Bitcoin as a Safe Haven Asset: Can the community contribute to make it happen?

[Cryptomultiplier]

So my proposals would be (above all for those who have some kind of "influencer" function, be them youtubers/tiktokers or influential forum members):

- Whine a little less about bear markets, and see them as an opportunity or "discount". Smiley
- Also don't whine about things like "Bitcoin being not anymore the most profitable asset". Nobody should care about that. If Bitcoin's concept is sound, it will attract investment anyway.
- Bitcoiners could try to talk a bit more about the long term and less about the short term. Above all, the whole "cyclist" narrative (hey, let's catch the bottom!) probably hurts the digital gold narrative.
- It also would help to talk about the benefits of Bitcoin which are not related to its price evolution, like censorship resistance, international payments, etc..
- Also a bit less exaggeration of the supposed danger of Saylor and friends would not do harm.
- And of course, promote DCA.

So you basically want all Bitcoin/crypto influencers to unite under some kind of "Bitcoin propaganda manifesto", which is going to outline what Bitcoin is (a "safe heaven" asset) and what Bitcoin isn't (a speculation asset)? Not sure how this is going to work. The market decides which asset is "safe heaven" and which asset is "speculative". Bear in mind that not all investors in Bitcoin are true BTC supporters. The hardcore BTC supporters represent only a decent fraction of all investors. I'm not sure that they could "push the narrative" in a certain direction. Gold has become a "safe heaven" after being traded for decades and centuries. Perhaps BTC cannot become a "safe heaven" asset after a year or two(or after someone changes the narrative). Maybe BTC already is a "safe heaven" asset, but we just don't see it as such because of the price volatility.

We dwell on volatility too much and that's why the sentiments continues to brew and it seems like Bitcoin keeps losing its edge as digital gold, but in reality the community has the power to define the floor of the market even though we see wall street driving short term speculation.

When the community of Bitcoin investors refuse to give in or cave in by not selling, embracing DCA strategy, ignoring the noise of the market and hype and focus more on Bitcoin's utility case use as an alternative financial system that makes it contribute to the hybrid economy we foresee as a reality, the community in this sense has made sure to build a solid structure of stability that makes Bitcoin being known as digital gold to become a successful financial reality.

[d5000]

So you basically want all Bitcoin/crypto influencers to unite under some kind of "Bitcoin propaganda manifesto", which is going to outline what Bitcoin is (a "safe heaven" asset) and what Bitcoin isn't (a speculation asset)? Not sure how this is going to work. The market decides which asset is "safe heaven" and which asset is "speculative".

No. That is impossible indeed. The idea here is to make people think a bit. At least those who are active Bitcoin supporters. This community alone can't decide the fate but it can contribute to the narrative. But if even in these forums and specialized X accounts we read more tips to ride the waves than to benefit from the long term price increase, then the narrative is pushed into the exactly opposite direction: Bitcoin is speculative and will remain so.

Safe haven assets indeed need some buildup, but Bitcoin has already 13 years of flawless operation even if we count the 2013 bug which led to a short chain split.

Of course it will take more years perhaps to be considered a true gold competitor. But there are stocks considered relatively "safe" which have only a little longer ancestry, like Alphabet/Google and Booking Holdings which never lost more than 50% after their initial growth phase.

Maybe BTC already is a "safe heaven" asset, but we just don't see it as such because of the price volatility.

I think for a part of the investors this is indeed true. The percentage has to increase however, because I think it's way less than 50% still. And I don't consider people like Saylor really safe haven investors.

Perhaps it has to do a little bit with the already established level of consideration of "safe haven" in combination with fewer attacks against it?

Yes of course imo. Of course to reach this level of safe haven character it will take some time for BTC still. So it has to prove itself in other ways. And here I think the community can contribute, at least not distorting the message (into a speculative direction).

Regarding media FUD, imo it is often related to some kind of investors which could sell, with of course Strategy being the focus in the last months. Here the "antidote" could be simply to clarify that even a big investor's behavior is, if at all a temporary problem -- if they fail they'll go bankrupt and thus disappear from the Bitcoin universe too.

