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You’re absolutely right. Satoshi envisioned Bitcoin as peer-to-peer electronic cash, but governments and institutions often frame it as “digital gold,” potentially to limit its use as everyday currency. For instance, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell remarked that Bitcoin is “just like gold, only it’s virtual,” emphasizing its role as a speculative asset rather than a payment metho
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Governments adopted that saying from Saylor, but I believe bitcoin for purchases comes next in this long process. Eventually the price goes up enough to where people with their own stockpiles of "digital gold" will want to utilize their new purchasing power.
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↩ replying to Derek Ross
If the price goes up ( for foreseeable ever ) why would I spend my #sats ? If I don't , then no ancillary infrastructure (like plastic cards and swipe machines ) would be built and mass adopted .. It becomes cash ..only if corporate like Strategy ( or #SBRs) fix the price of #bitcoin at say 10 K .. which they can do very easily .. eg - start selling if the price goes above 10 k and start buying if it goes down ..
Bitcoin is better than gold because it is a peer to peer electronic cash system. But it holds value better than anything else that is transmitted electronically. From a government’s lens, the immediate value is in the storer of value function. The ease of transmission is one of the reasons why they should save using in bitcoin rather than gold.
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The lowest risk position to hold in #Bitcoin is to purity signal against governments and corporations. But here's the reality: #Bitcoin is nonpermissive. We can't stop groups from saving in #Bitcoin. Not corporations. Not governments. Saylor's posture, of #Bitcoin realism, takes more courage than Jack's, IMHO. Getting the trojan horse in through the gates takes huge personal risk and lots of work. Sitting back and negging is great for making anarcho friends online but does not advance game theory or shape it in our favor. The adoption path for #Bitcoin is not linear. It is occuring all at once. Power is ordered in the world, but still distributed. Governments and corps would plainly be the last to adopt private internet cash. SoV clearly comes first for them. But developing and deploying privacy-preserving payments is not blocking on Gov approval. We don't need permission to, slyly and in a round about way, introduce private payments into #Nostr and into real world economies. The developmenr of #Ark, for example, doesn't need to care about how govs and corps use Bitcoin. Think nonlinearly. Think nonpermissively. View quoted note →
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There are two major personality types, on a gradient. There are Sensors who understand the world through their senses, what they can touch, see, taste, etc. They tend to strongly prefer non-abstract, concrete language, so they would prefer calling Bitcoin "digital gold." Peer to peer e-cash system won't make sense to them because they can't see it or touch it. Then there are Intuitives who are far more comfortable with the abstract and conceptual dimension and language along those lines. A description of Bitcoin as "Peer to peer e-cash" rapidly makes sense to them even though it's not a system that anyone can touch or see in a physical domain. This is why gold bugs like Peter Schiff struggle so much with Bitcoin. Peter Schiff's unchangeable psychological temperament is Sensor. Since they can't touch Bitcoin, but they can touch gold, and they would gravitate towards gold, since it works kinesthetically in the moment, spacially. The major distinction between Bitcoiners and goldbugs is the domain of their psyche's that they trust and are more sensitive to, whether Sensory, or Intuitive. So if the government says Bitcoin is digital gold, even though we know that's not fundamentally true, try to cut them some slack because they may be doing their best to communicate in a way that Sensors are more familiar and comfortable with that will help them get on board.
jack's avatar jack
Satoshi: “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” Governments: “Bitcoin: Digital Gold”
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"I see Bitcoin as ultimately becoming a reserve currency for banks, playing much the same role as gold did in the early days of banking. Banks could issue digital cash with greater anonymity and lighter weight, more efficient transactions." -Hal Finney
The world is searching for the next reserve asset, and it is now defining the battlefield of East vs. West power struggle. In times when nation states don't trust each other, what neutral asset will they accept from the other? Not yuan. Not dollars. Etc. They are not neutral and their ledgers are not immutable. The US is leaning into BTC. Russia has declared gold. China is buying gold. The world will decide.
The ‘digital gold’ narrative is played out and doesnt add any valuable incentive anymore to the future of Bitcoin. At the start of the Bitcoin network it was needed to create the urgency for people to HODL Bitcoin and to gain exposure for the network. Yet after the Bitcoin ETF was introduced at the 10th of January 2024 the narrative became futile. Are only hope to keep the Bitcoin network going in the future is transforming Bitcoin into ‘A peer to peer electronic cash system’ just like Satoshi Intended. Don’t waste to much of your wealth on grifters in opensource development @jack but rather invest it in highly curated projects to achieve Satoshi’s objective. Tried to work with several people within Nostr to create dapps and innovate peer-to-peer electronic transactions.. they don’t care. They just want to grift for grants or become a ‘name’ in the Nostr community. Waste of time.