Now that Bitcoin is no longer digital cash?

[franky1]

bitcoins treatment/utility is "no longer digital cash" as in majority treat it as something else.. not due to technical limits of physics. but purely human political decisions on who should, could, would allow bitcoin to have continued scaling onchain vs the politics of pushing bitcoiners to other networks so spammers, scammer and junk fillers can abuse the network more

anyone suggesting bitcoiners should use other networks with made up physics limits/reasons.. but then say not to stop/move the spam,scam junk, are not saying things that benefit bitcoiners or the network

[m2017]

I ask this question because I wonder what Bitcoin will become now that the financial institutions and meme coin advocates have taken over.

If Bitcoin is not peer-to-peer electronic cash then how do you see it?

Bitcoin never managed to become digital cash (admittedly, without being widely used and used in this capacity) and found its best use as a speculative investment instrument, very similar to shares (with the difference that you can store these shares at home, and not from a broker).

Bitcoin has transformed into an investment asset and will probably develop in this direction, because financial institutions will not abandon this asset so easily (everyone wants profit). This means that bitcoin will rise in price under the influence of investments from new financial institutions, and perhaps even entire countries (El Salvador).

How do you even imagine using bitcoin as digital cash if today it costs $72k and tomorrow $63k? Money should be a little less volatile, to say the least.

Bitcoin has gained mass adoption, but not among ordinary users, but among financial institutions, and this imposes corresponding changes on the BTC- system. I believe bitcoin will never become what its creator wanted it to be.

[Maus0728]

That doesn't even make sense that bitcoin becomes irrelevant just because meme coins and institutional investors are on the loose, that's just not how things work with bitcoin or even the cryptocurrency space in the first place, have you seen who's the first place on the market and how much is the total market value of bitcoin (this one might not be accurate)? Look at how many companies are below bitcoin in terms of value and you'd see that you're not talking something factual. Those stuff that you're talking about, they're going to be gone in a few years if not months but bitcoin? Bitcoin's here to stay, I'm telling you.

[we-btc]

Financial institutions and meme coin advocates taking over is just an opinion, and it's not even supported by any evidence by the op, which is unfortunate. Which financial institutions are we talking about? Is it about the ETFs? They exist now, but that doesn't exclude Bitcoin in its pure decentralized form. As for meme coins, I've honestly not heard people defending them or talking seriously about them for a while.
Bitcoin is still digital cash, or at least it's still a part of what Bitcoin is. Sure, sometimes it's a more viable option and sometimes less, but overall, it still works as intended.

Coinbase, Binance, Black Rock, Fidelity, Ark, Michael Saylor...

This is not an opinion. ETFs currently own 4.5% of the total supply.  Michael Saylor owns over 1%. Most of the transactions are through a financial intermediary and the changes to the network benefit other uses of Bitcoin not peer-to-peer digital cash.  

[mamesso]

Increasing public interest in Bitcoin cannot change Bitcoin as digital cash. Bitcoin is run based on the P2P network concept with the aim of creating a transaction system that is free from intervention by any central authority or monetary authority. The worst possibility might happen if Bitcoin is no longer P2P digital money, the price could drop to zero if the government can intervene in market efficiency, prices, supply and demand, volatility and profits. Bitcoin is freedom because it is a P2P system that operates without the need for intermediaries such as banks or financial institutions, Bitcoin will remain digital cash in the present and future.

[avikz]

I ask this question because I wonder what Bitcoin will become now that the financial institutions and meme coin advocates have taken over.

If Bitcoin is not peer-to-peer electronic cash then how do you see it?

Bitcoin is mostly used as an investment. Even though a lot of people use it for transactions, but largely it has become an investment. This behaviour has become more prominent after these large corporates have come on board. They are holding thousands of Bitcoins in their treasury. Selling them as an investment to the common people.

Also the way ordinals have jammed the Bitcoin network, it's not good as a payment processor. It has become slow and expensive.

[we-btc]

Increasing public interest in Bitcoin cannot change Bitcoin as digital cash. Bitcoin is run based on the P2P network concept with the aim of creating a transaction system that is free from intervention by any central authority or monetary authority. The worst possibility might happen if Bitcoin is no longer P2P digital money, the price could drop to zero if the government can intervene in market efficiency, prices, supply and demand, volatility and profits. Bitcoin is freedom because it is a P2P system that operates without the need for intermediaries such as banks or financial institutions, Bitcoin will remain digital cash in the present and future.

What happens if the block size is increased by 400% for NFTs and FTs that congest the network and the fees become unreasonable?  Then the financial institutions market financial products that facilitate them buying up the supply and selling Wall street securities in its place?

