Bitcoin does not exist in isolation. It is not detached from the passage of time. We cannot simply remain passive while pursuing the ideal, flawless, and risk-free enhancements to this network and protocol.
The real world does not pause.
Just yesterday, the most powerful sovereign state on the globe officially established a Strategic Reserve of Bitcoin. We have crossed the threshold of no return on a trajectory now. Governments are present, they are attentive, they are actively engaging now. The extent of that engagement will not diminish, it will not be curtailed, it will solely increase from this point forward.
We cannot afford to keep messing around, treating this endeavor as a toy, an academic novelty, or a cerebral enigma. It must scale, immediately. The counter narratives aimed at downplaying Bitcoin because of its scalability issues are not only already present, they are immense. They enjoy backing from significant portions of this ecosystem.
“Bitcoin isn’t meant for spending; it’s for saving.”
“If you need to make transactions, just use stablecoins (which are centralized, can be censored, and are seizable).”
“Bitcoin serves as collateral.”
We are inadvertently drifting toward a future where Bitcoin becomes a ineffective, meaningless object. One that offers no privacy to anyone. It grants no censorship resistance or sovereignty to anyone. Where it turns into a worthless mass to anyone outside of a whitelisted and monitored system.
Governments are not going to just twiddle their thumbs while we argue and squander time until we discover the perfect solution to scalability, and then respond with, “Sure thing, folks, we’ll promptly activate that.” They will resist it fiercely. They do not care about you, your freedom, or your wealth. They care solely about their own authority. They will not endorse initiatives that undermine their power and control over you.
“Apologies, we need to have our experts review this first, we’ll respond shortly.”
“This appears to be risky; we cannot permit some internet enthusiasts who want to experiment to jeopardize the value of a strategic national asset.”
“Nope, this looks like it could facilitate activities that the recent years of regulation have categorized as illegal.”
The world does not care that you lack the perfect strategy or course of action available; it will not pause and wait for that option to become accessible to you. It will continue to progress, it will keep eliminating and restricting the choices available to you. There is no pause button.
It’s time to stop messing around and acting as if Bitcoin is merely an intellectual exercise; it is a tangible entity in the real world. And it just happens to be the only thing that grants us any hope of preventing the future from being a dystopian nightmarish hellscape.
This isn’t a game, and it’s time to stop pretending that it is.
