Is BTC a store of value or Medium of Exchange?

Author: Roy Sheinfeld, Bitcoin Magazine; Translation: Deng Tong, Golden Finance

This article comes late.

I often talk about Bitcoin (BTC). In any given week, I have dozens of conversations about BTC with people from different industries. Just like a pendulum swings every year, the narrative that BTC is not a Medium of Exchange keeps reappearing. When influential people in the community promote this narrative, people listen. They are influential.

But in this article, I want to clarify: Bitcoin is now and will be a Medium of Exchange. More importantly, its future as a Store of Value (SoV) depends on its acceptance as a Medium of Exchange (MoE). Some people push for a (wrong) dichotomy between Bitcoin as SoV and MoE, and this is for their own benefit. Some are just followers.

Since when did buying coffee become the true standard for measuring money's future? [Image: Grok 2 Mini by X]

Fortunately, these people cannot control how BTC will continue to develop. The future of BTC depends on our collective wisdom. The durability and deflationary nature of BTC make it a good store of value (SoV). Its divisibility, portability, relative fungibility, as well as its decentralization and resistance to censorship, make BTC a good medium of exchange (MoE). But these qualities are interdependent. In fact, it is impossible to have a store of value without a medium of exchange.

Without transactions, there is no value.

Before determining how to combine the categories of value storage and Medium of Exchange, we should first determine the meanings of these terms. Although there are conceptual differences between them, neither can truly be imagined without the other. Without Medium of Exchange, there is no value storage, and vice versa.

Value storage across time transactions

The means of store of value needs to be durable and maintain its value. So far, everything is clear. But what does 'store of value' mean? How do you know?

There are various ideas about how to best think about the value. Marx has a famous saying: drop the value of labor, so the more labor invested in producing something, the higher its value. But this raises a question: how much is one unit of labor worth? Even if wild strawberries are more delicious, is their value lower than cultivated strawberries?

Then there is the 'intrinsic' or 'objective' value. In finance, Intrinsic Value refers to the 'true' or 'objective' value of an asset, as opposed to its market price, which is said to be distorted by all market participants and their (incorrect) views. A company that has a large number of high-quality machines and a positive bank balance seems to have value even if its stock is worthless. In strict semantics, Intrinsic Value means that value is inherently inherent in things.

But all value is context-dependent. In the middle of the desert, a bucket of water is worth more than all the gold in the world. The fastest mining equipment ever designed is worthless to a monk. Heirlooms like a deceased grandmother's favorite earrings are worth more to family members than anyone else. You won't find their value in their objective characteristics.

This is why many economists and mainstream BTC supporters agree with the subjective theory of value. The idea is that there is no inherent value in a transaction vacuum. Value comes from how people perceive and are willing to trade for things. At some point, total supply will meet total demand (price), and that is where transactions occur.

Price is simply the value of one thing expressed in terms of the quantity of another. The trading price of a Tag Heuer Connected Calibre E4 is $1450, equivalent to about 0.02 BTC, equivalent to...

This is the first important concept point about value storage: unless they are traded at some point, they do not have real value. They may have nominal value, just like the value of an imaginary pet dragon, but their true value never has a chance to show itself.

Secondly, all value storage implies transactions by definition; it's just that the transactions are time-consuming. In other words, transactions related to value storage are the same asset at two points in time. Trading a current asset A with a smaller value for a future asset A with a larger value. The same asset, at two different times.

When we consider time, please consider this: What does the appreciation of value storage mean? Its value must be measured relative to other things. In other words, appreciation simply means that its future actual price will exceed its current actual price; in the future, I can exchange for more with less money than today. Without transactions - even just unrealized future transactions - there is no value.

Many things are two things at the same time. It just depends on how you look at them. [Image: Oleg Shyplyak, from the creative visual artist]

Cross-asset trading must be conducted

Medium of Exchange needs to be divisible, portable, and fungible. The transactions here are synchronous across different assets, rather than synchronous across the same asset over time. But if, by definition, MoE is about current transactions, how short is the current time?

The job of Medium of Exchange requires a certain degree of store of value and durability. For example, cigarettes are used as currency in prison. However, cigarettes will deteriorate after a few weeks, so they do not hold value well over time. Those who have them want to spend them quickly. Similarly, the value of junk coins may collapse next week. You need to accept or reject the transaction immediately.

In fact, durability is one of the characteristics that makes gold a better Medium of Exchange than sodium. Gold can resist almost any form of corrosion, so our descendants will still have the same amount of gold for intergenerational transactions.

