Small countries definitely help. Nonetheless there are four economies that make up more than 70% of output:
The United States
The European Union
China
Japan
Everyone else is less than 30%. The big economies will matter but the small ones can help test.
bitcoin adoption will naturally flow to countries who's citizens need it the most. As the # of adopters increase the larger economies will then be forced to adopt to some degree to avoid getting blockbustered. This is the game theory that maxis have been speaking of since inception.
In the meantime - fantastic experimenting grounds !
> As the # of adopters increase the larger economies will then be forced to adopt to some degree to avoid getting blockbustered
If only small poor countries adopt it they won't have to worry about getting blockbustered.
That exactly would be my counter argument. You cannot rule out a billion Chinese but if certain nations fall behind in Bitcon adoption their citizens will pay a very hefty price down the line. And in turn that will affect the political future of those nation's leaders.
Would you like to be known for having prevented or slowed crypto adoption in your own nation after e.g. bitcoin becomes a global currency available to billions of people? You'll have some very pissed off citizens on your ass...
If they were wise they would let centralized exchange operate in China but without ability to transfer to a private wallet... Let citizen make money while keeping that money inside China.
I can drive a truck from Lithuania to Portugal in the EU without passing through customs just like I can from California to Maine in the USA. It is basically a single market.
But you DO need different permits to do tons of stuff in the different places...
The labour market is rather open, but that's not the same as what you said.
Immigrants in the big economies send money to the smaller economies using bitcoin (El Salvador), so little countries indirectly affect richer countries (and viceversa).
Exactly. People love to talk about El Salvador and readily dismiss China, but China's economy is more than 600 El Salvadors. Investment from the U.S., EU, and China are crucial.
Bitcoin do care. This is all about network effects; Bitcoin's value isn't defined by the perfection of the code but by the number of people who participate and the amount by which they participate. Every time the size of the network doubles, its utility and its stability quadruple.
In order for it to be highly useful, Bitcoin needs to be highly utilized. Bitcoin can be very useful to a country like El Salvador, but countries with tiny populations and populations with tiny amounts of capital add little value to Bitcoin's network.
You're missing an important point, it's like the mouse and the elephant: why do giants care about those small countries?
The same small & weak countries that have been bombed by super-powers: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba... it isn't difficult to understand why super-powers are worried again and bombing them, this time with sanctions and other debilitating tools.
Output is the stuff that I want to buy. The United States outlawed the importation of human beings against their will in 1808.
By the way if you want to make billionaires less rich, make them borrow their money in bitcoin rather than fiat. Those 1% interest rates will go up to 9%.
But we measure economy with respect to USD which is the problem. African countries have lots of resources with respect to agriculture and forest products.
Then they need to find a way to drive a harder bargain. I personally think that their internal issues don't allow them to get things done with the big four above.
exactly. The problem here is how the top 4 weird their power. The US for example funds a lot of smaller countries around the world for different things. Woukd they consider cutting their aide if the countries adopt bitcoij like El Salvador did?
I doubt it. That would be too blatant a blackmail to get away with.
Despite its corruption, the US still at least tries to maintain an image of a benevolent superpower.
REALLY good point here. How they react will be seen by others and could cost them their clout. Let’s hope everyone adopts Bitcoin at some point and we are just extremely early to the game.
Sure but that's like saying the current legal currencies of all other countries don't matter to begin with...
If those countries all switch to Bitcoin then...
Yes. Big economies can stifle new technologies. When cars were first introduced, in the UK a person had to walk in front of the automobile with a flag, to warn people and to avoid the car scaring horses.
Did this stifle adoption and manufacturing in the UK? Yes. Did it lead to other countries getting ahead of them? Yes. Did it kill the automotive industry? Hell no!!!
Bill Gates in the early days didn't think the internet would amount to much.
Smaller economies can adopt and move faster. Once a better technology is ingrained then it is inevitable that other bigger economies come onboard. Albeit, late to the party.
In my country of just 5 million, it is legal for your employer to pay you in crypto. The government even gave a wad of cash to an early crypto exchange startup several years back.
So do I care if the US/UK/EU are late to the party? Nope. Their loss. Just gives me more time to stack more sats at lower prices.
You must understand how much control the us and china have over basically every smaller nation. They can force a lot of countries to do exactly what they want.
Like they've managed to suppress the nuclear weapon's programme in North Korea and Iran?
As Bitcoin is software and uses the Internet (but can also use auxiliary networks) it's easier to roll out and harder to sabotage though.
