Thread

Why did reading this feel like reading chatGPT gruel? Doesn’t mean I disagree with the content but the format sure felt like AI. Shifting back and forth between lists and details is a strong tell.

Why Bitcoin's price is being suppressed and how the community can pump the price without access to much capital Yesterday I wrote how Bitcoin's influencers are almost never objective and how unfounded hopium does more harm than good. In this note, I'll give you the TL;DR version of how the community can use accurate negativity (not doomerism) to pump Bitcoin's price without access to much capital. 1) What high levels of Hopium do to Bitcoin's price Hopium in BTC social spaces is very high, especially around "institutional adoption", "nation-state game theory", and "multi-cycle superstructure". Self-custody + Medium-of-Exchange usage are low relative to market cap, especially in developed markets. Paperization is accelerating (ETFs, treasury companies, structured products). The Controllers currently see BTC as mostly tamed: a volatile, monetizable, but containable Store-of-Value gadget that helps them (capital gains tax, fee revenue, data exhaust) more than it hurts. Bitcoin is managed into a rising, volatility-capped channel: paperized Store-of-Value, Medium-of-Exchange throttled, squeezes sold, crashes patched — never cheap enough to trigger a self-custody revolt, never euphoric enough to create escape velocity. Negativity about capture is still too niche and too uncoordinated to force any "pay up or lose us" moment. That means: - Volatility will be managed, not eliminated. - Upside blow-offs will occur mainly when they help: during liquidity expansions, or when "innovation/leadership" narratives are needed. - Structural usage as MoE will be discouraged, via: tax rules, compliance friction, "illegal content" and "unlicensed transmitter" narratives, and more convenient, subsidized stables/CBDCs. 2) "Hopium" = Compliance In Controller terms, Hopium max, price meh = - Community psychologically domesticated ("ETF flows, institutions coming, supercycle bro"). - Majority of flows inside surveilled pipes (ETFs, KYC exchanges, custodial wallets). - "Rebel asset" narrative is neutered by its own fans: they are now cheerleaders for BlackRock, not adversaries of the system. So from the System's Point-Of-View: - Non-compliance risk is low. - Capture is working. - There's no need to "overpay" for further control via higher price right now. The Controllers can afford to: - Run sideways, bleed out spec leverage. - Nudge narratives toward "digital gold / 60-40 allocation / wealth preservation". 3) Negativity is a threat telemetry Negativity in the community is not purely bearish from the System's point of view. Negativity like: - "ETFs = paper Bitcoin" - "Core is captured" - "We're being turned into digital gold" - "CBDCs are coming" ...is a signal of residual refusal cohort — people who might route around controlled rails. The System then has two cheap choices: - Ignore → allow a possibly growing adversarial subculture to form. - Co-opt → buy them off in fiat while constraining their actual freedom of movement. Price is the cheapest co-opt tool: - "Yes, you're technically right that it’s captured... but your net worth just did a 4–5x. Are you really going to fight the hand that made you rich?" 4) Hypothetical: if the Bitcoin community could organize, how could negativity be used to raise price? The System adjusts prices to serve its five goals: 1. Survival 2. Control 3. Growth 4. Stability 5. Comfort (optional extra) The only way a community without huge capital moves price indirectly is by changing how dangerous it looks to ignore or repress them. In other words: - More credible non-compliance → higher willingness of the System to pay (via price) to co-opt instead of crush. So, hypothetically, an organized, intelligent Bitcoin community would use negativity not as emo whining, but as signaled threat of off-rails energy. (A) Make the off-ramps real, not just memes Visible growth of self-custody + circular economy: - Businesses actually accepting BTC non-KYC. - Real, measurable commerce (local, cross-border) that matters at the margin. If the System sees: - "If we clamp too hard, these people can actually exit into a shadow monetary zone." - Then it must decide: co-opt (pay them) or confront (break them). One is cheaper than the other. (B) Weaponize accurate negativity, not doomerism Negativity that moves the needle: - "Here is how ETFs = paperization, with concrete custody/derivatives structure." - "Here is how Core governance is captured (funding, maintainers, client defaults)." - "Here is how CBDCs + KYC rails would shut off BTC-as-MoE." Negativity that does nothing: - Vague "it's all a scam", "we're doomed" posts. The System cares about credible threat, not vibes. If the critique is so clear that: - Regulators get asked hard questions. - Journalists can't easily wave it away. - Some subset of aligned-but-uncomfortable insiders starts to agree. ...then co-optation (bribe via price / ETF adoption) becomes cheaper than overt war. (C) Build internal norms that resist