"Blockchain is useful, Bitcoin is not" — How do you respond to this?

[legiteum]

Ferraris (insofar as they are not used as a practical daily car) are collectables, and like all collectables, people buy them because they find them ascetically pleasing and so on. People collect stamps, old coins, gold, jewelry, rare paintings, and millions of other things for the same reasons.

Bitcoin is in the same category as collectables. Some people "like" Bitcoin even though it has no significant practical purpose (sure, there are usages--just like you can drive your $1M Ferrari to work--but that is not what drives the price). As a practical product, there are many other products that do everything that Bitcoin does but better, faster and cheaper. Bitcoin has the brand name, "Bitcoin", which is its primary value.

People buy stock in companies based on their ability to make profits. That's very different than collectables, and this something that can be quantified objectively (e.g. quarterly earnings reports), and the drivers of the price can be objectively quantified as well, e.g. earning expectations based on the drivers of revenues and expenses. If Exxon changed their name to "Crappy Company" investors wouldn't care because they would still have a product that millions of people needed on a daily basis and it wouldn't matter to their revenues.

Phillip Morris changed their name to Altria due to the poor reputation associated with their name. This didn't affect their revenues nor their stock price, so investors didn't care what you called them, and they could change their name again and again and it wouldn't matter as long as people stay addicted to cigarettes, etc.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is only unique because of the name, "Bitcoin", so if they changed its name, it would become far less valuable.

[o48o]

-cut-
1. How do you respond to the argument "blockchain is useful, Bitcoin is not"?
2. Are ETF buyers adoption or just speculation?
3. If tokenized assets offer everything Bitcoin does + yield + regulatory protection — what remains unique about Bitcoin besides trustlessness?
4. Is the niche of "asset for those who trust no one" large enough to support current market cap?

Genuinely interested in hearing arguments from those deeper in the space. I might be missing something.

1: Person who says that, doesn't understand how blockchain works. Blockchain wouldn't make any sense without incentives paid for securing it.

2: They are speculators, definitely. Far from adoption.

3: Tokenized assets aren't comparable to bitcoin in any way. And at the moment they are just pegged synthetics anyway, and that's far from revolutionary tech.

4: Who cares. It will eventually have price it deserves, who cares if it's cheaper or more expensive if it serves people who need it.

[lionheart78]

Pro-centralized entities mostly agree to the argument about Blockchain is useful, Bitcoin is not.  We cannot change their view because they are fixated on centralized authority and outside of it is chaos.

But on a deeper dive, we can see that blockchain without Bitcoin is just a database, there is no cryptocurrency or reward system, which makes the early application of Blockchain just on paper, worst just a marketing ploy.  But with the emergence of Bitcoin, being the first successful blockchain program that has been implemented in a real-life application, it showed that a ledger can be decentralized and could work without centralized authority.  This feat alone shows how important Bitcoin is in establishing real-life usage of blockchain technology.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Bitcoin is in the same category as collectables.

Reducing hard money to mere "collectibles" is just moronic and only shows that you don't have a slight clue of what you are talking about. If you think that gold possessed the monetary value that is has, just because it is a shiny rock, then you're just a child.

People buy stock in companies based on their ability to make profits. That's very different than collectables, and this something that can be quantified objectively (e.g. quarterly earnings reports)

Appreciation in hard money can also be justified with quantifiable data. People buy bitcoin and gold to protect themselves from the artificially created fiat money. By buying bitcoin, they speculate that other people will be willing to take their bids for a higher denominated fiat value in the future, because of the high certainty of monetary debasement of their fiat currencies. It is just as speculating that funding a restaurant or buying a company stock will be profitable.

[legiteum]

People buy stock in companies based on their ability to make profits. That's very different than collectables, and this something that can be quantified objectively (e.g. quarterly earnings reports)

Appreciation in hard money can also be justified with quantifiable data. People buy bitcoin and gold to protect themselves from the artificially created fiat money. By buying bitcoin, they speculate that other people will be willing to take their bids for a higher denominated fiat value in the future, because of the high certainty of monetary debasement of their fiat currencies. It is just as speculating that funding a restaurant or buying a company stock will be profitable.

