So far none of the blockchain/crypto/nft games has proven to be successful because the gameplay is always garbage, plus gamers have shown zero interest in crypto and in general scoff at it, as evident by the complete failure of major gaming companies like Ubisoft or EA to integrate blockchain technologies in their games.

There are different types of adoption. It certainly hurts Bitcoin's viability as an online currency for purchases. Although 10 minutes to get at least 1 confirmation is another major problem for that. But for investing, which is I believe is the most common use case of Bitcoin, high fee doesn't matter as much if it represents fractions of percent of your investment. But even for small investors who invest like a $1,000 paying $20 fee is still worth it because they could double their money if they invest before the bull run.

Do you believe that a lot of investors panic sold their stashes that they prepared for the big post-halvening bull run? Because I believe that 90% of all trades are done by day traders who try to profit from all movements, all media narratives, be it positive or negative. If they are selling it's because they are shorting and plan to buy back later.

You don't necessarily have to be cheaper to succeed, though it is necessary to capture the widest possible audience. But even expensive things can be successful if there's demand for them, due to some other property compensating for the high price.


And this is the big reason why people aren't switching to Bitcoin - banks work quite well for them, so there's no incentive to change anything.

It may sound like the stupid masses were refusing to see Internets potential, but what actually happened is that the Internet was prohibitively expensive, the monthly subscription costed like $500 or $1,000 per month, which was way more in today's money; and the Internet was slow and not as full of organized content as it is today. If the Internet never progressed and stayed at that state, it would be very popular today.

So the actual analogy with Bitcoin is that Bitcoin won't get mass adoption unless transactions because nearly instant and with zero fees. Like what banks offer today.

Spikes are always a possibility, but how many people will capitalize on that? How many people sold at $69K 2 years ago? Almost everyone didn't, because people set a price target for themselves that was too high - $100k, $250k, etc. They listened to the likes of Saylor who hyped those ranges and instead missed out on a great deal, espcially if they bought back in the bear market.

Addiction is not the right word here, because owning Bitcoin is a passive process. But it certainly possible to have an unhealthy obsession with Bitcoin, just like you can have one with anything in this world. Basically, if you or people around notice that your Bitcoin activity is negatively impacting your life and your relationships, that's a warning that you might need to rethink your choices.

My guesstimate would be assuming that an average user has coins in 5 different addresses, so just divide by that the current number of traanctions with sufficient balance, like at least $100. That's like 5-20 million users. But then there are also people who store their coins on exchange, and some don't even have a wallet and store all their coinse there. But you are getting the idea - there are tens of millions of users.

It's not a problem for those who rarely make transactions and just hold Bitcoin. I wouldn't mind paying a $50 or $100 fee when I will be taking tens of thousands of dollars in profit. It's actually a paradox to say that Bitcoin is failing because fees are high - it's a sign that it's actually very popular. Even if now ordinals are spamming the network, still a lot of users are making real economic transactions and are willing to pay high fees.

Bitcoin is still decentralized, that's what matters the most. If it scarificed being peer-to-peer for the sake of better usability as a currency, it would have just become another centralized payment system. There is still a chance that some developer will find a clever way how to get more transactions without any drawbacks for decentralization. If that will happen then we'll be able to say that Bitcoin is fully following Satoshi's vision, right now we can say that it follows the most important parts.

You don't really need to educate anyone, people will see it for themselves. Bitcoin has been proclaimed dead hundreds of times, every bear market is being called "a crash" as if it was a big deal, and yet Bitcoin is still strong and still growing. Each day someone new decides to invest in Bitcoin for long term, and that's already a good result.

People often become victims of scammers because scammers manage to gain their trust. They might offer an earning opportunity and actually pay good earnings at the early stage to convince people that it's legit, only to scam them as soon as they invest decent money. They are also typically good at communication - very polite, charming, etc.

So, it's easy to say to not trust people, but the whole point of scams is winning the trust.

The masses don't need blockchain technology, they need products that are easy to use and give people something that they need. Cryptocurrencies are far from easy to use and they actually don't solve problems that people typically encounter every day. When crypto enthusiasts tell people that crypto is money that can not be seized by government, most people don't see the appeal because their money have never been seized by the government and banks never froze their accounts.

If we apply the previous pattern, it's possible to reach and surpass the ATH by the end of they year. But simply extrapolating the past into the future is never going to work all the time, it's also important to think deeper and analyze the conditions and mechanisms. I believe that the growth will be slower and slower with each halvening because majority of the coins has been already mined, so halving an already small number won't change much. Miners don't have as much selling pressure as they did in early days. So it's also quite possible that the price won't touch the ATH in 2024 and the peak of the next bull run will be not much higher than the previous one, maybe it won't even surpass $100k.

Bitcoin is not a replacement for anything because it's its own asset class. It has different fundamentals that are unique and are not like any other asset, so it makes no sense to talk about Bitcoin investment instead of other type of investment. People with sufficient wealth should strive to obtain a diversified portfolio and the proportion of Bitcoin in this portfolio depends on risk tolerance.

You buy Bitcoin, you wait until goes higher than your buy price and sell it - you might have to endure an unrealized loss, but as long as it's unrealized you should have no problems and never actually lose anything. The problem is that many newbies get too greedy and engage in high risk activities like altcoin trading, or even Bitcoin day trading, especially with high leverage and derivatives. That's were it get's easy to lose big and lose quick. Don't do that, be a long-term investor.

There's another way to get into Bitcoin - a lump sum investment. This is for those who have a lot of money or wants to liquidate other assets and invest in Bitcoin. For them there's no reason to buy Bitcoin slowly unless it's in a bear market and the price is expected to keep falling. But we are in a bull market so it's impoartnt to get coin asap and maybe even be ready to sell them soon and buy back after the new bear market starts.

I have already lived through two bull markets, and during my first one I didn't sell a single Satoshi because I didn't believe that the ATH is an ATH, I thought there's still a lot more steam left, so when the bear market started I just kept hodling. But on my second time I was selling as the price was growing and had an average sell price of $50K - I sold enough coins to achieve an important goal and I don't regret it. This bull market I will again sell coins and use the profits to invest in other assets, because keeping all eggs in one basket is never a good idea. And if Bitcoin will one day be worth $1 million I won't regret selling it before that, because I'm not greedy and don't really need so much money to live comfortably - I'd rather take the maybe smaller profit instead of risking it all for more.

The only way there's too little transactions to sustain the sufficient level of hashrate is if Bitcoin becomes unpopular and falls into obscurity. ETF just can't put all coins into centralized hands, and there will still be a lot of activity on the network regardless if it will be private users or institutions. The current fee spikes caused by ordianals is just a glimbpse of what will come when there will be more players on the market with deep pockets, because they will come with increased on-chain activity.

10 years ago a lot of people believed that in 10 years Bitcoin will replace banks and there will be mass adoption. I think it was more realistic to expect mass adoption when a lot of people still didn't know about Bitcoin, but now we see that they know and don't want it. And the idea that a lot of people will suddenly change their mind is not realistic, something needs to happen to make them do it, and what could that be? I doubt that a global economic crisis would be good for Bitcoin, looking at the past it seems like Bitcoin is among the first assets to be dumped in such scenarios.