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Bitcoin's Golden Future

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Re: Bitcoin's Golden Future

#111

Post by Taek »

delegate wrote: post #6

Bitcoin and other crypto require a well functioning internet infrastructure, otherwise it's just data on a hard-drive. Disconnect a country from the Internet (or filter the traffic) and you're forking the chain. Spend on both networks by buying other (unfiltered) crypto. There are states (even large ISPs) that can do that. Also, the first thing to go in case of global conflict is the global Internet. Countries will t…

> Bitcoin and other crypto require a well functioning internet infrastructure, otherwise it's just data on a hard-drive.

Amazingly, not really. Bitcoin is a currency that's built to be disaster-proof, including world-ending scenarios like nuclear war between superpowers. You really just need 3 things:

1. A computer that can validate the chain.

2. The longest chain. This can be given to you via usb stick if the Internet is down.

3. Some way to send and receive blocks and transactions as the network continues building the longest chain.

A lot of work has gone into being able to achieve number 3 without full internet infrastructure. The example of a satellite beaming blocks to the world has already been brought up (though this is receive only, not send-capable for most people). However, people have also written software that can transmit blocks over HAM radio. You can't download the full blockchain over HAM relay, but you can relay blocks and transactions in real time, because the whole network is bottlenecked to about 2 MB per 10 minutes.

If you have wifi routers, you can set up point-to-point relay and broadcast systems as well. A point-to-point system can get well over 100 miles per hop. If the Interent were to suddenly fail, it may take a few weeks to connect everything together, but you could get Bitcoin up and running long before you could get anything like email working again.

> There are states (even large ISPs) that can do that.

While there are states that can split you from the main Internet, all you need is one relay that the state can't control to keep the Bitcoin network connected. It's not like a website where people have to keep asking a central server for data - once one person has relayed a block into an isolated network, the whole isolated network has that block. You can't keep the network isolated unless it's perfectly isolated, and on the scale of a country you are of course going to have people listening to the satellite broadcasts, setting up wifi relay points, or maybe even doing something less sophisticated like usb-smuggling which means it effectively takes a few days to be certain that a transaction has been confirmed by the broader network.

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TL;DR: Bitcoin is far more resilient than you give it credit, and it can survive the Internet going down. As long as you still have an ad-hoc way to transmit blocks to major areas, you can keep everyone fully in consensus. The infrastructure requirements of Bitcoin are far less than that of email, sms, or traditional website based, centralized infrastructure.

Re: Bitcoin's Golden Future

#112

Post by Taek »

chinathrow wrote: post #54
ballenf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fork concern is real, but the double-spend on both forks is less so. It would require the double-spender to have access to both networks. Which isn't that hard to see. But, it wouldn't take too many parties having access to both networks to prevent the fork in the first place. The miners who control such things are very highly incentivized to keep their operation on the main or largest fork. The alternative for t…

> The fork concern is real, but the double-spend on both forks is less so. It would require the double-spender to have access to both networks. Which isn't that hard to see. Not hard at all. Have a second uplink to the world wide net, e.g. via sat.

Thing is, as long as there is one honest person with a connection to both networks, they can easily serve as a relay between them, and keep both networks fully synchronized.

If an attacker is on both networks and trying to double-spend, it's extremely likely that someone honest is also on both networks who is successfully keeping the two networks fully synchronized. In this type of situation, you can make yourself safe just by waiting for 4-6 confirmations instead of the usual 0-2 confirmations.

Re: Bitcoin's Golden Future

#113

Post by decentralised »

decentralised wrote: post #104
decentralised wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a well functioning internet infrastructure Not that much. Most refugee camps have cell coverage and people there use btc as it's the only money they have access to.

Apparently it's not a good idea to point out that bitcoin not only survives, but thrives under harsh conditions here on HN.

lol

And there's a satellite too now, so +1 resilience for Bitcoin!

https://www.blockstream.com/satellite/

Re: Bitcoin's Golden Future

#114

Post by acdha »

ericb wrote: post #105
acdha wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, national currencies have a value because governments collect taxes and pay for things using those currencies so there's a considerable inertial force encouraging their usage. That doesn't mean that failure is impossible but it smooths out a lot of minor fluctuations whereas, as you pointed out, if a Bitcoin competitor took off tomorrow there's no pressure not to adopt it instead other than the sunk costs w…

I don't think it is that simple. Bitcoin has 3 main advantages that can't be easily taken away from it that make things harder for competitors: 1 - Distribution (Metcalfe's law): Metcalfe's law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n2). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law 2- Schelling Point Bitcoin is the natural…

That's arguing that the past will be like the future when things are still really early. Statistically almost nobody owns or uses Bitcoin, especially when you subtract the Bitcoin proponents who do most of their transactions using something like a credit card which actually uses local currency via Visa or where Bitcoin is converted into real currency immediately by the recipient, and who thus would have very little switching converting to something else.

Ask how long either #1 or 2 would hold true if, say, a couple of large banks, Visa/Mastercard, Apple and/or Google, etc. launched a currency accessible to their existing customer bases. I'd give that a couple of days before Bitcoin would be a rounding error in the daily transaction volume.

