Well, pretty much all in. And pretty much by default.
With the markets how they are currently, I find myself in the unhappy predicament of having to sweep some paper wallets I have stashed away to pay on them bills! Fuck. Oh well. That's life. What this seemingly negative situation does present, though, is an opportunity to execute a move I have been toying with in my head for awhile now: getting almost completely out of BTC and into BCH.
Most of the cats I met at the Bitcoin meetup down in Tokyo last time I was there were already leaving the BTC game behind. From an economics standpoint, and as far as I can slice up the situation, it certainly would appear that BCH has the more solid plan and approach if actual usage of the currency is one of the goals. And for me, it is. Add to this the recent announcement made by one Roger Ver that BCH will be entering tens of thousands of convenience stores here in Japan as an acceptable means of payment in the near future. In this slump of a time, I think one needs to remain proactive. To me, the Bitcoin Core team seems to be suffering from a lack of market sensitivity, poor economics, and a fundamental failure to understand why Satoshi Nakamoto created the currency in the first place.
Anyway, long story short. I am sweeping a paper wallet and using some of the value held therein to reinvest into BCH, and the rest to "pay on mah gas bill," as Chicago rapper Rhymefest might put it.
The Need for Truly Decentralized Exchanges.
This is where the rubber meets the road, really. As I see it, there are three basic scenarios which have the potential to play out in the crypto space in the coming months/years:
Folks make their own markets, disobeying laws, ignoring threats of jail time and worse, and drop fiat currency for sound money. Many, including myself, would say that this scenario is highly unlikely to play out anytime soon, as unfortunate as that may be.
A new tech comes along which has the potential to achieve state approval (a coin, say, where the privacy features are not baked into the protocol, but can be switched on, thus appeasing and avoiding the government's fear and restriction of "privacy coins" while still maintaining privacy capabilities) and is adopted by the masses, regardless of philosophy or politics, due to its practicality, convenience, and value. The state is thereby forced to accept this new paradigm or become extinct.
A total state takeover of the crypto space via fear, punishment, regulation, and insidious co-optive practices such as the repackaging of centralized, essentially non-cryptographic blockchains and coins as "cryptocurrencies."
I don't know. Am I missing something?
Basically, it is my conviction that people just need to start using the tech. To get millions and millions to do this, though, it must be super easy, and relatively safe. DEXs (decentralized exchanges) are great, but one typically cannot convert to fiat without supplying extensive identification and sacrificing privacy. Simply viewing crypto as a means to "cash out" to fiat, while sacrificing sound econ and user autonomy, defies the whole original point of currencies like Bitcoin.
As I see it, in reference to the three possible forecasts for the crypto space I listed above, there are 2 possible solutions:
- Better cryptography and more secure, private systems on which individuals can trade freely, regardless of government regulations (this would include channels to privately convert cryptos to gold, silver, or fiat, as well).
OR
- "Flash flood" mass adoption of one or several coins by the market, before the state has a chance to exert dominance, effectively returning economic power to the serfs on whom the elite globalist class is dependent, thus shifting the extant paradigm to a new, decentralized-market-centered paradigm.
Who knows. Again. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
In closing, some wisdom from Mr. Satoshi Nakamoto, himself.
"The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts."
~Satoshi Nakamoto
Let's not forget what this is all about. It's nothing less than freedom versus slavery.
Cheers.
~KafkA
Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, creator, and peaceful parent residing in Niigata City, Japan. Graham runs the "Voluntary Japan" online initiative with a presence here on Steem, as well as DLive and Twitter. (Hit me up so I can stop talking about myself in the third person!)