Blockchain startup head believes Bitcoin was “built for payments”

People love to argue about what Bitcoin is really for. Some say that the first blockchain-based asset is here to be a currency. Others believe it to be a long-term store of value, like gold. More believe the asset is meant to be the world’s one transfer of value. However, thanks to a new report, we may have learned a little more about Satoshi’s intentions with the project.

What was it made for?

Of course, those who are fans of Bitcoin will push nearly any narrative to keep interest in the asset going. But, the majority rule is that the asset should be a store of gold. At least, it was. That may be about to change. According to Bitcoin.com, OB1 co-founder Samual Patt recently put out a report that says Bitcoin was not built to be primarily a store of value. Instead, he thinks it was “built for payments” or online trading.

You can read the post over on his blog. He TLDR’s it in a brief opening:

“The claim “Bitcoin was purpose-built to first be a Store of Value” is false. Many of Satoshi’s statements shown as evidence for this claim are taken out of context. When those statements are placed in context and considered alongside all his writings, it’s undeniable that Bitcoin was not built to first be a store of value, but was built for payments.”

A battle for the ages

Interestingly, co-founder of Zeroblock Dan Held believes that while Bitcoin was made to be a payment system, Satoshi revealed that with the project “he had written the whitepaper to fit his target audience, the Cypherpunks”. However, Patt makes a claim against this, stating the following:

1. “Satoshi didn’t only communicate with cypherpunks early on. He posted to the P2P Foundation (sources #1 and #3) and his messaging still included payments.
2. Satoshi never changed his messaging. If he supposedly only mentioned payments and ecommerce as marketing to cypherpunks, then why continue discussing payments and ecommerce for years in the BitcoinTalk forums afterwards?
3. Satoshi never corrected anyone else who believed him initially. There’s no record of Satoshi ever saying that Bitcoin shouldn’t be used exactly as he described it being used for initially: payments. Had he secretly been trying to use payments as a ploy, at some point he would have begun discouraging that use case in favor of store of value, but this never happened. “

Essentially, Held went on a long Twitter rant about Bitcoin and Satoshi’s intentions earlier this year. Patt is strongly against these claims and wrote a long paper to make that clear. While there’s no claiming a definitive winner here, Patt certainly made some ground in the world of Bitcoin trading.