The big long-term reason I expect that to happen is the deflation model baked into Bitcoin: every player which didn't acquire a substantial holding years ago has a huge incentive to find an alternative which doesn't mean they're putting effort into making someone else rich. Right now there's very little mainstream demand for Bitcoin but if that change it's hard to believe the finance people wouldn't be obsessed with ways to capture that revenue going to a third-party.

Re: Bitcoin's Golden Future

#115

Post by kristineberth »

simias wrote: post #93
kristineberth wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Disconnect a country from the Internet (or filter the traffic) and you're forking the chain. Is this necessarily true? Forgive my ignorance but if we're talking Bitcoin, wouldn't the rest of the remaining miners around the world be able to account for this? And would the situation be meaningfully different in the country in question were China (or another of similar size/mining power)?

I think you're replying to the wrong comment but to try and answer your question if a region is completely isolated from the rest of the bitcoin network one of two things can happen: - If the region doesn't have a significant hash power (the case in most places in the world really) then the block rate will effectively go to zero, meaning that bitcoin will effectively "pause" here and be unusable until fresh blocks ca…

Gotcha, thank you for the explanation.

Re: Bitcoin's Golden Future

#116

Post by sbenitoj »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #110
sbenitoj wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price is what people pay, value is what they get, and it's completely subjective. The only reason people pay more for a BMW than a Honda is because they perceive they're getting more value with a BMW than with a Honda. There is no such thing as an "objectively better driving experience" -- all value is derived from perception, and perception is individual.

eehhhh. No. People prefer faster cars on average over slower cars. that's an objective metric - one car is slower than the other. They don't just perceive it. If they simply perceived it, you could launch an advertising campaign and convince them that they should pay more for the Honda. But they won't.

The maximum speed or acceleration abilities of a car are objective metrics, but how much people actually value those things is subjective.

Value is subjective, each person values the same objective metrics differently (e.g. soccer moms generally don't value sports cars as much as single guys, if they did then we'd see a bunch of soccer moms driving their kids around in sports).

Re: Bitcoin's Golden Future

#117

Post by vasilipupkin »

sbenitoj wrote: post #116
vasilipupkin wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eehhhh. No. People prefer faster cars on average over slower cars. that's an objective metric - one car is slower than the other. They don't just perceive it. If they simply perceived it, you could launch an advertising campaign and convince them that they should pay more for the Honda. But they won't.

The maximum speed or acceleration abilities of a car are objective metrics, but how much people actually value those things is subjective. Value is subjective, each person values the same objective metrics differently (e.g. soccer moms generally don't value sports cars as much as single guys, if they did then we'd see a bunch of soccer moms driving their kids around in sports).

yes, but a faster car with all other features being equal gives you objectively more features. There is a reason BMW costs more than a Honda civic. Right? Or else, if there is no reason whatsoever, Honda should be able to advertise in a clever manner and sell that Honda civic for the same price as a BMW 7 series or a Tesla. I mean if it's all subjective, right? But we can all agree that no matter what a Honda civic will cost less than a tesla. Yes?

Re: Bitcoin's Golden Future

#118

Post by hossbeast »

thisisit wrote: post #60
nullc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin and other crypto require a well functioning internet infrastructure, otherwise it's just data on a hard-drive. Disconnect a country from the Internet (or filter the traffic) and you're forking the chain. Less so than in the past: https://blockstream.com/satellite/menu/ > I guess my point is: be careful, this is still very much experimental, don't invest everything you have in them. Well, that much is obviou…

I read about blockstream some time ago: https://www.coindesk.com/blockstream-using-satellites-beam-b... Here Adam Back said: "With a perpetual generator out back with a satellite dish, a Raspberry Pi by the generator, a local wi-fi hot spot, and the necessary software set up, you could be transacting globally with bitcoin." Anyone can explain me why is the need for a local wifi hot spot here? And how much does it nor…

I assume that's just so you can run the wallet on your phone

Re: Bitcoin's Golden Future

#119

Post by hossbeast »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #117
sbenitoj wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The maximum speed or acceleration abilities of a car are objective metrics, but how much people actually value those things is subjective. Value is subjective, each person values the same objective metrics differently (e.g. soccer moms generally don't value sports cars as much as single guys, if they did then we'd see a bunch of soccer moms driving their kids around in sports).

yes, but a faster car with all other features being equal gives you objectively more features. There is a reason BMW costs more than a Honda civic. Right? Or else, if there is no reason whatsoever, Honda should be able to advertise in a clever manner and sell that Honda civic for the same price as a BMW 7 series or a Tesla. I mean if it's all subjective, right? But we can all agree that no matter what a Honda civic w…

Even your example of faster speed is subjective. Some people may prefer the limitation of less speed. It's subjective.

Re: Bitcoin's Golden Future

#120

Post by vasilipupkin »

hossbeast wrote: post #119
vasilipupkin wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but a faster car with all other features being equal gives you objectively more features. There is a reason BMW costs more than a Honda civic. Right? Or else, if there is no reason whatsoever, Honda should be able to advertise in a clever manner and sell that Honda civic for the same price as a BMW 7 series or a Tesla. I mean if it's all subjective, right? But we can all agree that no matter what a Honda civic w…

Even your example of faster speed is subjective. Some people may prefer the limitation of less speed. It's subjective.

Some people - yes. Some people prefer all sorts of things. Some people may prefer jumping off a bridge. That's irrelevant. On average, people will prefer an objectively better thing to an objectively worse thing and pay more for it
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