Therefore, although conceptually, the Medium of Exchange is for immediate transactions, in reality, they exist in a person's time world, where people have limited lifespan, short holidays, and long hours in waiting rooms. Under the same conditions, the education that retains its value is more valuable than the perishable education. (Interesting question: when perishability increases scarcity, but let's not digress.)

Convergence of Value Storage and Medium of Exchange

Therefore, both sides have some edge cases, and the properties of the assets suggest that they should be used as a store of value or Medium of Exchange. The harder it is to trade an asset, the more it resembles a store of value. To some extent, the faster an asset degrades, the more it resembles a Medium of Exchange. Without a certain degree of tradability, SoV is worthless and no longer SoV. Without a certain degree of durability, Medium of Exchange is worthless and no longer Medium of Exchange. However, some assets experience greater declines on one side or the other.

If people trade them quickly, they look more like Mediums of Exchange. If the time between trades is longer, then they look more like stores of value. The essence is the same; the environment and activity change our perception of them.

The idea that BTC is just a store of value is not wrong. It is inconsistent. It claims that BTC is a store of value, while removing it from the only environment that allows us to determine its value. Store of value and medium of exchange are logically and practically inseparable. Store of value is the slow-motion medium of exchange, while medium of exchange is the store of value that speeds up transactions.

We'll come back to Bitcoin shortly, but let's first take a look at its genealogy. The coincidence of value storage and Medium of Exchange is an experiential reality that can be traced back thousands of years.

Historical Asset Storage and Trading

In addition to theory, history also provides evidence for the integration of value storage and Medium of Exchange. History contains a large number of assets that serve as both Medium of Exchange and value storage, because if they are in demand, you can trade them, and if you can trade them, it is best to have reserves. Medium of Exchange and value storage are - and have always been - two sides of the same coin.

Bronze Ingot

The bronze ingots of the Bronze Age provide a good illustration of the overlap between value storage and Medium of Exchange. The ingots, shaped like cowhide, were roughly standardized in weight (usually around 30 kg/66 lbs), containing relatively pure copper or tin, and circulated in the Mediterranean and beyond from the second millennium BC (Bronze Age).

Because everyone uses bronze, copper and tin (the two components of bronze) are very valuable. Everyone can use them. The demand is high and stable. They are also relatively easy to store.

Copper ingot from Cyprus, also known as Bronze Age BTC. (Image: Metropolitan Museum)

But they are also relatively easy to transport. A batch of ingots found in a shipwreck dating back to 1327 BC contained metals originating from Uzbekistan, Turkey, Sardinia, and Cornwall. The chariots were still a relatively new technology, but these large blocks of metal were traveling through the known world, going further than almost any human, as they were 'connected to the international distribution, trading, and trading system'.

Now, suppose you are a Bronze Age fisherman who has discovered sunken gold ingot cargo. Are they a store of value or a Medium of Exchange? Well, if you've had a good season, you might feel flush and keep them for a rainy day, in which case they are a store of value. On the other hand, if the fish aren't biting and you need some Liquidity, you might trade them quickly, in which case they are a Medium of Exchange. But if they're not being traded somewhere to demonstrate their value, how do you know they're worth keeping? If there are no trading partners who believe it's a wise financial decision to have some gold ingots, who are you going to trade with?

The durable and high-quality materials of the leather ingot make it a good store of value, and its standardized size and portability make it a good Medium of Exchange. These ingots are all present at the same time, as each use implies another use.

Gold

Humans began collecting gold thousands of years before collecting bronze. However, initially, gold was mainly used for decoration and sacred purposes, such as statues and ceremonial jewelry. As these items were irreplaceable, they were a poor Medium of Exchange, and trade was also very rare. The slow pace of trade was due to the inability to determine prices: the owners of ceremonial items always valued them more than any trading partner.

Standardized coins did not appear until around the 7th century BC, about 1000 years after gold nuggets. Interestingly, they appeared at roughly the same time in China and Anatolia. As coins, gold became interchangeable, which increased transaction speed and made storage value and Medium of Exchange usage more closely linked. Compared to ox-hide ingots, coins had some advantages: their weight did not exceed 30 kilograms, gold did not corrode, and it did not have many other uses, so the supply did not have to compete with the demand for useful items like plows and swords made of bronze.

Gold coins are very effective as a store of value and medium of exchange, so much so that practically everyone started using them, such as Roman coins, Almoravid dinars, Spanish doubloons, Tokugawa kobans, etc. Even today, 2600 years later, countries from Armenia to Tuvalu are still minting and circulating coins for people to store and trade, store and exchange.

