I've spent a lot of time on shitcoin Twitter, bitcoin Twitter, and Reddit's r/wallstreetbets in the past. Nothing is more common among these places than the diamond hands/paper hands narrative, with some variations of the hands type like weak, strong, lettuce, etc. Also, everybody saw memes like 300 Spartans holding their bags or something like that.
At the same time, we have another narrative where money is a store of value, medium of exchange, and unit of account. And Bitcoin is money, it's generational wealth, it's everything divided by 21M, right?
So how do we do diamond hands to medium of exchange shift? Some might argue, that if you buy goods and services in bitcoin, it's not selling, so you just keep your diamond hands title and sprinkling your dust diamonds on sellers while you are passing by in a carriage and they bring you goods to your citadel later. And then they go and sell it for Micky Mouse money. In other words, if you buy something in Bitcoin, but the seller instantly sells it after for fiat - isn't it same as selling? Not taxwise, but a philosophical question here. Or you "don't care / never sell"?
So you sell 1st and then buy - paper hands You buy 1st and then the seller sells - diamond hands.
Ok, some might argue let's call it spending and converting, spending on goods and services is fine, converting to fiat to buy goods and services is bad. You need to support a circular economy, and to support it - it needs to exist or you need to create it. How do you create it - you spend your bitcoin.
Cause if you are holding your diamond balls in your diamond hands sitting in your half-built citadel nothing is going to change. It's like wanting revolution while sitting in your castle and waiting for others to do the job. We need revolutionists, we need actions. We needed Laszlo_Hanyecz. And all these heroes (or call them misfits) of revolution will bleed, they will bleed so others can learn from them. They will fuck up their lightning nodes, get hacked, and people will laugh at them as they zapped the whole kids' college fund on a single meme and spent the whole block subsidy of 2084 on a cup of coffee. But without spenders nothing will happen.
So the whole diamond hands/paper hands narrative is broken, leave this meme for shitcoinery, it doesn't help Bitcoin in the long run. When people hear this there is a strong connection with stocks and shitcoins. And Bitcoin is not another asset in your portfolio. It's your future life. And in your future life, you are going to spend, sell, convert, earn, save, you gonna do all these things. Because if you don't do it it will just not work. And there will be no future we hope for.
Now, some toxic spenders will spend their Bitcoin to buy goods from you or return the money for a coffee and then shame and bully you in oblivion if you try to sell your Bitcoin. Fine, we need them too, shame your friends, just don't make it a global narrative. Cause Bitcoin is for our kids and grandkids.
I can't tell my kids to have diamond hands and shame them for the paper hands later, that's ridiculous. Remember when you were a kid and you were saving money for something, not saving money for the sake of money? They are these kids now. They are getting their Bitcoin piggy bank that they will break one day to buy a bike/doll / Playstation / whatever the f they want. And then they start saving again. Ok, maybe the second time they won't have too much Bitcoin, ok maybe you need to sit and lecture them about the time preference - "In 5 years you will be able to get 100 bikes, son!" - "But Dad, I need a new bike now when I'm 15, I don't need 100 bikes when I'm 20." Kids can't have the same time preference as you are. 5 years for you is maybe 10% of your lived life. 5 years for them is like 35%. They cannot wait another 35% to get a bike, all friends will be gone by then and you will ride in the park alone on your 100 bikes.
So kids will not have diamond hands or paper hands, kids just want to use it. Spend it, sell it, save it. Cause at the end you are not converting/selling your Bitcoin for fiat. You use your fiat as an extra medium of exchange. So when my kids need a bike they don't choose between bike for bitcoin or no bike, they choose between 2 paths here - Bitcoin -> Bike and Bitcoin -> Fiat -> Bike. And if the 1st option is not available they will just switch to the second and go on with their life. And please don't do this "it's just slavery with extra steps" meme here. It is for now, but we are gonna remove these extra steps sooner or later, one at a time.
originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/620536