Quote from: Gormicsta on Today at 07:00:54 AM

Quote from: JayJuanGee on Today at 04:24:29 AM

It is difficult to know what level of adoption bitcoin has, and I have my doubts that it has even reached 1% of the world's population, even though we have rich folks and rich institutions currently coming into bitcoin, including some of them entering through the newly approved Spot ETFs. These guys are neither imuned from gambling tendencies or making mistakes of the past, including but not limited to mistakes made that led up to a lot of the 2022 cascading crashes of Terra/Luna, Celsius, Blockfi, 3AC, Voyager, FTX, Alameda Research, Genesis (perhaps involving Grayscale) and probably some others that I am forgetting about...

Indeed, there isn't a precise metrics to gauge how widely Bitcoin is adopted. Some may choose to consider the quantity of daily transactions or the number of Bitcoin wallets that are currently in use. However, these gauges are limited to certain factors.

Of course, imprecise in terms of both measuring the number of actual people - and then also figuring out the extent to which bitcoin might be fractionally reserved in a variety of ways since some of the BIG bitcoin wallets are connected to various 3rd party custodians, such as exchanges or various financial product providers (ETFs and those kinds of institutions)...

So we surely have measures in regards to how much adoption is increasing in a variety of ways and we can infer usage from quite a few of the various metrics, including make inferences about the kinds of users through tracing some of the histories of wallets... and perhaps even identifying various black holes with lightning network private and public channels that may or may not be traceable... and maybe i am not quibbling as much about these kinds of matters with you, even though I am quibbling with your overall assertion that there are fewer gamblers in bitcoin now and even that there are more adults in the room because the BIGGER players are coming into the picture, and surely your assertion is NOT totally untrue, but I don't like it because it is seeming to generalize too much and to accept too many mainstream characterizations that even implicitly criticize earlier adopters for being gambler types and immature - even though there is some truth in it, I still consider it to be an unfair picture, including that it seems to imply that richer players and institutions are not acting like that (when they are able to, and sometimes subtly scandalously and also playing with others money, too)... and sure maybe in the end, I am quibbling over relatively small details since we largely don't disagree.

Quote from: Gormicsta on Today at 07:00:54 AM

However, despite its rather low adoption rate, Bitcoin is nevertheless having a significant effect on the financial system. For instance, the collapse of FTX has effects in both the traditional finance and cryptocurrency sectors. Therefore, even if just a small portion of people use Bitcoin, its impact is far bigger than that statistic would imply.

The mere fact that bitcoin has a lot of large impacts also goes towards various attempts to manipulate it and to use it in a variety of ways and spread misinformation.. so, even though I agree that there are all kinds of disproportionate impacts that bitcoin is having, there is also all kinds of misinformation pieces out there that characterize bitcoin in negative ways and continue to disproportionately negatively affect normies from getting into bitcoin when they should... so probably since I got in, there have been all kinds of characterization that bitcoin is growing too fast and its mature and all kinds of bullshit that cause a lot of normies to conclude that they are too late and even if they invest into bitcoin, they are also quick to pull out because they wrongly conclude that any continued upwards price movements are not sustainable.. I hate to create any impression that bitcoin is anywhere close to mature or to imply that people have missed the boat or two suggest that bitcoin's irresponsible days are over. . or that even bitcoin's ongoing violent volatility (in either direction) is over.. even though surely more and more rich people are getting into bitcoin in attempts to front run retail and normies..

but so far the numbers of entrance of even the rich people into bitcoin are still relatively small even though it is seeming like it is BIG... and also there likely are a small numbers of the rich folks and institutions that truly are stocking up on bitcoin (like Saylor - outwardly open about it).. and so those who are coming to bitcoin earlier are still able to front run a lot of normies (retail) and also able to front-run a lot of institutions, including blackrock, even though surely Blackrock is currently publicly ongoingly taking BiG chunks of bitcoin and surely anyone still acquiring bitcoin right now is lucky that the BTC price is not moving up as fast as it could be, even though the window to 5 digit bitcoin may well end up ending soon.. and surely no guarantees.. . .but it seems that any newbies should be ongoingly striving to get as many bitcoin as they can while 5 digit prices last, whether that is the next month or two or maybe it could last for another whole cycle (such as 4 years), but I have my doubts.

Quote from: Gormicsta on Today at 07:00:54 AM

Well, I think On the one hand, Bitcoin has been around for more than a decade now, and it's had a number of major price fluctuations, crashes, and comebacks. So it's certainly not a new technology. However, until it becomes commonly used for transactions, there is still a long way to go.

Failure of incentives to transact is not completely the fault of bitcoin, and so if countries are unfriendly to bitcoin, then they impose disincentives in regards to transacting in bitcoin... Technically, it pretty easy to transact with bitcoin.

So criticizing bitcoin for its ease of transactability, or lack thereof is more likely a political problem.. and sure there also can be some claims that bitcoin fees are too high, yet there are likely some less than organic forces pushing that direction... so surely, a lot of smaller players might be discouraged to adopt bitcoin because of fee matters and confusion about fee matters and confusion about how to hold their coins without creating hundreds of $10 transactions.