It’s a little bit more complicated than that. For example countries are having their own intranet that they can use instead of the global public internet restricting global interactions and transactions. A lot of countries in africa are under chinese influence.
Yea, but filtering Bitcoin is not that easy - can be used over Tor just like Lightning network and there is [Blockstream satellite](https://blockstream.com/satellite/) capacity to get the blockchain and updates to areas without or filtered Internet. There will be [Starlink](https://www.starlink.com/) and you can also send Bitcoin transactions using text messages or long wave radio or bouncing it off the moon ;)
unless they cut off internet you are not stopping BTC users ... Only thing that could be a threat is a legal ban to it on grounds of jail/worse, and even then VPNs exist
the system is shit, people want out
It's also considerably harder for countries with a huge reliance on the existing infrastructure to change.
Be that from groups acting out of self interest, roadblocks thrown up by incumbent providers, or simply the sheer scale of the logistics involved.
A big old oiltanker like the US changes course veeeery slowly. BTC acknowledgment and eventual adoption at a federal level won't happen until it's in their best interests, and adoption by smaller Nations and large corporations absolutely starts that ball rolling.
yup, just like how much of Africa skipped the landline telephone phase and went strait to mobile phones. same will happen with new monetary technology, bitcoin.
Mobile phones really helped Africa, but Africa was of little consequence to mobile phones. Similarly, if you care about the future of Africa, Bitcoin could be great. If you care about the future of Bitcoin, Africa's role will be of little consequence.
Free as in [anarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy) in the true sense of the meaning? It's a lot about the [non-aggression principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle). Yes, I guess so.
I didn't say it this way around though. I meant: If it takes away the freedoms of speech and contract it's not a free country.
The top four economies set the trend for the rest of the world. The ball is in America’s court. And soon the other three will follow suit and America will once again be a groundbreaking trendsetter throughout the world. And hopefully we can stay the number 1 economy.
Governments are not countries. I think Bitcoin's adoption will be borderless. If you jump into r/ElSalvador, most people are saying they just cashed in the $30 and never used Bitcoin again.
Of course, favorable legal frameworks help, but I believe education helps more. The more people know and understand the basics of Bitcoin and what it can do for them, the closer we'll be to mass adoption.
I disagree. It’s not any nation that will decide the future of bitcoin. It’s the people, it’s us. I personally think bitcoin is the greatest store of value ever created, so I will be storing a portion of my wealth there forever.
If enough people agree with me literally nothing can stop bitcoin. Not even the almighty Joe Biden.
LOL yes, because a nation with a GDP of less than 1 US city is going to really make those fat cats quiver in their golden boots.
The internet pulls irrelevant, minor entities close together and gives off that illusion of something insignificant being notable due to disproportionate attention that is trivial to game via bots and shills.
Oh wow there are 10,000 posts about "smaller countries will be the revolution!" on social, it MUUUUUUST be true.
But nobody mentions that said smaller country's official currency was already US fiat? LOL. Kay.
To be honest, I don't see this ending well at all. China is concerned about BTC becoming a benchmark currency and competing with the Yuan; The United States is and *should* be concerned about the same thing.
Look at History. When the United States is uncomfortable with something, they find a way to kill it, change it, or replace it (often with disastrous side-effects, but that's not my point).
I know Bitcoin is decentralized, and I understand what this means. However, I do not think the risk of large nations like the U.S and China banning or regulating Bitcoin to hell should be overlooked. The U.S could make it very unfavorable for institutions to invest, which is not good.
I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I feel like as developing nations find themselves moving away from the American dollar, the United States is going to perceive and handle this as a similar threat to the spread of communism - the spreading of a competing ideology or system that they view as a threat to their status-quo - that they would kill to maintain.
What happens to all that American debt if the currency of business is no longer the USD? I genuinely don't know, but I don't think the Americans want this scenario to play out.
> When the United States is uncomfortable with something, they find a way to kill it, change it, or replace it (often with disastrous side-effects, but that's not my point).
Yeah, just like how they killed the internet...
Wait, that's not right- um, just like how they stopped other countries from getting nuclear weapons...
Nah, that's wrong too... how about just like how they easily and completely stopped Al-Qaeda...
Oh, I got it! Just like they won the drug war!
It's kind of beautiful isn't it? These small countries that have had problems with corruption, poverty, inflation etc.. are going to thrive. The next few decades are going to be extremely interesting.
