BTC: and its D.O.E. dilemma (dead on 1st experience)

MEMORIES!

I remember 4 and 5 years ago being so jazzed about bitcoin I was trying to onboard everyone I could. Many ended up going down the rabbit hole. It was a FUN time! -Buying beers for friends with bitcoin or paying for my portion of the check to them in bitcoin so they could get their toes wet. I remember sending 10 cent transactions back and forth with my brother from across the country and him saying, "This is so cool"! It was always a magical type of experience seeing that light go off in their heads when you did a transaction to them with the reminder: no middleman - no bank - that's money right there -- just like cash - yup, Bitcoin is going to change the world!

THEN SHIT HAPPENED

We all know what happened and I'm not going to rehash the 2mb block debacle. The end result is a BTC with segshit and blocks slightly bigger than 1mb. Ok ok here we are... We're now told it's insane to spend it. (big lol there) Hodl is a religion. And I can no longer onboard anyone into btc anymore since it may cost me $4, or $6, or $20 dollars to send a few bucks. No, that's simply NOT an option any more. In fact, this leads to anyone who is 'BTC curious' now to be largely on their own with no one like me to help them through it and to gain understanding of the tech and the economic freedom that it affords. I've been completely priced out as an evangelist and teacher (and voluntary salesman) for the cause simply by the fees alone. Add to this the fact that there really aren't any merchants accepting it, and BTC has a huge problem. Because nearly the 1st question anyone ever asks when I introduce bitcoin to them is -- "ok, but where can i spend it?" This isn't propaganda for all you coretards reading this. If you have done ANY bitcoin evangelism you'll know this is almost always the very first question people will ask you - hands down! But btc maximalists don't see this as a problem! "It's a feature to not spend, not a bug!" LOL. Can the world get any more upside down than the one they are living in? Imagine that! People actually want to be able to spend their money (if they choose to)!

DYOR !!! (Because you are alone in this):

I've already noted how the btc takeover has decimated its grass roots sales force; guys like me anxious to pimp, and teach bitcoin to anyone and everyone willing to listen. This is a highly underestimated loss. There were many of us out there who got btc on the road to 20k, but not any more. By opting for higher fees, core killed the entire BTC ground sales force and most ardent grass roots supporters. And Merchant adoption? That is POSTPONED til further notice. I guarantee even Trace Meyer is not sending bitcoin to people any more, in fact he's probably doing a podcast right now about the hodler of last resort propaganda he literally depends on....but I digress.

But what happens to that person who proactively makes the leap into BTC on their own today? Let's have a look:

The first thing that likely happens is they have to connect their banking account to an exchange. They forgo the powerful experience of the P2P (peer to peer) aspect of the currency. This alone is another huge opportunity lost. Their first experience comes through; (welp), a bank. Is this exciting? Is this revolutionary? You need to connect to a bank to get some of it. And now, instead of having someone onboard you with a bitcoin phone wallet, send you some bitcoin while you're enjoying a beer, while explaining the importance of private keys and passphrase -- you instead have the soulless experience of buying your coin from a bitcoin bank and parking it there. IF (and this is a big 'if' at this point) they manage to then download a phone wallet and take actual custody of their BTC the question is; what can they do with it?

But let's back up for one second. Is there any real reason for this person to take custody of their BTC? I'd say there's no reason. None at all any more. After all the sole use case is now Hodl, right? But humor me for a second and let's say a BTC noob is somehow still excited about their BTC and the even think they can use it. Would this person give a friend some BTC if they were never introduced to bitcoin through a grassroots hands-on p2p way? It's very unlikely. In all likelihood they will simply say to a curious friend: "go on Coinbase and get some". So, you now have someone holding bitcoin, and unable to really teach anyone about it. It's a lost opportunity of potentially converting someone into a true btc advocate and teacher - and this is a big unmeasurable loss - a loss that btc is still bleeding out as we speak.

JANE LOVES BITCOIN

But humor me for a moment and let's go a bit into fantasy land. Say this person (we'll call her Jane) somehow manages to retain excitement and passion about bitcoin and later wants to show friends and family how it works. Jane takes custody of her BTC with a phone wallet from the exchange (phew that was stressful) and then get a few family members around a table one night to give a lesson in bitcoin intending to send them some. (In fact, one of Jane's friends has been really curious about bitcoin and more-so since hearing Jane talk about it so much).