Bitcoin's stronger value proposition has to do with the difficulties to censor it.. which is quite threatening to various powers that be that don't like people to have freedom or privacy and they want to get into the middle of transactions to be able to try to control them and to extract value from the transactions, and so in a variety of regards battles are going to continue, but it is not going to stop richer people from trying to front run retail, when bitcoin is more likely a tool for poor people rather than rich people, even though rich people are in a better place to take advantage of it and also not to be discouraged by misinformation regarding the ongoing needs to send $10 transactions on chain...

So yeah there are likely going to continue to be barriers towards both adoption and poor people realizing that bitcoin is something that they should be acquiring.. and likely even a lot of current bitcoin holders are low coiners who don't realize that they don't have enough bitcoin, even though you don't necessarily need a lot of it, but still there are advantages to actually realizing that bitcoin is no where near to a mature asset class in terms of adoption or a variety of important variables, even though there are some bitcoin hoarders who are pushing up the prices for everyone else and some of those bitcoin hoarders (the rich folks) might also be contributing to various negative dynamics that put informational and even financial obstacles in front of normies, no coiners and low coiners in terms of benefits that they would get from getting more bitcoin price exposure and/or owning bitcoin directly.

Quote from: Gormicsta on Today at 07:00:54 AM

As of right now, the majority of its users are investors; regular people use it less frequently for tasks like paying bills or buying groceries. Therefore, I believe it to be in the middle of the "early" and "mature" areas.

I am tempted to say that is a dumb framing, even though you are not wrong. Anyone who is wanting to get into bitcoin and to benefit from it better start accumulating it and as much as they can.. like an investor and/or like a speculator. and yeah surely down the road more and more abilities are going to continue to develop... and yeah, these problems have existed in bitcoin since I got in and maybe even merchants who adopt the ability to receive bitcoin and then give up and some of them got screwed by having hundreds of $10 or less transactions that might be currently difficult (and maybe even financially unfeasible to move)... but so what? I think these dynamics continue to show bitcoin as early days and sometimes having both forward and backwards steps, and it is difficult to expect that progress is going to be continuous and linear.. even though BTC price growth is exponential, especially if you look at it from 2012 to present.. or even if you might choose some other dates and zoom out a bit beyond various ongoing persistent short-term dilemmas.

Quote from: Gormicsta on Today at 07:00:54 AM

It also appears that ignorance of the underlying technology contributed to some of the mistakes committed in the past. For instance, the Terra/Luna scenario resulted from a crash caused by an algorithmic stablecoin design error.

Maybe I forgot to say fuck crypto.. we should be trying to focus on bitcoin here.. but yeah, there are various kinds of gamblers related to bitcoin and scammers and it is likely that that dick-twat Kwon Do already knew about the technological problems in both the way that he designed his scam coin, the way he marketed it and the way that he supposedly bought bitcoin to peg the value. and gamblers are going to gamble and scammers are going to scam.. and when there are all kinds of potential for loop holes for pyramid schemes for rug pulling regulars, including that likely venture capitalists (such as Mike Novogratz with that Terra/Luna tatoo) twats were part of various aspects of these kinds of scams that got their money in early, pumped the shitcoin project and got a lot of their money out prior to regular folks who some of the regular folks got burnt more than others and sure some rich people got burnt in it too. but there have been systemized ways to pump scams in the "crypto" and bitcoin space, which is probably not so much a criticism of bitcoin, even though bitcoin does empower the abilities of scammers to scam..so you better be careful.. and you might or might not end up on the right side of the crash. .which I think my earlier examples have those kinds of stories in which some individuals have been able to escape getting reckt and others not.. which also is likely not going away in this upcoming cycle. merely because there are perceptions that adults are in the room.. but the bigger players also try to fuck around with systems, so they are going to fuck around and find out with bitcoin too.. and we will find out the extent to which bitcoin is able to sustain the ongoing fuckery that is likely to continue in similar ways, different ways and even ways that are still to be learned(discovered).

Quote from: Gormicsta on Today at 07:00:54 AM

Also, FTX's inability to accurately account for customer deposits was a contributing factor in their bankruptcy.

Surely they did not even have bitcoin... and they were faking value by printing their own coin (FTT).. which ended up coming to bite them in the ass fairly rapidly, and the level of shenanigans and likely insider dealing that includes people who have not been prosecuted and held to account continues.. so let's see what happens with that slimy little unsympathetic virtue signaling narcissistic twat.. SBF.

Quote from: Gormicsta on Today at 07:00:54 AM

I don't really think there are many fundamental flaws with Bitcoin itself, I believe it's more about how it's being implemented, which I believe could be readjusted as the day goes by.

Bitcoin is decentralized and open source, so it is likely best to consider it in terms of it is what it is.. instead of thinking about if it could be implemented in some other way.. it is not really being implemented (except maybe it was implemented in 2008, 2009 and maybe into 2010 until satoshi disappeared. and thereafter, it was left to exist and to be developed upon.. .. so yeah, people will find ways to use it or to build upon it.. and to propose changes that may or may not end up getting adopted... some people might be more influential than others, so if you think something needs to be implemented or changed, then you can make proposals.. or to try to make changes that build upon bitcoin. . or other possibilities is to fork bitcoin into another form an try to get people to come over to your fork..