I don't disagree with the conclusion drawn in the OP. I would also recommend to continue a DCA-based strategy now, as I see us firmly in a bull market, even if there may more dips to follow.

However, I want to point out that the exchange holding graphs of Cryptoquant, Glassnode etc. look much more dramatic than they really are.

For example, between January 2023 and today according to Cryptoquant the exchange holdings went down from 2.2 million to 1.9 million Bitcoins. 300000 BTC less, that is a respectable number, you'll say It's the equivalent of 20.4 billion USD (at a price of 68000$ per BTC).

But this equation is wrong, because the BTC price in January 2020 was at about $20000.

So if you take the dollar value, the USD value of BTC exchange holdings went actually up, and by a lot - from 44 billion USD to 129 billion! This means exactly what it means: that you need almost three times the dollars to buy all Bitcoins on exchanges than in January 2023!

Now some will be scared a bit perhaps But that wasn't actually my intention. This is something that happens in all bull markets. But it is also one of the reasons why the volatility at the end of the bull markets is so high. For a supercycle or so, we'll need much more dramatic decreases of the exchange supply.

OK, ich ändere "unreif" in sowas wie "für größere Transaktionen wahrscheinlich noch nicht geeignet"

btw: Über die Nostr-Crypto-Economy (konkret Value4Value) bin ich vor kurzem auch gestolpert, als ich was über die CoinJoin-Plattform joinstr.xyz gesucht habe.

Ist jedenfalls ziemlich interessant, also danke für den Post zur Erinnerung Wäre vielleicht mal einen eigenen Faden hier wert.

19b-4 filings were approved just an hour or so ago.

If the S-1 filings are approved (can take weeks still), this will make the US the fourth country to have spot Ethereum ETFs, after Brazil, the UK (Bermuda), and China (Hong Kong).

Price is quiet until now, but somewhat of a pump occurred today earlier, when the SEC had already given clear hints that the approval was coming soon. I think however the ETH price in Bitcoin and the dominance could go up to 2023 levels (dominance of around 20% and BTC price of 0.006 approximately, which would be around $4000 at current Bitcoin prices). The reason for this prediction is that the ETH ETF approval means that the field would be "leveled" again between BTC and ETH as it was before the Bitcoin ETF approvals, but then Bitcoin was able to take some advantage since January which caused the dip below 0.005 in ETH/BTC price.

The 2021 ATH is however still relatively distant, at approximately $4880. I think if Bitcoin breaks its own ATH and goes over $75000, then also an ETH ATH is possible relatively soon.

Ich bezog mich da besonders auf die Diskussion rund um den "Replacement Cycle Attack". Der wurde ja zwischendurch (letztes Jahr) zeitweise als "Ende von Lightning" beschrieben. Was natürlich eine komplette Übertreibung (und wohl Clickbait) ist, aber immerhin ein theoretisches Risiko ist wohl gegeben.

Da der Angriff allerdings meines Wissens noch nie in freier Wildbahn auftrat, dürfte er so aufwändig sein, dass er sich nur bei sehr großen Lightning-Beständen/Transaktionen lohnt. Gerade deshalb sollte der "Prepaidkarten"-Use-Case nicht betroffen sein. Für längere Zeit größere Bestände nach Lightning zu "verschieben" würde mir - unabhängig von der Sinnfrage - da aber doch etwas Sorge bereiten, solange solche Schwachstellen noch nicht behoben sind.

You're correct, in most cases I think NFTs have a similar bleak "value proposition". This applies mostly to "collections" of small images with no artistic value. But at least they're unique. And that makes me understand the NFT frenzy a little bit more than the BRC-20 and Runes frenzy. There are also NFTs I could consider "art". And there are other non-artistic NFTs which can accrue value in some cases when people charge these images with symbolism. I guess that's what explains the whole Pepe frenzy or perhaps also the "Bored Apes". Basically they are a bit like collectibles.

In the case of the BRC-20/Runes tokens, however, the only thing they have as an USP is the name. And there are potentially thousands or even millions of token units ("token satoshis"). In theory, if you own one unit of a token you already get the benefit of the USP. Basically owning many of these tokens is like "Yeah, I'm rich because I'm owning 5% of the name (of a particular protocol, on a particular chain)". Of course there is also some symbolism involved like in the case of memecoins, but the analogy with "real" collectibles becomes much harder to understand.

Of course this doesn't apply to Runes/Ordinals which do have some specific purpose, like an in-game currency, or a crowdfunding mechanism.

