bitcoin's protocol goes a long way towards realising the Misesian ideal of a neutral money, but it depends on hodlers not blinking. when i look at the long term log charts i see deceleration, and i believe that is because of the paper bitcoin. leveraged BTCs are also pushing down on prices a lot as well. we are in the midst of a crisis of faith and what happens every cicle is a new bull thesis is promoted, adopted, and then the next cycle is up from the previous, a self-reinforcing prophecy.
i'm bullish on freedom tech and freedom money though. it just may take a revision based on what we all have learned over the last 14 years. there is dozens of points:
- coin control for wallets opens the vulnerability to government surveillance if it's not designed right (most are not)
- the presence of OP_RETURN and the witness discount enable spam attacks, which create friction for on-chain transfers (segwit)
- taproot strengthened the vulnerability even further and made unlimited witness data possible
- taproot payment reveal the pubkey before it can be spent, opening up a brute force attack with extremely high powered quantum computers (i'd guess within 4 years they can crack one in a few months at a cost below the value of it, has to be a huge utxo).
- practically all the notable large projects in bitcoin space are sus. blockstream, strike with their KYC payment rails just come out.
if you can't see what's happening, that's a pity but it doesn't mean bitcoin is going to go to zero. they are just going to covertly turn it into the successor of the USD, which the US is positioned perfectly in every way, even to the fact that already most of the miners are registered corporations, mostly delaware, and most of the miners are based where there is cheap US electricity.
i wouldn't rate it a high odds that bitcoin is not fully captured in the next two cycles.
a legitimate successor needs to be created, that is focus-designed to defeat the hope/fear defection vulnerability and the 51% control (if USG legalizes it for tax, they can then use legislation to effectively take control of the majority of the chain. this is the threat i think will be the next doom cycle. current doom cycle is about the influence of BTCs and other paper derivatives and custodial large scale leveraged holdings that are wide open to the Fed crashing the price so hard... but they probably don't want that. they want it to be the new USD, except make it look like it's still neutral.