2600 years ago, the Ephesians regarded gold as both SOV and MoE, a notion so deeply rooted that even today, money in video games is often described as coins. (Image: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. & PNG ALL)

Similarly, using gold as a Medium of Exchange makes gold a more obvious and widely recognized store of value, and its widespread recognition as a store of value makes it a more Liquid Medium of Exchange.

Shell

In the 17th century, early European settlers along the North American Atlantic coast began to interact with the indigenous peoples of the continent. They had very different understandings of the world. There was no common language, no common religion, no common history, completely different technologies, and completely different cosmologies. But just like humans, they quickly started to engage in trade. However, without a universally recognized means of storing value and a medium of exchange, trading would be very difficult.

At first, fur had a certain value, but they were bulky, the value was not standardized, and they would degrade. As a store of value and a medium of exchange, they were better than nothing, but neither was ideal. Venetian glass beads were also effective, but it could take months or even years to transport the beads from Venice to the European colonies in the 'New World'.

In 1622, a Dutch merchant named Jacques Elekens took a Pekot chief (similar to a chieftain) hostage and demanded a ransom. The chief's people brought Elekens white and purple beads made of clam shells, measuring 280 yards (about 256 m). Obviously, they had not previously used shells as currency, and even in this case, the ransom was mainly symbolic, like redeeming a prince by sending an exquisite ceremonial scepter.

But Elikens was a businessman, and although he missed the extraordinary symbolic value of wampum, he immediately saw its secular cash value. What can't you buy if you can buy the chief's freedom with money? Soon, Europeans began to force several tribes to produce wampum and trade it in units of length, such as how many fathoms (1 fathom ~ 1.8 meters / 6 feet) of wampum beads could be exchanged for how many skins.

Shells and objects made from shells, such as 17th century colonial coins and raw gold ore. (Photo: Photographer Jim)

Wampum quickly became an official member of the Medium of Exchange. Some colonies adopted standardized value shell beads as legal tender, a practice that lasted for about a century. As a store of value, shells were naturally attractive: 'European colonizers soon began trying to accumulate large amounts of this currency, and the transfer of control over this currency determined which country would control trade between Europe and indigenous peoples.' They not only used it for trade; they also traded it. They were building up currency reserves. They stored Medium of Exchange to acquire its future value, and its future value made it an effective asset for today's transactions.

"Gold" and "shell" still mean money in some cases. Speaking of money...

US Dollar

The United States Constitution establishes the power to create currency. The Coinage Act of 1792 pegged the value of the new US dollar to a fixed quantity of Spanish silver coins and 416 grains of silver. The 'Eagle' is actually a $10 coin containing 270 grains of gold.

The designers of the US dollar used a historical background that everyone already knew: precious metals could be used as both a Medium of Exchange and a store of value. Three and a half centuries later, the word spread.

Just as it often happens with currency, money depreciates over time, which means that mints gradually drop the precious metal content in the currency. This is how Inflation works in conjunction with Medium of Exchange to maintain its store of value. You can still mint the same amount of currency at a lower cost by manipulating the peg.

The technology is so advanced that it has only undergone minor updates in the past two and a half centuries. (Image source: Lyle Engleson/Goldberg Coins and Collectibles)

The Gold Standard Act of 1900 strengthened the pegged Exchange Rate system, stipulating that each US dollar could be exchanged for a fixed amount of 25.8 grains of 90% pure gold. So, if the US dollar bills could be exchanged for gold, would they become a Medium of Exchange or a store of value? Although these bills circulate, the US government promises to store an equivalent amount of gold to maintain their value. Gold may appear to be a Medium of Exchange, and bills may seem like a store of value, but they are equivalent, just used for different purposes, without any deeper fundamental differences.

During the Great Depression, there was a bank run on the Federal Reserve. People were concerned about the continued viability of the US dollar as a currency, so they began exchanging it for gold. When the Federal Reserve became concerned about its ability to continue exchanging dollars for gold, President Roosevelt suspended the Gold Standard.

However, of course, bank deposits have not dropped to zero, so the dollar continues to serve as a store of value and an educational entity. People hoard gold so that they can trade in case the dollar loses its utility as a store of value and educational entity. But both the dollar and gold have retained these two functions.

