Rodrigo on Nostr: The Two Sides of Bitcoin Throughout its life, bitcoin’s value has reflected its ...

The Two Sides of Bitcoin

Throughout its life, bitcoin’s value has reflected its economic properties which are indisputably great, but I believe that this is only half the story. Bitcoin has several industrial uses cases that few people are aware of and that few companies are leveraging. The following are some examples of the two sides from where bitcoin gets its value:


Economic Properties

It is scarce: There will only ever be 21 million bitcoin issued and no more. While this is not all that’s needed to make something valuable, it’s a key property for hard money.

It can be broken down into smaller pieces: Bitcoin can be owned as one whole coin or divisible to eight decimals (0.00000001). This allows for transactions of all sizes to take place.

It can be taken with you: One can easily take bitcoin across a border or across the street in a digital or hardware wallet or even carry bitcoin in your head just by memorizing a sequence of words. It is much harder to do the same with gold bars.

It cannot be counterfeited: Bitcoin moves on the Bitcoin blockchain, which has proven to be the most secure blockchain in existence, making it nearly impossible for someone to send counterfeited bitcoin. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about gold and fiat currencies.

It can protect purchasing power over time: Even though bitcoin has had its volatile past, with a long enough time horizon, it will most likely hold its purchasing power relative to other goods while fiat currencies will lose their value under the weight of their indebtedness. If in doubt, just take a look at what bitcoin has done when priced in highly devalued currencies such as Egyptian Pounds, Argentine Peso, Ukrainian Hryvnia and Nigerian Naira.


Industrial Use Cases

The Bitcoin blockchain offers the ability for two parties to send bitcoin back and forth albeit at slower speeds; this is by design as the Bitcoin blockchain is the most secure blockchain in existence. It is the base layer where other second layers are built on that solve for speed and other very innovative solutions. There are many examples of industrial use cases and below I highlight some that I believe to be solid drivers that will unlock even more value to the Bitcoin blockchain and thus its price:

Fiat over Lightning Network: A second layer built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, the Lightning Network makes bitcoin transactions instant, no matter if the parties are next to each other or oceans away. By leveraging this network, two parties can transact using their own currencies, resulting in foreign exchange rates that could potentially be better than the rates offered by traditional financial rails; it is also faster and less bureaucratic. This would allow a business to pay for its raw materials by using its own currency while the foreign supplier would get paid in their own currency. No need to go through various currency conversions which end up being costly and time consuming.

Tokenization over Liquid Network: Another second layer on the Bitcoin blockchain, it can be used to issue and list digital assets. By leveraging this technology, a business can tap into markets that were out of its reach in the traditional system to either sell its goods or raise funds. A real estate developer can issue digital tokens to either raise funds for a new development or sell the digital ownership of its properties.

Miniscript for Institutional Custody: As bitcoin gains more institutional adoption, either for ETFs as we have recently witnessed or for any other use case, centralized custodians will have to improve their custodial practices as they now own more bitcoin with an ever-increasing price. Through a Bitcoin language called Miniscript, the custodial model is switched from bitcoin “lost forever” to “bitcoin recovered at a later time.” This is a setup whereby a large bitcoin custodian can have insurance that if they were to lose the keys to their bitcoin, the protocol itself would return that bitcoin at a predefined time in the future. This offers an extra layer of security to institutions that hold third-party funds, giving an extra piece of mind to end users and helping the bitcoin adoption.

Industrial uses cases do take more time to implement, but when they happen, they will truly unlock more value to bitcoin that has never been priced in before. I foresee the same price action repeating when this happens as to when the ETFs were launched and caused the massive bitcoin rally.