Jack Dorsey warns Bitcoin's survival hinges on one thing
Jack Dorsey believes Bitcoin's biggest risk isn't regulation — it's irrelevance.
In a conversation with Haley Berkoe on the Presidio Bitcoin podcast, the former Twitter CEO and Block founder said Bitcoin could fail if it doesn't find a real, everyday use case beyond just being a 'store of value.'
Dorsey is the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, and the current CEO of Block (formerly Square), a payments company deeply involved in Bitcoin development. He's one of Bitcoin's most vocal advocates in tech, known for supporting decentralized, open-source financial systems.
'So let's fast forward to the future and Bitcoin has failed. How did it fail?' Berkoe asked.
'I think it fails through irrelevance,' Dorsey replied. 'It fails to be relevant to people on a daily basis if it just ends up being store value and nothing more. I don't think it gains relevance at all. I think it has to be payments for it to be relevant on the everyday. Otherwise, it's just something you kind of buy and forget and only use in emergency situations or when you want to get liquid again.'
Dorsey argued that for Bitcoin to succeed, it needs to evolve into a true payments network — not just a long-term hedge or emergency fund.
'It just gets increasingly irrelevant and that's failure to me,' he added.
But Dorsey is still optimistic. What excites him most about Bitcoin — and other open protocols like Nostr — is their permissionless nature.
'What makes Bitcoin special, what makes things like Nostr special is they're permissionless,' he said. 'You don't need anyone's permission to build what you want to see, and that's just incredible.'
He praised the fact that Bitcoin has attracted attention from major institutions like BlackRock — while still remaining open for anyone to build on.
'You still don't need their permission to build on it or to change it or to better it. Where else can you find that at that scale? Nowhere — and only in 16 years.'
Dorsey ended with a hopeful message: 'It reminds me so much of the earlier net, where again, the default was you didn't need permission to do anything… Bitcoin, Nostr, and hopefully something in intelligence will be the antidote to that.'
'Permissionless. That's the one thought, one idea. That's a great lasting thought.'
As per Kraken's latest price feed, Bitcoin is trading at $83,091.78, down 2.1% in the last 24 hours.
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