Bitcoin is the first truly new addition to the field of money for a long, long time. "Crypto" on the other hand is a total wasteland of scams, nihilism and speculation.
"Crypto" is just another defensive shield around bitcoin. The masses of assets parroting nonsense to each other serves the following purposes:
- makes it easier to convince people that the money supply is screwed up (you don't have to buy into the libertarian ethos of bitcoin to understand that dogecoin doesn't make any sense)
- makes bitcoin less obviously a direct threat to the financial status quo (people who dismiss 'crypto' as being a bunch of nonsense clearly aren't penetrating thinkers)
- makes it so that only people who _really_ want decentralized, sovereign currency hold bitcoin; everyone else will bounce from shitcoin to shitcoin, which probably ends up helping lower bitcoin's volatility
I like what you're saying here - "crypto is pure fiat" - but as far as i can tell, the existence of this wildly scammy ecosystem not just 'next door' to us but all the way around us,', i think, _protects_ us. Coinbase wants to keep their shitcoin empire going, they have money to pay lobbyists and laywers, and what this means is that instead of realizing that bitcoin is a gun pointed right at their heads, the central bankers will do their best to pass KYC laws and try to control the shitcoin ecosystems. Of course the idea of regulated shitcoins is absurd. But it's better for regulators to be able to say things like "oh, we just need to regulate it", even though this makes no sense- because the alternative is them realizing "holy shit we are an empire in decline, we've printed way too much money, and bitcoin gives people a viable out." I think it's MUCH better for this idiots to be like, oh, we just need to pass the right KYC/AML laws and then mandate that all smart contracts prove they can only transmit funds to registered addresses, bla bla bla. Let them aggressively re-arrange the deck chairs on the titanic, to prevent the unruly mob from getting out of hand. Meawhile, bitcoiners have been 3d-printing liferafts, putting inflation to work for them.
If crypto is a ridiculous circus sideshow, bitcoin is an underground city only accessible through one of the lesser-traveled edges of the circus. Any uninquisitve outsider can look at the circus as a whole, and dismiss _all_ of it, in a way that would be much harder to do if we didn't have a million shitcoins acting as decoys for us
I think it really may well be the case that nobody except for bitcoin maximalists really grasp where all of this is heading; the more competing narratives there are, the better it is for people who really get reality.
Oh wow, Mark, thank you for that long and thoughtful answer! Funny: I had the exact same thought when planning a piece about the regulatory battle here in Europe. The "crypto" ecosystem will need to protect Bitcoin in order to protect itsself (think "unhosted wallets" etc.). They do take turns to shit on proof of work though, but that's probably more of an attempt to make themselves look good than to "stop" Bitcoin. Every single shitcoin needs to come up with a narrative and a "usecase" (or many) in order to stay relevant, so lots and lots of bullshit will be produced.
Can I quote you in a future article on this? Thanks!
Great write up Niko! Bitcoin is its own asset class and should be separated from Crypto.
Thank you so much Daniel. Yes, just like Fidelity said too.
"Crypto" is just another defensive shield around bitcoin. The masses of assets parroting nonsense to each other serves the following purposes:
- makes it easier to convince people that the money supply is screwed up (you don't have to buy into the libertarian ethos of bitcoin to understand that dogecoin doesn't make any sense)
- makes bitcoin less obviously a direct threat to the financial status quo (people who dismiss 'crypto' as being a bunch of nonsense clearly aren't penetrating thinkers)
- makes it so that only people who _really_ want decentralized, sovereign currency hold bitcoin; everyone else will bounce from shitcoin to shitcoin, which probably ends up helping lower bitcoin's volatility
I like what you're saying here - "crypto is pure fiat" - but as far as i can tell, the existence of this wildly scammy ecosystem not just 'next door' to us but all the way around us,', i think, _protects_ us. Coinbase wants to keep their shitcoin empire going, they have money to pay lobbyists and laywers, and what this means is that instead of realizing that bitcoin is a gun pointed right at their heads, the central bankers will do their best to pass KYC laws and try to control the shitcoin ecosystems. Of course the idea of regulated shitcoins is absurd. But it's better for regulators to be able to say things like "oh, we just need to regulate it", even though this makes no sense- because the alternative is them realizing "holy shit we are an empire in decline, we've printed way too much money, and bitcoin gives people a viable out." I think it's MUCH better for this idiots to be like, oh, we just need to pass the right KYC/AML laws and then mandate that all smart contracts prove they can only transmit funds to registered addresses, bla bla bla. Let them aggressively re-arrange the deck chairs on the titanic, to prevent the unruly mob from getting out of hand. Meawhile, bitcoiners have been 3d-printing liferafts, putting inflation to work for them.
If crypto is a ridiculous circus sideshow, bitcoin is an underground city only accessible through one of the lesser-traveled edges of the circus. Any uninquisitve outsider can look at the circus as a whole, and dismiss _all_ of it, in a way that would be much harder to do if we didn't have a million shitcoins acting as decoys for us
I think it really may well be the case that nobody except for bitcoin maximalists really grasp where all of this is heading; the more competing narratives there are, the better it is for people who really get reality.
Oh wow, Mark, thank you for that long and thoughtful answer! Funny: I had the exact same thought when planning a piece about the regulatory battle here in Europe. The "crypto" ecosystem will need to protect Bitcoin in order to protect itsself (think "unhosted wallets" etc.). They do take turns to shit on proof of work though, but that's probably more of an attempt to make themselves look good than to "stop" Bitcoin. Every single shitcoin needs to come up with a narrative and a "usecase" (or many) in order to stay relevant, so lots and lots of bullshit will be produced.
Can I quote you in a future article on this? Thanks!