Bitcoin is a different kind of asset that can be difficult for people to understand. New things usually are. And while Bitcoin is nearly nine years old, it represents a completely new type of asset. As investors near the Bitcoin iceberg, the first thing they see is payments. True, Bitcoin is certainly used for payments, and this is an important part of its value. However, its not widely used for payments and, while it may be increasingly important over time, it isnt the most important component of Bitcoins value today. However, people dont generally use Bitcoin for payments because goods arent broadly priced in BTC terms. Goods arent broadly priced in BTC terms because, if they were, the price would have to update several times each minute just to maintain a consistent revenue for the seller. In short, the major advantage to using Bitcoin for payments is that it is volatile, which is neither a great ingredient for payments (medium of exchange) nor the pricing of goods (unit of account). While payments are the first thing that people think of for Bitcoin, the reason that most people buy today is its utility as digital goldthis is the center of buoyancy for the Bitcoin iceberg. People are attracted to an asset that is provably scarce, nearly impossible to seize or censor, and part of a decentralized and permission-less network that anyone can participate in.
Lets talk about two early examples within Bitcoin: multi-signature transactions and time-locked transactions. The former allows me to send Bitcoin to an address and specify that the value cannot be moved. Similarly, time-locked transactions allow me to send Bitcoin to an address and specify that it cant be moved until some specific point in the future. Both of these examples are things I could hack onto legacy financial infrastructure. I could create a trust, for example. But these things require hours of legal cost and logistics time. In Bitcoin, that cost and effort has been reduced to a few lines of code. These are two early examples of what I believe will eventually be dozens and then hundreds of unique capabilities. Most encouragingly, young developers are picking up these puzzle pieces and assembling them in novel ways that could fundamentally change the fabric of finance and the way we transact.
Ultimately, Bitcoins value as a programmable asset is the most viable path to mass adoption: People will adopt Bitcoin because its the easiest (or only) way to complete tasks