Oh, that is what has happened. lol

[coolcoinz]

So, I own a lot of bitcoin, held it for over 8 years. I've never had any meme coin, no NFTs, only a bit of ETH, but the top 10 altcoins was as far as I ever went with my side purchases. How dos a meme coin take over if there are people who don't buy them and never will, but they hold bitcoin. I don't see ETFs launch for all these meme coins.

So if I use my bitcoin to pay someone, tell me how it isn't digital cash anymore. What people do with their coins is their choice. If someone wants to gamble, fine, buy altcoins, fine, prefers ETF than real bitcoin, fine. A proxy exposure is still better than no exposure.

[GbitG]

I ask this question because I wonder what Bitcoin will become now that the financial institutions and meme coin advocates have taken over.

It is not surprising that what will happen to Bitcoin if there are financial institutions and meme coins? Everyone thinks that financial institutions or meme coins are all running with the blessing of Bitcoin. Comparing it to Bitcoin is an inappropriate question. Financial institutions have adopted Bitcion after seeing its surge. How can they take over Bitcoin? Your second question is to compare meme coin with Bitcoin or whether meme coin took over Bitcoin. I laugh at this guy who thinks meme coins are better than Bitcoin. Let him think a little about his sentence. He is doing a camparision for something that does not even have a use case, only jokes are his use case and he is thinking of degrading Bitcoin according to you.

If Bitcoin is not peer-to-peer electronic cash then how do you see it?

It does not make sense. OP your question is doubtful, complete it and submit it. Bitcoin was and will remain a p2p. It is not possible that Bitcoin would not be peer-to-peer electronic cash.

[PX-Z]

I ask this question because I wonder what Bitcoin will become now that the financial institutions and meme coin advocates have taken over.

If Bitcoin is not peer-to-peer electronic cash then how do you see it?

Meme coin take over? In what sense, these coins are more like living in hype, the same on those who advocates meme coins, its no sole purpose but only for temporary hype and short term too risky investment. You can get millions of holding in simply several weeks then lost them overnight unlike to other major coins they are not even comparable to bitcoin itself.

[Troytech]

I ask this question because I wonder what Bitcoin will become now that the financial institutions and meme coin advocates have taken over.

Financial institutions and meme coins have taken over? Why are you comparing financial institutions with bitcoin? But if you are comparing bitcoin with meme coins, add the marketcap of all existing meme coins together, divide the marketap of bitcoin by 5, all the meme coin marketcap is not worth one fifth of bitcoin marketcap.

This is just alike with someone saying that altcoins are a distraction and reducing mass adoption for bitcoin, and to me it makes no sense saying that cause bitcoin still beats them all put together and this insinuates that anyone investing in altcoins are there for the reasons known to them or knew about bitcoin and didn't want to invest in it.

Financial institutions didn't take over, bitcoin is still what it is, although we are still yet to achieve a well used peer-to-peer system with bitcoin, bitcoin has not gone one bit from been the same decentralized project that it started out to be and I Don't see that changing. Same thing was said when centralized exchanges started been a major part of crypto system and acted as a middle man in most transactions but that didn't change anything and that's how it would be even if all the world countries approved ETF, it woudl only be an investment vehicle for those that chose it and prefers to rely on a centralized system other than oweing bitcoin for themselves without need from any Financial institution.

[DooMAD]

They have also congested the network and increased the fees to a level that Bitcoin is no longer a valid currency.  

Maybe it's your first rodeo, but this certainly isn't the first time that greedy shitcoin-peddlers have piggybacked off Bitcoin's blockchain and hogged resources.  Back in 2019 something called Veriblock was spamming a load of transactions and making it more expensive to transact.  Fast-forward five years and that particular shitcoin is completely dead and hardly anyone remembers it.  The exact same thing is going to happen with all this ordinals and runes trash.  It's just more crap bought by gullible idiots that goes to zero and leaves a bunch of sad bagholders.  Then someone comes up with the next scam.  Rinse, repeat.

Bitcoin is fine.  It survived Veriblock and it'll survive this latest ordinals and runes trash.  The far bigger threat is always the authoritarians who think they can tell people how they can or can't transact.  Shitcoins and spam are merely an inconvenience.  Authoritarians are more dangerous because they try to convince others to surrender their freedoms in order to supposedly "fix Bitcoin".  But it's working exactly as it is meant to.  

[passwordnow]

I ask this question because I wonder what Bitcoin will become now that the financial institutions and meme coin advocates have taken over.

If Bitcoin is not peer-to-peer electronic cash then how do you see it?