OK, so you also can't explain the rarity of the collectibles I've mentioned. You're evading the question. If you continue this way this will be my last post on the subject, as that clearly shows your lack in understanding.

I have described well why Bitcoin satisfies people's needs, because at least in your "postal service" analogy it would be a postal service with characteristics which no other service can bring (USPs). I think you simply need to educate yourself on the concept of "platform services" and how they accrue "value". The best analogy is of course not a postal service, but a service in the information economy. A social networking service like Instagram, Facebook or X fits a bit better as an analogy: the bigger the ecosystem of people willing to enter it and use it, the bigger is the value.

The analogy is however not perfect, as in a centralized system like Facebook the operator can extract a big part of the value via advertising. But it's not the only party extracting value, for example companies/freelancers can also extract value due to its usage for marketing purposes, or to sell goods in the case of social networks with a marketplace. Something similar occurs with Bitcoin: exchanges can earn fees, merchants can sell products, people save fees using Bitcoin in comparison to Western Union or banks. So think "Facebook minus Meta". Also of course people hodling expecting future gains, but that wouldn't work if the other parts of the ecosystem weren't present. All these are reasons why people are willing to use it to store and transfer money. The "value of a Bitcoin" is, as I wrote, only the aggregate of the value which is put into the system, each Bitcoin transaction continues to be a private contract.

Just checked again, and got the same result as yesterday night.

I'm seeing several orders under the "Buy" tab. I interpret that the "Buy" tab does not show the buy orders, but instead sell orders for Runes you can buy. You can see at the right side that when you click on an order, you see a button which enables you to buy these Runes when you connect a wallet to this marketplace. So I'm sure these are sell orders.

While when I go to the "Sell" tab, then I only see the "waiting" animation and no orders appear. I'm interpreting thus that nobody placed a buy order, or publicly declared interest to buy.

Do you see the same thing or do you see lots of orders under "Sell" (which should be buy orders)?

I may reconsider my stance on that. If we can be sure that this script has basically no real use case apart from storing data, perhaps you're right and it would at least not be blocking any interesting contracts.

I wonder what the current standardness rules for Taproot scripts are in Bitcoin Core (apart from consensus rules specified in BIP-342). For P2SH there were (almost) no rules for some time, but that has changed with time. For Taproot all I can find is this handful of rules in the code (policy.cpp), related mostly to MAX_STANDARD_TAPSCRIPT_STACK_ITEM_SIZE, the control block and annexes. So the above proposed rule would be far more "detailed" and could be interpreted as "arbitrary heuristics".

There was also a proposal in the Ordinals community to store the inscriptions in the "signature annex" which was still open in February 2024. Would that also be prevented or would this be one of the methods which would lead to a bigger UTXO set? Still a bit skeptic, because if this is implemented the nonstandard rule would not bring any benefit.

Meanwhile, some Runes seems to have recovered from the recent crash and got double digit increases in the last 7 days. So I don't discard a second wave incoming. I believe it will be much "lighter" than the first one though.


Here, for example. For some reason I'm not able to see buy orders for the most popular one "Dog go to the Moon" or this one starting with "Z", only sell orders. That would confirm my prediction but it's of course also possible that the website or my browser doesn't work correctly.

Se podría esperar eso, sí. Pero: me fijé si hubo algún incremento en la actividad de Ordinals, y si bien hubo un incremento fue muy, muy leve:



Lo mismo pasa con los Runes:


Y si vemos los precios de Ordinals vemos por qué pasa eso: BRC-20 no se recupera, la gran mayoría estuvieron en rojo los últimos 7 días. Algunos Runes sin embargo se están recuperando con fuerza tras una semana muy negativa. O sea, es posible que veamos una segunda ola de congestión pronto, pero estoy seguro que será mucho más leve y débil que la del halving. Y no olvidemos que los Runes son más eficientes que BRC-20 en cuanto al espacio que ocupan (30-40% menos, estimo).

Sigo en desacuerdo en general, pero me está gustando un poco la propuesta de ABCbits de que, por defecto un cierto script (la combinacion OP_FALSE OP_IF ... OP_ENDIF) ya no se considere "estándar". Es uno que posibilita Ordinals, simplemente porque no tiene sentido (y solo sirve para almacenar datos en transacciones).

No, I don't trade the box itself. I put value inside the box, and only once the box is filled, then it can be traded (the value inside the box is traded, not the envelope). Read again the part about "Stage 2" and private contracts.

That's what describes your comment best. I think you didn't even read my post.

