Thread by @VNumeris

1/ Thread.

Recently, I've been hearing a lot of the "bitcoin needs to be used as a unit of account and medium of exchange, store of value itself isn't a use-case/not enough" narrative being sold to newbies and veterans alike.

2/ I challenge that assumption. I wouldn’t worry about bitcoin’s long term survivability/’success’ whether people use it as a UoA/ MoE or not. It's kinda good to have, yet not really relevant in the grand scheme of thing.

Let me explain.

3/ Firstly, many don’t realize that there's an inherent distinction between bitcoin (small 'b', the currency), and Bitcoin (big 'B' the protocol), and therefore their purposes and therefore - I hate to use the word, 'use cases'.

4/ I think most Bitcoiners understand to a great extent the value and importance of the Bitcoin protocol suite (L1 Bitcoin, LN) well, it needs no introduction.

5/ TLDR for newbies:

Bitcoin is a tool to store, audit, and transport a measure of value within a vehicle that is immune to censorship, corruption and doesn’t bend to the wills of any country, organization, group, or individual.

6/ However, bitcoin(the currency) is often misunderstood.

It's a byproduct of a system that needs to create an incentive scheme from within the protocol instead of an external interest (e.g FB/Libra Association is motivated to keep Libra alive, Roger/Jihan on Bcash, etc).

7/ Why is this relevant you may ask?

Well, in order to keep Bitcoin as Bitcoin, there should not exist one or few dominant external interests to 'keep Bitcoin alive', else it opens up an ever-looming centralization risk.

8/ "The risk is FUD, it's a non-problem!" Well not really, if you were here long enough, you'd probably remember:

E.g. post-DAO, when the Ethereum Foundation went "all aboard new ETH and fuck ETC", the effect it had on original ETH, now known as ETC was irrecoverably disastrous.

9/ Now that we establish that concept, it's easier to see why the "hyperbitcoinization = everyone price and spends bitcoin" narrative is not the most crucial to measuring what 'hyperbitcoinization' looks like.

10/ So you may wonder how - “so how would hyperbitcoinization look like?”.

Look no further than how the Internet protocol suite evolved. Bitcoin follows a similar architecture principle as the Internet stack, think in layers.

Btw, remember the Internet Protocol Wars?

11/ I’m sure even learning about the Internet Protocol Wars, some shitcoiner will still go “oh you toxic maximalist, look at all the INnovAtIoN in the BLocKcHaIN, mUH USeCasEs.

Wait, there will still be a place for shitcoins in the Bitcoin protocol suite.

12/ I imagine a time in the not so distant future, where every shitcoin/private blockchains will eventually evolve into a sidechain of a sidechain of a sidechain of base layer Bitcoin, out of the need to survive.

13/ In this ‘hyperbitcoinised’ future, bitcoin's main purpose is to stay valuable enough to keep the incentive cycle of old/ new participants to continue to keep Bitcoin a stable and secure L1.

Btw, good news for hodlers, bitcoin has to be worth a shit lot for Bitcoin to work.

14/ TLDR: Buy bitcoin. It's okay to hodl, because it's good for you and good for Bitcoin.

End.