In this Common Sense Network interview, trader and commentator Tone Vays discusses Bitcoin’s technical and economic challenges and its core value proposition. He explains why on‑chain fees are necessary, how SegWit and second‑layer solutions like Lightning enable cheap micropayments while keeping the blockchain size manageable, and why large block sizes (as advocated by Bitcoin Cash) risk centralization by discouraging node operation. Vays emphasizes Bitcoin’s three sacred properties—finite supply, censorship‑resistant, unconfiscatable value transfer—arguing that saving Bitcoin, not using it as a daily transactional currency, is essential for its long‑term stability. He critiques premature mass‑adoption narratives, stresses the importance of network reliability, and outlines his trading outlook, recalling his historical bottom targets ($5k, $3k, $1.3‑1.5k) and advocating patient risk management. When asked to define Bitcoin in one sentence, Vays describes it as “unconfiscatable, censorship‑resistant value transfer with a finite supply like gold.” The interview weaves technical insight, economic philosophy, and practical trading advice.
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TranscriptAuto-generated · 11 min
Hey Tone, nice to have you here. Welcome to Common Sense Network.
Thank you for having me on.
So you just had an awesome debate with Roger Ver again. How do you think it went?
I mean, we didn't really prepare for it. We didn't know what everything was going to be, but Roger still is bent on fees. The fees on Bitcoin are not that high. The fees— Bitcoin network isn't free. You don't have unlimited free data storage. You have to pay for the network you use. That's why we needed SegWit, and we were building— we, like as if I'm actually coding it. But this is why the Bitcoin Core developers came up with the concept of second-layer scaling. So, you can send these very, very cheap transactions that don't need to chew up the resources of the miners, And on-chain. So, you can make these micropayments, and eventually, you can make big payments as a second layer, and they will eventually settle to the Bitcoin network. This creates efficiency. This keeps the total size of your cumulative blockchain— Bitcoin's been around for 10 years. That's 10 years of cumulative data. Right now, the cumulative data is over 250 gigabytes in size. And if you want to be a self-validating node, you got to download all of that data. What happens when the blocks go to 2 megabytes, 4 megabytes, 8 megabytes, 32 megabytes? It can take you months to download it. Like Ethereum right now will take you months to download the entire chain, and Ethereum was 5 years behind. No one gets encouraged to run a node, no one is encouraged to validate their own transactions, and the system is no longer decentralized. It becomes centralized by a handful of nodes, and the system dies. It's very important to keep the cumulative size of the blockchain low, but in order to do that, your fee will go up because space is limited, and you're supposed to use second-layer scaling to get your little transactions in.
Yeah, if you go the Gigamex way, then Of course, that means centralization because nobody's going to be able to validate and run their own node. And I think you really hit the point on when you compared Bitcoin Cash to Bitcoin in 2011. I think that's exactly what it is because it has no use. And like you said many times, nobody uses Bitcoin Cash. So, of course, it's fast. Of course, it's cheap. But like you said, it's also a centralization issue. And the second layer solutions are obviously the way to go in the future. I agree with you that it doesn't work. It doesn't need to work right now. We don't need mass adoption right now. That's my personal opinion. And I think we should steer the conversation a little bit away from we need to mass adopt a maximum amount of people right now, because, you know, I think that's a little bit unnecessary and it's scammy and it's dangerous. What do you think?
