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Why do parasites survive in Nature? A huge bunch survive even though they have no or negative value to the host. They survive because that survival strategy, wo

by jasdi 2y ago

Why do parasites survive in Nature? A huge bunch survive even though they have no or negative value to the host. They survive because that survival strategy, works for them. Species emerge and survive where there is a unfilled niche in the environment. Bitcoin fills such niches the financial system doesn't serve. Such as black/gray markets, tax evaders, money launderers etc. All being as ancient as organized economies. When you ask why we haven't got rid of them, you start hitting deeper issues of human behavior, social and economic systems, that will take their own sweet time to deal with due to the level of complexity of the problems. Other side to the story of why bitcoin survives is peoples reaction to loss of anonymity, bail outs of the "too big to fail" bunch etc. Basically different groups are using the tool for their own reasons. Its pure luck they are in alignment. Which leads to more investments and innovation. If these groups find different tools to solve their problems then the story changes.

enether 2y ago
I strongly disagree with you painting one of its main value props as shady/illegal, but your overall point is good. The survival strategy works. I think for us to really know what would it take to fail, would require really knowing what use cases it is fulfilling as a tool. We can then reason how sticky and how deep of a moat it has in those use cases. I believe the main use case it serves is as a borderless permissionless bearer asset store of value that’s a good diversifier from the system - like gold. If we agree that use case powers eg 80% of its market cap value, then we can reason that it’s unlikely to go away because the value network effect is incredibly hard to build again - it’s time dependent and path dependent If we, for whatever reason I disagree with, say that 80% of its value comes from the ability to evade taxes and launder money - then some 10x better alternative like Monero would very quickly take over as the preferred tool of choice and therefore kill Bitcoin

by jasdi 2y ago

enether 2y ago

I strongly disagree with you painting one of its main value props as shady/illegal, but your overall point is good. The survival strategy works. I think for us to really know what would it take to fail, would require really knowing what use cases it is fulfilling as a tool. We can then reason how sticky and how deep of a moat it has in those use cases. I believe the main use case it serves is as a borderless permissionless bearer asset store of value that’s a good diversifier from the system - like gold. If we agree that use case powers eg 80% of its market cap value, then we can reason that it’s unlikely to go away because the value network effect is incredibly hard to build again - it’s time dependent and path dependent If we, for whatever reason I disagree with, say that 80% of its value comes from the ability to evade taxes and launder money - then some 10x better alternative like Monero would very quickly take over as the preferred tool of choice and therefore kill Bitcoin