Bitcoin Eats the World, or Not

[dnprock]

Original post: https://bitflate.org/post/2019/08/24/bitcoin-eats-the-world-or-not.html

There is a vision of Bitcoin where it would gobble up all assets in the world. Eventually, everything would be tokenized into bitcoins. First, Bitcoin would eat up currencies. Then, equities, then real estates. There are strong supporters of this vision.

Can this vision become true? I believe it would NOT happen. Such future would be a dystopia. When everything is pegged into 21 million bitcoins, we would all be slaves to the bitcoin owners. It’s also likely some would use violence to seize bitcoins from others.

Bitcoin is Financial Freedom, not Slavery

There are only 21 million bitcoins. How can billions of people on this planet acquire bitcoins? Bitcoin ownership is also known to be heavily concentrated. If I believe that Bitcoin would eat up everything, why should I ever give up my bitcoins? Many bitcoin owners believe in this vision. They are holding on to their bitcoins.

It is a tug of war. Bitcoin owners try to convince everyone else of Bitcoin world domination. Everyone else tries to resist this vision. Even when you jump ship, you quickly realize that there are people who own more bitcoins than you. Such vision creates a divided world: bitcoin owners versus everyone else.

Instead of locking our minds into Bitcoin world domination, we should think of Bitcoin as a new financial option. It is a new investment category, Store of Value, a new kind of financial freedom. As bitcoin owners, we invite people to examine bitcoin properties and potential.

Saving versus Spending

Some people advise to put all money into bitcoins. That is the form of saving and investment. When you need to spend money on something, you convert the corresponding amount of bitcoins to spend. Upcoming multi-sig wallet would enable more security for this scenario.

I don’t think this scenario would happen. We cannot constantly calculate pro and con of converting our investments. It is wise to directly deduct pay checks for retirement saving. Too many financial decisions often leads to worse result. Human brain needs separation between saving versus spending. We have several store of values: equity investment and real estate. Brokerages and banks are happy to provide us financial products to take out money from our assets. But it is often unwise to follow these advice. They only make money for brokerages and banks, not us.

Bitcoin is a Store of Value

Bitcoin is a fairly good store of value. It is decentralized, has network effect, not controlled by government entity. We can make a choice of investing a small amount of saving into this new Store of Value. It is a new type of financial freedom. The Lindy effect makes Bitcoin more likely to survive. But the Lindy effect likely makes Bitcoin remain a Store of Value. That is still an exciting future. We will have new financial options to choose.

PS: Don’t let excitement fool you. Beware of financial frauds.

[putukin]

I do not think that Bitcoin will be able to eat up all the organizations and currencies in the world. It takes decades to replace the fiat and decentralized world, and Bitcoin is unlikely to do so. However, in my opinion, what should change the world will base on the Blockchain

[antisocial77]

Nonsense.the worst article i have ever read.he doesnt know how world running is or he is trying to speculate.but i dont think that anyone pay attention.

[bitbunnny]

This article has no touch with reality. Bitcoin will not consume or replace anything, especially not the fiat currencies. The author of the article shows some utopia that is never going to happen and it certainly wouldn't be good if it did.

[DooMAD]

There is a vision of Bitcoin where it would gobble up all assets in the world.  Eventually, everything would be tokenized into bitcoins.

This has certainly been a popular thought over the years, but it's one of those things that hasn't really come to fruition.  The problem, as is often the case, boils down to trust.  The moment your BTC represents an asset that some individual or company is supposedly holding, how do you trust that person/organisation?  How do you know they've still got the asset and they haven't sold it on?  It's something we haven't quite solved yet.  From my standpoint, it seems like something for future generations to figure out, since I don't see us finding the answer any time soon.

[Ucy]

Nice post.

There is a vision of Bitcoin where it would gobble up all assets in the world.

Where did you find this vision if I may ask?
 Well, I do not see how Bitcoin was made to gobble up all assets. Funds will always flow in and out of Bitcoin if it's mostly a Store of Value and its deflationary model remains.
We should be able to spend Bitcoin peer-to-peer though. Spending should make up at least 20% of total Bitcoin transactions.

I agree on the part on Store of Value.

[romero121]

In the article itself it is briefed about the multiple usage starting from investment to store of value. With each and everything there will be good as well as bad. With bitcoin the 21 million supply is termed to be the factor that creates the demand leading to the rise in price. This is being attributed as a way of making the common people without bitcoin as slaves. As the network is completely moving on trust, we cannot conclude on this statement.

If slavery is attributed to the limited supply, then from my perspective what each and every corporate networks were doing is pure slavery. Because when you look at their vision and the way they function goes completely on two different tracks.

[DooMAD]

There is a vision of Bitcoin where it would gobble up all assets in the world.

Where did you find this vision if I may ask?
 Well, I do not see how Bitcoin was made to gobble up all assets.

I don't know how many people have phrased it in quite that way before, but many people, like Andreas Antonopoulos, for example, have popularised phrases like:

Money is just the first application

and that Bitcoin was going to be used to underpin all manner of other assets, including physical ones.  It can theoretically do that, but no one is having much success at actually making it happen at the moment.