Now I wonder whether the issue is only related to digital finance or is this yet another symptom of an issue that has a root cause much farther in the past, whether in the schooling system or education. It seems to me that many people have struggles with critical thinking and adopting any healthy habits relating to discipline, irrespective of whether it is a financial or otherwise.

I think yes, and until people aren't educated in that at least at high school level it will stay this way. But it is not necessary imo to get all people on the "safe haven" train. If those who have influence as leaders of opinion adopt the narrative, the smaller investors are more likely to behave less emotionally driven too.

[Ambatman]

Regarding media FUD, imo it is often related to some kind of investors which could sell, with of course Strategy being the focus in the last months. Here the "antidote" could be simply to clarify that even a big investor's behavior is, if at all a temporary problem -- if they fail they'll go bankrupt and thus disappear from the Bitcoin universe too.

I believe one of the issue is fixation on price
Many believe and push the narrative that if a large player sells
Bitcoin would die.
Like I said before people tend to believe what they want to
Recently peter admitted to the fact that he regretted not buying Bitcoin when he learnt about it the first time.

[abhiseshakana]

But what's your take on this? Has the community any chance to influence the narrative? And if yes, how?

My choice is Yes, but there are mostly other factor

Bitcoin community has indirect influence on these narrative, considering community is not a homogeneous entity, every community and in which platform community growth has its own culture, different user characteristic and algorithm which in the end resulting  different education and communication style. I see social media with their today communication culture not only as tools for spreading news but more to the tools for shaping the ways its user thinks. When this circumstance meet with behavior or thinking that is considered normal or appropriate by a community then the result is loss of curiosity and the degradation of critical thinking culture.

If community dominated by get quick rich and speculation, it will shape community behavior when taking financial or investment decision. In other side, when community emphasize on education the it will shape different investment culture which should be more rational.

Herd behavior especially on Bitcoin investment decision more due to the lack of Bitcoin literacy which start from lack of financial lieracy and financial planning. Decades ago before making investment, we in depth learn about asset but today practice buying first because trend and fomo based on instant influencer recommendations, short video clips to influence opinion rather than reading whitelist as primary source why Bitcoin is created, understanding Bitcoin and money history, or studying economic principles. The worst example around 300.000 people in my country experience fraud buying shitcoin which promoted by an influencer with total losses reaching USD 33 million(who reported).

Community can not control The Fed policy, global liquidity or institutional capital flows as major factor which in the end determine price or market perception but community can shape quality of Bitcoin holder thinking. So on my view, community must produce literacy and investment culture which more emphasis on Bitcoin understanding than promotion, i think, better educated community created more long term holder and reduce panic selling even speculative behavior.

We can simulate, when community educate about financial planning, risk management, DCA, self custody, history of monetary system and whitelist, then member will have more realistic expectation and long term orientation, with additional number of long term holder, panic based volatility will decrease, market trust increase and Bitcoin will be perceived as a store of value or safe haven. we can see topic about leverage, to the moon, bull run, ATH, next week target price always attracts speculators.

The right word to describe bitcoin at the meantime are emerging safe haven or potential long term store of value. Community can have slogan that Bitcoin is save haven but matter of fact market behavior determines it, beside that asset can be a save haven not only because its technical characteristic but collective trust of society. At the meantime many Bitcoin holders still oriented towards quick profits which cause the market continue to treat Bitcoin as a risk asset. Hopefully community can be catalyst for massive bitcoin literation, financial planning education, what is expected the use of Bitcoin as a store of value is becoming more widespread which followed by time proven function and i think Bitcoin status as save haven can be naturally formed not a flash narrative.

