181–190 of 530 posts
If BTC does catch up, the current inequality of the world will look like an anthill in comparison to the inequality that BTC will create. I can't imagine the world letting that happen..
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Please explain to me how scaling is solved in bitcoin. The lighting network requires an on-chain transaction to create and close a channel both times. Even if the world population were static it would take months to open a channel for everybody. Companies also need multiple channels each. LN also requires a constant observation of the LN network or malicious actors can just take more from a channel than allowed. This…
"LN also requires a constant observation of the LN network or malicious actors can just take more from a channel than allowed." Not true. Cite a source.
Lightning Network Whitepaper, section 3.3.4 states very clearly:
"For this reason, one should periodically monitor the blockchain to see if one’s counterparty has broadcast an invalidated Commitment Transaction, or delegate a third party to do so. A third party can be delegated by only giving the Breach Remedy transaction to this third party. They can be incentivized to watch the blockchain broadcast such a transaction in the event of counterparty maliciousness by giving these third parties some fee in the output. Since the third party is only able to take action when the counterparty is acting maliciously, this third party does not have any power to force close of the channel."
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> Don't be surprised if they also gladly pay a ridiculous fee to buy a coffee. I would be very surprised if people started deliberately picking the much more expensive option for no benefit whatsoever.
Sure they will. Saks Fifth Avenue sells a $1500 plastic tic-tac-toe board. Plenty of upscale market for absurdly expensive things that do the same thing the cheap version does. https://www.saksfifthavenue.com/product/edie-parker-tic-tac-...
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The core issue that Bitcoin resolves is transferring power from MBAs to nerds.
I'd say it's more transfer of power from politicians to the the people, but we can always disagree.
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> The core issue I've seen that goes unanswered is what problem does BTC solve? To me, it's trustless money. I don't need to trust the US gov, I don't care about who they will elect or which wars they are gonna start or which banks they are gonna bailout. You can verify everything through code and math. If that's not valuable to you, maybe there's some other use case you're interested. If you've done your research an…
It's NOT trustless money. Instead of trusting the US gov, you are trusting that this decentralized ledger will gain acceptance by the whole world. Which one is more of a leap of faith?
Governments of course. Anything is better than trusting governments.
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It's NOT trustless money. Instead of trusting the US gov, you are trusting that this decentralized ledger will gain acceptance by the whole world. Which one is more of a leap of faith?
> you are trusting that this decentralized ledger will gain acceptance by the whole world. Bitcoin itself is inherently trustless, that's the whole point of it. You can trust that there will never be more than 21M Bitcoins, you can trust that there will never be a double-spend, you can trust that it will run 24/7, etc. Whether it will gain worldwide acceptance is another matter (btw, adoption is increasing at very fa…
No it isn't. If the Bitcoin devs and miners agree on a change (for instance, to increase the cap), it'll happen, so you have to trust them.
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Just as with social media, convenience was more important than sovereignty via decentralization. Can’t change the wind, have to adjust your sails.
I don’t fault the average person for not wanting to be their own bank. I’ve been using bitcoin for years and I’m still terrified I’m going to mess up a transaction or lose access to my wallet.
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It's such an anti-pattern for the world to adopt this approach. Sadly most people don't care nor should have to but the decentralization is effectively moot when payment processors like Visa get involved. Sadly, I'm less and less hopeful that crypto will be what the movement conveyed over last 10 years.
Think of it like the currency equivalent of backwards compatibility. It's meant to serve as a stopgap so that accepting bitcoin for a purchase doesn't require the friction/risk of only being able to use that bitcoin at other places that accept bitcoin.
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> you are trusting that this decentralized ledger will gain acceptance by the whole world. Bitcoin itself is inherently trustless, that's the whole point of it. You can trust that there will never be more than 21M Bitcoins, you can trust that there will never be a double-spend, you can trust that it will run 24/7, etc. Whether it will gain worldwide acceptance is another matter (btw, adoption is increasing at very fa…
> Bitcoin itself is inherently trustless, that's the whole point of it. You can trust that there will never be more than 21M Bitcoins, you can trust that there will never be a double-spend, you can trust that it will run 24/7, etc. No it isn't. If the Bitcoin devs and miners agree on a change (for instance, to increase the cap), it'll happen, so you have to trust them.
And even if that change were to go through, there will still be people running the old chain (Ethereum Classic is still alive). So those parameters would only change if they improve the network for most stakeholders, otherwise, most people would stay on the old chain.
One of the reasons I'm bullish on Bitcoin over the next decade is precisely because of the anti-BTC sentiment on this board.
HN isn’t wrong about everything. It was extremely bearing on Groupon in 2011. It was another thing where true believers would say that skeptics “just don’t get it”, but the HN critics had extremely cogent critiques that went without response. Google “Groupon Stock”, HN was very correct. VERY different from the anti-Dropbox sentiment of the famous Dropbox comment. You also have Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Charlie Mung…
My observation on all of this is that the most common themes to bear Bitcoin - can all be fixed! People are quite happy to look at the current landscape and proclaim immediate and indefinite failure. Detractors allow no room for growth.
Volatility - you could argue that Bitcoin is still so young that the market is trying to determine it's worth. I estimate that Bitcoin is significantly less volatile at some point in the future.
Real world use cases - currently I agree, I don't see a great use of it ... yet. I think we'll find something.
Energy, sure okay it uses a lot of energy. Is this less problematic is most of the energy is sourced from renewables (now or in the future)? Certainly it's also possible that the protocol is updated to be more energy efficient, or another coin reigns supreme.