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In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

vitalik.ca

171–180 of 234 posts

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#171

All the arguments here for BTC maximalism are actually better arguments for Monero, which is also MORE decentralized and is unparalleled in privacy.

Monero has some strong points, but it's actually LESS decentralized than Bitcoin. A Monero confidential transaction is 1.5kb while a Bitcoin transaction which is only around 300 bytes. For the argument of decentralization, it doesn't matter that it doesn't blind the amounts or add decoys inputs, the 5x size of a transaction itself means that the chain is much bigger than Bitcoin under the same load which makes it less decentralized due to much higher storage requirements for a full node. It's also much slower to verify the history because of all the rangeproofs that need to be validated for all outputs that have been ever created.

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#172
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the parent claimed they would be rendered penniless. If you're temporarily unable to transact you're not penniless.

please read the linked article and rebut what they are saying. > Both sides of the Bitcoin network would carry on working (although if there was an unequal divide, one side might be slowed so much that it became unusable). Let’s imagine this carried on for a few days or weeks before connections were properly restored. At this point we would have two divergent “branches” of the blockchain, which is not allowed. By des…

I have already replied to this in a child comment to your original comment. Cutting off the internet is not realistic, there are ways around it.

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#173

I started reading the article assuming it was an April fool's joke. After a bit into it, I thought it was not a joke. When the self-deprecation began, I was again convinced it was a joke - but at the end of the article, I think this is not a joke. It's a rather good take on why Bitcoin maximalism is what it is. Some degree of ETH-maximalism will be required in the future given the sheer number of pretender L-1 blockc…

It seems that Vitalik decided to write the best defense he could of Bitcoin and publish it on April 1st. And that's the joke.

That's a very Vitalik thing to do.

For all the heat he gets from Bitcoiners I consider it a net negative that crypto split up into so many different camps.

I wonder how the crypto space would have looked like if the Bitcoin space allowed people like Vitalik to work within it instead of being driven away.

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#174
post #84

People still don't understand cryptocurrencies, and at this point it seems more like intentional obtuseness for political reasons. At the same time, cryptocurrencies still haven't provided a killer app that shuts everyone up. So, IMO that's the only real thing that matters. Either you build something with it that's useful - or it isn't useful. I understand that it's difficult because of all the infrastructure require…

I think as you start to hear about stories from people in (just as an example) Ukraine escaping and being able to take their wealth with them, you're seeing the principal "killer app". It's the same "killer app" as burying gold in a secret location. It only comes up in emergencies.

If that is the only killer app crypto can produce then it's not useful to most people and will stay a niche technology forever.

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#175
post #84

People still don't understand cryptocurrencies, and at this point it seems more like intentional obtuseness for political reasons. At the same time, cryptocurrencies still haven't provided a killer app that shuts everyone up. So, IMO that's the only real thing that matters. Either you build something with it that's useful - or it isn't useful. I understand that it's difficult because of all the infrastructure require…

Bitcoin started in 2008, 14 years ago. The Internet was opened to commercial use, in 1993. That is 29 years ago. Bitcoin is half the age of the commercial Internet, so Bitcoin is no longer new. 14 years after the opening of the Internet to commercial use, Google was well established, Facebook and Twitter were rising rapidly, MySpace and Digg had already peaked but still had huge audiences. Amazon had already become a…

Blockchains require systemic buy-in to reveal their instrinsic value. That means government implementation and enforcement, or at least some widespread system that recognizes a particular blockchain as law. It's coming, but slowly.

You talk about it as if there's a well-worn path that every viable technology must follow to succeed. Cue discussions about the first automobiles, the internet, the smart phone, etc. But history rhymes, it doesn't repeat. The internet's rise itself is a unique phenomenon. I'm more concerned with dealing with blockchains as a reality, not deciding whether or not they're actually happening. In my experience, almost every "nothing is happening, y'all are crazy" argument in the past 10 years has revealed itself to be toxic coping. Who does this denial actually help? So far, Western society is collapsing, finance is getting more centralized, global warming is coming along just fine, corporations are making decisions for us, and the internet is getting more and more totalitarian. All good?

Don't be surprised when the infrastructure magically appears and every asset you own is indexed and tracked on a blockchain. Oops! This is really not the time to be talking shit about cryptocurrencies as a concept, because they're going to be part of your life whether you like it or not. What you should be focusing on is helping shape them in your favor - because they're currently not.

So, let's assume it is, in fact, happening. The technology should also enable certain services which weren't possible before, but I'm not sure what those are. We see the corpos going into the "metaverse", and central banks going for CBDCs, which I suppose could work (for them), but if there was a pro-consumer service that can be deployed now it'd end discussions like this.

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is not and never can be currency.

That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

What is the max number of transactions per second that Bitcoin can support?

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#178
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that Vitalik decided to write the best defense he could of Bitcoin and publish it on April 1st. And that's the joke.

That's a very Vitalik thing to do. For all the heat he gets from Bitcoiners I consider it a net negative that crypto split up into so many different camps. I wonder how the crypto space would have looked like if the Bitcoin space allowed people like Vitalik to work within it instead of being driven away.

When you see Bitcoin and Dogecoin being staked on ETH contracts and services (now) I feel like we haven't lost!

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#180
post #84

People still don't understand cryptocurrencies, and at this point it seems more like intentional obtuseness for political reasons. At the same time, cryptocurrencies still haven't provided a killer app that shuts everyone up. So, IMO that's the only real thing that matters. Either you build something with it that's useful - or it isn't useful. I understand that it's difficult because of all the infrastructure require…

> People still don't understand cryptocurrencies, and at this point it seems more like intentional obtuseness for political reasons. Your assumption that the only reason to hate cryptocurrencies is ignorance is not reasonable. > in order to make them decentralized "Decentralized" and "blockchain" are not synonyms. Blockchain technology is a wildly, insanely expensive way to decentralize an application: https://www.us…

Do you have a better way to decentralize digital money?
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