Bitcoin As A Store Of Value
For most people in crypto, if it’s not their first blockchain rodeo, they usually agree that Bitcoin isn’t (and will probably never be) used for its intended purpose: transactions. It’s too slow and too expensive, and it didn’t take long for others to improve on its concept and technology.
But Bitcoin has arguably the most important factor when it comes to value:
Its name. It’s the king, and this crown can't be taken.
Discussions have boomed recently of Bitcoin’s only real use case being simply a storage of value (often directly compared to gold) and nothing else. You've probably seen someone like Mark Cuban, Elon Musk or Whatever-His-Big-Rich-Important-Man-Face agreeing with this too.
So what is GOLDS real use case besides that long-term investment??
Status, BLING! But how exactly does one show off their Bitcoin in the real dimension, instead of screenshotting their balance and posting it on Reddit?
Can you imagine a future where you have a little display watch that shows off your 0.02BTC? Or a screen on the mantlepiece that you can point at when guests come over?
Eh... Maybe?
Bitcoin has some advantages over gold. The main one being it’s much more difficult to steal.
It’s HARD, but entirely possible that one could keep no record of their BTC addresses and/or keys and recite only from memory.
To me, that definitely sounds like some cyberpunk-ass gold.
This also introduces more problems – or depending on who’s perspective – more value?
Something People Should Consider
Paper wallets – passwords – phrases – seed keys - there’s a simple problem with these and I’m sure you know it. We suck at remembering things. We need records – and once we have those, our Bitcoin is just as stealable as the shiny stuff.
So, we compare Bitcoin to gold mainly because of its limited supply and clout. There really is and only ever will be 21 million, and this coin was the BIRTH of the 3rd/4th revolution, the future of finance.
But there isn’t 21 million for grabs even if you have all the money in the world.
And there never will be.
As my fingers dance around this keyboard, about 18.5 million Bitcoins have been mined. The mining process gets slower over time – and it’s estimated that the last Satoshi won’t be mined until 2140!
As it gets closer to that date, mining becomes less profitable and the entire process may change, since they’d be fighting over scraps of the last coin - but let’s assume every Satoshi gets scooped up nice and easily.
How much of it will be… accessible?
Most early BTC adopters had no idea the scale of which those tokens would explode:
Wallets and hard-drives full of BTC were easily misplaced and now sit crumbling in a dumpster.
People paid thousands of BTC for random services (like the famous pizza delivery story.)
Faucets online were giving away as much as 3 BTC at a time to wallets that have never seen action since…
A lot of these transactions and services made BTC the giant it is today, but exactly how much got lost in the cryptabyss?
According to Cryptocurrency Data Firm Chainalysis –
Around…
20%!!!!
of existing Bitcoin appears to be in lost or “stranded” wallets!
Some people locked out of their funds forever, that've told of old services or wallets blocking their accounts after too many failed attempts. For example, Stefan Thomas - a German-born computer programmer who is currently on their 8th attempt to unlock their wallet with $350,000,000 worth of Bitcoin on it at the time of writing this post. He has two attempts left.
Assuming we are now more careful and every BTC mined from now will be securely stored (yeah – I know right?) The true number available will be more like 17.3 million Bitcoin.
Does this mean that over the next century, as it becomes harder for miners to obtain and more and more gets lost to the internet – investors will become extra eager to pocket a Satoshi – or a billion – of their own, for a percentage of that crown?
Let me know what you think in the comments!
Personally I'm starting to see it. I long went off Bitcoin and like to invest in currencies I see myself using in the future, but there's something inside me... the same thing that forces me to spend money on vintage Pokemon cards... the same thing that drags me into museums... It wants a piece of that legacy, and it wants it bad!
This is my first PUBLISH0X blog post so any and all feedback is appreciated, thanks for reading and happy browsing!
JalapenioJoy
