After recent reading and more research, I tend to agree with what Hal Finney’s view of #Bitcoin was as well as Saifedean’s views.
In my opinion, as much as I dislike them, I think complaining about KYC and AML is pointless. People need to stop being idealist and be way more realistic. If Bitcoin is going to be the world reserve currency one day and back global finance, KYC is inevitable and it’s a necessary component to achieve this status and high liquidity.
People tend to get very wrapped up in the cypherpunk ethos and attempt to turn Bitcoin into something it clearly is not. “Cash” clearly does not mean day-to-day payments and was obviously referring to final settlement. Of course layers can be built on Bitcoin for different use cases, but this was not the intended design. The Lightning Network is great but think about scale and practicality.
I cannot help but believe that Bitcoin was designed to solve different problems than what anarchists, libertarians, etc. want it to solve. And the biggest thing for me is that’s okay… The “Bitcoin as digital gold” narrative is very strong and it’s the most revolutionary invention/discovery in centuries. Final settlement + being able to maintain my money and contributed value to society over time is enough for me.
For the people desiring hardcore privacy and wish Bitcoin was different in certain ways to fulfill their Ancap wet dream…… welp, just use #Monero.
Bitcoin and Monero can co-exist because they simply solve different problems. Even #Ethereum has real-world use cases that aim to implement different solutions to different problems. Ethereum doesn’t try to be money, but Bitcoin maxis call anything a shitcoin that isn’t Bitcoin, which to me is an ignorant statement.
I agree Bitcoin is perfect money in the general sense and I want global finance to be anchored to it, but that doesn’t mean every other coin is useless with zero utility.
