For actual products bitcoin (and blockchains like Ethereum with EVM) are the fundamental enabling layer. I like to think of them somewhat akin to TCP/IP or even HTTP. Where are the higher layer applications and use cases built on blockchain with instant and obvious utility to the average person walking down the street? This is what I was getting at with the decade plus of development and billions of dollars of investment.
The internet was a fundamental threat to all kinds of institutions - governments with censorship, big media (including state run), and even financial institutions. The internet provided instant untold value for democracy and free speech. Just widespread and instantly available encryption itself was a HUGE problem and threat to governments, law enforcement, militaries, intelligence agencies, etc. Remember the Clipper Chip "debate" and 40 bit encryption export controls? I do.
Yet the obvious value and utility was so clear even governments like China (with the Great Firewall) knew it was of such incredible value to the economy and clamored for by the citizenry they figured out a way to make it work within their system of government. Inside of a decade billions of people were using the internet to further democracy, free speech, and the dissemination of information.
Then why have almost all authoritarian governments banned Bitcoin?
> If you can enforce the currency you can enforce wealth inequality and entrenchment of incumbents.
That's the whole point. No one can control Bitcoin which is why it's not appealing to authoritarians. Authoritarians don't like things they can't have authority over.
Showing authoritarian governments don’t like Bitcoin doesn’t help. Western conservatives and CCP’s social views are very similar. Yet they despise one another. Of course. Authoritarians want to be the ones in control. Why would they like other authoritarians?
Second, "Bitcoin being high value to authoritarians" is another way of saying that authoritarians like Bitcoin. There's a lot of evidence that they don't, and for good reason: they can't control it.
The opposite of authoritarianism is anarchism. Anarchism and libertarians are not the same thing. One is hard left, the other is hard right. They can’t both be the opposite of authoritarianism.
Libertarians want to be the ones in power. Being in power is something authoritarians enjoy too. I already responded to the authoritarians not liking something does not mean anything about their principles or beliefs.
But you still have distributed authorities, the owners of Bitcoin. The idea that one should be controlled by the interests of financial capital is anthitetical to free speech, freedom and self determination.
>Also, Bitcoin threatens the status quo in a massive way. Not only private businesses like banks but also powerful entities like governments and intergovernmental organizations.
It doesn't, it entrenches the status quo. That is quite literally what deflation is, a reward for people who dominated the economy in the past.
What does that mean? That's not how Bitcoin works. There are no distributed authorities. Even miners don't have authority over Bitcoin, other than deciding the order in which transactions get confirmed.
> It doesn't, it entrenches the status quo. That is quite literally what deflation is, a reward for people who dominated the economy in the past.
Even if this was true in a world where Bitcoin is the dominant currency[0], it is not true in the world we live in today. In the world, we live today, governments, corporations, and wealthy individuals are all heavily invested in fiat[1]. I wasn't making the argument that Bitcoin is morally desirable because it disrupts the status quo. I was making the argument that because Bitcoin disrupts the status quo, it will get significant push-back from the powerful entities which have an interest in preserving the status quo.
[0] Apple alone has 200$ billion in fiat, just to give an example.
[1] It's not as if fiat monetary inflation goes directly into the hands of the poor. There's a lot of evidence that the opposite happens and that it actually increases wealth inequality: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
Also, Bitcoin threatens the status quo in a massive way. Not only private businesses like banks but also powerful entities like governments and intergovernmental organizations.
Needless to say, I don't expect adoption to be comparable to that of a web search engine.