After all, he never gave instructions like “once Bitcoin gains grounds, go on and storm SEC”.
In this post, I will try to show you why BTC’s price will be $0 longterm in case ETF and other regulations meet it. I will also show that neither the number of people invested in Bitcoin, neither the number of wallets nor the technological strength of the team are able to ensure a constant price increase of Bitcoin if it would lack its one single inherent quality.
I’ll start with a provocative example. Let’s say that someone takes Venus and divides its surface into 21 million equal pieces, each of which was divided into another 100 million micro pieces. Then, these pieces are somehow distributed among those who have confirmed accounts on Facebook (or those who passed KYC in some ICO). For example, the first ones get more, while those who’ve submitted later — less. Later, the blockchain will be deployed, that said it would be just like in Bitcoin, with mining. Let’s suppose all Bitcoin miners switched to mining this #venuscoin due to certain circumstances, say, McAfee’s forecast or some statement of one of the SEC members. Investors will wait for ‘to the moon’. Later, someone else takes Mercury (I intentionally choose planets that are not suited to living), divides it into 84 million pieces and calls on the support of some smaller celebrities, such as Kardashian so that the price would rise.
And so on…
At some point, people will start asking themselves “What do we actually exchange?” Anyone can create his/her blockchain, divide some distant planet into pieces… but really, why is that Venus worse than Mercury or vice versa? Is it precisely scarcity that determines their value? Or the fact that blockchain is public and seen to everyone? Or that its immutable? Or the hashrate? Or the number of those who’ve invested in the pieces of a particular planet? Or that the Venus team is faster on providing the new features, but… the Mercury team can copy these features on the same day, right?
The situation will eventually be very similar to that with the tulips, or the South See Company and similar.
But how’s that, Bitcoin is an innovation! Yes, Bitcoin itself is a great innovation. It is comparable with the event when people eventually made the first flying plane. Until 1902, people already knew things about engines, wings, and chassis, but no one managed to fly.
What I’m getting at is that if you want Bitcoin to worth something, it must be useful in solving a certain problem. And it does solve — it provides for transactions WITH NO CENSORSHIP. It’s similar to the situation with books, namely who is behind copying them: At first, it was a priests’ prerogative, then monks’, later scientists’, and now we’re at the point where anyone can upload their book on Amazon. The society is being gradually transformed to reveal the potential of each its participant. And this is called freedom. Of course, this freedom will once come in the financial sphere. And when it emerges completely (I think, no earlier than in several generations), Bitcoin will not be as relevant, just as monks are no longer required to rewrite books. But today, Bitcoin deals with a very important task of private transactions for those to whom they were unavailable.
And so, what does that mean “Bitcoin meets regulations” and what would it lead to? This is all about ETF, control of exchanges, complete KYC for those who deposit and withdraw money from exchanges, major investment funds that heavily invest in order to posses the most part of BTC coins, resulting in the fact that the amount of truly “uncensored” transactions in the network will be less and less each day. And then we get Paypal but with mining, and some strange equipment that consumes millions of dollars a day. I have nothing against Paypal, but it no longer solves the task that Bitcoin was to solve. And its price will become $0 fast enough because people will understand that they are selling Venus pieces.
But what will happen beyond the horizon — where the economic freedom has come? Well, I think we will have currencies backed by RESOURCES / PRODUCTION / GDP of the specific economies that work transparently for its all participants.
“Satoshi” promo code gets 3 free job postings on Hacker Noon’s job board.