But Bitcoin's price has never tracked US inflation. Not even remotely close. Not with many orders of magnitude.

And Bitcoin dropped in USD price by half in the last six months. Does that mean the US dollar became twice as strong during that period? If Bitcoin were really the hedge investment you are talking about, that's what it would have to mean.

People buy Bitcoin because they think other people are going to buy Bitcoin, thereby driving its price up. It has no inherent unique use case and no inherent value other than its brand name (meme).

The only investment you can buy that programmatically hedges US inflation is Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS).

[PrivacyG]

This Topic was posted a while ago already but I really want to chime in on the subject and say that the problems were underlined by you already, OP.  Institutions are interested not in promoting Bitcoin which goes against their own way of business but they are instead interested in promoting platforms that THEY made them selves, or Third Parties who collaborate with them.  Because of course, a large instituion would always promote their own product as 'the best'.

If it was possible to make Bitcoin as easy and at hand as ETFs and their Third Party platforms are, I still believe people would choose their platforms, their version of Blockchain adoption because it is made by people or instutions you already heard of.  Bitcoin is new.  People who want to purchase Bitcoin for their pension fund are not going to look for Privacy or any other aspects Bitcoin offers, they want to make sure they will have a pension when they retire.  You hardly see any body even willing to be private any more.  Cameras are all around, loyalty cards are almost necessary if you are an average person earning a 'normal' salary and you want to purchase things at decent to good prices et cetera.  The will of being private is becoming inexistent!

What happens now makes a lot of sense and should be expected, 'they' will never promote the values of Bitcoin because then there might come a day when we will not need their institutions any more!  How do you enslave all your customers if you tell them to be independent when your business runs on the exact opposite.

How I respond to this?  I believe this makes Bitcoin even more Bullish so I will only get me some more!  Realistically, the vast majority of people will never look for Bitcoin the same way they do not even look at Precious Metals.  Stocks are way more interesting because Precious Metals have boring charts, even if they were always the best thing to hold in bad times.  My response is to continue not using Banks, although it is becoming more and more difficult in this World, and to continue following my will of being independent and Private!

[BlackHatCoiner]

People buy Bitcoin because they think other people are going to buy Bitcoin, thereby driving its price up. It has no inherent unique use case and no inherent value other than its brand name (meme).

If you weren't completely clueless on what money is, you would realize that all money have no "use case" other than being money. Gold does not have a $35 trillion market cap because it is a shiny rock people like to wear. It is worth that much, because gold holders "think other people are going to buy gold", because it is the rational behavior to believe that a unit of a hard money will be bid higher in debasing fiat money.

The only investment you can buy that programmatically hedges US inflation is Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS)

If you believe the government-selected CPI accurately reflects government-produced inflation, then you're just a TV viewer who might as well believe all kinds of propaganda.

[legiteum]

People buy Bitcoin because they think other people are going to buy Bitcoin, thereby driving its price up. It has no inherent unique use case and no inherent value other than its brand name (meme).

If you weren't completely clueless on what money is, you would realize that all money have no "use case" other than being money.

Correct. Currency is meant to be a means of value transfer, not an investment. That's what currency has been exclusively used for since currencies began in ancient times.

Bitcoin was originally meant to be a currency, but that use case has mostly faded away for practical reasons while at the same time it has been adopted as a speculative investment instrument. Thus it's no longer correct to call Bitcoin "a currency". That's why many call it "digital gold" for instance.

The only investment you can buy that programmatically hedges US inflation is Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS)

If you believe the government-selected CPI accurately reflects government-produced inflation, then you're just a TV viewer who might as well believe all kinds of propaganda.

I'm not here to pitch TIPS or any other investment product and you are absolutely correct in pointing out that the method of calculating "inflation" can be varied, and you can either agree or disagree with it (and either buy or don't buy TIPS according to the contract they offer, that's your choice).

I used TIPS that as an example of a product that is actually designed, nominally, to be a programatic hedge against inflation. Bitcoin obviously was never designed to do that, nor does its price correlate to USD inflation in any way whatsoever.

