Bitcoin Banks will happen. We already have a few of them. We get more of them. Existing older banks will start offering services. New banks must be founded around Bitcoin. This is completely inevitable at this time. Bitcoin does not scale. Even absent, people appreciate other services that naturally require other parties. The debt is the most important.
This is an inevitable reality.
Even if we could flip our fingers and roll all well-specified opcode and covenant proposals at once, it would still take a lot of time to start building out self-defense layers that could compete with something like credit unions and banks, scale. It is not a problem that can be solved behind overnight.
So what can we do? We need to embrace a localist attitude about making interaction with your Bitcoin easy. This requires a two -lasting approach, one involves technical development and the other involving, I hate to say that, lobbying.
Pieces already exist software such as LNDHUB or LNBITS that allow people to offer storage accounts for lightning. We need much more software like this and we need it to be Miles better. It doesn’t have to involve adhesive around the command line and connect independent software or review GitHub to follow manual installation instructions or fumble around and try to fix addictions discrepancies.
It just has to work.
Click on, synchronization to the network, done. It must be something that power users who are still not very technically knowledgeable can run safely, and don’t lose other people’s money. It should support more than basic accounts for lightning. Ecash offers privacy, which would be something important when it comes to small groups of people who know each other. You don’t want your friend to see what you spend your money on. It is necessary to support things like unchained or nunchuck style on-chain self-preserving. People do not want all their friends and the family’s life savings, but to keep a recovery key to protect them from their own mistakes is another matter.
We need the software that actually scales this type of user interaction beyond a lot of activist nerves online.
We also need a regulatory cut. There must be a clear recognition that driving this type of software for friends and family with trivial amounts of money says thousands of dollars, and without charging anything for it is an unregulated activity. Helping friends and family interacting with Bitcoin safe and easy and free does not make you a bank. The idea of ​​a few thousand dollars who need to comply with the rules banks that control billions of dollars is honestly absurd.
This is the path forward in view of the current limitations of Bitcoin and the reality of growing and accelerating the adoption that leads us away from a system that is eventually completely trapped and neutered by older financial institutions.
Instead of depending on them to deal with the current scaling restrictions of Bitcoin, we depend on each other.
This article is one Take. Opinions expressed are completely the author’s and does not necessarily reflect BTC Inc or Bitcoin magazine.