Learn from my own experiences, I think financial planning as a part of financial literacy is very important and give contribution for Bitcoin to be save haven. Withs its characteristic Bitcoin perfectly suit for growth asset and long term store of value for me and some of investor, so i decided to hold or release Bitcoin based on my plan not following trend or panic. As long as Bitcoin still in line with my financial goals and asset allocation I will hold it

[Darker45]

Yes, a lot. The problem, however, is that the community is far from being a solid group of like-minded individuals. On the contrary, I'd even say the majority are superficial supporters. In other words, not really supporters of Bitcoin in the strict sense, but simply people who have heard of an internet money that accordingly grows in dollar price quite fast.

I guess to make the community treat Bitcoin as a safe haven asset is to bring them back to step 1, that is, to bring their focus mainly to the fact that Bitcoin doesn't have indiscriminate money printing, isn't designed to gradually lose purchasing power, isn't run/managed/supervised by a handful of upright yet corruptible human beings who are replaced every now and then, and so on.

In other words, it's the narrative that matters. Unfortunately, influencers, crypto publications, the traditional media, big investors, and others are more focused on things that matter less. Also, creating headlines, publicizing articles, or discussing topics with misleading, unfounded, even shallow analyses linking Bitcoin's price movement to just anything big or small don't help. They create an impression that Bitcoin mainly moves according to fear, worries, hype, sentiment, and whatnot of things outside the market, thereby making it just another traditional asset.

[X-ray]

Yeah, I personally think community should stop worrying about short term price volatility like 1.5% drop.

They should focus more on the long term because the long term chart for Bitcoin is bullish.

Moreover, if Bitcoin isn't considered safe haven just because the price is dumping, so did Gold which also went -30% in less than 3 months.

Yet if we see the long term price action, both are performing great.

[Satofan44]

Perhaps it has to do a little bit with the already established level of consideration of "safe haven" in combination with fewer attacks against it?

Yes of course imo. Of course to reach this level of safe haven character it will take some time for BTC still. So it has to prove itself in other ways. And here I think the community can contribute, at least not distorting the message (into a speculative direction).

Regarding media FUD, imo it is often related to some kind of investors which could sell, with of course Strategy being the focus in the last months. Here the "antidote" could be simply to clarify that even a big investor's behavior is, if at all a temporary problem -- if they fail they'll go bankrupt and thus disappear from the Bitcoin universe too.

Perhaps a chicken and egg problem we find ourselves in again? As Bitcoin is not widely perceived as a safe haven, more people are reacting to it in that specific ways further emphasizing that it is not. On the other hand, were it already seen this way more people would react to it that way. The community can definitely help with that, every bit of education helps. However, pay attention to individual idiots on this forum and you can see how terrible the situation already is. There have been countless threads of pure misinformation and they keep coming, how Bitcoin is not being used widely or LN either, and then that naturally makes the discussion reduce to Bitcoin's utility only being as an investment vehicle making it speculative. When this happens from forum members who are "supposed to be Bitcoiners", thanks theymos, then you can imagine the state in the real world. A double edged sword of letting any idiot say whatever they want no matter how wrong it is is that they are able to spread their infection onto other people.

Yes, a lot. The problem, however, is that the community is far from being a solid group of like-minded individuals. On the contrary, I'd even say the majority are superficial supporters. In other words, not really supporters of Bitcoin in the strict sense, but simply people who have heard of an internet money that accordingly grows in dollar price quite fast.

Most people in the world are stupid, that includes the majority of people that you know (regardless of whether it includes you or not) so this would be accurate.

[Lucius]

Whether anyone likes it or not, the Bitcoin community is relatively weak in terms of influencing a change in perception towards Bitcoin, which is mainly built through the mainstream media, which is again controlled (today more than before) by interest groups that make large profits by "trading" cryptocurrencies. This is most pronounced in the US, where the president himself influences the market with his actions, and all those who have information about what will happen profit the most.

Therefore, I would conclude that Bitcoin is far from being considered a safe haven asset considering its volatility. The average person looking at historical charts can see this very easily, but unfortunately cannot change anything about it.

[dezoel]

If we focus on this as a group, we can definitely make it a lot more common. But we need to make it as a group, as a community, individually it's hard. Is it safe haven right now?