[Darker45]

Perhaps the discussion should be brought to the more fundamental or abstract level. It's not the logic, it's the premise that's faulty. If 99% of the population finds freedom abhorrent, it doesn't mean freedom is indeed abhorrent. Bitcoin isn't for "extreme scenarios"; it's for day-to-day use. Inflation affects everybody daily. We're using money that's being ran by a few irresponsible, even abusive, personalities. We're under a system in which privacy isn't anymore respected as a right. This goes on.

In which case, Bitcoin actually solves a problem everybody experiences on a daily basis. However, most have grown comfortable with the problem. They don't mind not owning what they own. They don't mind killing themselves to earn a few notes the powerful people up there are printing by the tons.

Jamie Dimon is a hypocrite precisely because he's one of the powerful elites running the rotten system.

[BlackBoss_]

This Topic was posted a while ago already but I really want to chime in on the subject and say that the problems were underlined by you already, OP.  Institutions are interested not in promoting Bitcoin which goes against their own way of business but they are instead interested in promoting platforms that THEY made them selves, or Third Parties who collaborate with them.  Because of course, a large instituion would always promote their own product as 'the best'.

They truly recognized value and leadership role of Bitcoin in blockchain and cryptocurrency industry as well as the market, so they're smart enough to know that they must start and participate in this industry with Bitcoin. To succeed in this industry soonest but also most sustainable, they must spend capital for investment in Bitcoin and develop their own products around Bitcoin.

They are knowledgeable enough to know that Bitcoin is decentralized and they don't control it as well as will be never able to control it, so they will try to build up their derivative products on other blockchains but try to use the world Bitcoin for their products. It's like a most attractive hook to use for their derivative products without much financial budget for marketing if using other product names.

Bitcoin users, Bitcoiners know the uniqueness of Bitcoin and bitcoin, so if they want something best in security, decentralization, full control, they won't go away with Bitcoin and bitcoin.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I used TIPS that as an example of a product that is actually designed, nominally, to be a programatic hedge against inflation. Bitcoin obviously was never designed to do that, nor does its price correlate to USD inflation in any way whatsoever.

Hard money has done a fantastic job to protect your wealth from inflation, whether it was "actually designed" or not. If you DCA-ed bitcoin since March 2021 instead of writing cope posts comparing it to NVDA five years later, you'd have outpaced inflation, the S&P500 and for the past two years your portfolio would have a performance of over 100% most of the days.

[hero_the_bossman]

I used TIPS that as an example of a product that is actually designed, nominally, to be a programatic hedge against inflation. Bitcoin obviously was never designed to do that, nor does its price correlate to USD inflation in any way whatsoever.

Hard money has done a fantastic job to protect your wealth from inflation, whether it was "actually designed" or not. If you DCA-ed bitcoin since March 2021 instead of writing cope posts comparing it to NVDA five years later, you'd have outpaced inflation, the S&P500 and for the past two years your portfolio would have a performance of over 100% most of the days.

If it works - why the hell not.

If one thing was meant to be A, but it can also be B, why not use both cases?

[cryptosize]

I used TIPS that as an example of a product that is actually designed, nominally, to be a programatic hedge against inflation. Bitcoin obviously was never designed to do that, nor does its price correlate to USD inflation in any way whatsoever.

Hard money has done a fantastic job to protect your wealth from inflation, whether it was "actually designed" or not. If you DCA-ed bitcoin since March 2021 instead of writing cope posts comparing it to NVDA five years later, you'd have outpaced inflation, the S&P500 and for the past two years your portfolio would have a performance of over 100% most of the days.

If it works - why the hell not.

If one thing was meant to be A, but it can also be B, why not use both cases?

Correct.

Copper was initially designed to carry narrowband analog voice signal, but today it can also carry broadband Gigabit digital signal via elaborate math (DSP/FFT).

[goldkingcoiner]

I would respond probably with something like this:

The ATH price of $120 000 USD begs to differ. The >100 million people who invested $1.41 Trillion USD into Bitcoin are not idiots. They know exactly what they are doing.

In fact, spreading the FUDish "hope" that Bitcoin will suddenly pop, die or become useless due to one conspiracy or another is irresponsible and malicious, as it stops some people from making a smart investment which could better their life in the future.

