Re: Institutional investors are buying Bitcoin's future... How do we stop this?
⭐ Merited by The Pharmacist (3)
We have seen recent news that some large Institutional investors are buying large amounts of coins. Now, if you are a speculator and trader, this will be good news to you, but if you are into Bitcoin for the technology and the goal for Bitcoin to be a alternative currency, then you should sit up and take notice.
Currently it is estimated that only 3% of the total available coins are being owned by large Institutional corporations, like PayPal, Credit Card companies and Tesla. This is quickly becoming a trend with large Dubai companies also buying large amounts of coins.
Why is this a threat to Bitcoin's future?
Answer: These companies are buying the bitcoins to be hoarded in cold storage. They are planning to allow people to use Bitcoin as a payment option, but the transactions will not be done on the Blockchain. They will have some kind of internal ledger system that will keep track of the coins being bought from their "hoard" and the coins being sold. (or converted to fiat) - Payment processors does the same thing and this makes Bitcoin commerce legal within most countries, because it is not perceived as a currency, but rather a payment system. (Also fully controlled and regulated)
Now, this is where the crucial problem starts, because Bitcoin need on-chain transactions to generate income for the miners in the form of Miners fees. We know the Halving will ultimately reduce the Block reward to almost nothing and the miners fee will have to replace the Block reward as a method of payment for their processing power.
What happens if transactions on-chain are replaced with off-chain transactions in ledgers? It reduces the available supply of coins and it also does not generate income for the miners. We know miners are not going to mine for free, so the on-chain transactions will not be able to confirm and the whole experiment will fail.
How can we stop that from happening? ...... Let's discuss, because this will be interesting to see how we will be countering this unintended attack.
See practically this shouldn't create an issue. If you see the market cap of Bitcoin just surpassed Tencent gaming. Tesla with a whopping 1.5 Billion dollars could just acquire less than 0.2% of total bitcoin supply and the price has further increased due to that and any new company would get even lesser amount of bitcoins. This definitely meant that you can easily say companies won't even be able to touch the 10% mark because the price would explode exponentially. Therefore it's pretty much sure that a lot of bitcoin will still remain in circulation. Second thing is the fees. Now believe it or not fees is a game of demand and supply. Currrently the fees are as exorbitant as $20 for a few transactions and with lack of transactions this would ultimately become lower and then a lot of people will start transacting until it becomes high again. Fees are perfectly controlled by market forces themselves and miners generally end up in profits due this. I don't think we need to worry about them. Moreover rationally speaking no one would want to transact in a currency which can increase 20% in value the very next day. Currently it is estimated that only 3% of the total available coins are being owned by large Institutional corporations, like PayPal, Credit Card companies and Tesla. This is quickly becoming a trend with large Dubai companies also buying large amounts of coins.
Why is this a threat to Bitcoin's future?
Answer: These companies are buying the bitcoins to be hoarded in cold storage. They are planning to allow people to use Bitcoin as a payment option, but the transactions will not be done on the Blockchain. They will have some kind of internal ledger system that will keep track of the coins being bought from their "hoard" and the coins being sold. (or converted to fiat) - Payment processors does the same thing and this makes Bitcoin commerce legal within most countries, because it is not perceived as a currency, but rather a payment system. (Also fully controlled and regulated)
Now, this is where the crucial problem starts, because Bitcoin need on-chain transactions to generate income for the miners in the form of Miners fees. We know the Halving will ultimately reduce the Block reward to almost nothing and the miners fee will have to replace the Block reward as a method of payment for their processing power.
What happens if transactions on-chain are replaced with off-chain transactions in ledgers? It reduces the available supply of coins and it also does not generate income for the miners. We know miners are not going to mine for free, so the on-chain transactions will not be able to confirm and the whole experiment will fail.
How can we stop that from happening? ...... Let's discuss, because this will be interesting to see how we will be countering this unintended attack.