Bitcoin must be used as a medium of exchange for mass adoption. After all, it was a medium of exchange already before it was a store of value, and that never went away. MoE established the value. The exchanges cannot be the only marketplace that sets the price for Bitcoin. We will never hear the end of market manipulation, off-exchange trades, etc. otherwise, and for good reason. Even though a 24/7 trading market is impressive compared to the public equities market, it is nothing compared to the number of transactions that take place daily with money within economies, setting prices for goods and services constantly. The concept of being a store of value, with few on/off ramps to local currencies, will limit its actual value. A focus on store of value alone is like buying a foreign fiat currency to force yourself to save because the friction to spend is so high. People just do not do that, and it’s nonsensical for Bitcoin as well. People save in the same currency they spend in, because it’s less friction. The position that Bitcoin can scale as a store of value without scaling up its use as a medium of exchange will limit who will buy it, and therefore limit the value people are willing to trade for it. This means not using credit cards, not constantly manually moving value from Bitcoin to a prepaid card. It means spending it anywhere, even if the merchant doesn’t natively accept Bitcoin. That’s the onramp. More people will buy it because more people can spend it. Then more businesses will choose to accept it. Then it wins. The single biggest priority for Bitcoin should be making it easier to use. That reduced friction, that increased convenience, means it will compete more directly with fiat currencies, and people will have to make a choice between their fiat and Bitcoin. They will choose the harder money in a winner-take-all, direct competition as a medium of exchange. Mass adoption will then follow. Then regulations will be forced to. Then the true promise of its store of value will be achieved. I know the Nostr community gets this. We both exchange with Bitcoin the most and value it the most as well. But it’s not enough. The world needs to see it is usable anywhere, at the discretion of the sender, not the receiver. #bitcoin #mediumofexchange #money #nostr #zaps #ecash