Bitcoin objection: “Seems risky and uncertain“

The number four most cited objection to Bitcoin is that it seems risky and uncertain. This is mostly an education problem. Bitcoin is actually not risky and uncertain once you understand how it works. Now this would have been a common objection for example to the invention of electricity. So everybody's you know heating their house with whale oil or with kerosene or with candles and along comes electricity. And if you went around and you asked people like, "Why haven't you adopted electricity? Why are you still using kerosene and whale oil and candles to light your house?" People would have said, "It it seems risky and uncertain." Like this whole electricity thing just seems really risky. Now, it's interesting the way people frame the risk of Bitcoin is uh is different. So, I'm going to read you the different categories they put that risk in. risky and uncertain is the largest category people mention with objections to bit Bitcoin. Other subcategories are people will say it's it doesn't feel trustworthy or it's too uncertain or there's too much uncertainty surrounding it. Other sort of more radical versions of that are it might fade away or it could go to zero. Um other you know sort of facets is the value of Bitcoin is hard to evaluate. it's hard to figure out what it's worth and therefore it seems risky. Some people would say, "Well, I just don't know who controls Bitcoin, who's behind Bitcoin." Uh, obviously, it's open source software and it's controlled by nobody because more than 100,000 Bitcoin nodes, which are Bitcoin computers, including one that I run myself, uh, keep the Bitcoin network running. So, nobody's in charge of Bitcoin. There's nobody controlling Bitcoin behind the scenes. It's just open- source software, which means software that anyone can read, anyone can look at, anyone can audit, you know, and if you decide to run that software on your computer, your computer becomes a Bitcoin node. That's how that works. Um, and you can download the Bitcoin software from bitcoin.org. You don't need to, but if you did, you would download it on any computer that has a, you know, relatively large hard drive. You download the Bitcoin software, it downloads the entire Bitcoin blockchain, all transactions that have ever happened, and then uh you're participating in the network just like everybody else. But anyway, um some people feel in the risky and uncertain category. They feel like Bitcoin is gambling. They can't find any trustworthy source of information. It feels like a pump and dump scheme. It feels like a confidence game or a con or a Ponzi scheme. People are worried about losing Bitcoin by mistake by doing something wrong. Again, that's why you buy Bitkey bitke.orld. Bitkey.World, the website. That is the way you secure and make sure you don't mess up anything with Bitcoin and that hackers and scammers don't get it. But people talk about the the worry about that. They talk about getting the rug pulled out from them. They talk about not knowing Bitcoin's origins. Again, that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who figured out the wheel or fire. It doesn't even matter who invented the the printing press. We know who invented the printing press, but we don't have to know who invented the printing press for the world to benefit from it. Um, people talk about Bitcoin's track record, even though Bitcoin is 17.5 years old. It's more than 17 years old and people act like it's brand new yesterday and it doesn't have a track record. Um, I've heard people say Bitcoin just sounds crazy. The fact that there's a monetary system that nobody's in charge of and nobody controls just sounds crazy. Um, sometimes people talk about decentralization feeling risky or just the whole thing feeling scary. But all of those things that I just mentioned are some version of the fact that people feel like Bitcoin is risky and uncertain. But again, that is an education problem. If you understand Bitcoin, it doesn't feel risky and uncertain. There's nothing there's nothing fundamentally risky and uncertain about open-source software that anyone can look at and anyone can run on their computer and anyone can look at it and tell exactly what it does. In fact, that is the least risky kind of software is the kind of software that anybody can audit and that's going to do exactly what you know it's going to do because anybody can read the code. So, you know, if you're not a software developer, that means you're not going to want to be reading the code. But anybody who is a software developer can read the open- source, open for the public code of Bitcoin. So, the only reason it feels risky and uncertain is because people don't understand how it works. Once you go through the education process of understanding how Bitcoin works, you realize Bitcoin is one of the least risky and most certain things in the world. So, for example, if somebody said, "What's more likely that a president of a major country gets assassinated tomorrow or that the Bitcoin network goes down?" I would say, "It's way more likely that a president gets assassinated." Every bad thing that could happen in the world is way more likely to happen, even very unlikely things, as compared to the fact that the Bitcoin blockchain is going to stop processing transactions. I am more likely to get hit by lightning on this clear blue day than I am than it is likely that the Bitcoin blockchain just stops processing transactions. Right? So the uncertainty and the risk perception of Bitcoin which is separate from the price volatility. We already covered price volatility in the second video I did uh about objection number two which is the price is volatile. These are people whose the concern is not the price volatility. The concern is that the entire system, the whole system of Bitcoin, Bitcoin itself feels risky and uncertain. And I'm just here to tell you once you research it, you realize Bitcoin is more certain than death or taxes or any of the most certain things that you know of. The Bitcoin blockchain based on its design is going to keep processing transactions as long as the human race is alive. And the fact that it you could have a money that the government can't make more of out of thin air that goes on forever that you can own a piece of and you can use as money your money real money right now. That's a huge deal. It's hugely valuable and in all currencies of the world that will be a valuable thing. So right now that's $80,000 US of value per Bitcoin. And it's I don't know how many yen and one and euros and all these other currencies Bitcoin's value is right now. Pesos and you know it's like a gazillion Iranian whatevers and it's like a bazillion gazillion uh Venezuel Venezuelan boulevard. But in every currency in the world, Bitcoin is highly valued. Even in a place that does not use any currency, Bitcoin would be highly valued because of its monetary properties and because it is such a certain a certainty that the network will continue to process transactions and that you can stay safely store value in the Bitcoin network because of that certainty. So if you think Bitcoin's risky, it is a lack of education. Once you understand Bitcoin, it seems like one of the least risky things in the