671–680 of 704 posts
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> All these schemes while claiming to be immutable are really not, firstly the last block is always subject to being overridden by a longer chain with more blocks, thus everyone waits for multiple blocks(confirmations) before accepting a transaction as committed Not in chains with synchronous consensus and instant finality. No forking.
POLKADOT does that right? Does anybody else do that?
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> ...(besides crime) First you have to define "crime." If by "crime" you mean "any activity outside the purview of regulatory authorities" then you're defining everything that isn't a bank account as crime. It is circular logic. "Its only use case is crime because using it is crime." If you more narrowly define crime as criminal acts besides just unregulated financial activities, then you can start to see the value p…
That is a straw man. This is not my definition of crime, I was thinking things like money laundering, tax evasion, ransomware payments, and blackmarket purchases. I'm genuinely not sure what a use case for unregulated financial activity would be that doesn't fall into those buckets. Someone mentioned retaining assets in countries with hyperinflation. To me it appears a central bank digital currency would be more appr…
"Blackmarket purchases" has the same problem "crime" does, it's self supporting.
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>Can you be trusted? Ask yourself. Talk about a con man's answer. I get multiple calls a week by people claiming to be my credit card provider, the tax arm of my country's civil service, or the president of the company I work for. Of course some people can't be trusted. Relying on universal trust is a recipe for universal corruption, and your answer to someone pointing that out is to try and turn the problem with tru…
So you think we can do without trust? Can it be replaced by technology? The pertinent question is still: Can you be trusted? Your answer to those first two questions answers the third
Trust in my civil service? Depends on incentives. I'm lucky to live in a country where they're mostly aligned with the needs of the public, but even so there's a 'drift' in incentives that requires constant correction.
Trust in central banks and elected politicians? Absolutely not, what an absurd proposition. How have groups like that ever earned my trust? Why should I give it unearned? And if the answer is 'If you don't trust them they won't trust you', I already know these groups don't trust me. Nothing I do will change that.
Universal trust might be possible in a zero-privacy, one-social-credit-score-from-cradle-to-grave kind of society where I can know strangers with the same kind of detail I know family members. If that's what you're arguing for good on ya for standing apart from the herd. Personally I'm not for that future because I believe zero-privacy leads to a cultural conservatism that would prevent a lot of the interesting innovations we'd get in a some-privacy society.
But universal trust with privacy? Just trusting strangers because we 'have to'? That reliably becomes a kleptocracy. Why should anyone who advocates for a kleptocracy be trusted?
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But the trust that a bitcoin transaction is final isn't enough trust to make an exchange! Lets say you and I decide right now that we're going to use these comments to make an exchange. I will give you $5 of bitcoin in exchange for you mailing me a postcard. Now what? How do we proceed in a meaningful manner? How do we go about making that exchange happen if we assume that either party is self-interested, and not int…
"But the trust that a bitcoin transaction is final isn't enough trust to make an exchange!" Correct. Who said it was? "How do we go about making that exchange happen if we assume that either party is self-interested, and not interested in actually completing the deal?" We don't make that exchange in that case. Or like you mentioned we both acknowledge that we don't trust each other and get a trusted third party invol…
Because the bank is acting as the (government approved) escrow service! Basically - The bank is arbitrating the dispute to resolve it (whether you like how the bank resolves that dispute is mostly irrelevant here).
Let me ask you to follow up, given what you've said:
> If you say you are going to send me a 1700 sats to post a postcard to you and I deliver as promised but in reality you don't perform your part of the deal the ledger is still correct. You still owe me 1700 sats according the deal we made and I can confirm this by checking the ledger. The ledger itself does not know about the deal we made but we both know we made a deal and according to that deal you still owe me 1700 sats.
Now what? Fill me in on how we resolve this situation in your mind, once we've reached this point.
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Ok - so follow along with me here: I owned no bitcoins at the time I desired to trade bitcoins for a physical product (in this case: ~7g of Cannabis) What recourse do I have that does not require trusting a third party? I do not own the required compute power to mine it myself (not technically true at the time, although certainly true today) I'd like to have you walk me through the exact set of steps to acquire my bi…
1) generate a private key, 2) move it to the private key. When you're ready to spend it, spend it. Those places where you were looking to buy cannabis have escrow services, at the time you'd have had to trust the platform only upon purchase, nowadays multisig escrow is standard, which requires significantly less trust in a single party.
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"But the trust that a bitcoin transaction is final isn't enough trust to make an exchange!" Correct. Who said it was? "How do we go about making that exchange happen if we assume that either party is self-interested, and not interested in actually completing the deal?" We don't make that exchange in that case. Or like you mentioned we both acknowledge that we don't trust each other and get a trusted third party invol…
> The ledger itself does not know about the deal we made but we both know we made a deal and according to that deal you still owe me 1700 sats. Now with a traditional bank what happens if you claim you sent it and the bank says you didn't. How can I verify that the transaction took place? I can't. I have to trust what you or the bank tell me and I don't know who is telling the truth. Maybe the transaction got lost. M…
In the example you gave whether we chose to transact in cash, wire-transfer or bitcoin the result would be the same. I would have to rely on layers, civil or criminal courts, police, insurance companies, debt collectors, thugs or myself to physically retrieve the funds (or equivalent) if possible. If that was not possible some form of fair physical or financial punishment would be dealt to you or not. Honestly for that amount of Bitcoin I wouldn't be bothered and wouldn't follow it up. I would just never do business with you again and from that point forward never relinquish physical custody of goods for sale prior to receiving payment.
