great post
Great post cypherdoc!
Bitcoin is an extremely complex phenomenon. Expecting everybody to understand both its technical workings and its social ramifications would be very optimistic.
The importance of speculators as well as "hoarders" (or savers, as I like to call them) for Bitcoin seems to escape lots of people on this forum even to this day.
Trying to invoke critical thinking in people is a noble goal and I salute you for pursuing it! I enjoy this thread.
oh gaud. hoarding. that's another one of the major criticisms i heard all day everyday back in 2011.
they failed to understand that hoarding is just another form of saving. and since when is saving supposed to be bad, unless you're Ben Berspankme?
the arguments against hoarding at the time went like this. "unless Bitcoiners spend their money, there is no way the merchant economy can get off the ground". this is so wrong on so many levels. sometimes ppl just need to save money for rainier days. it depends on their age in life. savings can be used to lend to promising Bitcoin projects. it also creates scarcity during this inflationary phase of reward issuance which helps support the price. point being, there will always be hoarders. AND, there will always be spenders. so my argument was just "STFU about hoarders. please".
the other argument they made about volatility was that it prevented merchants from running a stable business. while this could be true for those Bitcoin businesses running on a shoestring or who were susceptible to price swings, it is NOT true for a well run, well capitalized,
forward thinking business that seeks to accumulate BTC leveraging future prospects. what an opportunity to do so back in 2011! idiots were dumping BTC to buy whatever they could due to fear that their BTC would go to zero. i always think back to Meze Grill who shut their doors back in 2011. what a huge mistake that was.