It's still the same, it's just that there are more adoption that has came to it. Aren't we happy about that? Bitcoin is for everyone, small fish, big fish or whatever are you. As with these financial institutions that have big names and reputation in the market that they're roaming around, they've added flavour and capitalization to the market and that's why we're having some quick gains as for the pricing of Bitcoin. But to answer your question then mostly will agree that it is more of a store of value which have being done by the most of us.

There can be more of it for its use case like the normal p2p transactions if there are more merchants that accepts it. But one problem that we're dealing again is with the high transaction fees that it is having right now. That's one reason why many don't think that it's good as a p2p alternative from the fiat and digital transactions that we're having together with the credit/debit card payments. And to give the idea of the others, there are offchain transactions where merchants and buyers kind of agree to have without fees and lesser waiting time because transactions are in instant. Again, that's only for off chain transactions or if they both have the same wallet which is common in exchanges.

[hatshepsut93]

I ask this question because I wonder what Bitcoin will become now that the financial institutions and meme coin advocates have taken over.

What have they taken over? ETFs own a tiny percentage of Bitcoin supply, other institutions like banks or hedge funds barely own any coins at all. Memecoins are completely irrelevant to Bitcoin, they are just high risk gambling devices for those who think that Bitcoin is not volatile enough and moves too slowly.

Bitcoin is in good position right now, it's not really threatened by anything right now, it's just hitting its own technical limitations, and there's no tragedy here, because everything has its limits.

[Darker45]

Have they taken over? They're taking advantage of the growth of Bitcoin, yes, but I don't think they've taken over. What is there to take over, in the first place? The market? We're all part of it. That's a truly free market, after all. The network? That's impossible to happen.

Bitcoin remains a peer-to-peer electronic cash. It has taken new roles, though, fortunately or unfortunately. These institutional players that are getting a big slice of the market share don't see Bitcoin as money. They only see Bitcoin as a speculative asset. It's their choice. Thus far, however, those who believe that Bitcoin is money remain free to use it as such.

[ancafe]

I ask this question because I wonder what Bitcoin will become now that the financial institutions and meme coin advocates have taken over.

How can they take over and what steps they will take to support your statement. Financial institutions do not have the capacity to take over bitcoin because bitcoin runs on its own power and meme supporters also do not have the capacity for a full takeover of bitcoin. I don't understand what you mean and I don't see what you are talking about making any more sense.

If Bitcoin is not peer-to-peer electronic cash then how do you see it?

This makes much less sense and I don't think you understand the concept of bitcoin. I still see bitcoin as one of the best assets and some countries still apply bitcoin as an investment asset.

[adaseb]

I ask this question because I wonder what Bitcoin will become now that the financial institutions and meme coin advocates have taken over.

If Bitcoin is not peer-to-peer electronic cash then how do you see it?

Most of the meme coin hype has nothing to do with bitcoin, there is no meme coin running on the bitcoin blockchain even.

This year most meme coins were on Solana network due to the ultra cheap fees. Last year it was on the Ethereum network. But never on the bitcoin blockchain.

Nothing changes with the financial institutions. You can still send bitcoin peer to peer pretty much as long as the fees are reasonable or you are sending a large amount. Hence why most people use L2 these days for micro transactions.

[Nrcewker]

Who said it dude? It completely depends on the owner of the coins to do whatever they want with the coin. Some treat Bitcoins as a mode of payment, while some use it completely as a digital asset. They take the advantage of the fact that Bitcoins are fixed in numbers, hence they think of holding it. While I also see that some people like to pay with Bitcoins. So the memecoin and other coins, doesn’t really affect the Bitcoins in any perspective.

[mindrust]

With these high fees, btc definitely fails at operating as a currency. For a fee years btc acts more like digital gold rather than a digital currency because of the physical limitations of btc. Are meme coins the answers to this problem though? I am not sure. The only promising coins with a fairly well user adoption is dogecoin. The resr are pure trash. Other than that there is xmr which has nearly zero user adoption because the governments don’t like it and there is litecoin which dominates the currency use case on bitpay. To me it is very clear which coin is acting as digital cash lately.

[Nheer]

I ask this question because I wonder what Bitcoin will become now that the financial institutions and meme coin advocates have taken over.

If Bitcoin is not peer-to-peer electronic cash then how do you see it?

You feel there are competition with bitcoin until most of these projects fail to keep up or are being replaced by new modified projects. Bitcoin has been relevant since it’s invention and it keeps growing in popularity and value and so many years past and it’s still at the top. Bitcoin was invented to serve as an alternative currency (digital money) and be used as payment and Lots of people and businesses still make use of bitcoin as payment method and everyday more people accept it as a means of payment but also it’s volatile nature gives people more benefit to earn from holding bitcoin and that has made it to be seen as an investment tool which is why most people try to benefit by holding bitcoin.