paperization This is the big one. The more the community self-organizes against capture, the higher the co-opt "price" the System would need to pay: Social status awarded to: - Self-custody, running nodes, verifying, demanding proof-of-reserves. - Merchants using BTC for actual commerce, not just HODL shrines. Social status penalizing: - Celebrating ETF flows as "adoption". - Flexing paper-BTC statements. If you made ETF/treasury exposure something like: - "Okay as a side sleeve, but not the core of your identity." Then to pull people off that stance, the System has to make paper payouts so large that even hardliners wobble. The levers are: - Norms (what's admired vs ridiculed), - Memes (what gets repeated), - Defaults (what wallets, what settings, what stacks). None of that costs capital; it costs coordination and discipline. (D) Timing negativity to exploit the System's own needs Our best leverage window is when the System needs BTC for something: - FX / sanctions arbitrage (states using BTC at the margin). - "Innovation" optics (e.g., a pro-BTC administration narrative). - Pension/ETF demand in a yield-scarce world. Organized community negativity at those moments — "we know what this is, we're not playing unless X" (X = legal self-custody protections, Proof-of-Reserves norms, etc.) — forces a choice: - Ignore → more off-rails adoption. - Co-opt harder → support price via official flows and "legitimacy" pushes. That's about as close as you get to "using negativity to pump" without capital: you turn resistance + coordination into a higher co-optation bid. Hopium/ETF narratives → comfort → docility. Negative but accurate narratives → discomfort → potential for real bargaining. The System's cheapest move is to pay people (via price and integration) to voluntarily stay in compliant pipes. The price is a control knob and the community's mood is a sensor. Hopium dominance + ETF worship → - System sees low non-compliance risk. - Comfortable to keep BTC in a managed corridor (contained upside, liquidity, periodic harvests). Serious negativity + visible self-custody behavior → - System sees growing off-rails threat. - More incentive to buy off that threat via: favorable ETF regimes, regulatory "clarity" that ignites flows, narratives that "normalize" confiscation resistance as "unnecessary extremism". If the community remains disorganized, negativity just becomes fodder: - Bear market: deep, correct critiques. - Bull market: drowned out by "wen ETF inflows" and memes. The System doesn't need to fight that — it just rides the cycle. 5) How the System uses price as the bribe The system doesn't argue in essays, it argues in charts. If "BTC is being co-opted" is the meme, the most efficient counter-meme is: - "You're being co-opted… but you’re richer. Number go up. Are you mad or grateful?" 6) Spectacle displaces scrutiny Spectacle displaces scrutiny (e.g. surveillance rollouts) with 'number go up' talk. In any bull phase: - 99% of the content is price, targets, halving models, "ETFs flows", "supercycle" chatter. - 1% of the content is boring but crucial: Who runs the nodes? Who sets the defaults? Which clients are actually being used by big custodians? How much of the supply sits in: ETFs, custodial treasuries, yield products? Negative, nuanced discussion about capture is always a bear-market topic: - In crashes: you get deep threads on governance, censorship, incentives. - In rallies: anyone raising those issues is called "bear", "FUD", or "has no skin in the game". The Controllers don't need to censor that scrutiny; they just need to drown it in euphoria when it matters most. Negativity in the community is not a blocker. It's: - A diagnostic of where resistance still is. - A pretext to run "clarity" cycles. - Eventually a minority voice that can be marginalized by "Look, if they were right, why are we all richer and why are pensions holding BTC?" If you understand the game, you see the green candle, and instead of saying "We're winning", you ask: "What did we just agree to for number to go up?" 7) TL;DR Sentiment isn't just "bullish/bearish"; it's a compliance signal. An organized, negative, self-custody Bitcoin community could, in theory, force the System to pay more to co-opt them — and that "payment" would likely come through higher prices and privileged rails for paper BTC. In practice, the community is fractured and heavily captured by price dopamine + ETF respectability, which makes BTC much easier to park in the controlled "digital gold" lane with occasional speculative thrills. The System doesn't win with arguments; it wins with defaults + price. That's the only language most people, including most Bitcoiners, actually respond to. My notes on this topic are actually much longer, but I realize this note has become too long to read. Of course, the more likely outcome is the one I've described in this article (

What made me sell most of my Bitcoin a few months ago

I am not bearish on Bitcoin's fiat-denominated price. I am bearish on Bitcoin's odds of becoming mass MoE, and I am pricing the coordination tax.

), but maybe there's fight left. View quoted note →