After World War II, the Bretton Woods System restored the Gold Standard, but this time the US dollar was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce, and Central Banks around the world could exchange dollars for gold at this exchange rate. This effectively made the US dollar the hardest currency, and through the fixed exchange rate, it should also support other currencies. As before, the equivalence achieved through redemption effectively eliminates any practical distinction between storage and medium of exchange.

Due to a series of complex reasons, which can be simply summarized as 'Inflation pressure' (i.e., the abnormal version of the legal currency 'digital rise'), the United States had to abandon the international gold standard of the Bretton Woods System in 1971.

While this is a significant turning point for economic historians, the US dollar remains both a store of value and a Medium of Exchange. According to the International Monetary Fund's data, around 60% of global forex reserves are held in US dollars, approximately three times as much as the closest competitor. Other countries hold US dollars as a precaution in case they need to convert them into their own currency to support the value of their currency or purchase essential goods in times of need.

Even without the support of gold, the demand for the US dollar is shocking. Foreign countries hold $88 trillion in US debt - IOUs that will be paid in dollars at some point in the future, making it look like a typical storage medium. Most international trade is billed and settled in US dollars. Even on the European continent, which has its own common currency, over 20% of trade is settled in US dollars.

The strong demand for the US dollar gives the United States the privilege of being the coinage country. The phenomenon of the "petrodollar" illustrates how the dollar has maintained its dominant position since the collapse of the gold standard. Oil-exporting countries sell oil in dollars and quickly accumulate large reserves of dollars. They need to spend these dollars, and it just so happens that the United States is always eager to sell US Treasury bonds (US IOUs) in exchange for dollars to finance its $35 trillion debt.

As long as other countries hold these debts, they have an interest in maintaining the value of the dollar. As long as the dollar can hold its value, it is still useful for trade. As long as it is still useful for trade, other countries will accumulate dollars and dollar-denominated debts. Does it sound like a Ponzi Scheme? Well, it's not a Ponzi Scheme.

In short, the US trade volume has doubled thanks to the forex reserves of other countries in US dollars. Keep this idea in mind.

Yes, BTC is a store of value and also a Medium of Exchange

BTC is the latest descendant of the easy-to-trade SOV family, i.e. people like to hoard Medium of Exchange because they hold their value. However, there is a widespread and frequently repeated statement that BTC is just a store of value. In fact, this is the reason why I am writing this article, and also the reason why I feel responsible to prove the feasibility of BTC as a Medium of Exchange. So far, I have elaborated on some theoretical ideas about the inseparability of the concepts of store of value and Medium of Exchange, and introduced several historical examples to prove that this mutual presupposition has been the way things have operated since ancient times. Now let's turn to BTC, which is just a new technology following the established pattern: store of value and Medium of Exchange must be combined.

volume reaches trillions

We know that Bitcoin plays a role as a Medium of Exchange, because people are transferring Bitcoin in large quantities. After adjusting the change Address, River estimates that $14.9 trillion will be paid through Bitcoin Settlement in 2022. Therefore, even if 74% of Bitcoin has not moved in six months, the equivalent of the GDP of Germany, Japan, India, and Canada in Bitcoin could change hands in just one year.

Trade BTC

There are about 2.35 million BTC in the trading account (about $150 billion). This should be puzzling, as autonomy and self-custody are two main selling points of BTC. If BTC is just a store of value, why would someone entrust it to another party instead of self-custody? If it is a store of value, why not store it as securely as possible, especially considering that the cost of secure storage is as low as just a piece of paper?

Over a tenth of the existing BTC is held in exchange accounts to facilitate trading. That's what exchanges are for: people swap one asset for another. BTC works extremely well as a Medium of Exchange for such transactions because no other cryptocurrency comes close to the demand for BTC, whether measured by Market Cap or price. BTC is truly unique. The only token that can compete on any interesting metric is USDT, with a volume that is roughly twice that of BTC's daily volume of $26 billion. This may be because Tether is benefiting from the gradual weakening of the dominant position of the global traditional currency—the US dollar.

If BTC is just a store of value, then no one will leave their treasure in the exchange, and the transaction speed will be very slow. But they do. The fact is not so.

Merchants Accept BTC

Some people may object, even though Bitcoin may be the Medium of Exchange among the tech boys of the financial industry, it has not penetrated the "real" economy as the Ministry of Education should have. However, examples of BTC circulating in the real economy are enough to refute this claim. We are fortunate.