Jane has all her four friends download a btc phone wallet. Jane then sends them each some using QR codes... ok easy enough -- so far so good! The excitement is palpable. She then encourages each to do the same ( telling Bob to send some to Mary and so on...) to get the feel for it and ease of use. She's about to launch into an explanations of the value of exchange with no middleman/bank. But then FUCK something happens.... The transaction she just sent her friends is just sitting there un-spendable. She tells them they have to wait just a bit. So, they wait, and wait...and they wait.... The wise guy at the table starts cracking some jokes about the glitch. While the laughter and playful teasing among her friends builds, Jane notices that each transaction of $1 she sent to her friends cost her over $4 in fees EACH. So she sent $1 to 4 friends for a cost of over $17. The friends can't send to each other because their transactions aren't confirmed, and after 2 pots of coffee and dessert, they still haven't confirmed. In fact at this point our lovely BTC advocate Jane is happy they haven't confirmed yet because she doesn't know how to explain the fact that sending $4 just cost her over $17 dollars. LOL. What a fucking disaster this is! The whole thing is DOE - DEAD ON (the 1st) EXPERIENCE!

SO WHAT DID JANE'S FRIENDS LEARN ABOUT BITCOIN?:

No one learns anything other than BTC is ridiculously and primitively slow, and expensive, and doesn't work nearly as well as 100 other payment systems they have. Bob insists he rather transact using Iraqi dinars and that he could run home and pick a few up he has sitting in a drawer - it would be faster than this. LOL . The conversation then turns back to sports or family. The demonstration is a #FAIL. Hopefully this lovely well intentioned woman Jane doesn't become the butt of too many jokes for too long. And hopefully she doesn't give up on cryptocurrency completely. The next day one of Jane's friends from the now epic btc disaster demo hears CNBC talking about bitcoin and he turns to his partner and exclaims - "wow that bitcoin, it's really shit". He opens his phone app and sees the BTC that Jane sent him still there, unconfirmed. He laughs. He tells his wife... "yah i don't get it at all. It seems pretty useless to me. I wonder when I'll be able to spend this, if ever? lol " Yah, bitcoin's got jokes. He then briefly remembers reading about the 'greater fool theory' in economics class years ago and assumes this is what this whole bitcoin phenomenon and hype must be.

The issue of the DOE:

The "Dead On 1st Experience" illustrates the need and utter dependence for BTC to be propped up by the very institutions we were originally fighting against: banks, fake-stream media, governments, since no one else is really capable of doing so as illustrated by Jane's DOE dilemma. Without the help of the elite, BTC is dead-- it WILL die on the vine unless it is adopted and propped up and pumped by both corporate and state sponsored entities. It's certainly not going to get any help from Jane (or her friends). I'm not saying this elitist push for btc will not happen. It could, if the powers that shouldn't be decide to get even more behind it. It appears they are dipping their toes atm.....they can prop it up like the do other financial instruments which are destined to fail (US dollar anyone?) maybe even long enough that a proper scaling solution emerges besides the epic fail which is lightning. But I do want to illustrate that the DOE dilemma leads to a complete and utter dependence on entities which should not be counted on to promote economic freedom and fungible money to the entire world. The fact is that economic freedom and these institutions and systems are in fact, diametrically opposed. So, how long will their support last? It will last only as long as THEY want it to last, and not a day longer. Caveat Emptor!

A STRUGGLING MARKETCAP - A CLUE

The fact that Bitcoin is a 165 million market cap is not impressive considering it is 10 years old and available in all the earth. In fact, I'd say it's struggling. Once, the btc market cap was inclusive of an impressive collective of the highly motivated, the politically and economically sensitive and literate, intuitive types, and freedom-loving early adopters. But these people are gone now. Adios. Many of the savvy early supporters have trickled into BCH XMR , ETH and other projects. Only the charlatans remain behind with their megaphones touting the disfunctional btc; the commodity equivalent of what is essentially, snake oil. We can see this simply by examining the crypto twitter and the reddit subs. The brain share in BTC has been shrinking rapidly. Intelligence has left the room. Don't believe me? Just take a look at the main r/bitcoin sub. It's full people boarding on mental retardation. I'm being kind here. Most of us standing behind other projects are still focused on the same ideals we once associated in/for BTC but we are now spread more thin and in some ways vying against each other instead of working together. To be honest, it's problematic. But this is what the main BTC hodl proponents have done; it is a fracturing of a smart and zealous community into splinter groups while attracting a whole new breed of supporters to the BTC community - a fledgling gaggle of economic illiterates, state worshiping goons, and low IQ individuals who are highly susceptible to propaganda (and drooling on themselves). Aside from the community, the core developers range from a guy with blue hair, to guy who wants 300kb blocks, to a guy who honestly suggested that a pencil and paper ledger be used to keep tabs for their latest technology the LN (limp network). You can't make this shit up.

