One of the main arguments that has surfaced in light of the Bitcoin Cash situation is that in order to defend bitcoin against the idea that a coin that is faster and cheaper is superior, the narrative needed to be changed about how bitcoin is meant to be used.
The argument goes like this :
Bitcoin Cash increased its block size from 1mb to 8mb thus it means that transaction fees are lower and its a bit easier for transactions to find space on each successive block thus lower the time a transaction can potentially take. Most people will see this from the outside and immediately see that a faster cheaper bitcoin will have more use cases overall.
A pro Bitcoin Cash argument is that you can buy coffee with Bitcoin Cash but it would not be a good idea to buy your coffee with Bitcoin due to slow, expensive transactions.
This argument ultimately caused a lot of problems for the pro Bitcoin community. And thus there was a need to propose a counter argument to defend bitcoin.
The Counter argument goes like this :
Bitcoin was never meant to be something you use for small transactions. Bitcoin is meant to be a storage of wealth. If you want to buy your coffee you should have a bank account and use your debit / Visa card instead. And if you cant do that just use physical cash.
Problem solved! (Right?)
I find this change of narrative really interesting because its one of the few times when you can see new propaganda cause conflicts with old propaganda. For example take a look at these memes now that you have had a chance to put on your "Bitcoin is only a storage of wealth" goggles.
Anyone see problems with this meme now? If this meme were made today it would have been shunned as pro Bitcoin Cash propaganda and potentially deleted from r/Bitcoin. In a world where Bitcoin is meant only to be a storage of wealth, the "you wont have to" line simply cannot happen. The age where "you wont have to" is now dead.
In order for this meme to be sanitized for the current narrative you would now need to change the meme.
But we should give the pro Bitcoin community the benefit of the doubt and maybe look at some of the other arguments for a clearer perspective.
Ok so that still works right? I mean its convoluted but it does make sense. I feel like it lacks a lot of punch now. Why don't I just have Lite Coins in the first place? Why is Bitcoin worth so much money when I have to use another coin that does the same thing but better? Why go down the road of propping something up if its argument is that its designed to basically suck? Why build infrastructure around anything other than Lite Coin?
What about lightning network or atomic swapping of coins? Well, that would help a lot with the problem of slow and expensive transactions but at that point you are not even really using the cryptocurrency anymore. This entire Frankenstein system is being used to prop up the shortcomings of an inferior coin when simply using another coin solves the problem with no further complication.
Now lets take a look at another old but great meme.
Well, I think we have come full circle on this one.
When this first came out it was, more or less, a poke at people who don't believe that Bitcoin is actually a valid currency. But now in the current narrative the joke is gone, you can take the image as just the guy saying the truth. It's just a store of wealth, its not really money.
This meme went from a funny laugh out loud tirade to a textbook explanation of how Bitcoin actually works. The magic is completely gone now.
If you liked this post toss me an upvote, I have been so embroiled in this topic lately that a little encouragement would go a long way for similar future content.