Based on history, you can assert that nobody needs bitcoin; however, we are living in a new world in which the computer and the internet has become a staple of modern human living. Within these modern changes, bitcoin has the potential to serve a very central role in terms of individual sovereignty and ability to control some of his/her value holdings and transfers.
You may be having difficulties understanding any "need for bitcoin" because you are trying to downplay the importance of modern living and perhaps you envision a world without modern communications.... perhaps a world in which gold and silver has a role, but since we are moving to a different kind of world and bitcoin has accomplished a kind of paradigm shift in what it is able to provide and likely to provide, you are deluded into thinking that no one needs it, merely because it had not existed before 2009, and really, has not achieved, so far, any kind of significant levels of adoption.
So, yeah, currently, we have a world in which less than 1% of the world has adopted bitcoin in any kind of tangible way, and that level of adoption still remains quite superficial. Part of the reason to invest into bitcoin continues to be recognizing a vision in which its adoption increases and also it's value and utility will increase along with that. If you do not hedge into bitcoin in any kind of way, then you will merely have to run after this bitcoin train at a higher price...
Nice write up, merited.
I wonder a little what would happen if a major bitcoin adoption happens through a gigantic LN hub, made by Square, or a few hubs like this.
Perhaps, Square is waiting on bakkt to become operational for the seamless exchange of $ (and other fiat) and bitcoin.
It is possible, but not very likely (considering the the fact that J. Dorsey "likes" bitcoin) that companies like Square will use btc (in LN form) as an underlying transactional mechanism, yet the user would not notice that they actually use bitcoin. In my opinion, this would be detrimental to the cause.
I still think that prioritizing the use of bitcoin in saving/store of value is likelier to result in bitcoin becoming that first (instead of being a transactional unit).
Of course, I agree with the importance of the storage of value aspect of bitcoin, even if there continues to be relatively short term periods of volatility (up to 5 years, even) in which bitcoin's storage of value is questioned.
Personally, I don't find transactional use cases to be really detrimental to bitcoin's cause, whether individuals are using their own BTC to transact or whether institutions are using BTC in the background to transmit. Either way, additional demand is placed on bitcoin. Overall, if any person(s) ate either attempting to claim that they are a BTC HODLer and accumulator, then they should be replacing any BTC that they spend in a reasonably timely manner (let's say within weeks of their sale of some of their BTC).
Most of us HODLers participating in this thread likely recognize, already, that some of the value gravitation towards bitcoin could take a long ass time to play out. Of course, many of us would like to rush such value gravitation towards bitcoin in order that we are able to personally benefit more quickly and to even remove ourselves from aspects of the ratt race.
Furthermore, there may be some of us, such as myself, who feel that BTC has already sufficiently caused enough marginal personal value to remove me from the ratt race, even when only a portion of my value was placed into BTC, but BTC's price appreciation has been enough to cause a meaningful difference and cushion. Of course, such cushion felt way better in the supra $10k price territories than it does in these current mid $3k price territories.
Even if some WO HODLers have not gotten to a stage in which their HODLings allows them to comfortably remove themselves from the ratt race, keeping on accumulating or at least HODLing what you got is likely going to bring such increasing abilities for more and more of us to remove ourselves. That is the continued likely gravitation of value into BTC, and surely guys and gal here, would prefer scenarios of achieving such victories in less than 2 years, two years does seem to be a decently likely good timeline, too, but mentally and financially, this category of peeps should be prepared that the scenario could take longer to play out - but anyone with a BTC investing time preference of 5-10 years in the future has really decent odds of such time preference to pay off decently handsomely by continuing to HODL and accumulate BTC.
My long way of saying that BTC is likely going to take over both storage of value talking points and transactional talking points, even though there is also likely going to be a variety of distracting other projects and coins out there, including ongoing shilling of PMs that are losing some of their relative (compared to bitcoin - namely divisibility, portability, verification) use cases in the modern world.
Thanks for the merit, by the way.
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