What long term effects and momentum the new splinter groups (former BTC-ers) will gather will likely be only a sum of their human parts and work rather than who has the best technology. But only a flexible, highly adaptive and responsive technology combined with strong grass roots community capable of real and effective demonstrations and on-boarding will have a chance at true mass adoption. BCH is looking good in this regard. As are others. I never believed this was a zero sum game. But now, when comparing the mindshare and technical advantages possessed by other projects, BTC is clearly a withering grape on a dying vine. You'd have to be blind not to see this. And the new btc community is a farcical gathering of NPCs who would be challenged to solve one side of a rubix cube. For you coretards, here's the translation: not good.

Personal implications of the DOE

I've always held both BTC and BCH. I watch the market and like making money. I've been in and out of BCH as a trade many times, usually to gain more BTC. I know , I know. I'm being honest. I figured if a flippening ever really happened I'd still be in excellent shape since I used BCH as more or less; a hedge, and have accumulated it at deeper price dips. But then I noticed something disturbing in my own conversations revolving around crypto; I was trying to avoid having them! You see, I had continued talking about bitcoin the past few years but I was being decidedly short in my explanations. I was starting to just tell people: "just buy some bitcoin....and keep it on the exchange ". Of course i sure the hell wasn't giving them any with the fees. Was I paying for my share of the check with BTC to get them on boarded? Hell no! They could figure it out on their own, or not. I didn't really care any more. The DOE took care of ANY possibility of me being their teacher. You see, without being able to demonstrate bitcoin, it's just not bitcoin.

So I was willing to talk about 'bitcoin' because i wanted to lazily introduce them to crypto. But yah, it simply wasn't fun explaining all the nuances of bitcoin any more -- how you couldn't really spend it, why you don't really want to spend it, and why spending it could be very expensive depending on the traffic on the network that day. Nah, fuck that, I just can't be bothered explaining this anymore. And even if I did want to buck up the fees for a demo-- other aspects of the DOE would assuredly kill it, so why bother? I also didn't really want to explain that the real bitcoin was now called Bitcoin Cash. It was all too troublesome.

Back at Square One?

I don't think we are back at square one in terms of adoption--- and I do like what I see in both the BCH, XMR and ETH communities (and others). Perhaps this is the way it all turns out for the best.... we end up with a handful of earth wide permissionless FUNGIBLE currencies with robust privacy features - something this world needs now more than ever.

BTC has become the statist's coin. It is a useless non-fungible cryptocurrency which is designed to rot inside your digital wallet and lead regulators and police goons to your doorstep if you decide to use it. It is trying really hard to become the friend of the pedophile politician, the grifting law enforcers, the wolves of wall street, and the ponzi banking system which enjoys the benefits of creating money out of thin air. Yes, this is their coin now. And they can have it. I have no interest in DOE demonstrations of this useless crippled shitcoin and almost feel ashamed for still owning any of it. I'm sure even this is likely to change as I see the sentiment and market move in other directions. I'm now anxious for the day that btc officially becomes the myspace of crypto and I'm fairly certain that it will happen.

STEP UP YOUR CRYPTO EVANGELISM GAME

I'm recommitting my crypto evangelism to strictly prohibit the mention of BTC to anyone, anywhere, any time unless it's to point out how useless and hopeless it really is. I will be the anti-btc guy from now on and because of harsh realities demonstrated by the DOE - I am firmly committed to this. BCH IS BITCOIN. And it's on sale. The real opportunities now lie outside of btc. I'm sure there are many here who have been, like me, essentially sitting on the sidelines - voicing support for the BCH project, but little more. I'd encourage you all to fully drop btc from your crypto repertoire and evangelism and pick up where we left off with Bitcoin years ago but armed with BCH / XMR / ETH and others. Focus on one or two. For those of you like u/memorydealers who have been carrying the torch - great job and thank you. But I think more help is on the way. I see it in the sentiment and BCH converts and within a few years I'm fairly certain we can gain greater parody with BTC price, that is - if the dying DOE coin is even still around.

BCH FTW

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