"Because the bank is acting as the (government approved) escrow service! Basically - The bank is arbitrating the dispute to resolve it (whether you like how the bank resolves that dispute is mostly irrelevant here)."
Trusted third parties will always be an issue where there is no trust between the buyer and seller. Sure multisig helps but the difference is Bitcoin gives us power to choose who we involve in the transaction. I and the other party I am transacting with combined are not forced to involve any one individual, company or nation state in the transaction if we do not wish them to be part of it.
I think you are conflating trust in the Bitcoin network with trust in the humans transacting over the network. Regardless of the medium of exchange in order for transactions to occur we as humans need some level of trust in the party we are transacting with, trust in the network we are using to perform the transaction and trust that other humans are going to continue to value the medium being exchanged. Not everyone's level of trust in these aspects are going to be the same and people are going to value some aspects more than others.
Personally I think if bitcoin doesn't overcome some of its hurdles soon it will probably just turn into a form of the existing banking network through legislation. It's already beginning to look like that with most individuals storing their Bitcoin on exchanges. Private wallets will be banned, transacting with non KYCd entities will become impossible using regulated custodians and any Bitcoin received from (or linked to) non KYCd addresses will be automatically seized by the government. At that point the supply can be artificially inflated. The number of Bitcoins in your account doesn't actually have to reflect the amount of bitcoin the custodian holds for you. The surveillance apparatus will become hyper focused on the Bitcoin network and everyone interacting with it. Like Ross Ulbricht you may be able to resist seizure of your Bitcoin but it will just result in a lengthy prison sentence. It may not stay like this forever though.
So do you want a postcard? :)
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Not sure what you mean about layer 2 solutions being similar in cost to layer 1 transactions. See here: https://l2fees.info . Arbitrum and Optimism are both running in "safe mode" so their tx cost will continue to go down. I agree that the twitter solution isn't great. Just pointing out that Lightning network is a tech that can be used for cheap transactions. 100% agree that none of these solutions are accessible to…
So I may be wrong here but my understanding is that you can’t go directly from fiat to L2 transacting. My goal is to minimize the loss from patron’s bank account to creator’s bank account, and every extra step along the way is a couple percent out of the creator’s bank account and into exchanges/miners’. Edit: put more simply, a hundred people each want to give $5 to a single person. What path do they follow to ensur…
Not sure about the amount of time between exchange and bank account, I think that is going to depend on each exchange.
If anything, I think stablecoins are way more dangerous than the author indicates. People talk about things like Bitcoin as a threat to sovereign currencies, and they are, as competitors, of sorts. But stablecoins are another matter entirely. One huge aspect of the value of sovereign currencies is that they are instruments of law -- courts will settle in them as a lowest common denominator, and it is safe to use them…
I was just thinking the same thing. I was looking into [Gemini Dollar]( https://www.gemini.com/dollar ) yesterday. It's a stable coin that gives the patina of being FDIC secured. Their website says, "Gemini is a U.S. company regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services. GUSD reserves are eligible for FDIC insurance up to $250,000 per user while custodied with State Street Bank and Trust.¹" Furthermore,…
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I'll give you a bad review in a venue where your reputation is more valuable than the trade or I wouldn't trade with you to begin with. Or I would insist on an escrowed bond. There's many other ways than inserting a monopoly on violence dispensing political authority into the loop and still ensuring that transactions are suitably reliable. Big sticks just aren't a very efficient solution.
That only strengthens the article's author's point. Cyber currency just serves as a vessel for a fringe political group's beliefs, which, however strong, are not popular.
Which if the last decade plus of cryptocurrency has taught us anything, we ought to be able to thoroughly discard by this point in time.
I am aware that the political orthodoxy of the time is popular and the view that it should be discarded is unpopular, aside from observing that this would be true of basically any time and place, I have no further comment on that. My point is that the alternative simply flat out works better. I have zero care or interest in what is popular.
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Not your keys not your coins. Unless you trust some central authority to take care of you, which you should by now understand that doesn't always work, and when it doesn't work, it's usually a spectacular failure. So to answer your questions. Although possible, no reconcile is the pure spirit of a trustless network. Now? you make sure to avoid custodian services and keep your keys safe. or stay away from crypto until…
So we both agree - the ledger is "accurate" only in the sense that the ledger matches... (drumroll) the ledger. Which is entirely true, and there are some useful properties to that, but the whole thing falls down the second you have a real dispute over the trade of goods for value (which I might remind you, outside of the pure speculation/gambling that occurs in bitcoin pricing, is the point of actually holding a cur…
Spending these things? I can show you how to hold securely some wallet with your own private keys (no custody), receive then "spend" these things for a few pennies per transactions and with the guarantee nobody will interfere with our exchange. from wherever you happen to reside. there is no central authority able to (practically) control many of the blockchain networks out there.