Tomer Strolight explains why Bitcoin is not crypto and what are the consequences of all the trade offs that other projects agreed to implement to stay in the game.
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We may be headed soon into a major “moment of truth” for the “crypto” space. It is inevitable eventually. But it may come very soon.
For years, people have warned, regarding Bitcoin and Crypto, “The government will stop it.”
Bitcoin has taken this warning very seriously.
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Bitcoin has done everything conceivable to be unstoppable.
It has avoided violating laws that would jeopardize its users.
It has remained leaderless, employee-less, unfunded, disorganized, permission-less, and headquarters-less.
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Bitcoin has ensured nodes are easy to run. It has ensured mining is globally distributed. It has encouraged self-custody and cold storage. It has developed and deployed scaling solutions on higher layers – also straightforward to run in a decentralized and survivable manner.
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Bitcoin has never sacrificed long-term unstoppability – SURVIVABILITY – for any short-term goals.
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But, not everyone has taken this warning seriously.
In Crypto, impatience, greed, and naivete led to the abandonment of true decentralization and survivability to pursue filling in the spaces intentionally left blank by Bitcoin.
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Fake decentralization – mere marketing claims that won’t deliver actual survivability in the face of government shut-down orders is the result:
Pretend “ownership” of digital assets, that are not enforceable in either the digital or legal domains pervade.
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Make-believe “full” nodes that have no way of knowing the full history of their chains claim legitimacy and invent confusing terms implying actual full verification is a silly and unnecessary fantasy.
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Authority of validation is handed over to (or never surrendered in the first place by) powerful founders with a majority stake in the system.
Uptime is sacrificed for speed.
Reliability and consistency is abandoned for monetary policy changes that will pump prices.
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And every single method of survivability is watered down and made into a vulnerability.
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And now, after all these years, the government awakens.
It sees scams. It sees vulnerabilities. It sees leadership teams, foundations, headquarters, marketing budgets and venture capital. It sees the galling claim that a token is not an equity when in every single way it is.
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And now, government sees its opportunity and ability to regulate, seize control, or stop any or all of "crypto," except for Bitcoin, because none of it, except for Bitcoin, has taken any of the warnings seriously.
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Crypto, defi, NFTs, whatever name they use, put their heads straight into the lion’s mouth.
They couldn't help themselves - addicted to easy profits for little effort. They commited the error of “believing your own marketing.”
And so the die is cast, and their fate is sealed.
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For those users who can still exit – those that have not locked themselves in with no way to get out – exit is still possible.
But it requires a personal moment of truth, and taking action, before that dreaded external moment of truth comes to pass.
/fin
