As a Bitcoiner or Bitcoin holder or HODLer as we like to call ourselves, I’ve had to deal with all sorts of opinions from altcoiners, Bitcoiners, no-coiners, normies and more; everyone’s got their opinion and have every right to it. We’re all speculating whether we like it or not; you’re either long Bitcoin by owning it or short bitcoin by not owning it.
Depending on a range of macro-economic factors with time to seems like the most significant factor. We’ll see how the market accepts predictive inflation models versus inflationary models.
This is the part that gets me excited about Bitcoin; as fiat money opts to support Keynesian theories, some countries might opt for MMT, and the private market gets to hedge against that with Bitcoin or Gold with the Austrian school.
I think choice and counterbalances are crucial for wealth storage and transactions. We all don’t think the same; we all will never agree, and allowing people to choose how they store their value I think is real freedom.
The last 12 years
Bitcoin has done nothing different in the last 12 years of existence; it continues to secure transactions and reduce its supply over time; that’s all it knows how to do and all it will ever do; it’s predictable and boring. Its stability forms the foundation for an entirely new market of blockchain and servers as the anchor of this new asset class.
Those who have taken to Bitcoin have bought in, build products and services around it or altcoin projects that are loosely or heavily pegged to it. While 12 years is not a long time, Bitcoin has made waves across the world and means different things to different people.
Many still claim Bitcoin to not be mainstream, but
- 1% of the world owns this asset class
- US Banks are now allowed to custody Bitcoin
- Hedge funds are buying Bitcoin
- Private equity is building off ramps and on ramps into Bitcoin
- Search trends are increasing for Bitcoin
- More people are starting to take it seriously
- Countries like Venezuela, Iran and others are mining Bitcoin
- Family offices are starting to invest in Bitcoin
- Traditional trading apps are now trading Bitcoin
- There are now Bitcoin EFT’s and more financial products around it
So if this doesn’t qualify it as mainstream, then I don’t know what does; just because the whole world is not using it to transact doesn’t mean it’s not mainstream. How much of the world trades in South African Rands or New Zealand Dollars?
A tiny percentage, so does that make it not mainstream?
Front running institutions
Bitcoin has a unique birth in that it started in the shadows allowing others to get in before the major financial players. Banks and fintech 1.0 are slow to react, but as I mentioned, there are already early adopters.
Now that they are waking up to its potential and building out its market as more countries and companies seek exposure to this asset class, it allows us, the people, to front-run these institutions for once.
This is one of the main reasons why I feel that Bitcoin will be the greatest leveller and ability to redistribute wealth than ever before.
Having so much concentration of wealth due to fiat, we need something that is trustless, borderless and permissionless, if we are to take back value and give it back to others and spread it around a little bit more evenly.