It really is, but how many people actually hold long term? Like if you were to look at wallets that went untouched, only like money go in, but nothing comes out, for the past 5 years, zero amount taken out, that's very important, I am sure that it's a fraction of the amount of wallets we have. It means, most people just make moves.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

But what's your take on this? Has the community any chance to influence the narrative? And if yes, how?

Bitcoin doesn't need any pity party game, gold achieved it's status as a safe haven without it being pitied instead it proved itself and then people trusted it. For Bitcoin to be considered a safe haven it first has to prove itself to be worth hodling and I believe that is already happening, what is just left right now is time and then people will get to trust Bitcoin more. The current number of years Bitcoin have existed isn't enough time for Bitcoin to be put on the same table as a safe haven with gold because gold existed before BC started being used in counting years and it'll still exist even after this current generation has gone. Can Bitcoin achieve the safe haven status, yes it would but again it will need time and let's not try to hasten anything or we the community coming together to try to make it possible instead let's allow time do his thing and patiently wait for Bitcoin to develop fully into being a safe haven.

[o48o]

What does it matter what anyone says about it? That doesn't change the fundamentals. If it acts like a safe haven, people will see it as a safe haven. People can sell if they want to, i am not trying to shame anyone holding something they won't believe in, or understand in the first place.

And if influencers that swing trade it are the people that we are supposed to be fighting with the narrative, we have already lost. Because those weren't the voices that anyone should listened to in the first place. It doesn't matter what their narrative is, as their narrative changes to what ever serves themselves. More outrage their content produces, more people click them.

[Satofan44]

Whether anyone likes it or not, the Bitcoin community is relatively weak in terms of influencing a change in perception towards Bitcoin, which is mainly built through the mainstream media, which is again controlled (today more than before) by interest groups that make large profits by "trading" cryptocurrencies. This is most pronounced in the US, where the president himself influences the market with his actions, and all those who have information about what will happen profit the most.

This is not true as you are entirely missing the point. They can influence the narrative on others however they want, the issue with the narrative is still within the community. Unless you are trying to say that most people are too stupid to change themselves or their views at all, which I would agree with especially if they come from 3rd world shitholes, then you are wrong. The narrative in the wider world can not be worked on effectively until there is a coherent narrative among those that are already part of Bitcoin. We have seen even how this forum's "OGs", whatever that useless term is supposed to represent, get emotional and panicky as soon as the market sentiment is low or someone comes up with some useless FUD like OP_RETURN. If even they can't have a coherent and stable narrative yet, the average person has no chance -- with or without mainstream media manipulation.

Therefore, I would conclude that Bitcoin is far from being considered a safe haven asset considering its volatility. The average person looking at historical charts can see this very easily, but unfortunately cannot change anything about it.

You can consider it such and act accordingly regardless of what an useless chart shows. You've started building an argument that "they are manipulating you, the person" and then agreed with the data resulting from the manipulation.  

[d5000]

Yes, a lot. The problem, however, is that the community is far from being a solid group of like-minded individuals. On the contrary, I'd even say the majority are superficial supporters. In other words, not really supporters of Bitcoin in the strict sense, but simply people who have heard of an internet money that accordingly grows in dollar price quite fast.

I think the weight of the superficial/new investor group should go down over time. As bigger as the stake of these Bitcoiners become, the more they will listen to Bitcoin "influencers". And that's where they should learn. Thus yes, the influencers / leaders of opinion are strong factor. But a bit of that process is also "automatic", I think.

The problem for me is more the group that knows about Bitcoin but actively uses it for volatility driven profit. These traders know that Bitcoin has potential to be a global money, but they see currently more profit in riding the waves and leveraged trading. So they also tend to try to influence newer Bitcoiners, making them believe that Bitcoin is mostly a short term game.

The "task" for "the community" would thus be to try to drive newer Bitcoiners away from the "short-termers" and direct them to the "long-termers".

Perhaps a chicken and egg problem we find ourselves in again?