[gentlemand]

Though it feels outlandish, imagine a Bitcoin a few years down the line where enough people do have more belief in it than any other asset.

The dollar is still the most desired monetary unit in the world. Despite that it's on an unbreakable trajectory to worthlessness and always will be. That's how it's been designed.

If there was something else you could spend anywhere in the world that was on the totally opposite trajectory, why the hell would you want a dollar any more? If you wanted to preserve wealth why would you choose a stock that has its value based on the fortunes of one single company that you can only sell on one market open a few hours a day?

As long as there are governments there'll be fiat, but I think world eating is a possibility. Perhaps some day people will complain about having to convert their BTC to dollars to pay taxes. I've already reached that stage myself. I begrudgingly let go of BTC if I need the occasional necessity but I'd much rather not do it.

It may not be a very healthy or happy world but greed is the most powerful motivation out there.

[Janation]

I don't think Bitcoin will ever replace anything.

Even though the price of Bitcoin continues to pump in the future, I don't think it would be the case where everything we buy and we pay, we always include Bitcoin in it. Bitcoin will stay as it is in the future, the only thing I am seeing different in that future is that Bitcoin will be developed at that time and obviously, it's price.

[Jo1992]

Bitcoin is finate. Meaning once 1 person has it all. Everyone else has nothing at all. That's not freedom. The more of a sole comodety one has the more power to his monopoly.

[Leo Twin]

I used to buy into all of this maxi propaganda. It's nonsense.

Like all things, Bitcoin will have its place in the world, but it will not become everything.

[dnprock]

OP author here. I don't believe Bitcoin would gobble up all other assets. But I think it'd be an viable Store of Value.

Spending should make up at least 20% of total Bitcoin transactions.

I think spending for small transactions would not be common. Bitcoin is used for transferring between different stores of value (e.g. bitcoin and real estate).

[Kakmakr]

Bitcoin has always been developed to serve as a alternative payment option and not to disrupt all other financial payment networks. So, if Banks and PayPal are exploiting their customers, then Bitcoin would offer them an alternative payment option. People should have a choice between more than one option that are forced on them by their government.

People will chose the payment option that suites their need and if that need is total financial freedom, then Bitcoin would be there to fill that need. The moments when Bitcoin start to "replace" or "disrupt" these systems, then you will get a push back and resistance from centralized services that are backed by the government and they will use that to "ban" Bitcoin. 

[Nadziratel]

If there's something Bitcoin eats, it can only be energy. I don't think there is any consumption other than bitcoin energy consumption.

[BIN-BIN]

I know for sure that bitcoin is going to become the mainstream of the economic sector of the world, but to say bitcoin is going to eat up all aspect of our financial and investment sector is not realistic at all.

[Zicadis]

I've read this before and this is just an idealized hypothesis that they use to sell you on the concept of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a whole.
In reality, the entire cryptocurrency market is manipulated by a few large whales that have a majority of the cryptos under their control. The only reason crypto prices go up and down is because of these people playing with their toy money. So whether or not Bitcoin would eat the world is not known, it has certainly eaten a lot of human heads already haha

[Oceat]

I used to buy into all of this maxi propaganda. It's nonsense.

Like all things, Bitcoin will have its place in the world, but it will not become everything.

I think OP is jumping already to the conclusion that Bitcoin would replace fiat in the future. I don't find any way that Bitcoin would replace fiat in the future or it would become everything, this will create chaos if my suspicion was right. There are lots of factors why Bitcoin would never replace the fiat system and it always will be used as a token of payment.

[Lanatsa]

This article has no touch with reality. Bitcoin will not consume or replace anything, especially not the fiat currencies. The author of the article shows some utopia that is never going to happen and it certainly wouldn't be good if it did.

You are right that's why I do commonly neglect such shitty articles that has nothing to do even if we do try to apply it on future use.

Bitcoin is being created for the sole purpose of payment system without 3rd party involved and no matter how it progresses it doesn't meant
to replace fiat system anytime soon.People are way too exaggerated to think up these things.

[Artemis3]

There is a vision of Bitcoin where it would gobble up all assets in the world. Eventually, everything would be tokenized into bitcoins. First, Bitcoin would eat up currencies. Then, equities, then real estates. There are strong supporters of this vision.

Can this vision become true? I believe it would NOT happen. Such future would be a dystopia. When everything is pegged into 21 million bitcoins, we would all be slaves to the bitcoin owners. It’s also likely some would use violence to seize bitcoins from others.

This doesn't make much sense. Everything can be quantitized in bitcoin, the same way everything can be quantitized in fiat. That doesn't mean its "eating" anything. The value of things in bitcoin will change with the bitcoin perceived price. There was a time were a couple of Pizzas needed 10k bitcoin, and i think 1 bitcoin now would buy 300 pizzas or so... If it goes past Dec 2017 levels, it would buy 600 pizzas instead.

Did bitcoin eat the pizzas? No, Laszlo's family did

So you can decide to keep your bitcoin or your pizza. But the bitcoin won't spoil with time, so its your choice.