The market keeps talking

Source: ElBitcoin Original Title: The Market Keeps Talking Original Link:

By Leandro Fleischer

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. I found it hard to believe 100% of what he told me, until I decided to leave a comment in a Facebook group: all I did was point out, without disrespecting anyone, the reasons why I believe 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 replies, almost all of them containing mockery and insults. But not all of them. The only argument I was presented with was a striking one: “the market has already spoken.” They were implying that, due to the large difference between the price of bitcoin-BTC and bitcoin-BCH, people had already decided in a free market which one 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 blind BTC fans stubbornly ignore. 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 only a short time ago and, like any revolutionary innovation, they generate skepticism and many, many questions.

But those who allow themselves to doubt and patiently investigate usually end up reaping the rewards, just as those who got into the subject early did. These pioneers were labeled naïve or delusional, if not criminals, while the “specialists” predicted the imminent extinction of Bitcoin.

Those who mocked bitcoiners at the beginning, pointing to the cryptocurrency’s low transient value or to its steep price crashes, are now the ones who mock those of us who criticize the negative changes that have occurred in BTC, and they do so using the same arguments that used to be wielded by fiat money supporters and central banks.

We used to defend BTC from attacks coming from all sides. We did so because we understood its advantages and believed this currency had the potential to compete with fiat money, not to shore it up as BTC supporters now propose. For us, the existence of a form of peer-to-peer electronic cash is indispensable for putting limits on the expansion of state power. That’s why we 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 advocate today? That is, if a cryptocurrency had been created with sky-high 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 making transactions as slow or slower than bank transfers; or if, to send bitcoins at a lower cost, it was necessary to rely on intermediaries; or if its promoters invited us to keep using fiat money for almost all our transactions… What would have happened?

When you enter today’s BTC world, you get the feeling that many of its members arrived late to the crypto ecosystem and invested in BTC without really knowing what they were doing and without basic economic knowledge. And since the rise in BTC’s price does not exactly encourage this kind of investor to reflect, they react defensively to anything that might force them to rethink their decisions—like BCH, which still keeps Satoshi Nakamoto’s project alive.

Saying that the market “has spoken” is nonsense. The market is always talking; nothing is final for the market. Anyone who believes there’s no turning back, that nothing will change, either doesn’t understand how the economy works or is just making a (poor) defense of their investment.

This point can be illustrated by the competition between different messaging apps. I remember years ago, when you could only send text messages through a leading app, other apps were offering voice messages and even video calls. But, as they say, the early bird gets the worm. The market, which as I mentioned earlier is always talking, could also have punished the dominant app if it hadn’t made progress, and that’s why it improved its service. In fact, recently, concerns about privacy were capitalized on by other companies in the sector, which achieved unexpected visibility and a surprising increase in user numbers in a very short period of time.

And the consumer’s punishment could be even harsher in the future, since the market has not finished speaking and never will. The dominant app decided to take action, improved its service first, and then provided explanations to try to clarify the issues. BTC developers do the exact opposite: they continue down the same path proudly, and assure us this is just the beginning; that fees will keep rising and that we should celebrate it.

Meanwhile, the market keeps talking, no matter how much they want to silence it.