Andreas Antonopoulos releases a new talk on his YouTube feed several times each week. If you are still a Bitcoin doubter, watch his latest video with an open mind. It highlights two subtleties of utility and adoption that can overcome the gap between early adopters and doubters.

Early Adopter: I do not refer to an investor, but one who embraces Bitcoin as both a payment instrument and a currency. Someone who realizes that is very likely to become a stateless currency some day.

Doubters: These are individuals who see Bitcoin as either risky, unnecessary, susceptible to hacking & scams, or fueled by libertarian anarchists. In general, they do not perceive a fundamental or compelling benefit to a stateless currency—or they believe that Bitcoin is not backed by something real, tangible or enforceable. They question a currency without some form of central authority, clear backing or point of redemption.

In particular, Antonopoulos helps his audience reconcile the relationship of a decentralized currency with a community or government that does not fully embrace the benefits or fears the downside (crime, tax dodging, deflation, loss of control over the monetary supply).

Below, I have added notes related to two key points below. These are the very same points that I focus on in my conference presentations. Andreas is very articulate and we are certainly on the same page about these subtle but critical issues:

1. Resist the urge to regulate or control
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— Governments or trusted, established banks (e.g. Merrill Lynch) may try to persuade you that blockchain-backed currencies have potential, but that certain ‘safeties’ must be added to the to make them compliant and commercially viable. They will say that this is needed to encourage compliance & reporting—or to thwart criminal activity.

For example, the treasury, IRS or other fiscal bureaucracy might ask the community to respect a list of assets that are tainted by criminals and to seamlessly substitute new coins for the tainted coins. This seems like a small change. In fact, it seeks only to overlay a law-and-order framework on top of Bitcoin. But, don’t be misled by good intentions.

This is exactly what you don’t want to do! Fiddling with the legitimacy of outstanding wealth undermines the entire purpose and benefit of migrating to a decentralized, stateless currency. The architecture must remain open, permissionless, resistant to censorship, and resistant to manipulation by any authority, whether good or bad. There is already a mechanism for distributed consensus—one that does not vest any central authority with the power to annul a user’s wealth by edict.

Ironically, even the US treasury recognizes the critical importance of unit fungibility. It guarantees the exchangability of every issued dollar for any other—no matter what its history.

2. Don’t just save—Use it in your business
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— How do I get started with Bitcoin (or some other cryptocurrency). Help me get started with an exchange so that I can buy my first crypto coin…

No, no, NO! Don’t start with an exchange account. Learn how to set up a wallet in your home or online. One that you control. Rather than hoard Bitcoin, accept and spend it. This is critical if we hope to see eventual adoption of a transformative economic mechanism in our lifetimes.

— Buying cryptocurrency should not be your first step into the game. Don’t think of crypto as an investment asset. Think of it as a currency that you accept and spend.

Bitcoin will not be relevant in your lifetime, until the fraction of trades fueled by purchase & sale, salaries, fees and loan payments dwarfs the number of transactions fueled by speculators, investors, HODL and even sector funds or ETFs. All of these trades retard the day that Bitcoin will be stable, fluid, fungible and useful. Currently that first set of transactions represents 98% of all activity. To spur adoption, we must change push the fraction of investor transactions and currency exchange below 30%. It’s a tall order, but it is gradually beginning to happen.

Ellery Davies co-chairs CRYPSA, hosts the New York Bitcoin Event and is keynote speaker at Cryptocurrency Conferences. He advises The Disruption Experience in Singapore, sits on the New Money Systems board of Lifeboat Foundation and is a top Bitcoin writer at Quora. Book a presentation or consulting engagement.