Bitcoin

Hi there again beautiful people,

In yesterdays stream we managed to win our daily game of RISK. Not a single question was asked in Discord and the stream itself also was very silent when it comes to viewers. I am currently looking at 4 participants for the next raffle and that is in the new format, when I stream 24/7. Not really encouraging, but I still feel the need to speak out my thoughts and opinions and looking at the state of the world today, I am not so surprised that my message has limited reach. There is so much noise out there so how can I expect anybody would give up their precious time to actually hear what I have to say?

Luckily I strengthen myself with the notion that I just want to document my own thoughts and feeling of this time, and this is just one more story for my own archive, so I can look back at a later stage and see what I was thinking at this time. That makes it easier to accept that most people simply wont go out of their comfort zone to see if they can contribute to make any of those thoughts into reality. It is indeed very difficult to find people with the same kind of mindset and understand some sacrifices have to be made to get to a next level of understanding.

Lets not get to far away from todays subject, which is Bitcoin. When I was making the highlight video of yesterday, about the Bitcoin of the Netherlands, e-Gulden EFL, I noticed how the final minutes of my speech where missing. The solution is very simple, just do it again, but then I came to realize that before I can really start and talk about e-Gulden EFL, I need to address Bitcoin, because how can I talk about the Bitcoin of the Netherlands if I did not first explain Bitcoin, so here we go.

Bitcoin is the first form of money in the world that is not regulated by a central authority. Instead, Bitcoin regulates itself in a way that is completely transparent and can be changed if the community decides to do so. Examples of this are the many forks that Bitcoin itself has seen, where a group of people that decide on different rules at some point go their own way and leave behind the initial set of rules. One of those rules that has been a discussion point for a long time now is the 1 MB blocksize of each Bitcoin block. This hard cap on data makes Bitcoin able to process around 7 transaction per second on its blockchain and for a world wide payment solution, that is simply not sufficient. 

Bitcoin maximalists believe that 1 single coin, namely Bitcoin, will one day be able to provide the data that is required to service all those financial needs in the world. Their solution to the problem is something called lightning and is in development for over half of Bitcoins existence, but still not really implemented today, for which I have a possible reasons. The first is that lightning is expensive in use and limited in its usability. The only way to transact funds over the lightning network occurs when every lightning channel has enough liquidity to process the request. This liquidity costs money and creates centralisation. Lets forget about the technical difficulties to open and maintain a lightning channel and just took at the regulatory RISKs that one single coin would bring. Those entities that will have sufficient liquidity will easily be forced into complying to whatever KYC requirement comes up. Why would you want to create a single point of failure by just having one cryptocoin for all and everything, while you could spread you RISK by adopting a multitude of different blockchains, each servicing their own niche and community.

In reality, the last is happening. People are simply too creative to not develop their own rules and preferences for an excellent way of storing value over longer periods of time. Unfortunately, people that create their own solution to Bitcoins congestion problem are portrayed by their own friends in crypto, namely those Bitcoin maximalists that call those initiatives out as scams or dead shitcoins, while at the same time hodling on to a cryptocoin that takes 10 minutes to confirm a transaction and simply does not have what it takes to provide the world with what it needs to form a real alternative to the current payment providers of centralized institutions like VISA or Mastercard. 

The reality is that on most websites that sell crypto merchandise, you are asked to pay your bills in some form of traditional banking solution. Companies that started to accept crypto have stopped accepting it after they discovered exactly howmuch costs where involved. Next to that harsh reality of its userfriendlyness, we should not forget how the current status quo is actively trying to undermine the power of crypto. Articles about the price suggest the only way is down, articles about the technology often result in a discussion about climate change and the people that actually use crypto in their life are portrayed and moneylaundering terrorists. In the world of finance, new innovations are made to regulate the flow of money. One of these innovations is the so called ESG score, a point system for financiers to determine how well a certain investment proposal scores on environment, social and governance. The narrative is controlled in such a way that it is not easy to see what Bitcoin will become, if the Lightning Maxi's have it their way.

I feel sorry for the people that want to fulfill all regulatory requirments because they believe it will give them access to large profits, for example because you managed to regulate yourself to a level that you are able to accept pensionsavings, a moneytier that is extremely protected in its flow. Instead of educating those people that want to save for their retirement, you now want to become somebody that steals from those people to feed your own family. Most likely, by the time that Bitcoin becomes so regulated that this kind of collective savingsmoney can flow in, the esg score of Bitcoin is so low, you wont see any money hitting the market, because that money you are hoping for is not free or up for grabs at all. It is what is feeding the ponzi every month, so you can be sure it will be protected with force. Instead, what I believe is a much more viable option and much more sustainable in the future, is to continue the way we have been going for the past couple years, which is to promote the use of local blockchains.

Local blockchains can add data to the limited data that is available within Bitcoin. With use of the Atomic DEX of Komodo you will be able to transact any coin that implements the Komodo standard with the coin you propose to the world. Because I am born in the Netherlands, I have invested my time and money to work into getting blockchain adopted in the Netherlands. The result until today is very limited. I did manage to be the first that put the topic of Bitcoin on national TV not being the news, but when I really had the chance to prove my point I backed out. I backed out, because there was no support for any of the things I was doing.