“Bitcoins: Can the Tinkerbell Effect Become a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy?”
There are pictures of little girls wearing fairy costumes on the cover and Peter Pan quotes inside.
3/ DB: “Bitcoin’s value will continue to rise/fall depending on what people believe it is worth. This is the Tinkerbell Effect: the more believe in something the likelier it is to happen based on Peter Pan’s assertion that Tinkerbell exists because children believe she exists”
4/ DB says central banks and governments understand that Bitcoin is “here to stay,” and says regulation will come this year or next alongside the rollout of Central Bank Digital Currencies.
Hrm. Too little, too late?
5/ DB includes a rather bullish quote from Eric Schmidt:
“As Bitcoin grows, the value grows. As people move into Bitcoin for payments and receipts, they stop using US dollars, Euros, and Chinese Yuan, which in the long term devalues these currencies"
6/ DB says Bitcoin is mainly used today as a financial investment, not really for payments.
And that it will continue to be volatile.
Yup!
7/ Interesting juxtaposition of quotes from @jack, who says Bitcoin will ultimately be the world’s single currency, and Warren Buffet, who says the whole thing is a mirage:
8/ DB: “Every year people declare Bitcoin (and Tesla) as dead or dying.
Since 100, Bitcoin has been declared dead about 400 times...
The trend has been decreasing, 2020 saw the fewest obituary predictions in eight years."
9/ DB shares this hilarious chart:
10/ DB repeats the myth that Bitcoin "has no backing or intrinsic value," ignoring the fact that it is and always has been thermodynamically backed by energy, which through Proof-of-Work gives Bitcoin intrinsic value as the world's only decentralized digital scarce asset.
11/ DB gets bonus points for talking about the importance of 21 million and the halving and the difficulty adjustment (impressive!), but these are sadly nullified by references to Cardano, Polkadot, and Chainlink.
12/ DB: Bitcoin mining could have a “positive externality, that is, technological innovation in the financial sector [could] drive innovation in the energy sector."
Yes.
13/ DB: “The key difference between Bitcoin and currencies today is on the supply side. Supply of Bitcoin is fixed, while in many fiat currencies central banks control the supply and have been increasing it in recent years via their QE programs"
Bingo!
14/ DB then writes a bunch of stuff on alt coins.
Thought this quote was funny, though:
“We also wonder whether cannibalisation between these cryptocurrencies might occur"
15/ DB: “In 2019, just over 2% of the cryptocurrency activity was linked to illicit activity, and in 2020 it was down to only .3%"
Big of them to include and admit that!
16/ DB shares cool chart on publicly traded hodlers:
17/ DB: “The chart shows adoption rates of blockchain wallets with the equivalent of internet adoption rates.
We are still in the early days, but the curves are similar after adjusting for scale.
Indeed, if current trends continue there could be 200M users in 2030”
Wow.
18/ DB says “around a third” of millennials believe that cryptocurrencies are replacing cash and credit/debit cards.
From a survey of 4,700 people in the US, Europe, and Asia.
Pretty wild.
19/ DB: “In terms of total currency in circulation, Bitcoin is the third-largest in the world, after the US dollar and the euro” — not really sure about this chart, but wow.
20/ DB: “if we look at the market cap of its stocks, Bitcoin is today ranked sixth—between Alphabet and Tencent, and bigger than Facebook” Another wow.
21/ DB concludes by saying that Bitcoin is here to stay but that they don't think it will likely *eat all traditional currencies in the world*
Which is, needless to say, a pretty high bar for Bitcoin, and it is noteworthy that this possibility is even mentioned.
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2/ “Harriet Tubman will soon grace our $20 bill… She brought herself and many other enslaved Americans to freedom through a remarkable combination of intelligence, courage, faith, boldness, diverse expertise, fearlessness, experience, strength, resilience, and cooperation”
3/ “These traits and experiences equipped her to serve in the Civil War as a scout, nurse, cook, and military expedition leader. Tubman’s commitment to liberty was not abstract, but personal and life-changing to each of the individuals whom she led on a grueling march to freedom”
1/ The Aker shareholder letter from Kjell Inge Røkke is remarkable.
Having worked in Norway since 2008, IMO this is a major step towards more Scandinavian Bitcoin discussion + adoption.
Here's a 🧵 on the letter's unexpected highlights especially regarding Lightning + privacy:
2/ Aker is a 180-year-old Norwegian corporation now launching Seetee, a Bitcoin company:
"We will use bitcoin as our treasury asset and join the community. We will be hodlers. Perhaps not as rebellious as the cypherpunks... But more progressive than most established corporates"
3/ A recurring theme in Røkke's letter is an interest in privacy.
Early on:
"I am particularly interested in micropayments and how these may enable us to avoid usernames, passwords, and our personal data being monetised with, and often without, our knowledge or consent”
1/ There are a couple things that make Bitcoin different from any previous top dog in the money hierarchy, which will create a different financial system than the one we've seen before, which Brendan describes here.
2/ Anyone can verify their Bitcoin holdings or the global monetary supply from cheap equipment at home. So, unlike gold, citizens and institutions can easily custody their BTC w/o relying on third parties. This creates a stronger demand for actual BTC versus promises to pay.
3/ Also unlike gold, there is a liquid 24/7 global market for Bitcoin accessible to anyone with an internet connection where you can sell BTC or buy BTC + withdraw quickly into self-custody. With vibrant global p2p markets, you don't have to deal with slow, regulated gatekeepers.
@felixsalmon 1/ I do. I’ll give you a few now. For starters BYSOL, a grassroots Belarusian human rights org, has moved more than $500k of value peer-to-peer to striking workers inside Belarus, in a way the regime can’t stop. Activists or protestors normally get their bank accounts frozen.
@felixsalmon 2/ A Nigerian feminist coalition raised tens of thousands of dollars in Bitcoin via @BtcpayServer to support pro-democracy anti-SARS protests in October while their bank accounts were being turned on and off. @jack even shared helping the movement go even more viral
@felixsalmon@BtcpayServer@jack 3/ Many organizations in Hong Kong have had their bank accounts investigated or funds for supporting human rights work. The indispensable @hkfp team ran into this issue and the local Bitcoin community helped them set up @BtcpayServer so now they can raise funds without that worry
Thread on the folly of fighting COVID-19 w/ surveillance:
1/ Is there an independent study showing that digital contact tracing has, all things equal, been a big help? As opposed to masks, hand washing, testing, social distancing, public education, healthcare per capita, etc?
2/ Is it demonstrably clear that cell phone tracking can be reliable + effective in urban areas where the virus hits the hardest? Singapore's spy tactics seem to be failing. How to prevent false positives w/o the panopticon of cross-referencing location data/CCTV data/comms data?
3/ We must also grapple with the fact that the government that has the most intense citizen surveillance system in history (the Chinese Communist Party) couldn't, despite all the Orwellian tech in the world, prevent an outbreak, mass loss of life, and economic devastation.