Thread by @gladstein

1/ In a new @Telegraph column @jamestitcomb claims that it is "hard to argue that Bitcoin has lived up to its mysterious inventor’s early intentions as a world-changing financial protocol" and says the main outcome has been making "a small number wealthy"

🧵 on why he is wrong:

2/ To be fair, it is easy to arrive at this conclusion if you completely ignore (as Mr. Titcomb does) how people are creatively using BTC worldwide.

If you only read buzzy US headlines about Tesla + NFTs, you'll miss the big picture. I hope journalists are willing to dig deeper

3/ A lower-bound estimate of unique Bitcoin users based on exchange data (excluding p2p activity) is ~130M people. Many of these millions are in emerging markets. For example there are 1.3M users of one Bitcoin trading platform alone (@Paxful) in Nigeria:

https://twitter.com/woonomic/status/1347970033633218560?s=20

4/ Nigeria is just one of 30+ countries encompassing 1.2B people who suffer from double/triple digit inflation.

There are millions of Bitcoin savers, traders, and remitters across Turkey, Argentina, Pakistan, Iran, Sudan, Lebanon, Ethiopia and beyond:

https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1368822142775652352?s=20

5/ Even in economies with low inflation the financial rules are rigged. For ex. you can look at @bitcoinzay's work (Bitcoin and Black America) to see how US black communities suffer systematic financial discrimination. With the help of Isaiah + others, some are turning to Bitcoin

6/ Bitcoin hasn't just been used as a devaluation-proof and confiscation-resistant savings technology.

Though that might be one of its main use cases around the world today, its other characteristics have made it a useful and unique tool for human rights activists and others.

7/ Democracy movements and opposition leaders in Russia, Nigeria, Belarus, and elsewhere have used Bitcoin to receive donations and continue their human rights work while their traditional bank accounts have been frozen or suspended:

coindesk.com/bitcoin-protes…

8/ Bitcoin is "digital gold" and a borderless, unstoppable payment rail, but it can also fight surveillance.

With the proper tools + knowledge, users can achieve the kind of "forward privacy" obtained when withdrawing funds from KYC'd bank accounts into paper cash via ATMs

9/ One way to do this is through the Lightning Network, which offers instant, cheap, global, final transactions for small payments (>$1k)

These transactions take place on a second layer, not on the main blockchain, so they offer additional privacy guarantees for users.

10/ As Lightning use grows globally (details below), more and more people are able to use Bitcoin as cheap + fast digital cash.

This is key because on-chain BTC transactions will get very expensive in the coming years with more and more network demand:

https://twitter.com/bitrefill/status/1374711107500249099?s=20

11/ LN adoption is driven in part by improving UX from tools like @bluewalletio, a nifty open-source, free, Bitcoin/LN iOS/Android wallet that offers robust multisig features.

Downloads are 🚀 in Ghana, Brazil, Ukraine, Argentina, and South Africa:

https://twitter.com/nvcoelho/status/1348654725202325505?s=20

12/ Through services like @ln_strike, Americans can use their debit card to pay any Lightning invoice globally, with the user receiving Bitcoin.

The utility of instant global payments for remitters or for people who have family abroad is significant:

apps.apple.com/us/app/strike-…

13/ So whether it's as an accessible savings technology, a non-discriminatory global payment rail, a more convenient remittance tool, or as a way to buy things digitally without revealing such a large amount of personal information, Bitcoin is already making a big global impact.

14/ *Anyone* with an internet connection today can access this network, and with peer-to-peer markets active in virtually every major urban area on earth, anyone can trade their earned or received or donated or purchased BTC for local currency to buy things.

15/ Crucially, the rules of Bitcoin's financial system are in the hands of users. Not dictators, faceless corporations, or unelected bureaucrats. The monetary policy is public + known to all. Miners unlock 6.25 new BTC every 10 min. This # halves every 4 years as we approach 2140

16/ As chronicled in the superb new @BitMEXResearch book The Blocksize War, when special interests have tried to hijack Bitcoin, they failed.

This financial system is arguably more democratic, less rigged, and more transparent than legacy fiat + fintech

amazon.com/Blocksize-War-…

17/ As for Wall Street and Silicon Valley, which are entering the Bitcoin space after being front-run for a decade mostly by little-known users around the world, their entrance is GOOD, not bad for the system. It's not a failure that Tesla + Square are stacking and supporting BTC

18/ These companies want to accumulate and integrate Bitcoin, but they can't change the rules of the system.

They *can* however drive interest, adoption, liquidity, improved UX, and network security.

And more and more companies are flocking this way:

bitcointreasuries.org

19/ Bitcoin doesn't promise equality of outcome (who can?) but it does give equality of opportunity

The rules are the same for billionaires or refugees

Billionaires have always been able to find good SoVs or rig rules to benefit themselves or find ways to spend in any country

20/ But this power -- to opt into a premium SoV or be your own bank anywhere -- is now open to anyone with internet access.

I've interviewed several people who fled conflict in places like Syria and Venezuela, for whom Bitcoin has been a vital tool:

https://twitter.com/Codiox/status/1375876968390909956

21/ It has helped many escape while preserving some of their earnings, and has helped others send value back to those they left behind.

Bitcoin's power to help people in these scenarios has barely been begun to be understood:

https://twitter.com/franamati/status/1374054362973102084

22/ At 130M users we're at 1.7% global adoption. It's very early days.

I hope this thread helps you understand that no, we will not "spare you the lofty talk of democratizing money"

Because it's real and it's happening

We hope you join us for the ride.

telegraph.co.uk/technology/202…

23/ As a final note, many examples I've cited in this thread are listed and linked in this video I created for @reason.

I would be happy to chat anytime and share more info with you, @jamestitcomb, or anyone else who is interested.

My DMs are open :)

https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1357757736394444800