Bitcoin's Utility Cannot Be Measured by Its Ability to Generate Profits

As we consider what makes Bitcoin useful, let's take a look at the very definition of the word in the dictionary:

Useful: whose use satisfies a need, is or can be advantageous.

Since the approval of Bitcoin Spot ETFs in early 2024, more and more people have come forward to buy what they think is Bitcoin. Indeed, buying shares in these Bitcoin Spot ETFs is simply buying Bitcoin paper. You don't own anything.

However, these people aim to optimize the fruits of their labor, hoping to profit from the rise in the price of Bitcoin in weak money. They don't care about the risk of censorship or the lack of control over the fruits of their labor. They blindly trust BlackRock and the other financial giants.

For these people, Bitcoin is arguably useful. After all, it allows them to satisfy a need.

Let's move on to Donald Trump. Throughout his election campaign, Donald Trump promised to make Bitcoin a national priority. Then he expanded on this, confusing Bitcoin with Crypto. Donald Trump is talking more generally about making cryptocurrencies a national priority from now on.

Supporting Bitcoin to raise more money and putting himself forward as a defender of freedom in opposition to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris afterward will have enabled Donald Trump to strengthen his advantage and ultimately be elected to a second term in the White House. It's safe to say that Bitcoin has been advantageous for Donald Trump. The utility of Bitcoin for Donald Trump is obvious.

Today, the Bitcoin community is riven by debate and controversy. This controversy is linked to Bitcoin's slow drift from an alternative currency superior to the US dollar to a mere stock market asset. After all, BTC was born in the wake of the subprime crisis that began in 2007. Its development model was initially set up against the banking system and monetary institutions such as central banks.

Bitcoin is a Freedom Money whose values run counter to those of the current system. Seeing Bitcoin being slowly but surely integrated into the current system as a simple SoV is therefore enough to irritate the staunchest Bitcoiners, of which I am one. From time to time, some people reproach me for this, telling me that I've lacked positivity in recent months. This lack of positivity probably reflects my concern about the drift of the Bitcoin revolution.

After the approval of Bitcoin Spot ETFs last year, it's now the governments that seem to want to get hold of the Bitcoin phenomenon, even if it means sidetracking its idea, as is customary with governments. Donald Trump was the first world leader to embrace the idea of a strategic Bitcoin reserve. Today, he speaks more readily of a national stockpile of digital assets, still confusing Bitcoin with Crypto.

The main consequence of this is to transform Cypherpunks' ideological vision of Bitcoin into a kind of governmental claim. However, it's impossible to ignore the extent to which the Trump administration is currently playing a key role in the recognition of Bitcoin as a financial asset. This is to the point of making it legitimate with institutional investors, such as pension funds and asset managers. This was fundamentally inconceivable two years ago. Back then, the price of Bitcoin was driven by novelty and enthusiasm, and this time around, there is genuine institutional support.

This situation is supported by candidate Trump's promise to create this strategic Bitcoin reserve for America. Is this compatible with BTC's original vocation of escaping governments and central bankers? In the end, it doesn't matter to most market participants, as only the bullish outlook now seems to weigh in the balance.

As economists begin to wonder how this strategic Bitcoin reserve will be financed, via debt or by taxing American citizens, the debate over Bitcoin's utility has been resurfacing for some time. We're talking about a utility that goes beyond the merely speculative. Would Bitcoin be of any real utility to America?

Here too, the debate is fierce. Some think it would make no sense at all, while others swear it would be a unique opportunity for America to take the lead (the control?) in the Bitcoin world. Michael J. Saylor falls into the latter category.

True Bitcoiners, including myself, recognize that the situation is complex and that the risk of the Bitcoin revolution going astray is very real. In my opinion, Bitcoin's utility cannot be measured by its ability to generate profits in weak money. This makes Bitcoin useful only for a minority of individuals. It's good for them, and I fully understand their interest, but it's no service to humanity as a whole.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, can reconcile individual interests with those of the collective when it moves away from the speculative Wall Street games played by the inhabitants of stable zones with fiat currencies that are still solid (for how much longer?). Bitcoin can be used to bypass bank blockades, to escape liberticidal local bans, or to protect savings against currency collapses.

A strategic Bitcoin reserve only makes Bitcoin useful for the government, not for individuals. Institutional adoption only makes Bitcoin useful for a privileged few. What makes Bitcoin useful for everyone is its use as an MoE in everyday life. What makes Bitcoin useful is the promotion of a circular economy based on the Bitcoin system.

Of course, such a conception implies that the mass adoption of Bitcoin by the general public will take place at a much slower pace than what the institutionalists want to sell you. A more reasoned pace, more respectful of the utility of Bitcoin for the greatest number.

However, there's no point in pointing the finger at those who are only interested in Bitcoin through the financial prism, because deep down, behind the Bitcoin revolution also lies the essential notion of everyone's freedom to choose how to live their lives. If you're among those who want to use Bitcoin solely to generate profit in weak money, you have every right to do so. You're missing out on something greater, both individually and collectively, but that's your choice, and it should be respected.

The debate on the utility of Bitcoin is therefore a complex one, which depends on how each individual perceives the concept of utility. Are you going to focus on individual utility or try to move towards individual and collective utility?

It's up to you and you alone to answer this philosophical question.