Bitcoin is fueled by distrust
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So, lets think about it, in a way currency should be about trust, it isn't called fiduciary money for nothing. But bitcoin is about distrust, distrust of governments, distrust of central banks, distrust of the financial system, hell distrust of almost anybody, even the miners. The bitcoin manifest states "The incentive may help encourage nodes to stay honest.", yes, that "may" help, unless they can profit more from fraudulent activities and/or shorting bitcoin, and every halving will get us closer to this state.
Of course, as I stated before, bitcoin is a con, and a confidence game does require confidence or trust. So where is this confidence directed to? There is confidence that there will only be 21 million bitcoin created eventually. There is confidence that bitcoin 'can only rise in value'. There is confidence that there will always be another sucker who is willing to pay more for your bitcoin. There is confidence in the so called 'blockchain technology'.
Indeed there is trust, you will say, and yes that is true, as I just mentioned. This trust, however, is fueled by distrust. But I do question why the bitcoin fans, although they seem so distrustful, why they blindly trust bitcoin and most of the time exchanges and miners too? They even shout from joy if a large bank or other large financial institution has something positive to say about bitcoin, or if these financials want to create products (like an ETF) for bitcoin. Why is that? Didn't they distrust the banks and other financial institutions?
Bitcoin fans seem to distrust fiat currencies, but are all to happy to see their bitcoin being valued more in that fiat currency. Why is that? Well, as I did mention, this is all due to the actual reason why people buy bitcoin: greed. As I also mentioned, this distrust is used as the excuse factor, it is also a distraction technique used by the con artist. By focusing distrust on governments, fiat currency, banks and other financial institutions, people are distracted from looking with some distrust into the proposed alternative: bitcoin.
That's right, this distrust (although some criticism is justified) is a distraction, similarly as distractions are used by illusionists. Not that you shouldn't have some critical mindset towards these institutions, but having your critical thoughts only focused on these makes you blind for the issues with the proposed alternative. I am saying, be skeptical in both directions, with equal vigor. Don't just do away with criticism of bitcoin as FUD, and think about the possibility that criticism directed at governments, fiat currency, banks and other financial institutions might actually be FUD to get you to buy into bitcoin.
If you have invested in bitcoin, beware of the confirmation bias you might have, and of commitment and consistency (Cialdini). Think of it this way, you are eventually better off looking at things objectively, if there is this issue with bitcoin, you don't want to be blind to it. If you already knew, and just want to gamble, that's fine also, as long as you understand that you are looking for the next fool to buy your bitcoins for a higher price.
So let's look at the points that the trust for bitcoin is focused on:
That there will only be 21 million bitcoin created eventually
It seems so, doesn't it? Or are we dealing with software that can be changed? Of course this software can be changed. So, it is actually not guaranteed that only 21 million bitcoin will ever be generated. Yes, generating more bitcoin will probably have an impact on the price of bitcoin, but that does not impact the possibility. Such a change can only be made if most of the large miners agree to this, and that is also not impossible. If they choose to stop the halving, so that the newly mined bitcoins can cover their costs, what can the average bitcoin buyer/holder do about that?
You might think this is far fetched, but each halving it will be more difficult for miners to stay profitable. Also, as mining requires quite a lot of processing power, that cannot fall too much as that could lead to manipulation of the bitcoin blockchain, it is hardly an option to start mining on a Raspberry PI using the old software, creating a fork, as that will never be secure. You are stuck with a few large miners that actually control bitcoin, so you are fucked.
In other words: There is no guarantee that there will only be 21 million bitcoin (2,100,000,000,000,000 satoshi).
That bitcoin 'can only rise in value'
As we have seen in the past, bitcoin can drop in value. OK, so it is said "in the long run", but this is not knowable. There is no reason why that should be the case. It has been said that this is due to the limited amount of bitcoin that will be generated. But as I have just explained, this is not a guarantee, the future is unknown to us. Also, a limited supply or scarcity does not imply value. This all depends on demand, as supply and demand determines the price, and scarcity is only one part of that equation. So now you hopefully understand that a statement like "bitcoin 'can only rise in value'" is baloney.
There will always be another sucker who is willing to pay more
Well eventually we will run out of suckers. There is a quote, attributed to Einstein, that says "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.", well human stupidity might be infinite, humans are not, so we will eventually run out of suckers.
Confidence in the so called 'blockchain technology'
First of all, how 'blockchain technology' might develop has nothing to do with bitcoin or the value of bitcoin. Bitcoin is only the 'token' registered on the bitcoin blockchain.
'blockchain technology' isn't a game changer. The web3 is just some mumbo jumbo so you think it is the future, although that is totally unrelated to the price of bitcoin, people seem to believe that it gives bitcoin more value. Why is it mumbo jumbo? Because it will always be less efficient than similar technology that is used by a trusted party. The technology isn't new, components that are used by blockchain, can also be used without blockchain, but then more efficiently.
Blockchain, like bitcoin, is based on distrust. To try and mitigate this distrust, there needs to be quite some checks and balances. Using a trusted party does not require this overhead, so this will always be more efficient. So what about blockchain used by a trusted party? Well that isn't web3, and still can be done more efficiently without chaining. The scarce blockchain projects that I have seen as an IT professional where all done not to miss out on the new hype, blockchain isn't used significantly in IT projects. There only is the 'crypto'-realm where projects are developed, but these aren't used much outside of the 'crypto'-realm. If you only look there, you do get an impression that it is heavily used, but it isn't in the global IT world.
But the 'blockchain revolution' will come, some might argue. As stated before, blockchain will always be less efficient. This fact discards it from becoming anything more than it is now. Others will say, "you don't understand it", well I would say, read my PoW is insane article.