Of course. And many answers here prove it ... That's a bit the goal of this thread, to try to find ways to break out of that vicious cycle.

Apart from DCA & long term focusing ("eternally increasing" 200-week SMA, for example): One thing I think is simple enough to emphasize even to short-term and "profit-driven" investors is that the "contrarian" approach (buy when there is blood in the streets) has had the highest ROI in the bitcoin space. It has worked all the time. If you bought BTC at <50% of its previous ATH, 3-4 years later you always got massive returns.

This kind of "bottom fishing" is a kind of short term investment that would lead to more stability (if it was more massive) and thus help the "safe haven" narrative.

There have been countless threads of pure misinformation and they keep coming, how Bitcoin is not being used widely or LN either, and then that naturally makes the discussion reduce to Bitcoin's utility only being as an investment vehicle making it speculative.

Yep. I still wonder which is the best strategy, try to refute them or ignore them? Trolls should normally not be fed, but the problem is when they are fed by the wrong people (well-intended Bitcoiners who don't have good arguments and/or lack the knowledge to refute the troll, or directly other trolls or spammers) then the troll could convince some newbie readers that his fake arguments as superior.

Maybe it's not bad to start new threads to counter the troll threads. We may need a 2.0 version of "Rebuttals to Bitcoin Myths". Perhaps even self-moderated if the trolls are too persistent.

What does it matter what anyone says about it? That doesn't change the fundamentals. If it acts like a safe haven, people will see it as a safe haven.

That's exactly an example for the chicken and egg problem Satofan44 mentioned ... and if the community was following this reasoning, it would never happen (and probably eventually get into massive problems i.e. into a long term bear market).

And if influencers that swing trade it are the people that we are supposed to be fighting with the narrative, we have already lost. Because those weren't the voices that anyone should listened to in the first place. It doesn't matter what their narrative is, as their narrative changes to what ever serves themselves. More outrage their content produces, more people click them.

See answer to Darker45. The more people know that the short term oriented narratives are weaker (most people lose with Bitcoin short term trades, while contrarian and long term traders have always won until now), the more these influences will lose audience. And they may even switch to a long term oriented narrative themselves if it brings them more profit (regarding advertising income, subscribers etc.).

[Grace333]

Yes, a lot. The problem, however, is that the community is far from being a solid group of like-minded individuals. On the contrary, I'd even say the majority are superficial supporters. In other words, not really supporters of Bitcoin in the strict sense, but simply people who have heard of an internet money that accordingly grows in dollar price quite fast.

This is because topics like this aren't frequently discussed in the forum or better still pined in a strategic location so newbies who are coming into the community can have a first glance before they see anything else,  alot of person including myself first knew bitcoin from the profit without having a rooted knowledge about it, but with research or community like this those initial thought can be renewed with a more sophisticated and important information concerning bitcoin.

I guess to make the community treat Bitcoin as a safe haven asset is to bring them back to step 1, that is, to bring their focus mainly to the fact that Bitcoin doesn't have indiscriminate money printing, isn't designed to gradually lose purchasing power, isn't run/managed/supervised by a handful of upright yet corruptible human beings who are replaced every now and then, and so on.

And how can this be achieved? Definitely not by assuming they already know by DYOR. If important topics like this are discussed frequently or are made priority over less important threads it will pass the information faster.

[Somegory]

People will do what they believe it's best for themselves not for Bitcoin, there is no way we can all reason the same way and act accordingly, when a group of people decide to go right for the right cause some group of people will decide to go left for their own right believes.

I don't see anything wrong with Bitcoin chart since it was created, looking at the chart to me feels bullish always, the only challenges here is waiting game on the long term,  something that majority aren't ever going to prepare for, zoom out and see the chart to understand.



There is no other chart that's this bullish in this crypto space like Bitcoin, it's still a safe haven for me, for someone who says no as answer, the different between us is I am in this for long term and they are not.

[tiCeR]

I would actually challenge the premise.

Bitcoin doesn't become a safe haven because more than 70% of people from a survey consider it digital gold. I think it becomes a safe haven when the marginal buyer changes. And this is where your analysis is totally on point.

