Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

vitalik.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 234 posts

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#191

Post by not_kurt_godel »

randomhodler84 wrote: post #188
not_kurt_godel wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Lightning scales infinitely. There are people using Bitcoin as a currency, via lightning, right now. More join all the time. The network expands. It is a currency, is used as a currency, as sats. It is also a long term store of value as Bitcoin. You can ignore reality as much as your like, but the world has moved on from your 2017 era complaints.

Ah yes, Lightning, the system where you have to establish an escrow fund between you and anyone you wish to pay. Sounds wildly practical.

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#192

Post by randomhodler84 »

not_kurt_godel wrote: post #191
randomhodler84 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightning scales infinitely. There are people using Bitcoin as a currency, via lightning, right now. More join all the time. The network expands. It is a currency, is used as a currency, as sats. It is also a long term store of value as Bitcoin. You can ignore reality as much as your like, but the world has moved on from your 2017 era complaints.

Ah yes, Lightning, the system where you have to establish an escrow fund between you and anyone you wish to pay. Sounds wildly practical.

that’s not how it works. You establish a channel with a network peer, spend some to add incoming liquidity to your channel, and reach the rest of the network. Send and receive payments. Yes the limitation is the liquidity and balance in your channels, but as far as routing goes we are all only a few hops away for each other.

It is wildly practical today, and there are several good custodial solutions if you do not wish to run a node yourself. Please give it a try!

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#194

Post by bluepnume »

ineedasername wrote: post #189
bluepnume wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin, just like traditional money, can exist as a non-blockchain ledger entry in bank's computer system. This is how most exchanges and custodial wallets work. The difference is, you can also self-custody your Bitcoin. Obviously what's in your custody is just a private key; but for all intents and purposes that is self-custody. You are the sole person in control of those coins. So Bitcoin gives you the choice of h…

Self storage of non crypto assets beyond a certain threshold often end up taking the form of other assets like real estate. Purely from a net worth standpoint it's usually not optimal to have cash (physical or banked) on hand above a certain point. But I take your meaning and it's a valid point: crypto self storage scales better than traditional cash. If scaling of that sort was an issue for me and self-storage a cri…

You can certainly self-custody USDC -- but unlike Bitcoin, even if you self-custody you still have to trust that the USD backing the coin actually exists somewhere.

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#195

Post by orblivion »

bhaak wrote: post #174
orblivion wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not useful to people almost all the time but it's vital and one-of-a-kind for that certain scenario.

Though I could similarly throw in dissidents earning money and financing. I could just repeat what's in the article.

In the mean time, sure, it would be smart to find other use cases.

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#196

Post by not_kurt_godel »

randomhodler84 wrote: post #192
not_kurt_godel wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, Lightning, the system where you have to establish an escrow fund between you and anyone you wish to pay. Sounds wildly practical.

that’s not how it works. You establish a channel with a network peer, spend some to add incoming liquidity to your channel, and reach the rest of the network. Send and receive payments. Yes the limitation is the liquidity and balance in your channels, but as far as routing goes we are all only a few hops away for each other. It is wildly practical today, and there are several good custodial solutions if you do not wi…

A currency that requires you to run and a node and does not allow you to perform a transaction unless you have staked more currency than you are currently spending is not viable.

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#197

Post by xigoi »

prohobo wrote: post #175
lkrubner wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

>That means government implementation and enforcement

There goes the decentralization.

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#198

Post by bhaak »

orblivion wrote: post #195
bhaak wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not useful to people almost all the time but it's vital and one-of-a-kind for that certain scenario. Though I could similarly throw in dissidents earning money and financing. I could just repeat what's in the article. In the mean time, sure, it would be smart to find other use cases.

I'm not sure if it really is one of a kind. Having a bit of money on PayPal would cover almost all scenarios equally well and even have less friction actually using your money.

The combination of PayPal and Gold doesn't seem to justify to me the valuation of a market cap of 800 billion dollars or in other words, a daily budget of 40 million dollars for securing the blockchain.

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#199

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

bhaak wrote: post #181
aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're praising bridge contracts just a few days after a bridge contract has been drained by hundreds of millions of dollars? :) Also, who is "we"? Bitcoiners, Etherians, crypto people in general, or some other crypto group?

"The crypto space"

Re: In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism

#200

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

bhaak wrote: post #181
aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're praising bridge contracts just a few days after a bridge contract has been drained by hundreds of millions of dollars? :) Also, who is "we"? Bitcoiners, Etherians, crypto people in general, or some other crypto group?

Not every L2 is created equal.
Post reply on HN