[retreat]

1. How do you respond to the argument "blockchain is useful, Bitcoin is not"?

That's what they say, they can say whatever they want, but from their statements we understand that what their purpose is in saying that, they are just a group of people who don't want Bitcoin to grow, so they create a narrative to be able to shrink Bitcoin and make blockchain seem more relevant for wider use cases - even though that's because blockchain allows them to tokenize assets and keep control in their hands through a system that is still centralized.

Blockchain without Bitcoin is nothing more than a distributed ledger. Just look at the thousands of shitcoins out there that use blockchain, and do they really have the long-term value that Bitcoin does? In fact, most of them even end up being scams. So, yeah blockchain is useful, but saying Bitcoin isn't is like turning a blind eye to the obvious facts.

[OsaiEmma]

Btw, when Jamie Dimon says, "Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme", he isn't saying it like it's a bad thing, he's telling his stockholders, "companies can profit billions on Ponzi schemes and we're going to get your slice of this market!" . That's why they use weaselly language like, "cryptocurrencies have captured the imaginations of millions of consumers". They are just saying, "there's a business to be had in peddling this stuff, so we're going to peddle this stuff". They don't care what it is.

But it still drives the point that Bitcoin is something that is not as important as Blockchain technology, it is something they can scoff about, it's just a scheme to play wisely and make profit without really appreciating it's architecture.
So even if he meant to make profit from it by calling it a ponzi scheme, he still do not really appreciate Bitcoin's usefullness.

Questions for the Community

1. How do you respond to the argument "blockchain is useful, Bitcoin is not"?
2. Are ETF buyers adoption or just speculation?
3. If tokenized assets offer everything Bitcoin does + yield + regulatory protection — what remains unique about Bitcoin besides trustlessness?
4. Is the niche of "asset for those who trust no one" large enough to support current market cap?

1. Bitcoin is the best application of Blockchain, it made Blockchain technology very popular and valuable, so undermining Bitcoin is just hypocritical, I mean, without Bitcoin being as successful as it is now, will they even be talking about Blockchain technology?

2. They are not really owning Bitcoin, anything can be an ETF, but the main goal of ETF's is for trading and making profit no matter what the asset is, heck it could be a sheep or a piece of land, and you're not even owning a portion of it.

So buying ETFs is not exactly adopting Bitcoin, because when you truly adopt Bitcoin, at least you should hold a portion of it.

3. Well trustlessness is the main reason it was created, so asking this question in this way is like giving the answer to the question inside the question, every other thing are just you know, by the side features, the main feature is exactly what Bitcoin is trying to solve, a trustless financial transaction between 2 entities, A.K.A decentralization.

4. Truth is the niche is small, and that's because few people sees it as a problem, the traditional financial framework depends on trust always, for credit, loans, and even for transactions, and most of the population is so use to it, so introducing trustless financial framework is basically presenting a solution to a problem most people didn't even realize they have, so you should ask, are people willing to adopt a trustless financial infrastructure, the answer is yes, cause if you take a look at the adoption rate and the market cap of cryptocurrency, you'll see that large number of people are willing to adopt it.

[legiteum]

Btw, when Jamie Dimon says, "Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme", he isn't saying it like it's a bad thing, he's telling his stockholders, "companies can profit billions on Ponzi schemes and we're going to get your slice of this market!" . That's why they use weaselly language like, "cryptocurrencies have captured the imaginations of millions of consumers". They are just saying, "there's a business to be had in peddling this stuff, so we're going to peddle this stuff". They don't care what it is.

But it still drives the point that Bitcoin is something that is not as important as Blockchain technology, it is something they can scoff about, it's just a scheme to play wisely and make profit without really appreciating it's architecture.
So even if he meant to make profit from it by calling it a ponzi scheme, he still do not really appreciate Bitcoin's usefullness.

Bitcoin has no practical utility beyond being a speculative investment instrument. As a money transfer mechanism there are far better products out there that are faster, cheaper, safer, and more private. Almost nobody uses Bitcoin for utility because of this, they simply buy it in the hopes they can sell it for a profit later.