OK, but then explain me something: Why is a stamp or coin where a failure in the printing machine made look one character slightly different, much more valuable than a stamp/coin with the correct character? (This is actually why I brought this example up, but your understanding seems to be too limited to grasp that ...)

The reason has actually to do with "rarity", not with the "senses" you "explore" the item with. The difference can explain 99% or more of the value. This is also the case for Bitcoin. If Bitcoin was not rare it would not have a value.

If you now do another Freudian rationalization and say that "collectibles are also stupid", or "this kind of collectible is stupid" then ok. Then we simply have an opposite view about what "stupidity" is If you try to explain the price of the failed coin/stamp with something which has still to do with the "senses" the collector "explores", for example because he likes the way the failed character looks, then I believe that you still believe in the Santa Claus story that people buy these things _not_ to invest or even launder money but "because they are beautiful".

If the ETH ETFs are approved then there is a high possibility we will see also other altcoin ETFs. The reason it was delayed compared to Bitcoin wasn't that ETH is second in market cap, but the internal discussion inside SEC if PoS altcoins with premines are commodities or securities. The ETH distribution model - a premine, then PoS or perhaps a little bit of PoW too - is used by 95% of all altcoins, so if ETH is a commodity, most other alts are commodities too.

That alone could give a boost to bigger altcoins, and the Solana pump the same day Ethereum pumped was probably caused by that feeling. By market cap Solana would be the next altcoin to "merit" an ETF in the US - BNB is IMO too centralized as it's managed by a single company, Ripple probably too.

About a possible bad influence of "deep pockets" as holders: I believe in general this influence is neutral. Bitcoin for example has already some investments of "deep pockets", and that didn't prevent the developers to add privacy-relevant features like Taproot. In PoS altcoins like Ethereum there could be in theory more interference by the holders, for example regarding censorship of certain transactions. But a lot of deep pockets would have to agree for that.

Tornado cash was a tool which could be misused by criminals, but had also legitimate privacy usage.
With the same logic, you could say: "There are so many deaths due to car accidents! And cars were even used for terrorist attacks! Car manufacturers should all go jailed!"
Think again.

I don't know the absolute details from the case, but from what media reported, evidence of actual collaboration between the Tornado Cash developers and criminal groups is very thin. There were some mentions in internal communication that could be interpreted as to tolerate criminal use. But yeah ... you can "criminally use" a lot of things. For example, you can use computers and the Internet to distribute child abuse imagery. Should computer manufacturers and Internet providers also go jailed?

The only misbehaviour that could be attributed to the Tornado cash devs is that they ran the mixer as a service taking fees, and depending on the jurisdiction they were operating, they could have had to register a license for their business. But first that would never justify such a long sentence, and second Pertsev was actually not in control anymore of the service when they arrested him, as it was run by a DAO.

More on that topic is here: https://cointelegraph.com/news/tornado-cash-verdict-crypto-industry

Only hope I have is that the court where he was sentenced seemed to have been a minor provincial court, and Pertsev is appealing the sentence. A better informed judge could perhaps rule in a different way, as basic human rights are touched here.

No, it's in the Netherlands. There is another case about other developers in the US though, so you probably confused both cases. FWIW, the US protects software development as a basic right (freedom of speech). US authorities also have clarified that at least their case isn't about developing open source tools.

Ok, so let's debunk this once and for all time

Using the (a bit questionable, but serviceable) postal service analogy, we accrue value in this system in three stages.

Stage 1: Bitcoin's creation and its USPs

The "postal service" isn't just "a simple postal service". It's a postal service that has qualities no other postal service ever had. The boxes will reach the destination in about 10 minutes, no matter where in the world (=block interval). "Boxes" can never get lost because once they are accepted by the system (=confirmations) everybody knows all the time where they are (=public blockchain record), nobody can steal a box (=double spend protection) and the postal service can also not decide to reject a box just because they don't like the sender, the receiver or the value that is inside (=censorship protection). The boxes will also always (as soon as they're accepted) reach the receiver, even if the system doesn't know who the sender and the receiver is. And while once a sender blew up the post office with a "bomb" inside a box (=2010 value overflow), the post office was able to repair it instantly and in 14 years it never happened again, so we can almost safely say it won't repeat.