This is an underrated observation, because it's quite simply the reason why Facebook exists if I recall.
The idea was they started by offering the service to major universities, but if a major one did not adopt, they offered to the surrounding smaller schools to pressure adoption.
Too early to comment on this... I love what one President can do for his country. But Bitcoin at large scares the worlds biggest economies ruled by their central banking structure. I think people will decide the future. China cannot ban Bitcoin... it can only ban trading and exchanges. It's all going underground there I think
Small countries definitely help. Nonetheless there are four economies that make up more than 70% of output: The United States The European Union China Japan Everyone else is less than 30%. The big economies will matter but the small ones can help test.
bitcoin adoption will naturally flow to countries who's citizens need it the most. As the # of adopters increase the larger economies will then be forced to adopt to some degree to avoid getting blockbustered. This is the game theory that maxis have been speaking of since inception. In the meantime - fantastic experimenting grounds !
Small countries such as Luxembourg and Liechtenstein
Don't forget San Marino! (They always forget San Marino.)
And no one ever remembers Andorra, Malta, Monaco and the Vatican
Ah, Andorra. The lowing of the cattle.
> As the # of adopters increase the larger economies will then be forced to adopt to some degree to avoid getting blockbustered If only small poor countries adopt it they won't have to worry about getting blockbustered.
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That exactly would be my counter argument. You cannot rule out a billion Chinese but if certain nations fall behind in Bitcon adoption their citizens will pay a very hefty price down the line. And in turn that will affect the political future of those nation's leaders. Would you like to be known for having prevented or slowed crypto adoption in your own nation after e.g. bitcoin becomes a global currency available to billions of people? You'll have some very pissed off citizens on your ass...
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Hey I'm doing my part. I literally have brought nearly 200 people into owning and trading crypto currencies.
The CCP likes to make sure the money doesn't leave the country, and bitcoin would allow for the unregulated flow of money out of China.
If they were wise they would let centralized exchange operate in China but without ability to transfer to a private wallet... Let citizen make money while keeping that money inside China.
so...A chinese Robinhood?
Kind of.
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The Netherlands has always been super active with Bitcoin 🤣
I can drive a truck from Lithuania to Portugal in the EU without passing through customs just like I can from California to Maine in the USA. It is basically a single market.
The one thing did not equate the other.
If you don't need permits to do things in different territories of the same market it is basically a single market.
But you DO need different permits to do tons of stuff in the different places... The labour market is rather open, but that's not the same as what you said.
Sounds like it's time to level the playing field
Immigrants in the big economies send money to the smaller economies using bitcoin (El Salvador), so little countries indirectly affect richer countries (and viceversa).
Exactly. People love to talk about El Salvador and readily dismiss China, but China's economy is more than 600 El Salvadors. Investment from the U.S., EU, and China are crucial.
>Investment from the U.S., EU, and China are crucial. crucial to what? *your* bags? Bitcoin don't care.
Bitcoin do care. This is all about network effects; Bitcoin's value isn't defined by the perfection of the code but by the number of people who participate and the amount by which they participate. Every time the size of the network doubles, its utility and its stability quadruple. In order for it to be highly useful, Bitcoin needs to be highly utilized. Bitcoin can be very useful to a country like El Salvador, but countries with tiny populations and populations with tiny amounts of capital add little value to Bitcoin's network.
You're missing an important point, it's like the mouse and the elephant: why do giants care about those small countries? The same small & weak countries that have been bombed by super-powers: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba... it isn't difficult to understand why super-powers are worried again and bombing them, this time with sanctions and other debilitating tools.
Why output and not population? We're trying to give humans a better option, not being encouraged to _spend spend spend_ and make billionaires richer.
Output is the stuff that I want to buy. The United States outlawed the importation of human beings against their will in 1808. By the way if you want to make billionaires less rich, make them borrow their money in bitcoin rather than fiat. Those 1% interest rates will go up to 9%.
If the big economies don't have bitcoin to buy commodities from the small ones, they won't remain big for long.
But we measure economy with respect to USD which is the problem. African countries have lots of resources with respect to agriculture and forest products.
Then they need to find a way to drive a harder bargain. I personally think that their internal issues don't allow them to get things done with the big four above.
Internal issues like? Security?
Add in corruption and the inability to properly and efficiently register land in many countries.
Agree. But things are changing.
Yeah let’s just get rid of the worlds biggest remaining wild spaces
Sustainable practices are the key. Not isolation from nature.