Retailers are using BTC as a Medium of Exchange because it has provided tangible benefits. Take Atoms, a Brooklyn shoe company, as a brilliant example from a recent River report. In 2021, Atoms started accepting BTC as a payment method and launched BTC-themed sneakers. Atoms accepts BTC as a Medium of Exchange (consumers pay for shoes with BTC), and then Atoms holds it as a store of value until needed. When it happens, their stored value BTC automatically becomes a tradable Medium of ExchangeBTC, as it is the same BTC.

Atomic proof that this binary division is both a strict conceptual and misleading. The actual BTC is both a store of value and a Medium of Exchange; this only depends on how its owner currently uses it.

Atoms are not alone, nor are they the only ones. Balenciaga accepts BTC. TAG Heuer accepts BTC. AMC Theatres, PayPal, twitch, Ferrari and Proton all accept BTC. Would anyone claim that AMC or PayPal are niche suppliers known only to those who are not deeply interested in finance?

Are these famous global brands holding BTC as a store of value or using it as a Medium of Exchange for transactions? This binary thinking has emerged again. BTC is a divisible, interchangeable, and durable asset, so they can hold it for as long as they want and trade it whenever they want. They can accept, spend, lend, and so on. BTC has no fundamental essence. Regardless of what they/we use it for.

BTC is penetrating the mainstream economy.

All value storage and Medium of Exchange are just test versions.

Another important lesson from the above example is that the design of value storage and Medium of Exchange will affect how we use them, and in turn, how they are designed, which will in turn affect how we use them, and so on. But evolution is always a local optimization rather than perfection, so there is always room for further improvement.

Good money has always been both a store of value and a Medium of Exchange, and there is still room for rise for BTC. Let's consider the areas where BTC can be further optimized.

First-mover Advantage in Currency

If asked, almost every Bitcoin fren would prefer to earn income in BTC and pay expenses in fiat. But this doesn't mean that BTC has flaws as a means of education; it means that Fiat Currency has flaws as a store of value. People prefer to hold BTC because BTC holds value better than fiat currency. Therefore, it makes sense to hold BTC for a higher value tomorrow and spend it before fiat currency depreciates today.

So the advantage of Fiat Currency is that it has established a network effect for 13 centuries to compensate for its obvious shortcomings. Everyone knows the currency. The world's wage system, tax laws, and banking system are all built around fiat currency. The world has a considerable sunk cost in fiat projects. This is why it is so important that BTC exceeds fiat currency in any indicator: store of value, autonomy, censorship resistance, and of course...

User experience is always about user experience

The user experience of BTC is improving. Many innovations undoubtedly contribute to this improvement. For example, the Lighting Network has increased the maximum transaction speed of BTC by several orders of magnitude.

However, there may be both functionalities and drawbacks to using BTC. The most obvious one is self-custody. Holding your own BTC is actually the only way to fully enjoy the autonomy and freedom that BTC provides, whether as a store of value or as a medium of exchange, or both. But with great power comes great responsibility, and evaluating and implementing different ways to store and use BTC may be a bit challenging for many non-coiners.

Despite the many benefits of the Lighting Network, it also has limitations that we are still working to overcome. While LSP is helping to transform Liquidity from challenging technical issues into essentially automated financial considerations, the Lighting Network adds complexity to Liquidity management. But friction is friction.

Similarly, the Lighting Network can only onboard new users so quickly because each new user requires at least one on-chain transaction and additional liquidity. New technologies such as Breez's nodeless SDK implementation can improve the throughput of the Lighting Network and alleviate its liquidity constraints, just as the Lighting Network surpasses on-chain BTC in certain use cases.

If this kind of innovation → user experience adjustment → trend of innovation continues like fiat currency, we are in a good state. Consider credit cards. For about the first thirty years of the existence of credit cards, no one used them for small purchases. It was big news when Burger King started accepting credit cards in 1993. People even criticized it. 'I think it would be terrible if you had to use a credit card at a fast food restaurant.' Credit cards were used for big purchases like plane tickets, jewelry, hotel stays, and car repairs. By 2024, about one-third of payments are made with credit cards, and no one—no living person—cares whether you use a credit card to pay for fries or a bus ticket.

In 1993, people's reaction to #burgerking accepting #creditcards

As credit cards become easier to use (which used to be a difficult task), people use credit cards more often for small purchases. The lesson here is that if the user experience is unstable, people will selectively use assets as a Medium of Exchange. With the improvement of user experience, people will use it more frequently and for smaller purchases.

Legal/Regulatory Treatment

We've all heard of an outdated fear, uncertainty and doubt, that BTC is basically only for criminals. Proton is a great company that accepts BTC and is advised by Sir Tim Berners-Lee - not exactly your typical mustache-twirling supervillain. But people fear what they don't understand, and lawmakers and regulators like to cater to the public's fears.