Since 2020, Bitcoin seems to follow the US stock indexes, and thus it's likely many people consider it "one stock more", or a speculative risk asset.

It is one more stock and I think there is a paradox involved. Most of the time when we talk about institutional investors, there is no differentiation among all those that can be considered institutional, but it makes a huge difference whether the buyer is a hedge fund, an ETF or macro traders in general. Macro traders respond to interest rates and liquidity because they are ultimately driven by what their balance sheet tells them to do. Interest rates up, less overall financial liquidity, volume of stocks or similar assets on balance sheet down as holding cash now earns more cash.

If the buyer is a pension fund or a sovereign wealth fund, or even better a central bank, they are not considered marginal buyers or sellers because they their motivation to hold BTC differs completely. But because they are not the marginal sellers once they bought, they are also not setting the price. If 19,000,000 BTC are held by long term holders, it is still not them who set the price as they don't put their BTC on the market like those who immediately respond to macro factors.

Regarding gold, I think it is still both a safe haven and a speculative asset, but the way to become what it is today was long way and while we today know it as a safe haven asset, it hasn't been one forever. The difference to bitcoin is that gold started out as money. This was manifested even more when its main purpose was to back currencies and only when the the U.S. ended it, it became a freely traded, speculative asset.

In my view bitcoin can become a safe haven asset as soon as more major institutions with long term or monetary intentions like protection against currency debasement or to store value long term buy bitcoin. I remember when there was hype that finally there will be ETFs and other big institutional investors, hedge funds, banks, but those players are highly sensitive to macro factors. ETFs rebalance as soon as the macro environment changes if most of the ETF shareholders are macro investors. If they withdraw capital, the ETF provider will sell bitcoin to meet that demand, which means more bitcoin will be put on the market. It's not like any institutional investor = any institutional investor.

What counts is the ratio of macro investors to investors who have long term intentions, like they don't care about balance sheet impacts or quarterly returns, or monetary motives like protection against currency debasement and what is also important, bitcoin is the only asset that offers diversification away from sovereign monetary policy. We could observe the incentive to do that when Turkey or Argentina had this insane inflation because of bad monetary policy.

But what's your take on this? Has the community any chance to influence the narrative? And if yes, how?]But what's your take on this? Has the community any chance to influence the narrative? And if yes, how?

What can be done? Despite some progress in the regulatory environment, I would argue that there is still more uncertainty than clarity. Huge institutional long term or monetary investors are probably still afraid to make a move because they know that bad policy or laws could be passed the next day in most countries. If I remember correctly, El Salvador was told by the World Bank to reduce? or at least not increase their bitcoin holdings or otherwise financial support would be cut. In my opinion the most effective tool the community has is their democratic vote. Use it to elect politicians that understand the technology and see the value. That way I think we may finally get a far more sharpened and favorable regulatory framework in more countries. It's not necessary that the whole world transforms towards favorable frameworks at once, but if economically important countries do, I think other will jump onto the bandwagon as they would realize it could end up in a lost opportunity or are afraid the gates might be closing for them.

As I mentioned before, gold started out as money and then transformed into a reserve asset and only then became a speculative asset + crisis hedge. Bitcoin is different and I think the transformation from a speculative asset to a reserve asset is only a question of time. Bitcoin can remain volatile and still become a safe haven and stay a speculative asset, which is exactly what gold is today.

As long as there are more marginal buyers and sellers (in terms of volume) than long term or monetary investors, I think it is unlikely that bitcoin becomes a large scale reserve asset.

[d5000]

If the buyer is a pension fund or a sovereign wealth fund, or even better a central bank, they are not considered marginal buyers or sellers because they their motivation to hold BTC differs completely. But because they are not the marginal sellers once they bought, they are also not setting the price. If 19,000,000 BTC are held by long term holders, it is still not them who set the price as they don't put their BTC on the market like those who immediately respond to macro factors. [...] In my view bitcoin can become a safe haven asset as soon as more major institutions with long term or monetary intentions like protection against currency debasement or to store value long term buy bitcoin.