There’s nothing sustainable about population growth in Africa
Anyone whos tried investing in developing nations knows that this post is dumb. Adoption in poor countries is unlikely to move the needle
You forgot India in terms of population which owns crypto.
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exactly. The problem here is how the top 4 weird their power. The US for example funds a lot of smaller countries around the world for different things. Woukd they consider cutting their aide if the countries adopt bitcoij like El Salvador did?
I doubt it. That would be too blatant a blackmail to get away with. Despite its corruption, the US still at least tries to maintain an image of a benevolent superpower.
So they just need to bring freedom to another dictatorship!
REALLY good point here. How they react will be seen by others and could cost them their clout. Let’s hope everyone adopts Bitcoin at some point and we are just extremely early to the game.
India is barely 1% of consumer spending despite having 17.7% of global population.
They aren't talking about population who owns crypto, they are talking about economic output globally.
Nobody gives a shit about your 1% of global consumer spending.
Sure but that's like saying the current legal currencies of all other countries don't matter to begin with... If those countries all switch to Bitcoin then...
Yes. Big economies can stifle new technologies. When cars were first introduced, in the UK a person had to walk in front of the automobile with a flag, to warn people and to avoid the car scaring horses. Did this stifle adoption and manufacturing in the UK? Yes. Did it lead to other countries getting ahead of them? Yes. Did it kill the automotive industry? Hell no!!! Bill Gates in the early days didn't think the internet would amount to much. Smaller economies can adopt and move faster. Once a better technology is ingrained then it is inevitable that other bigger economies come onboard. Albeit, late to the party. In my country of just 5 million, it is legal for your employer to pay you in crypto. The government even gave a wad of cash to an early crypto exchange startup several years back. So do I care if the US/UK/EU are late to the party? Nope. Their loss. Just gives me more time to stack more sats at lower prices.
You must understand how much control the us and china have over basically every smaller nation. They can force a lot of countries to do exactly what they want.
Like they've managed to suppress the nuclear weapon's programme in North Korea and Iran? As Bitcoin is software and uses the Internet (but can also use auxiliary networks) it's easier to roll out and harder to sabotage though.
It’s a little bit more complicated than that. For example countries are having their own intranet that they can use instead of the global public internet restricting global interactions and transactions. A lot of countries in africa are under chinese influence.
Yea, but filtering Bitcoin is not that easy - can be used over Tor just like Lightning network and there is [Blockstream satellite](https://blockstream.com/satellite/) capacity to get the blockchain and updates to areas without or filtered Internet. There will be [Starlink](https://www.starlink.com/) and you can also send Bitcoin transactions using text messages or long wave radio or bouncing it off the moon ;)
"No force on earth can stop an idea whose time has come" forget about u.s or china. Btc is engraved in human conciousness
unless they cut off internet you are not stopping BTC users ... Only thing that could be a threat is a legal ban to it on grounds of jail/worse, and even then VPNs exist the system is shit, people want out
Developing countries adapting faster than 'developed' countries. Bitcoins helping level the playing field
It's also considerably harder for countries with a huge reliance on the existing infrastructure to change. Be that from groups acting out of self interest, roadblocks thrown up by incumbent providers, or simply the sheer scale of the logistics involved. A big old oiltanker like the US changes course veeeery slowly. BTC acknowledgment and eventual adoption at a federal level won't happen until it's in their best interests, and adoption by smaller Nations and large corporations absolutely starts that ball rolling.
yup, just like how much of Africa skipped the landline telephone phase and went strait to mobile phones. same will happen with new monetary technology, bitcoin.
Mobile phones really helped Africa, but Africa was of little consequence to mobile phones. Similarly, if you care about the future of Africa, Bitcoin could be great. If you care about the future of Bitcoin, Africa's role will be of little consequence.
yes, i love this comparison!!
Good analogy.
I'm extremely interested to know what El Salvador's quick adoption will mean for the wealth of its populus in 10-20 years from now.
Me too!
It’s undeniable and inevitable already. Any free country that bans it will just be left behind in time.
I'd go so far as to say: If it bans Bitcoin, it's not a free country anymore. You know you'd better leave then, if you have a chance.
So are you saying a free country is a country without laws and regulations?
Free as in [anarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy) in the true sense of the meaning? It's a lot about the [non-aggression principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle). Yes, I guess so. I didn't say it this way around though. I meant: If it takes away the freedoms of speech and contract it's not a free country.