In a way, I agree with that. All of the people that ran out and convinced all of these merchants that they have to start accepting Bitcoin back in 2013, 2014. Most of those merchants have stopped accepting Bitcoin because there wasn't enough people paying with Bitcoin. It needs to grow organically and it will. But the most important part is stability of the network. Bitcoin transactions always work. The Bitcoin system always works. It has a history of being up 99.999% of the time. And hopefully, that will rise because there were incidents, very few incidents, a long time ago where Bitcoin network wasn't functioning. And we can't have that again. So, the most important thing is the stability of the network. And having a billion people use it right now is going to be problematic. But once Lightning is fully out of beta, and everyone starts to use it, and it's stable, and it's It's safe and it's secure, then mass adoption can come, and we can have a million transactions a second that don't chew up resources. Decentralization is grossly inefficient. It is one of the most inefficient tools in computers, one of the most inefficient tools in science. Look at the Bitcoin network. Look how much electricity Bitcoin chews up. It's crazy, but it's necessary. It's necessary because governments do not give us unconfiscatable money. They do not give us censorship-resistant value transfer. And they print crazy amount of their own currency because they can. These are the 3 properties that are absolutely sacred to Bitcoin: finite supply, censorship-resistant value transfer, and unconfiscatability. The qualities of Bitcoin like fungibility, anonymity, scaling—those are second, and all of these problems will be resolved. May even take another decade; who knows? But they will be resolved. The price volatility and the security of your Bitcoin—that's the last step. The volatility of Bitcoin should lower as more and more people come on. to the network, and you have to save that Bitcoin. Using Bitcoin simply as a transactional currency just doesn't work. The best transactional currency we have in the world right now is the Venezuelan Bolívar, because the moment someone pays you with the Venezuelan Bolívar, you have to immediately go and spend it on something, anything, or the payment you just got will become worthless. That's the fastest transactional currency we have. If someone pays someone else with the US dollar in Venezuela, they will hold on to that dollar because they know they can buy more things with it in a year in Venezuela, or maybe in a month, or maybe the next day. So, saving is really, really important to the system. And they do go hand in hand, saving and then spending. but you have to retain some savings. So, I actually don't even like paying with my Bitcoin to merchants or people that will not hold on to at least some of that Bitcoin. If I see some store accepting Bitcoin, but I know for a fact they use a merchant processor, where I pay them in Bitcoin, but their local currency hits their bank account, I would rather find someone— in the area at a meetup, ask a friend, hey, who wants to buy my Bitcoin? I will sell it to that person. I will take their fiat and I will go to that store that accepts Bitcoin with my fiat, because I would rather sell my Bitcoin to someone that appreciates the fact that they have Bitcoin, not someone that wants to immediately sell it on the open market for more of their local currency.
I think that's very well spoken, and I think the time preference is key here. And we live in a Keynesian world where the time preference is high and low time preference is not even understood properly. And I do think that Bitcoin is going to change that in a big way. I really appreciate your comments. So I'm not going to take much more of your time. I'll ask you the one question that I had prepared from the community, and this is from the trading community because obviously you're a well-known trader. When is Bitcoin going to hit $1K?
Oh, well, I never actually said Bitcoin would hit $1K. My bottom target for this bear market was $1,300 to $1,500. That was my bottom target. But people have to remember that when the bear market began, I had 3 low-end targets: $5,000, $3,000, and then $1,300 to $1,500 area. So we hit my first 2 targets. The way it was shaping out, I still expected it to hit my final target. But if it doesn't, it's okay. You have to be prepared as a trader. And right now, I do think it's more than likely that the bottom price is in. But I also don't like the current run-up in price. We just went from $3,000 to $8,000. Without any significant pullback in the market. And I do believe a pullback is coming. So I will wait for that pullback before I pronounce the end of the bear market. I wanna see a pullback. And I wanna see price stay above $4,000 and then start to go up with significant volume and traction and momentum. And then I'll finally declare that the chances of going lower than $3,000 are very, very small. But until I see the pullback that doesn't go lower than $3,000, I'm going to be at best 50/50 that the bottom is in. I'd rather be patient and be late to the bull market than end up in a position that can lose me 50% of my money. This is what I did in 2015, and this is what I'm doing right now.
All right. That seems fair. That seems like good risk management. And talking about that, do you think it's a big risk not owning Bitcoin right now?
I think it's always been a big risk not owning Bitcoin. Ever since I bought my first Bitcoin in 2013, I made sure I always own some Bitcoin. And the majority of my position was never sold in the bear market. I made it very clear that I'm in Bitcoin for the long term. I believe in the technology. To me, it's always been clear what the one Bitcoin And I held most of them through the bear market. So now that it's going up, I'm not very happy that I haven't done a great job analyzing and predicting the price of Bitcoin. But at the same time, my core position is appreciating in value. So you really want to make sure you're hedged. Markets, all markets, don't have to do what you expect them to do. And I do believe that a person should always have some Bitcoin. And when people say, hey, I believe in Bitcoin, I'm willing to hold it long-term, when is a good time to buy? My answer had always been the same. Yesterday was your best time to buy Bitcoin.
Yeah, and the second best time is now, right?
And the second best time is today.
All right. Thank you. And one more thing. Could you try and define Bitcoin for me in one sentence?
Unconfiscate— what is Bitcoin? Unconfiscatable, censorship-resistant value transfer with a finite supply like gold.
That's very good. Thank you so much, Tone. Have a good one.
