Charlie Lee also wants to see Litecoin on Pornhub / Hold or Spend? Two Sides of the same Bitcoin

After Verge announced the partnership with Pornhub with great hype and probably too high expectations, the founder of Litecoin spoke up and spoke in favor of integrating Litecoin and other currencies too.

Verge has revealed the "biggest partner the crypto world has ever seen". It is the pornographic website Pornhub. However, it should be added that Verge is actually working with MindGeek, not the website alone. MindGeek also includes other similar platforms, such as YouPorn, RedTube, Brazzers, VideoBash and Mofos.

Regardless, Charlie Lee has been involved in the discussion about the new partnership as well.

He explains that this collaboration was very expensive for Verge and that it is time for Pornhub to accept "real currencies" like Litecoin, Bitcoin and Monero.

Afterwards, he criticized in more detail that in his opinion, it should not be necessary to buy a partner, but this should happen on a voluntary basis:

It should be noted that it is a matter of course for partnerships to pay a certain amount of oblation. Charlie Lee certainly wanted to cheer up the discussion and "tease" a bit.

A short time later, the CEO of TokenPay, Derek Capo, spoke up and criticized Charlie's tweet:

TokenPay had contributed a considerable amount to the crowdfunding process, without which Verge would not have been able to achieve the ambitious goal. As expected, yesterday the price of Verge fell, after which investors took their profits to profit from the huge price increase in the run-up to the announcement. Such a development is normal and nothing extraordinary.

Despite the price drop, Verge was able to reap much praise, as this partnership provides a real use case for which Verge is ideally suited. Overall, however, it remains to be seen whether this partnership will pay off for Verge in the long term and whether more cases will follow suit.

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In the Bitcoin community, the question of whether to hold or use Bitcoins quickly becomes a matter of faith. There are good arguments for one as well as the other.

The Hodler

At some point somebody wrote on Bitcointalk, he keeps his coins instead of trading them. He made a mistake and instead wrote "hold", "hodl". It soon became a meme, and the hodl became a creed in the Bitcoin scene.

The Hodler keep their Bitcoins, at all costs. They do not spend it, but stuff it into a paper wallet, into a hardware wallet, an offchain computer, wherever. Using Bitcoin means for a confident hodler to keep the coins under wraps and, at best, to ponder how to make his wallet even better, even safer. Settled Hodler engrave their private key on metal discs, cut it into many pieces, put them in safes.

Bitcoins should not be issued, traded or sold. Instead, Hodler invest their remaining money in more Bitcoins, which they then also transfer to the hodl wallet. Because at some point, so the conviction of the Hodler, Bitcoins will be worth much more. Then it's worth it, maybe, to open the iron wallet.

The Spender

Unlike the Hodler, there is no fixed name for those who want to spend Bitcoins. These people want to pay with Bitcoins as often as possible and put the coins into circulation. A paper or hardware wallet is for them rather a minor matter, for them it is about that you can spend the coins easily, quickly and in as many places.

The Spenders like to buy Bitcoins, but they don't do that to keep them safe. That's boring for them. Bitcoin should not just be another "asset", a strange variant of a security, but a means of payment. For them, the great attraction of Bitcoin is to pay with the digital coins. Each time they transfer with Bitcoins instead of dollar, euros or any other FIAT currency, it's a small win against the system for them.

One of the first Spender is the legendary Laszlo, who bought two pizzas in 2010 for 10,000 Bitcoin. Also SmokeTooMuch, the first German Bitcoiner, is a Spender. He tried early to get rid of Bitcoins wherever he could. Because "someone had to get the ball rolling."

Who is the real Bitcoiner?

Occasionally Hodler and Spender argue about which group represents the real Bitcoiner. Both accuse others of not using Bitcoin really or wrong. Hodler say that Bitcoins are just for saving, not spending, while Spender say that Bitcoins only have value when used.