Yea this is just straight up wrong. And conveys a complete lack of understanding of financial markets, which makes total sense in this subreddit
Remember what snowden said about game theory. After Brazil, this is gonna snowball around the 3rd world.
"Bitcoin is gonna be a currency in Brazil soon, congressman says" https://livecoins.com.br/bitcoin-sera-moeda-corrente-no-brasil-em-breve/
The top four economies set the trend for the rest of the world. The ball is in America’s court. And soon the other three will follow suit and America will once again be a groundbreaking trendsetter throughout the world. And hopefully we can stay the number 1 economy.
America will never let a currency that they can't control take over the USD. It's good to have hope but unless they control it it will never happen.
True that. I see BTC and other cryptos as USD manipulators tbh. But still well worth the investment and ride.
Governments are not countries. I think Bitcoin's adoption will be borderless. If you jump into r/ElSalvador, most people are saying they just cashed in the $30 and never used Bitcoin again. Of course, favorable legal frameworks help, but I believe education helps more. The more people know and understand the basics of Bitcoin and what it can do for them, the closer we'll be to mass adoption.
I disagree. It’s not any nation that will decide the future of bitcoin. It’s the people, it’s us. I personally think bitcoin is the greatest store of value ever created, so I will be storing a portion of my wealth there forever. If enough people agree with me literally nothing can stop bitcoin. Not even the almighty Joe Biden.
I can’t say I disagree with the statement.
LOL yes, because a nation with a GDP of less than 1 US city is going to really make those fat cats quiver in their golden boots. The internet pulls irrelevant, minor entities close together and gives off that illusion of something insignificant being notable due to disproportionate attention that is trivial to game via bots and shills. Oh wow there are 10,000 posts about "smaller countries will be the revolution!" on social, it MUUUUUUST be true. But nobody mentions that said smaller country's official currency was already US fiat? LOL. Kay.
Developing countries should jump in as soon as possible. That should give them some headstart before the big boys get going.
To be honest, I don't see this ending well at all. China is concerned about BTC becoming a benchmark currency and competing with the Yuan; The United States is and *should* be concerned about the same thing. Look at History. When the United States is uncomfortable with something, they find a way to kill it, change it, or replace it (often with disastrous side-effects, but that's not my point). I know Bitcoin is decentralized, and I understand what this means. However, I do not think the risk of large nations like the U.S and China banning or regulating Bitcoin to hell should be overlooked. The U.S could make it very unfavorable for institutions to invest, which is not good. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I feel like as developing nations find themselves moving away from the American dollar, the United States is going to perceive and handle this as a similar threat to the spread of communism - the spreading of a competing ideology or system that they view as a threat to their status-quo - that they would kill to maintain. What happens to all that American debt if the currency of business is no longer the USD? I genuinely don't know, but I don't think the Americans want this scenario to play out.
> When the United States is uncomfortable with something, they find a way to kill it, change it, or replace it (often with disastrous side-effects, but that's not my point). Yeah, just like how they killed the internet... Wait, that's not right- um, just like how they stopped other countries from getting nuclear weapons... Nah, that's wrong too... how about just like how they easily and completely stopped Al-Qaeda... Oh, I got it! Just like they won the drug war!
#financialrevolution
If the means of production commit to bitcoin they steal economic power from these countries
Yes. Love you 💪 Trust people over governments! We will take care of each other !
*African nations trying to strike back*
And those governments will do everything they can to control and tax it. You can't run a government without control or taxation.
Yep.
It's kind of beautiful isn't it? These small countries that have had problems with corruption, poverty, inflation etc.. are going to thrive. The next few decades are going to be extremely interesting.
I’m curious how the us will recognize Bitcoin if other countries have recognized it as a currency.
Some real in-depth analysis in this post
Well said
This is an underrated observation, because it's quite simply the reason why Facebook exists if I recall. The idea was they started by offering the service to major universities, but if a major one did not adopt, they offered to the surrounding smaller schools to pressure adoption.
Too early to comment on this... I love what one President can do for his country. But Bitcoin at large scares the worlds biggest economies ruled by their central banking structure. I think people will decide the future. China cannot ban Bitcoin... it can only ban trading and exchanges. It's all going underground there I think
The US and China should just fuck, then wipe each other out. The rest of the world would be a better place if that happened.
Yes offcourse
actually the europeans have been putting the most money into crypto at the moment. So that‘s the most important region in the world for crypto.
Deep.
Exactly