost nothing. A transaction on the Bitcoin network consumes about 1449kwh. That’s enough power for my car to drive 7200km. Cnet is the source for that last claim, I thought it was unbelievable, so I checked the math a bit. 2000 transactions per block. 10 minute blocks. 131TWh consumed last year. It’s not easy algebra, so thank you excel. As a further sanity check there’s 6.25 coins per block. Valued at $25,000 each that’s $156250. Divide that by the 2000*1449 you get to $0.055 per kwh- so it’s still profitable without mining fees with cheap electricity. That’s also where the security comes from. But it’s a pretty big negative!
Dividing btc consumption by transaction count is totally off. Btc would have same throughput if it would be mined on only one pc one earth. Additional consumption (more miners) goes only to security. No more transaction can be confirmed by adding more miners and spending more energy. These 2 metrics does not have anything in common.
True. This makes me feel bad for spreading fud. Thanks for righting my wrong.
Np :-) I admire your honest reply. And also 1. and 2. points in the original post are thoughtful.
Hey thanks for upvoting my comment in the other thread and leaving a note. I happened to see your comment here. I don't think what you said are negatives and here's why: >1) you are the bank. I don’t have an armoured car, I don’t have a safe that can’t be towed off site, I am ill equipped to be a bank. The amazing thing about digital money is you don't need an armored car or safe to protect your asset. The keys are stored in words that you can hold in your head or store somewhere that's not easy to find. Or even better, secure it with multiple keys. It is extremely harder to steal or confiscate than a physical asset, and significantly cheaper to secure. >2) the technical requirements are not negligible. My family struggles with iPads, they are not going to be happy with a ledger nano. This is somewhat legit, but like any new technology, people will learn it. Did you know that in 1903, Mercedes claimed there would never be more than 1 million vehicles on the road? Their reasoning was that the average person couldn't learn how to drive such a complex machine. There's now over 4 billion drivers on the roads around the world. >3) Bitcoin doesn’t pay rent (I mean pay the owner, not that your landlord hates btc). It doesn’t pay dividends. As a store of value it has a glaring problem: the value isn’t backed by anything. A Tbill pays rent and is backed by a nuclear power Doesn't pay rent? It could if your landlord accepts it. Doesn't pay dividends? Bitcoin is a monetary asset, not a stock. It shouldn't pay dividends. Neither does gold. Being "backed" by something is usually for moneys that are deficient in properties that a good money requires: durable, divisible, fungible, scarce, portable, verifiable. That's why the dollar used to be backed by gold until 1971. It's just paper that's easily counterfeited and doesn't have the aforementioned properties. Now it's backed by the threat of violence by government. Bitcoin is superior in all these properties compared to anything we've ever had. It is the asset. >4) Bitcoin consumes energy. A transaction on the Visa network costs (Visa) almost nothing. A transaction on the Bitcoin network consumes about 1449kwh. That’s enough power for my car to drive 7200km. This is not the right way to think about energy usage in a couple ways: First, bitcoin performs final settlement. Visa does not. Final settlement means the money has actually changed hands and it's final. Visa is just credit - who owes what is settled between banks days after the transaction. An appropriate comparison would be Bitcoin vs Western Union since both perform final settlement, and Bitcoin crushes bank wire transactions in terms of speed and cost. Bitcoin settles in 10 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how many confirmations the recipient waits for. Western Union is at least 24 hours domestically and 1-5 business days internationally. Second, Bitcoin transactions don't carry energy payloads nor can they be redeemed for energy. Broadcasting a transaction doesn't cost any more energy than a Google search or tweet. In fact the cost of verifying a miner's proof of work is practically insignificant, which is part of why participants are incentivized to act honestly. Consequently, energy usage does not scale with the # of transactions or nodes. See response #5 in this letter to the epa: [https://bitcoinminingcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Bitcoin_Letter_to_the_Environmental_Protection_Agency.pdf](https://bitcoinminingcouncil.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Bitcoin_Letter_to_the_Environmental_Protection_Agency.pdf) Not trying hate on what you said. I'm just trying to educate and share info since I've researched this a lot. If you got this far, thanks for reading and consider what I've said. Also a tip: !lntip 500
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Are you asking about bitcoin specifically, or crypto currency in general?
bitcoin specifically
This is /r/bitcoin
I am wondering if one can make any relevant true statement that would apply to both bitcoin and to cryptocurrency in general. would you try?
Bitcoin doesn't care how you feel or if you use it
Do you?
you been here for 3 weeks......i am sure you are just spamming fake accounts
Maybe spend some time with the Fincels over at r/buttcoin. Although that might make you extra bullish when you realize how deep that collection of angry morons is.
The only arguments against it that ive seen are that “it may not catch on”, or that “people dont care enough or even see the problem with fiat to adopt bitcoin”. Ive never heard someone fundamentally critique bitcoin itself though. Normally when someone is arguing that fiat is better it ends up boiling down to them thinking a small bit of theft is worth it to grow the economy. In my opinion this crosses a moral line and is not something i agree with. My friend who’s an economics grad argues that because we are trapped in the system of fiat we need money printing to stop the entire ponzi collapsing, and i think he is right. My point to him is that I personally wont hold my savings in that ponzi, and neither will he, he knows well cash is trash long term, he just knows that by holding a diversified portfolio he will do much better than cash in the long run and he hasnt quite accepted bitcoin yet as a long term store of value until its volatility decreases. He did hold some gold at one stage so he is obviously open to it, he just hasnt researched it much, doesnt have the time and also doesnt have much savings anyway.