I've had a weird relationship with Bitcoin lately.
I think about community developments on things such as LN , Vanity search projects, tools, tickers scrapers ECT.....
How they where developed by altruistic members for the chance of creativity, freedom and decentralized banking.
Bitcoin is now a store of value ,a commodity of fiat held by institutional parties.
Major altruistic contributors , sidelined. Some got tips. Most got nothing.
If fees stay at 1 Satoshi , will LN/Layer 2 really be necessary? What happens when we are all mined up, no one sells and only holds, and the mining fees don't cover the electric bill. Bitcoins showing signs of fatigue and stagnation overall. Will it die ,I don't think so, but Bitcoin doesn't appear to be designed for and by cypherpunks.
If it was , wall street weaponized it.
I've dedicated a lot of my life to this particular branch of cryptography, I've learned a lot! But it kinda feels like it was for nothing at this point. I've publicly released all my crypto projects source codes and walking away from developing in this sector.
I'll still be around speculating but that's about it.
Humanity uses gold as store of value and medium of exchange since ~700 BCE until ~1950 when the credit system emerged.
Lets say i don't trust banks and i keep my savings 1kg of gold ( equals ~102KUSD). in gold in a good safe.Get my salary in gold ~ 100gr ( ~ 10K USD) every month, either i keep it in 100gr or melt it to the 1kg.
I do see myself buying a car or a house using the gold in a direct transaction.
I don't see myself walking around the city with 100gr Gold in my pocket and buying coffe, pay for parking or buying a dinner.
This is where the 2nd tier / Layer 2 kicks in, convert part of the gold to LN (2nd tier / Layer 2) and use it, this is a much faster and cheaper transaction.
If i have lot of money in the LN, i can convert it back to gold and keep it in the safe.
Same with bitcoin. BTCThe use of the Bitcoin hardware wallet -> convert to Lightning , Liquid or other 2nd tier for fast payments and back to
Bitcoin is still complicated understand, use and implement
to the average non tech user.
Layer 2 is a MUST, and we have to find more user friendly solutions. users will pay for a good solution.
make sense ?