The two groups represent two different approaches to Bitcoin. In the rules they are compatible. Most Bitcoiner are both Hodler and Spender. They keep a lot of Bitcoins in the wallet, but also spend it when the opportunity presents itself. And if one prefers to hold, and the other prefers to spend coins, then that's not a problem in itself. Each one the way he prefers. One of the basic ideas of Bitcoin is that no one can dictate what you do with your money.

Sometimes, however, the two groups meet rudely. For example, when it comes to where it should go with Bitcoin, and contradict there goals. The Hodler do not really care about scalability, since they are not that interested in transactions anyway, while for Spender the increase in fees is extremely uncomfortable. Sometimes it's enough to talk about it, and suddenly unfold the attitudes to Bitcoin so much that it becomes a quarrel.

Who is the real Bitcoiner - Hodler or Spender? I can only answer this question with "both". In the following, therefore, there are arguments for both hodl and spend.

Pro Hodl

Gresham's law states that people tend to spend the bad money and keep the good. And it's pretty clear that the dollar, euro or any other FIAT currency are the bad money and the Bitcoin is the good money. So why should not this old law apply to cryptocurrencies? Why should people act against their interests?

In addition, Bitcoin gets its value - and that's what the Hodler is all about - not by spending it, but holding it. Keeping Bitcoins under lock and key reduces the effective amount of coins in circulation. He makes them scarcer, and therefore more valuable. On the other hand, whoever spends it sells it effectively against commodities and risks that the trader sells it on a crypto exchange in exchange for his electricity bill or the like. He makes Bitcoins rather less valuable.

Furthermore, it could be said in favor of Hodler that often it makes little sense to pay with Bitcoins instead of FIAT currency. With FIAT currency, you can pay at many more places, it is easy, fast, secure and free thanks to credit cards, instant bank transfer and direct debit. Why take the effort to find a shop that accepts Bitcoin and pay with a more complex, partially uncertain and more expensive money? Just to get a false vision of Bitcoin as a means of payment?

Finally, there is the argument that unnecessarily spending Bitcoins will harm the system itself. For a blockchain does not necessarily scale well and is therefore also poorly suited to make Bitcoin into an everyday world. Anyone who uses the cryptocurrency as such, however, takes the place away from those who need Bitcoin as a special money.

Pro Spend

Of course you can also find good arguments for spending Bitcoins. Basically, the question is, what is this supposed to be a money that is not spent? What do you need a car if you just leave it in the garage? After all, it was not the idea of the motorization that everyone has a car in the garage, but continues to walk.

Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. This makes it different from gold. The value of Bitcoin is based on the expectation that it will become real money, that it will eventually replace FIAT currencies in the near or distant future. To get there, Bitcoin must be accepted by as many merchants as possible. And for this to happen, it has to be used.

For many Spender, Bitcoin has the vision of a global, Internet-Wide Monetary Union. This union does not come true if everyone leaves their bitcoins in their wallets - but by paying people, no matter where, with Bitcoin. The Hodler make no contribution to the monetary union in this perspective.

Technically, Bitcoin is only propelled forward when used. No one develops user-friendly and feature-rich wallets, APIs or payment systems when nobody is paying with Bitcoin. The active use of Bitcoin as money provides necessary incentives to develop the currency and wallets technically.

Furthermore, the value of Bitcoin lies in its network effect. And this does not increase if you keep your Bitcoins, but only if you use them. In a sense, many of the promises that Bitcoin, as a native money of the Internet, has built up to be used as a means of payment. Without it, Bitcoin is just a digital asset whose value lies in the fact that the Hodler hype it.

As well ... as

You could probably find more arguments for both sides. However, it is true that both need each other. If no one uses Bitcoin, one important reason is gone, which is why the value of Bitcoin should increase, as the Hodler expect - and at the same time the Spender need the Hodler to stabilize the value of Bitcoin.

Hodling and spending are just two sides of the same Bitcoin. They just emphasize other aspects of money. The Hodler the means of value storage, the Spender that of the means of payment. Neither works without the other.

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