First, thanks for your interesting post. I don't agree with everything, but your analysis of the behavior of macro traders and their difference with other classes of institutional investors seems to be on point.

The question for me is if we really need the long-term oriented institutionals, like Central banks or pension funds. My view is that these actors also could bring dangers into the ecosystem: first, above all in the case of Central banks, attempts of political influence on the Bitcoin development, above all if several invested Central banks cooperate in a sort of cartel, see this thread. But even in the case of pension funds, it is possible that they would tend to contribute to increase volatility in adversary conditions, like a long bear market when they could be forced to sell their BTC due to public pressure.

I may be more idealistic here with my idea of Bitcoin as a "currency for the people", but I think there are also some financial arguments for that stance. Individuals may be weaker hands when they start their investment (and Bitcoin) journey, but they can learn from the long term evolution, as long as it stays positive, and then convert in even stronger hands than some kinds of institutions.

The difference to bitcoin is that gold started out as money..

This is related to one of the ideas I try to propagate a bit: the importance of the "currency" character for the long term evolution of Bitcoin. If Bitcoin really made a dent in the "currency market", it would be much easier to become a safe haven asset too. Once it's massively used as a currency, liquidity would increase a lot, but also the perception in the public opinion would change, away from the dominance of the "speculative crypto bro".

I perceive an increase of merchant acceptance since a few years, still mostly limited to the technology sector, but it has led to myself making some BTC payments again after a long pause (in 2013-16 there was already a small merchant boom but it waned away). If this time we can sustain that increase, and maybe Ark becomes popular as a L2 (followed perhaps by BitVM-run sidechains) then it's possible that the as-a-currency usage can really increase.

Gresham's Law of course still exists, but ideally people could tend to use Bitcoin as a saving account where in bull markets you take profits spending a small part of your BTC.

What can be done? Despite some progress in the regulatory environment, I would argue that there is still more uncertainty than clarity. [...] In my opinion the most effective tool the community has is their democratic vote. Use it to elect politicians that understand the technology and see the value.

Good statement, I fully agree.

As I mentioned before, gold started out as money and then transformed into a reserve asset and only then became a speculative asset + crisis hedge. Bitcoin is different and I think the transformation from a speculative asset to a reserve asset is only a question of time. Bitcoin can remain volatile and still become a safe haven and stay a speculative asset, which is exactly what gold is today.

As I wrote above, my view is that Bitcoin could become an asset with all three use cases: speculative, hedge/long term SoV/reserve and currency.

Currently we have also a paradoxical situation: in studies most people declare themselves as long term investors, and also on chain data show that a large proportion of the coins are held for several years. However, just the early adopters are currently participating increasingly in the market as sellers, because they often can make a dream come true when they sell to current prices. I guess the selling presure from long term holders could be one of the main factors capping upside volatility currently and it can continue several years more.

But of course what stability and the evolution towards a "safe haven" character would need is investors that buy also in 2026, above all in bear markets. The danger is thus that short term investors could be currently even replace the "early" generation of long term investors, pausing the volatility reduction. This could have occurred already in most altcoins, ETH for example has not had an ATH since 2021, and that severely harms its status as long term storage asset. It could become a vicious cycle.

That's also why I'm currently posting a lot about that topic, to find opinions about ways out of this possible vicious cycle / chicken and egg problem, as written above by @Satofan44. It will of course not be a single "magic solution" but a mix of different things the community can do: voting responsibly, DCA, using BTC as a currency, using Ark/Lightning etc. . Also Bitcoin users distancing themselves from the typical "crypto bro" narrative would often help.

[Satofan44]

There have been countless threads of pure misinformation and they keep coming, how Bitcoin is not being used widely or LN either, and then that naturally makes the discussion reduce to Bitcoin's utility only being as an investment vehicle making it speculative.

