Lots of similarities to the Bitcoin investment thesis. Where the chain itself becomes the product and not any utility derived from it. You have to believe in a future where all fiat money crashes and becomes worthless, evil states confiscate other forms of wealth, like stocks and bonds but for some reason will be powerless to prevent bitcoin transfers. At the same time the hard limit of 21 million BTC will never be revoked despite continuously declining miners revenue. And only within that strict narrative does a long-term investment really make sense.
It does not need to be all or nothing though. It simply needs to be true for a large enough number of people, to create an extremely valuable market.
We are over 8 billion on earth, even if as little as 1% of the population rely on it directly or indirectly due to some form of oppression real or perceived due to political opinions, a long investment thesis on bitcoin can make sense.
I am not a bitcoin holder once this is said. Arrived at the party too late IMHO, and i have better investment options for now from a risk-adjusted perspective.
However if i had more cash to invest than i know what to do with, i'd definitely take a long position on bitcoin.
Exactly: money disappears into the hands of Government (or because of hyperinflation) but somehow you can buy goods on a "free" Internet without the Government intervention. Also: all transactions are recorded...
Good luck with that.
FATF and the government were desperate to eliminate/immobilize bearer bonds, bearer shares, high denomination notes, and hawala. It does seem like at least part of it is they think they have less control over oversight of their transfer for certain instrument or asset classes.
Author here. There's real overlap with that comparison, and I wouldn't dismiss it entirely. The receding horizon and community dynamics around belief reinforcement do look similar. Where I'd draw the line is the specific organizational failure mode: a product team whose feedback loops get hijacked by token economics. Bitcoin doesn't have a product team in the same sense. But the broader point (that a financial instrument can make belief liquid and self-reinforcing) applies more broadly than just token-funded ventures. I'm less certain where Bitcoin falls on that spectrum than I am about chains driven by ecosystems funded primarily by their tokens.