The market keeps talking

ElBitcoin
Original Title: The Market Keeps Talking
Original Link:

I used to hear Majamalu talk about what was happening in the Bitcoin-BTC forums: deleted posts and messages, systematic user bans, insults, etc. From his statements, I inferred that these spaces had become branches of some kind of cult. It was hard for me to believe 100% of what he said until I decided to leave an opinion in a Facebook group: all I did was point out, without disrespecting anyone, the reasons why I thought Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is better than Bitcoin-BTC.

Majamalu had already warned me about what to expect, and I must say he was right. I received a flood of responses, almost all of them containing mockery and insults. But not all. The only argument presented to me was a notable one: “the market has already spoken.” They implied that, due to the large difference between the price of bitcoin-BTC and bitcoin-BCH, people had already decided in a free market which was better.

It’s true that in the world of cryptocurrencies there are no impositions and everyone can choose freely. That said, I think it’s worth clarifying something that the blind BTC fanatics insist on ignoring. The vast majority of people are still trying to understand what cryptocurrencies are, how they work, how they’re issued, what advantages they have over alternatives, etc. They were created not long ago and, like all revolutionary innovations, they generate skepticism and many, many questions.

But those who allow themselves to doubt and patiently investigate tend to be the ones who reap the rewards in the long run, just as those who got involved from the beginning did. These pioneers were called naive or delusional, if not criminals, while the “experts” predicted the imminent extinction of Bitcoin.

Those who mocked bitcoiners at the beginning, pointing to the cryptocurrency’s low and transient value or its dramatic price drops, are today the ones who mock those of us who criticize the negative change that has occurred in BTC, and they do so using the same arguments that fiat money supporters and central banks used to employ.

We used to defend BTC from attacks coming from all fronts. We did so because we understood its advantages and believed that this currency had the potential to compete with fiat money, not to prop it up as BTC supporters now propose. For us, the existence of a form of peer-to-peer electronic cash is essential to limit the expansion of state power. That’s why we’ve fought from the beginning.

However, it’s necessary to reiterate the question: would BTC have taken off as a project if Satoshi Nakamoto’s proposal had been what BTC supporters now propose? That is, if a cryptocurrency had been created with exorbitant fees to force people to use it as a store of value or only for transactions of thousands or millions of dollars; or if it had been presented as an alternative for transactions as slow or slower than those done by banks; or if sending bitcoins at a lower cost required intermediaries; or if its promoters invited us to keep using fiat money for almost all our transactions… What would have happened?

When entering today’s BTC world, you get the feeling that many of its members arrived late to crypto and invested in BTC without really knowing what they were doing, and without basic economic knowledge. And since the BTC price increase doesn’t exactly encourage reflection among this kind of investor, they react defensively to anything that might force them to reconsider their decisions, such as BCH, which still keeps Satoshi Nakamoto’s project alive.

Claiming that the market “has spoken” is nonsense. The market is talking all the time; nothing is final for the market. Anyone who thinks there’s no turning back, that nothing will change, either doesn’t understand how the economy works or is trying to make a (poor) defense of their investment.

This point can be illustrated by the competition between WhatsApp and other messaging apps. I remember years ago, when you could only send text messages on WhatsApp, other apps already offered voice messages and even video calls. But, as they say, the early bird gets the worm. The market, which as I mentioned earlier is talking all the time, could also have punished WhatsApp if it hadn’t moved forward, and that’s why the company improved its service. In fact, recently, doubts about WhatsApp’s privacy were capitalized on by other companies in the sector, like Signal and Telegram, which achieved unthinkable visibility and a surprising increase in users in a very short time.

And consumer backlash could be even harsher in the future, since the market hasn’t finished talking and never will. WhatsApp decided to take action, improved its service first, and then provided explanations to try to clarify the privacy issue. The BTC developers are doing the opposite: they keep going down the same path with pride, assuring us that this is just the beginning; that fees will continue to rise and that we should celebrate it.

Meanwhile, the market keeps talking, even if they want to silence it.