XRP Mickle on hyper-Bitcoinization
XRP Mickle has always found the hyper-Bitcoinization dream unrealistic, specifically the notion that the Federal Reserve would fold and the world would start transacting in Bitcoin-native currency. He points to a 2014 demonstration by Chris Larson showing the XRP Ledger holding tokenized USD and JPY as a preview of systems getting upgraded rather than replaced. The shift isn't necessarily a revolution in economic structure since the Federal Reserve will continue printing money and the Treasury will keep issuing it for at least the next 30 years. Governments are unlikely to destroy their ability to print or the fabric of human society; instead, systems will likely be upgraded to be faster and more efficient using new technology. While Bitcoin can serve as a pristine store of value and a great opt-out, it cannot cause the traditional system to fail. That system will be incorporated into digital ones, which is exactly where XRP plays an important role.
Transcript (en)
Like the whole idea of a lot of the Bitcoin maximalist had to do with hyper Bitcoinization in which there's going to be like a replacement of fiat currency with Bitcoin. And like the United States Federal Reserve was going to like fold over and everyone's going to be transacting in Bitcoin. And like, I just always viewed those things as like hyper unrealistic, right? Like it just never seemed to me like that was at all the direction that we were going. And like back in 2014, Chris Larson did a demonstration of the XRP ledger. And the first thing that he was showing off was the XRP ledger having tokenized fiat dollars in it, right? Like JPY, USD. And this idea that like the change that's happening isn't a revolution necessarily in like economic structure, right? Like, the Federal Reserve is still going to be printing money. The Treasury is still going to be issuing money. Like, I didn't see those things changing within the next 30 years. Like maybe something happens way down the line But personally I don think we that close to it like a lot of the Bitcoin maximalists thought And because of that it always made sense to me that as we continue to see every single part of human society is going to be digitized in some way or another. And then I just had to really think between two outcomes, right? Are governments going to fold over and say, hey, we're going to completely blow up the entire economy and just destroy our ability to print money and like the entire fabric of how human society works? Or are we just going to like upgrade our systems to be faster, more efficient and utilize new technology? And for me, it's like, that's why they don't detract one way or the other. Like Bitcoin just, I don't think has the capacity in order to cause that change to happen. I believe it's going to be a pristine store of value, a great opt out of the system. But I totally disagree with the mentality that that means that the traditional system is going to fail. In fact, I think the traditional system is just going to be incorporated into a lot of these digital systems that are going to be built. And that's exactly where I think XRP plays a very important role.