Yep. I still wonder which is the best strategy, try to refute them or ignore them? Trolls should normally not be fed, but the problem is when they are fed by the wrong people (well-intended Bitcoiners who don't have good arguments and/or lack the knowledge to refute the troll, or directly other trolls or spammers) then the troll could convince some newbie readers that his fake arguments as superior.

Maybe it's not bad to start new threads to counter the troll threads. We may need a 2.0 version of "Rebuttals to Bitcoin Myths". Perhaps even self-moderated if the trolls are too persistent.

With that particular issue we are going to have challenges here. The issue primarily comes from the situation that this place does not care about the objective truth at all -- which you can applaud and claim is extremely beneficial from the censorship perspective, but that is not a counter-argument given that this very benefit comes with countless downsides which often outweigh the benefits. So you have the setup where:
1. The leadership does not care about the truth: theymos and those under his authority.
2. The users do not care about the truth: exceptions apply.

I've seen so many senior members dismiss truth one way or another using various methods, but the pattern is clear -- they want to believe what they believe, regardless of what is the truth. Since there is no benefit for posting the truth (other than things related to the person who is doing it) and since there is no punishment for posting/believing/spreading lies, then you end up in a situation like this. Preferably for things like this benevolent-top down leadership always work out best, in fact dictatorial systems when run by a benevolent leader outperform democracies by thousands of fold (the main issue with this being that in the usual case, a dictatorship is run by a malicious idiot). So it is quite hard to "solve" this problem here in any meaningful way.

1) If you ignore it, the lies spread and other people who do not know better take up the lies and spread them unknowingly.
2) If you refute them constantly:

• Through threads: They will often just get buried under countless threads and the more topics you have going, the more effort it requires you to keep up -- and if you don't keep them relevant, updated and visible they become mostly useless.
• Through posts: You will just exhaust yourself repeating the same objective truths over and over again with a very low effort in effectiveness. This comes back again that there is no punishment of any kind through any system for posting provable falsehoods under most circumstances. More users here care about their status and rank, whether DT member, merit source or otherwise than they do about Bitcoin or educating people correctly.

I do not have a good answer for you at least under the context of this platform, and I prefer not to attempt large scale interventions where the effectiveness is low and you have an environment that does not cooperate with you. You would have better success trying to do this somewhere else unless something changes about the setup, whether with point 1 or point 2.

What can be done? Despite some progress in the regulatory environment, I would argue that there is still more uncertainty than clarity. [...] In my opinion the most effective tool the community has is their democratic vote. Use it to elect politicians that understand the technology and see the value.

Good statement, I fully agree.

This is no longer true in the US, it may be true in other parts of the world -- but not over here. There is much more clarity than there is uncertainty when it comes to Bitcoin. Do not bring up regulations relating stablecoins and shitcoins, they don't have anything to do with clarity about Bitcoin.

That's also why I'm currently posting a lot about that topic, to find opinions about ways out of this possible vicious cycle / chicken and egg problem, as written above by @Satofan44. It will of course not be a single "magic solution" but a mix of different things the community can do: voting responsibly, DCA, using BTC as a currency, using Ark/Lightning etc. . Also Bitcoin users distancing themselves from the typical "crypto bro" narrative would often help.

The most effective method would be if you were magically able to stop theymos from pretending to be liberal/anarchist or whatever he is pretending to be as an excuse for his terrible project management and lack of conviction in Bitcoin, after all he has done nothing for it for an almost clear 10 years aside from passively running a forum -- but my 10 year old nephew can do that too, so it is a meaningless thing when done like that. Without cooperation and enforcement from one of the groups in power, this is not going to get far. Would his stance change completely change then we'd have a good shot in a short amount of time. For example, the recent introduction of signature ban functionality to nutildah is a good thing -- he needs to signature ban a few hundred or thousand users before we can open this conversation of putting untruths about Bitcoin together on the same level as generic/slot content and issuing signature bans for them.

For general topics, subjective topics like politics and society, this is not necessary though -- it can be limited to Bitcoin things and this would bring a lot of benefit.