But all ETFs are necessarily centralized, so what could "decentralized" possibly mean in the context of somebody buying shares of an ETF?

Um, you understand that if Bitcoin is "left alone" by investors, it goes... down in price, not up, right? 

In a sense, you just made my point for me: that the ETF will introduce Bitcoin to millions of mainstream investors, who will just view it as another instrument whose job is solely to go up in price, and they aren't going to find any meaning behind it when except that it is not any more "private" or "decentralized" than any other ETF they buy from their licensed brokerage.

And I don't know how much more I can say to "prove" that Bitcoin is not effectively decentralized for almost all of its users except to say that nobody I've ever known personally who has invested in Bitcoin or other cryptos actually physically hold their own private keys. They all use it through some app or brokerage like CoinBase, which means it's no different than their bank account.

Put it this way, if everybody who currently holds positions in Bitcoin and don't physically hold their private keys "left it alone"--in other words, sold their positions--then the price of Bitcoin would probably drop by a factor of about a thousand...

The fact that ETFs exist doesn't change anything.  Outsiders choosing to make bets on Bitcoin doesn't suddenly change what it is.  It's exactly the same thing as it has always been.  



Markets don't need a "story".  



Somehow I find it hard to believe you don't already know the answer to that.  



Meet smarter people, then.  I would say maybe you'll learn something, but you seem to enjoy performing a routine where you pretend not to understand these things.

In the whitepaper, Bitcoin is not an investment asset. Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. I think that is very clear before reading the entire contents of the Bitcoin whitepaper which consists of introduction, transactions and conclusions. Or simply by reading the abstract, we will know that Bitcoin is not an investment asset. Investment assets are uses made by users because Bitcoin can and is proven to be a hedge.

The price fluctuates, it's true. If you are afraid that Bitcoin will drop in price, I don't have an answer because when it first appeared on the market, Bitcoin did not have a price like now which is almost $44K. I didn't mention the previous ATH price that Bitcoin has ever reached.

There is no real need to be afraid of the Bitcoin price because 1 BTC = 1 BTC.
If cashed in with fiat then 1 BTC = different currency prices for each country.
Regarding political agendas, that is not my expertise because I am not interested in politics.

Yes, that's true. But lots of technologies were made for one reason only to be used for another reason.

Bitcoin is simply not viable as a mainstream means of payment. There's no chance it can scale to even 1/10,000 of the price-performance necessary to take on worldwide credit card volume for instance.

Today, in actual fact, Bitcoin is used mostly as an investment asset, and it offers no advantages over other technologies for any other purpose.

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Yes, but here's the thing: these are the people Bitcoin needs in order to be accepted as a mainstream investment option. This is the whole point of my OP. You can deride the "dumb dumbs" all you want, but if you scare their money away, the price of Bitcoin will likely go down.

In other words, if most people's first impression of Bitcoin is that you have to believe in a bunch of technical concepts that don't apply to their everyday lives in any way in order to see the value, then that's going to leave them with a negative impression.


Well, if you ask most mainstream people, I think it would be the exact opposite: they don't want their entire life savings held in some iPhone they could accidentally drop into a landfill. They like the idea that their life savings is secured in a financial institution that is based on their identity as a person.

Most people only keep a tiny faction of their total wealth in their physical wallet on their own person.


I am talking here of using blockchain as a technology architecture to solve real problems, e.g. the way technologies like RDBMS's solve problems, or cloud computing solves problems, or other new architectures solve problems.

And the point about the Fed inflating the US dollar is circular reasoning: you are saying that Bitcoin will outperform the US dollar because... Bitcoin will outperform the US dollar. Maybe it will, or maybe it won't. Maybe it will lose half of its value in the next six months (like it did 24 months ago for instance), and maybe it will double in price. But in that context, bringing up the inflation of the US dollar--which peaked at something like 10% annually in the worst part of the pandemic recovery--seems pretty paltry in comparison.

And absolutely any investment instrument from stocks to bonds to pork bellies can be used to hedge against the US dollar, so Bitcoin is not exactly unique in that regard.



[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

I never claimed either of those things. Obviously Bitcoin solves a strong consumer need, which is why it has been bid up to the value it has.

I also never made any claim that institutional investors would particularly care one way or another about blockchain technology.

I did claim--and I stand by this--that the ETF and the resultant interest by consumers, and therefore the resultant interest by institutional investors, could affect the price, and I made an argument here that the result could be downward pressure on the price for the reasons I listed.


I'll take these one at a time.

First, bank bailouts. There has already been several instances of the government intervening in crypto concerns in order to protect consumers, e.g. FTX. You might say, "but you technically don't need to use an institution to invest in Bitcoin", but most consumers don't invest that way nor do they want to.

This has been my thesis here all along: most consumers do not want to hide their life savings under a mattress, or in their iPhone. They want an institutional account that is protected based on their personal identity. Hence most average consumer investors in Bitcoin and other cryptos don't pay attention to the "decentralized" mythos of Bitcoin at all and instead just see it as a meme to invest in.

If the "OG" Bitcoin community here wants to kick these people out, then do that--but guess what will happen to the price of Bitcoin et. al. when all of those consumers are kicked out? That's my thesis here.

As for inflation, both USD and BTC are investment instruments, as is gold, land, bonds, soybean futures and so on. To say that your new investment instrument "solves" inflation is circular reasoning: you are essentially promising the price of Bitcoin will go up in value compared to the value of USD, which is a promise nobody can make.

And let's get real here: no investment advisor in the world would tell somebody to put their life savings in Bitcoin--instead of, say, land--in order to hedge against the US Dollar. Bitcoin and other cryptos are speculative, volatile investment instruments which may or may not go up in value.

As for "censorship", what you are actually talking about here is allowing citizens to engage in illegal activity. I am quite sympathetic to those living under terrible governments who need protection from corruption, and I'd wish them every tool at their disposal to save themselves. But if you are saying it's really "terrible" that American citizens can't trade with Russia right now, suffice it to say that the majority of our elected representatives don't agree with you right now, and the solution is to go through the democratic process, not go against your own government.

And for what it's worth, Bitcoin is a public ledger so Bitcoin itself (as opposed to say Monero) is not a good example of that use case. Based on the difference in market cap between Bitcoin and Monero, I would surmise that most consumers don't care about that level of anonymity--they mostly want to keep their purchases from marketers, their friends and spouse, or from incompetent storefronts who would leak their personal data to criminals. That level of anonymity is given to you by Monero (or other cryptos if you engage in complicated tradecraft), but it's also given to you by non-blockchain digital currencies ala Haypenny, which is far easier for consumers to work with.

Yes, and names can be very valuable. Ask Gucci or Nike or any major sports team. Bitcoin has a brand that's worth hundreds of billions. I never said nor meant to imply that Bitcoin is "worthless".



The limited supply trait is extremely important, I agree. And yes, people see value in something that cannot inflate.



I completely agree that "legal" and "moral" are two different things, and I tried to caveat that in my post.

That said, if you are relying on cryptocurrencies to get you out of the thrall of a government that really wants to get you, you are in a precarious state regardless. An evil dictator could make using crypto a crime, and then send out thousands of honey pots all over the Internet to catch his prey, and effectively outlaw Bitcoin because people would be rightfully terrified to try using it (to take just one example off the top of my head). You might be able to stay safe if its some small government somewhere, but if its the USA, well, forget it. We're in big big trouble if it's the US government that falls to tyranny, and neither Bitcoin nor any other technology would keep anybody safe...