Analyzing the "Bitcoin is for everyone" meme
“Bitcoin is for everyone” is true at the protocol boundary and false in the lived system. In a low-GCP world (consent scarce), the path of least resistance is: paperization + perimeter control.
I’m sure many of you have heard the “I hate to break it to you, but Bitcoin is for everyone“ meme.
Usually it’s used in the context of paperization or people wanting to change the protocol to make Bitcoin for everyone.
Of course, surface-level this seems to make sense - it’s a permissionless protocol.
However, it is much more nuanced.
Cars are for everyone, but that doesn’t mean bad drivers don’t affect you on the road.
Thesis
“Bitcoin is for everyone” is true at the protocol boundary and false in the lived system. In a low-Gross Consent Product world (consent scarce), the path of least resistance is: paperization + perimeter control. That means other people’s choices (custody ETFs, policy clients, protocol-bloat, KYC defaults) directly degrade your outcomes — just like bad drivers raise your accident risk and premiums even if you drive perfectly.
Now let’s map how “everyone” behavior produces coordination failures you still pay for.
1) Paperization: other people’s custody choices tax your sovereignty
Mechanic
ETFs/futures/notes scale exposure faster than spot self-custody. Issuers/market-makers hedge with restricted lending/borrows.
Result: basis trades and inventory management damp upside, amplify downside when funding tightens.
Price discovery migrates to regulated venues, not mempools.
Why incentives beat ideals
Institutions are paid to minimize operational and headline risk, not to maximize censorship resistance.
Retail is paid (with convenience, taxes, app-store UX) to pick the one-click ETF.
Externality on you
Volatility path becomes a managed corridor (capped blow-offs, orderly drawdowns); self-custody’s “anti-seizure” value persists, but market power (liquidity, messaging, lobbying) shifts to wrappers.
ETF approvals + bank/custody greenlights + exchange surveillance-sharing → paper share rising.
Pricing already behaves like a contained Store-of-Value more than a grassroots Medium-of-Exchange.
2) Protocol drift pressure: “for everyone” invites rent-seeking use that harms money-use
Mechanic
Features/interpretations (SegWit discount + Taproot) enable cheap blob-style data (inscriptions).
Core policy changes (e.g., relaxing OP_RETURN mempool caps) can lower cost of embedding arbitrary payloads.
Incentives
Miners earn from high-fee junk just as happily as from monetary flow; vendors earn from novelty; speculators farm narratives.
Attackers (including state-adjacent actors) can flood blocks with non-monetary data to keep fees elevated and node costs rising.
Externality on you
UTXO set growth, storage/CPU/ bandwidth creep → node centralization (fewer sovereign validators).
Higher background fees crowd out small Medium-of-Exchange transactions → the “Bitcoin is money” path loses share to stables/CBDC rails.
Revealed preferences
Miners accept inscription fees; infra firms market “ordinals”; policy debates are framed as “free market vs censorship”, not monetary integrity vs rent extraction.
3) Perimeter control: “it’s permissionless” doesn’t stop defaults from herding the majority
Mechanic
App stores throttle non-KYC wallets; banks restrict on/off ramps; clouds/ISPs set Acceptable Use Policies for node hosting; pools adopt policy clients (template filtering, blacklists).
Incentives
Platforms are rewarded for regulatory harmony and liability reduction.
Users are rewarded with cashbacks, fee cuts, instant refunds — but only on supervised rails.
Externality on you
Majority flow happens on traceable accounts, shaping liquidity, fee markets, and public narrative (e.g., “responsible Bitcoin”).
Self-custody becomes the expensive exception — socially framed as suspicious — raising your frictions and legal exposure.
Revealed preferences
Travel-rule expansions, stablecoin legitimization, exchange surveillance partnerships, default KYC withdrawal limits.
4) Governance-by-liquidity: markets “discipline” the protocol without a soft fork
No committee vote required. If paper venues and KYC rails dominate, their liquidity defines canonical pricing. That selects which behaviors survive. The protocol stays “free”, but the cashflows that matter now train users, miners, and vendors toward the compliant path.
5) Game-theoretic consequences
Equilibrium 1: Managed Store-of-Value
Paper share ↑, node count ↓ (or professionalized), fees structurally high but “orderly”, payments migrate to tokenized deposits/stables. BTC price rises in regimented cycles; MoE share stagnates.Equilibrium 2: Adversarial Money (hard mode; minority)
Self-custody communities run full nodes, use non-custodial LN, avoid policy clients. Costs rise; usability suffers; liquidity thins. Still valuable as sovereign hedge, not mainstream MoE.Tipping events that shove equilibrium 1 forward:
Major mempool-spam/legal scare → node operators painted as content distributors/unlicensed transmitters → more users capitulate to custodial rails.
Killer UX for CBDC/stablecoin rebates → “Why bother with keys?”
6) The “Cars are for everyone” analogy — concretely
Bad drivers = custodial majority → higher systemic insurance (compliance costs, surveillance) spread to everyone.
Drunk drivers = spam/miner-rent seekers → raise accident frequency (fees, bloat) → good drivers pay with time and money.
Road authority = app stores/banks/clouds → change speed limits and tolls without a vote. Even perfect drivers can’t outrun a roadblock.
7) What actually protects your long-term interest
If you value sovereignty (small but real minority path):
Self-custody + run a validating node on commodity hardware (fight bloat by choosing clients/policies that prioritize monetary use).
Use non-custodial Lightning (or successors) for MoE; keep on-chain for final settlement.
De-platforming resilience: diversified ISPs/VPS, Tor/i2p bridges, home + rented infra.
Community scale: avoid being a lone oddity; small, competent circles lower per-user friction and legal chill.
If you’re optimizing fiat P&L (majority path):
Accept the Managed SoV regime.
Hold paper BTC for carry and liquidity; sell calls when IV is fat; buy dips on policy scares; keep a physical hedge off-grid for tail events.
Don’t waste energy “educating everyone”; defaults will win.
8) The honest answer to “Bitcoin is for everyone”
Protocol: yes.
System: no — because most people’s incentives are convenience, rebates, and legality. In a low-Gross Consent Product regime, power will keep steering the majority into programmable, supervised money, and that majority’s behavior redefines the economic surface you live on — even if your keys are perfect.
If you want sovereignty, budget for minority status and build accordingly. If you want returns, surf the managed corridor and stop expecting ideals to set prices.