Good post. I'll play another round and then give you the last word (unless there's anything else you want to discuss specifically).
Fun part first:The internet example may be a better metaphor than the wheel example given the "tangibility" aspect, but I'll roll forward (no pun intended) with the wheel example just for fun.
First, in the context of this metaphor, I'd debate whether human ingenuity could come up with an "alt" wheel (i.e. octagon-wheel or sphere-wheel) that outperforms the perfectly sound/circular wheel when it comes to rolling things on dry land. We've had over 6,000 years to come up with something better.
I'll grant you that we'd have more incentive to invent something equal or better than the wheel in that scenario, but when you dig deep, what is actually driving that incentive? To me, the incentive is driven by the 21 million limited supply wheels becoming too highly sought-after and increasingly too expensive to satisfy the needs of most things that humans need to roll on land.
Once everyone knows about the power of the limited supply wheel, use cases increase, supply stays the same, and price per wheel goes up... until 1,000, 6,000, 10,000 years later when someone invents something equal or better. If I was aware of limited supply wheels 13 years after they were invented in Mesopotamia, I would buy/HODL all the wheels I could find and tell my grandkids to do the same.
In respect of your point though, I'd also stay aware of any potential innovation that could threaten the wheel's monopoly on dry land rolling. Just like Bitcoiners need to stay aware of any potential innovation that could threaten its soon-to-be monopoly on frictionless payments backed by a sound monetary standard in the next 1,000-10,000 years.
Moving on:I didn't mean for my post to try and flesh out any differences we have in terms of how we conceptualize a future Bitcoinized economy. I was more trying to discuss how you'd define value derived from making a longer term macro trade from one monetary system to another. This statement might illuminate some of our differences of opinion though:
Quote:
You just cant replace Brazil with "global commerce not beholden to a specific entity or nation-state." This doesn't exist and there's no obvious reason for it to exist. Most humans will still do most of their business within their local communities. Businesses will still do most of their businesses with other companies within their own country (isn't that the whole point of the "Buy American" campaign?).
I think you can. They obviously have different attributes, but possess some of the same fundamentals.
Like you said, the Brazil real is backed by a world power (presumably with a strong military) and economic growth. Does that make its value intrinsic? I suppose so.
It's also a base unit for the exchange of local goods/services which gives it some level of intrinsic value to Brazilians. Does the real have less intrinsic value to someone holding it in the USA, who is holding it expecting it to appreciate relative to the dollar, but lacks ability to transact with it due to proximity to market? Maybe that intrinsic value is captured upon conversion back to dollar and presumed increase in purchasing power based on the value appreciation.
In that light, I'd argue that "global commerce not beholden to a specific entity or nation-state" carries much more weight than you give it credit for. I'm not saying that to be critical because I think there's plenty of room for disagreement here. Like I said before, I think it just comes down to our conceptualizations of what the future Bitcoinized world looks like (assuming Bitcoin is an invention on the level of the wheel).
I think Bitcoin will eventually solve the money of the internet problem. That's what Jack Dorsey is aiming at anyway and I tend to side with him. The internet has changed the way global business is conducted, but it still runs on archaic payment rails. You're right that a vast majority of day-to-day transactions are conducted locally, but an increasing amount of economic activity is going to take place in the digital world.
I've been a big proponent on here of utilizing Bitcoin rails to transport digital fiat-pegged currencies. I think that will be one of the first major use-cases that firmly legitimizes Bitcoin in the financial world while not disrupting political favor by aiming for some all-out Bitcoin revolution too soon. Over time, I think more and more users/consumers/merchants in global commerce are going to "cut out the middleman" (ie settling payments in digital fiat) and conduct business in Bitcoin.
Twitter could be an interesting example of how I view a future economy powered by Bitcoin. I think Twitter will ultimately allow creators of all different types of content (journalism, photography, art, etc) to unchain themselves from established corporate entities and work for themselves. Bitcoin integration into Twitter (via Lightning) will allow creators to sell their work and accept a variety of payment structures in return. But perhaps most significantly, they will be able to accept micro-payments for a la carte consumption.
Online payment structures for content creators today are archaic and don't leave many options for payment method. Especially not on a global scale. Substack has some options but consumers can be reluctant to commit a certain amount of $$ per month to subscribe. Working for the NY Times means your articles go behind a paywall. As a consumer myself, I'd personally much rather have the option of paying a few thousand sats to read a la carte articles as I wish to directly support the journalist as opposed to paying $19.95 for a subscription to an archaic entity like the NY Times that channels a large % of its fees to overhead.
FWIW, I'm not necessarily saying you should agree with that outlook. I just think you can make a case that "global commerce not beholden to a specific entity or nation-state" has enormous potential and has advantages relative to nation-state money (ie the real) in that its accessible to almost everyone in the world, 24/7. You don't need to live in a certain place. You just need access to the internet. If you want to argue that the Bitcoin economic potential I briefly attempted to outline has yet to come to fruition and may never come to fruition, fair enough. You seem like a smart investor and I'm guessing you'll know when/if things have progressed to a point where you'd feel comfortable buying in.
And to bring this back full circle, the other thing I'm getting at is to the extent someone does have a bullish outlook for Bitcoin as a link for "global commerce not beholden to a specific entity or nation state", it would be smart to buy/HODL Bitcoin with dollars today and expect that Bitcoin to increase in value relative to the dollar over time. And that value is real, even if it's not what someone might commonly call "intrinsic".
Fire away!