Stage 2: First boxes are filled

The postal service, due to the USPs named in stage 1, start to get usage when someone puts value in a box. It's important to clarify when value is put inside a box: not when someone uses Bitcoin to make a transaction, and also not when coins are mined. Mining and transacting are still "empty boxes". The system only accrues value when someone accepts the Bitcoins in exchange for something. These Bitcoins are then pegged to this "something". First, such pegs will be private contracts. The peg will only exist for the sender and the receiver. Basically, it means that once in a while the boxes will contain something. But the value is still not clear. They work like NFTs today. Let's say this was the "Pizza era" (Happy Pizza Day ) The pizza transaction was basically a number of pizzas divided into 10.000 boxes.

Stage 3: Boxes get a value (Bitcoin price)

A community begins to form around the postal service. More and more boxes are filled with value when people are accepting Bitcoin either for goods and services or for different currencies or other "assets". The community begins to publish the Stage 2 contracts on the web (=exchange sites, Coinmarketcap ...). This means that people already know what to expect when they use the postal service and how much value is approximately inside of each box. We have now an almost unified box price. And we have an ecosystem of people, companies and other groups willing to put value in the boxes (=pay fiat/sell a good or service for Bitcoin).

What's now exactly inside the box (A box is 1 BTC)?

It's actually not that simple. I would describe it as "the 21 millionth part of the ecosystem" described in Stage 3. If this ecosystem is large enough, then the single box can be valued at $70000. But if the ecosystem shrinks or grows, then the value can also shrink or grow.

You'll say that this value can never be calculated? And why is it so volatile?

First, in the fiat system the value is also not fixed. Let's say a bank creates a loan of $100 and the Central Bank's issues a 100 dollar bill. But one week later speculation makes the currency's value go down. What's now inside the 100 dollar bill? A smaller part of the loan of the bank? Just like fiat, the "box value" can also change with speculation. It can even go to near-zero like in countries like Argentina.

Second, the volatility is just the consequence of the difficult calculation. As we don't know how much value is in the whole ecosystem, we use hints. For example, when the ETFs were approved, people were expecting the ecosystem to grow because new investor classes (US institutional investors) was able to put value in the boxes. This was a hint causing people to value of the boxes no longer $30-40k but instead $50-70k.

So even if the question "what's Bitcoin's value?" is not very simple to answer, there is actually also nothing very mysterious.

@OP: How would you describe collectibles in your system (e.g. coins and bills which are worth lots of $ due to a failure of the printing/minting machine in the numismatic community, stamps, art ...)? Their nature can actually be described in a similar way. But only Bitcoin has "Stage 1", i.e. a real set of advantages over other asset classes.

Glaube ich eher nicht, siehe diesen Artikel. Es könnte noch Wochen oder Monate dauern, bis auch die S1-Formulare durch sind. Aber dann kommen die US-Ether ETFs natürlich auch in diese Liste

Ich bin aber dann wirklich gespannt wo die in den USA die Grenze zwischen "commodity" und "security" genau gezogen wird. Anscheinend scheint einiges darauf hinzudeuten, dass "gestakte Coins" (nicht PoS-Coins allgemein, sondern PoS-Coins, die aktiv gestakt werden) als Securities bewertet werden sollen, während Coins, die nicht gestakt werden (möglicherweise auch solche, die privat gestaked werden, also außerhalb von Crypto-Plattformen) als "commodities" durchgehen werden.

Staking ist sowieso bei ETFs ein Thema für sich. Der oben verlinkte Artikel spricht davon: Wenn die ETF-Anbieter staken würden, gäbe es immerhin ein minimales Risiko, dass irgendwann Funds "geslasht" werden, weil man die falsche Blockchain-Spitze gewählt hat. Wer hätte dann dieses Risiko zu verantworten? Spot ETFs sind ja Sondervermögen. Ich kann mir vorstellen, dass wegen dieser Frage der Fidelity-Vorschlag für einen Staking-ETF abgelehnt wurde und daher Staking in den upgedateten Vorschlag rausgenommen wurde.

Ein Spot-ETF für einen PoS-Coin ohne Staking würde aber strukturell "underperformen" gegenüber einem Produkt, das staken darf, wie z.B: Ether selbst (oder ETPs, bei denen das Risiko beim Unternehmen liegt) ...

Übrigens: Falls jemand Quellen kennt, wo die Inflows/Outflows/AUMs der hier genannten Altcoinprodukte als Charts dargestellt werden, sind diese gern gesehen.

---

Update 23/5: 19b-4's für die US-Ether-ETFs sind durch, sobald die S-1's durch sind kommen sie in die Liste. Nachgetragen habe ich noch einen Ether ETF in Bermuda (Hashdex) und den inzwischen tradenden Dogecoin-Future auf Coinbase in den USA.