Some jurisdictions are open and progressive. For example, in the European Union, Bitcoin is considered a currency and is treated accordingly in most laws. Exchanging Bitcoin for another currency does not incur value-added tax, but purchasing products or services with Bitcoin does indeed incur value-added tax, just like using any other currency.

In the United States, although some regulatory agencies and courts recognize BTC as a "Medium of Exchange" and a means of payment, the Internal Revenue Service considers it as property subject to capital gains tax, which increases the BTCTransaction Cost and thus slows down its transaction speed. Therefore, for Americans constrained by this tax system, BTC may appear more like a store of value rather than a Medium of Exchange, which is quite natural.

Morocco and some other countries, including China, have completely banned BTC. No matter what. Knut the Great tried to stop the tide until his feet got wet, at which point he declared that no king can deny eternal law. This is a good lesson for both supporters of value storage and staunch BTC opponents. People want freedom, they want their money to be free. If you don't give it to them, they will eventually take it away.

BTC Price Volatility

Many people may not be willing to use BTC as a Medium of Exchange due to its characteristics as a store of value. Firstly, its price fluctuation is large. In the past few years, we have seen BTC's value fluctuate four times relative to the US dollar. This makes it difficult for consumers to spend and for retailers to accept, as the Exchange Rate of BTC is relative to a given commodity. Its price - may be too uncertain.

The more disposable income and wealth a person has, the less sensitive they are to fluctuation. If you still have a large amount of surplus income every month after deducting taxes, groceries, mortgage payments, and savings for health, then even if a part of your investment portfolio experiences a slight decline over a few months, it's not a big deal. The time scale at which you use assets is different from the time scale of price fluctuations. Long-term returns are greater than short-term declines, so let it fluctuate.

Many others don't have such privileges. Their income is their wealth; they have no savings or surplus to buffer price Fluctuation. For them, a sudden drop in income could mean going hungry at the end of the month. If they acquired BTC (as many have done), they might exchange it for more stable assets as soon as possible.

The Fluctuation of BTC is a blessing for some and a curse for others, but it is irrelevant to many. However, we can see it as a natural development path that attracts all user groups. One way to consider the Fluctuation of BTC is to view it as a very incomplete index. The value of fiat currency is typically measured by the Exchange Rate with other currencies, an official 'basket' of goods that determines its official purchasing power parity/consumer price index, and millions of transactions conducted by people in their daily lives. Each information source can check against other information sources and triangulate things like 'real market value'. The more people trade and price goods in BTC, the more precise the triangulation and the less need for price Fluctuation.

In other words, the more people use Bitcoin as a Medium of Exchange, the more stable its price curve is relative to other assets. Even as a speculative asset, it looks more like a treasury bill than oil. The active use as a Medium of Exchange will maintain expectations for its future demand, which, together with its Deflation design, maintains Bitcoin's unprecedented status as a store of value. More usage will only make the rise curve smoother.

There is a strange, academic tone in the roar of Soviet supporters. For example, what do they care about what we do with BTC? If value storage and Medium of Exchange inevitably overlap, why tell everyone that BTC is actually just value storage? No one is stopping them from using it as their preferred medium, so what?

Remember the US dollar? The US persuaded the world to go long on the dollar. If you convince the world to hoard what you are already hoarding, then you are in a very advantageous position. You are stimulating demand for what you can provide.

But you don't even need to provide it. Persuade others to covet your reserves, so that you can use them as collateral for loans and leverage. If your reserves give you these benefits, they can be traded at a multiple. If there are n BTC in your reserves, you may be able to sell your reserve stocks at a valuation of 3n. You have just found a way to push the inflation rate of Deflation assets to 300%. It's despicable, but clever.

However, the beauty of free money is that no one can tell you how to use it. Of course, I tell you that it is underestimated as the Ministry of Education, and I have vested interests in its use as the Ministry of Education, but I will not tell anyone what to do. I am describing what I see and exposing some bad and possibly dishonest claims.

Store your BTC where and how you want, spend it where and how you want, its value depends on what we all do collectively, not on what some lawsuit does in their secret exclusive meetings. Nor does it depend on what some commentators say on Twitter is best. Of course, it's not very free when most of the free capital in the world is held by a few people.

BTC is flexible enough to meet all our different needs, and we all have a say in what it is and what it will become. Let our diversity be our strength.