There’s an unwritten rule in the Bitcoin world, one that permeates most companies, influencers, news outlets. A rule that’s implicitly built into almost any user facing product. A rule that’s severely limiting its potential to make the world a better place.

It states: “in order to use Bitcoin, you have to become a bitcoiner”.

You may say this isn’t true, but think again: why would anybody use a Bitcoin wallet today? Why would anybody self-custody their own keys, when they can get the same price exposure holding an ETF in their portfolio? Why would anybody send a Lightning payment when credit cards work perfectly fine?

Of course you could argue that the Bolívar is getting hyperinflated, and that Bitcoin is the only way for Venezuelans to preserve their purchasing power. Or that Russians are under so many sanctions that Bitcoin is the only way for them to keep transacting with the western world.

But those are generally localized exceptions, and they aren’t even great examples of adoption considering that most of the volume ends up being in stablecoins. Bitcoin is a great tool, but it’s not the right tool for them.

So why are some people using Bitcoin today? Ultimately the answer is: because they are bitcoiners. Because they got caught up in the infinite (beautiful) rabbit hole that Satoshi laid down in front of us.

These people invested the time, asked the right questions, and listened to the answers. They understood the system is broken and that Bitcoin is the only way out. Whether it’s saving for a better future, preventing the government from seizing your money or transacting while preserving your privacy.

And we have to realize: today, for Bitcoin to be a solution to your problems, you have to be a bitcoiner. Otherwise you wouldn’t go through the pain of using it, and you would choose other, better, solutions for your problems.

Sometimes I wonder: aren’t there better ways of using Bitcoin to solve real world problems? Problems that everyday people have, no matter where they live or how they choose to store their savings.

I think this is the question we should be asking ourselves, as people who are into Bitcoin and as an industry. This is the one thing we need to figure out to get real mass adoption from regular people. And I think we should start looking elsewhere for the answer.

For example, we keep drawing parallels between Bitcoin and the Internet, comparing the adoption curves which seem to be growing at a similar rate. But how did the Internet get widespread adoption? Surely it wasn’t by getting people in love with the tech.

The Internet would have never taken off if the only way of using it was by getting an IP allocation and peering traffic with two or three neighbors. That would have maybe solved some people’s (nerd’s) problems, but not everyday people’s problems.

The reason why the internet worked was because we managed to use the tech in a way that made people’s lives easier and better, without them even knowing how the tech worked or why that specific protocol stack was the right choice. Things just worked. Things became simpler. Protocols evolved. All of this was part of making the internet, or more importantly, products running on the internet the right solution for most people’s problems.

I think this isn’t happening with Bitcoin today: it’s almost as if we are stuck in our bubble, looking at Bitcoin directly and thinking about how it can solve problems. But Bitcoin is just a primitive, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. By itself it won’t solve too many problems. What will allow it to shine will be using it as part of a larger, more complex set of protocols and products. Products which will hide the technical complexities and become truly accessible to most of the world.

I think this is the new frontier, and very few companies are thinking about it…