Seems there won't be any staking, see this article about the last Fidelity upgrade.

In the article they mention that staking may introduce additional risks because funds could in theory get slashed. If I'm drawing the correct conclusions, this means that a "spot ETF" and "staking" are generally not compatible (at least in the US).

I'd like to add a point to this discussion, because I disagree a little bit with you both.

In general I think the use case to fund a company with a premined token, be it on Bitcoin (less recommendable, but I could see some reasons for Bitcoin-specific apps) or on Ethereum or whatever, is not bad per se. It's often hard for companies to get fresh money when they start, above all in parts of the world where loans are not easy to obtain, and the opportunity to create something similar to a "share" on a crypto platform can actually make sense. Above all of course for crypto-related projects, but not only for them.

Cryptocurrencies still are bad for handling the "lending" use case: If you lend BTC to someone and the BTC price spikes or takes a dip, then one of both parties will get an extra benefit. Thus "lending" is mainly a thing in DeFi protocols where people basically use that to leverage trading between different shitcoins, but you wouldn't use a BTC lending platform for a credit to build your house, or to fund your company.

Tokens, on the other hand, are one way to manage "lending" for projects, because this allows them to offer a "value" independent from the volatility of existing cryptocurrencies. Of course the "cleanest" way to do that is to create an utility token which can be traded 1=1 for a service they provide. But sometimes this is not possible in the early stages. But in general, I think this instrument can be handled in a correct way.

But of course @buwaytress you are right about the impression that several of these project searched for a problem what didnt't exist. And some of course were - and still are - outright scams. The challenge is of course: how can investors be protected from that? For some it's like gambling, I think those investing in meme tokens know exactly what they can lose. But some get scammed by projects which look "serious".

Perhaps some kind of "transparency standard" for serious token projects could be elaborated, e.g. with voluntary "quarterly reports", a "prospectus" and so on (no, a "roadmap" is not enough ). In some jurisdictions I know this is actually already mandatory for security tokens (including EU from July on), but I think projects from other countries should embrace this kind of transparency too.

I would not be happy with such a direct blocking, but I think I made my point clear already in other threads.

Of course projects using BRC-20 could now simply switch to Runes (as they could have done before to platforms like OpenAssets, Counterparty, RGB ...). But I think it's better to simply let BRC-20 die alone. I don't discard there could be some waves still but judging from what we've seen in the past weeks since the halving they will be much smaller and do no harm.

Such a measure would be considered arbitrary if there was no technical reason other to block a standard some do not like. Include me of course among those that don't like BRC-20 , but I think Bitcoin never should target any standard, only real vulnerabilities. So I personally would only support such a "direct block" if the OP_FALSE / OP_IF -> OP_ENDIF combination is really technically dangerous, allowing really malicious scripts, but is that a thing in Bitcoin Script? (I'm not knowledgeable enough to answer this question, but IMO the harm which can be done only is related to that the script size limit can be circunvented).

AFAIK from what I have read in the developer mailing list they don't consider this script to be a "bug" which should be "fixed". Except Luke-Jr, of course, but I think with his datacarriersize method he implemented in Bitcoin Knots, he found a reasonable way for nodes to block Ordinals as "data transactions" if they don't want to relay them.

Possibly you're right. What I fear is however that with such a measure you could paradoxically help BRC-20 to keep alive; they could find a way to transact them with a method not including an Inscription. And those having created them in 2023 and early would feel rewarded to be in possession of such "rare" objects. It's only a bad feeling I have, of course it's not sure if this will happen.

For me personally, Runes as a technology isn't that stupid. In the OP I'm referring more to the model to create a token whose only value lies in having a "creative name" and which can then be "minted" by anyone.

But Runes can also be used for things that make more sense, of course, like as a game currency, or as a crowdfunding platform. However, it would not make so much sense to create this kind of currency on Bitcoin due to the fees. The "magic" of Runes is much related to the same (imo stupid) "value proposition" than in BRC-20: having a "valuable" token on the "OG" Bitcoin blockchain. Very much like a NFT, but in a minimally fungible way.

By the way, Runes could be probably transferred via LN if their protocol includes timelocks and hashlocks. I don't know the protocol in detail however. This is something which can be added but adds some complexity to the algorithm (basically they need either a hard-coded way to do those locks or an own "Script language").