A "Ponzi" scheme is one where there is fraud: the Ponzi says that it is investing the money when it is not.

Bitcoin is not a Ponzi, but it is a pyramid scheme: it's profits depend exclusively on subsequent investors buying in (at the "bottom of the pyramid" as it were). A pyramid scheme is not necessarily fraudulent, and most are more or less open about it.

Billions of dollars have been made on Wall Street from all forms of pyramid schemes, so it's not surprising that Wall Street loves Bitcoin too.

All that said, people often use the words, "Ponzi" and "pyramid" interchangeably, even though they are different.

[OsaiEmma]

All that said, people often use the words, "Ponzi" and "pyramid" interchangeably, even though they are different.

I thought all pyramid schemes are scam, because truly, they have no real structure, they purely depend on the recruitment of new players to get paid,  Bitcoin's mechanism is not so, therefore, calling it a pyramid scheme is not exactly correct, Bitcoin doesn't need the recruitment of new players, it doesn't rob Peter to pay Paul, it is just an asset that have the potential of giving profit, so you can call it a speculative asset, if you argue that old players needs new players to buy to make profit, same with so many other assets, like Tesla, Amazon, real estate, e.t.c, this doesn't make them a pyramid scheme.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Bitcoin has no practical utility beyond being a speculative investment instrument.

You've used the phrase "speculative investment instrument" so many times that makes me wonder if you're familiar with the fact that every single investment in the Universe is speculative. There is no investment that is not speculative.

Bitcoin is not a Ponzi, but it is a pyramid scheme: it's profits depend exclusively on subsequent investors buying in (at the "bottom of the pyramid" as it were).

Fiat-denominated profits do not depend exclusively on subsequent investors buying it in. There could be no other newcomer investor into bitcoin by tomorrow morning, and it'd still rise in value overtime, because the already existent holders would accept to take even higher bids, as the total supply of fiat confetti naturally rises overtime. In a pyramid scheme, each paying participant recruits two new participants, but there is absolutely no similar scheme in bitcoin.

[Satofan44]

Blockchain is not useful, Bitcoin is. There is your response. Most of the applications of blockchain are wrong, they are not needed and they would be better off using existing centralized systems in any case. Slapping blockchain on something to make it more valuable is similar to what is happening now with "AI". It is wrong and it always has been wrong.

BlackRock ($10T AUM) launched BUIDL in March 2024 — tokenized Treasury bonds on Ethereum. In 18 months: $2.9B, 40% of the tokenized treasuries market.
JPMorgan processed over $700B in repo operations through its Tokenized Collateral Network. In December 2025, they launched the first tokenized money market fund from a systemically important bank on a public blockchain.
Franklin Templeton registered an SEC-approved blockchain fund back in 2021. Current AUM: ~$800M.
The tokenized real-world assets (RWA) market stands at $24–33B, up 85% YoY.

Tokenized RWA is completely useless, it is just a duplication of an existing ledger. It provides next to no real benefits but it is good for raising money and scamming idiots who don't understand anything at all. We could only talk about some benefits after there is native issuance, a single ledger that is digital only -- and even then those benefits will be primarily for the issuers and intermediaries and not for the users. What benefit does one get from going from one centralized system to another centralized system? 

The logic is straightforward:
1. Blockchain is useful technology. Instant settlement, transparency, programmable contracts.
2. Bitcoin was the first application of blockchain, but not the best.
3. Tokenized assets offer what Bitcoin doesn't: yield, regulatory protection, clear valuation, connection to the real economy.
4. When any asset can be purchased via blockchain — why hold a volatile token with no cash flow?

It is not. If you do not need the decentralization of Bitcoin and its features, all of this can be done much better in a database hosted by AWS.

You've used the phrase "speculative investment instrument" so many times that makes me wonder if you're familiar that every single investment in the Universe is speculative. There is no investment that is not speculative.

I've already told you once not to entertain trolls, what gives?  

In a pyramid scheme, each paying participant recruits two new participants, but there is absolutely no similar scheme in bitcoin.

If a person has a working brain, they recruit themselves as soon as they learn the basics of the world's monetary system and the basics of what Bitcoin offers. What would we call this, inverse pyramid?