There will be still a lot of snake oil, but my hope is that it wouldn't again concentrate on the Bitcoin chain, at least not on mainchain. Between 2014 (Counterparty/Omni wave) and 2023 (BRC-20 wave) there was a 9 year stretch where token projects weren't popular at all on the Bitcoin platform. And with good reasons: With the exception of a little extra security there is almost no reason not to use a blockchain like Ethereum or Solana - or even LTC or Doge - for a token project.

At least I wouldn't oppose thinking now about limiting the script size to the same value as for non-Taproot scripts.

A potential side effect however could be that the bigger Ordinals get more "rare" then as it would be difficult to create new ones. This could potentially generate another hype, although at least the blockchains wouldn't suffer that much because basically only transfers would happening. The problem is if miners cooperate with Ordinals firms, to launch even "more rare" collections.

I think you're too optimistic here still. Even relatively "well-made" altcoins lose often 90% in a "crypto-winter" style bear market. ORDI lost already 50%, in the middle of a bull market.

This is why it surprises me that we already see such a big decline. I seriously thought Runes hype would last a little longer. Of course they have not disappeared and still there is significant minting/etching, but the difference to BRC-20, where the initial wave didn't end until at least 6 months later is striking.

Wollte dazu noch schreiben, dass Planstädte in Lateinamerika auch in jüngster Vergangenheit nichts Ungewöhnliches sind. Ältere Beispiele wie Brasília (ca. 1960) kennt ja jeder, vielleicht noch jemand Ciudad Guayana (1980er Jahre) in Venezuela. Aber in etwas kleinerem Maßstab gibt es auch in den letzten 20 Jahren noch einige, z.B. La Punta in Argentinien (2004). Daher halte ich die Bitcoin City nicht für unrealistisch. Auch wenn die Staatskassen oft klamm sind: In vielen Ländern hält der Staat größere Ländereien, die oft für neue Sozialwohnungsviertel verwendet werden, also kann einfach auch mal ein Architekt mit einem etwas ungewöhnlicheren Bebauungsplan betraut werden ...

Wo ich mir aber fast sicher bin ist dass sie weit weniger futuristisch aussehen wird als auf den Renderings. Den Bitcoin-Kreisel und die kreisförmige Gestaltung insgesamt kann ich mir aber gut vorstellen. Solche Designs gibt es in Lateinamerika auch ab und zu, z.B. der Stadtteil Colonia Federal in Mexico City oder ein neueres Beispiel, Mapu Ngefu, eine Vorstadt von Puerto Madryn (Argentinien).

Wirkliche News zu Bitcoin City scheint es leider derzeit aber nicht zu geben.

Eine Aktualisierung zum möglichen Chivo-Wallet-Desaster: Die Regierung hat vor einiger Zeit dementiert, dass das Datenleck mit Chivo zu tun hat. Von einigen Seiten wurde stattdessen eine Impfdatenbank verantwortlich gemacht. Der Chivo-Code dagegen stamme aus einem Geldautomaten. Dies wurde allerdings dann wieder von einem Sicherheitsexperten auf X bezweifelt, der angab, dass die geleakten Daten mit den KYC-Registrierungsdaten von Chivo übereinstimmen. Also was wirklich geschah, ist bisher unklar (diskutiert wurde das Thema natürlich im spanischen Unterforum).

Fair enough I was more or less focusing on the technical side, and both forums and social networks and video-sharing platforms are simply "aggregators of public HTML messages". There are some differences of course, and as you point out, there may be different kinds of usage. But at least X (Twitter), Reddit and Facebook, for me, are forums.

Anonymity is a feature of many forums but not all. I don't remember concrete examples now, but I have seen forums (more in the 00s and 10s) that had implemented a "real name" policy, even if otherwise they looked like your standard phpBB instance.

And even the "written-only" requirement can be challenged. The user who has the highest post count on Bitcointalk is ChartBuddy, a bot who only posts images

Anyway, I don't want to insist on that. The point here was to discuss the possibility to create a decentralized version of Bitcointalk if theymos wasn't able to continue to run the forum. And I think in this case, a forum with anonymous accounts would make most sense, because of the privacy-friendly nature of the Bitcoin community. I don't think that this would be a requirement stopping people to join because it's a "thing of the past". But I could see many features from Steemit, but also from X or Facebook enrich this hypothetical post-Bitcointalk forum to make it even more comfortble to use. Steemit was also anonymous and mostly focused on the "written word".

I also think such a hypothetical post-bitcointalk decentralized forum would have to find a way to preserve at least some parts of Bitcointalk, particularly the era before 2014, for the reasons mentioned by @JollyGood (historical significance).