In defense of cryptocurrency

Finally and Thank Goodness. I have been so depressed lately listening to all the "crypto-haters" bash something "they don't see a need for" that we actually need very desperately that it was really messing with my head. Of course, you don't see the need...you either aren't actually looking at the pain and high costs those on the outside are forced to endure or you just don't care. Finally someone in an actual position to know has written a piece that isn't hampered by their bias. He doesn't run a FinServices company for oldsters or pretend that BTC is worthless while being a part of a group of companies using XRP for years.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

There are ways to make upgradeable smart contracts but it wasn't really formalized until recently (there's now open contracts you can import into your projects to enable upgrades).

Additionally, a lot of the community are against upgradeable contracts because they theoretically can be upgraded to something totally different, and they prefer immutability, with all its potential warts. Some projects use upgradeable contracts and don't have to do what Premint did, and some people don't.

But regardless, if you're going to offer an organizational service that's not on the blockchain, then inherently, by definition, it can't be strictly enforced just by the presence of an NFT, because people aren't computers and their physical actions aren't guaranteed to happen by lines of code like a computer program can (at least not yet).

Tickets for a concert were a meatspace analogy, not me arguing to put all tickets on the blockchain. One difference, though, is the NFT 'ticket' can be proven for any organization that wants to incorporate it, without a prior agreement or API access created by the original organization. Like I know some NFT projects allow people who have NFTs from other specific projects in their wallets to have early access in their own projects, or grant access to private Discord rooms, or let them into events, etc. and it can be granted via software, without people checking or verifying anything.

Yes a REST API and a centralized database can provide that, but not if that organization goes defunct.

As an example from my own history, there's a game I worked on once that the company once debated on buying servers to host the multiplayer aspects of it, but eventually I just incorporated the general async turn based api of Apple's for the game. The company went defunct not even six months later. If we had gone the server route, the game would have been unplayable as soon as the company folded, but since we used the general protocol provided by the platform, the game was playable for many years afterwards (might still, I haven't checked in a while).

That's a very real (to me, anyway) benefit of building on a blockchain. As long as the blockchain platform is still up, those smart contracts can still be used, and its support doesn't have to be constantly justified by the parent company / count on the company not going out of business to keep running. Like Nintendo is getting rid of its Wii and 3DS shops here in a few months because they can't justify keeping it up. If the blockchain existed then and those things were stored on there (like files are stored on IPFS or Arweave for web3 today) they'd still be accessible without any continued expenses from Nintendo.

Right now I'm having to decide which of my digital games I need to make sure are downloaded and on my device before I lose the opportunity to redownload in a few months (technically I can hack the device and download stuff from torrents, but I'd rather not have to do that for a while, if ever).

Another benefit, to me, is similar and legacy related. Like my Facebook profile, website, games, journals, etc, when I die, all go away the instant that Facebook stops being a thing, and more importantly when I stop paying for web servers or cloud computing. My SO already made it pretty clear they're not really going to do anything to perpetuate them, so if I want those things to exist and be available I'll need to find something that can withstand not actively paying AWS, Azure, DigitalOcean, etc. to keep it going. Putting these things onto the blockchain would allow for that, and at the very least will outlive anything put onto cloud services, and possibly even the current crop of social media websites (definitely a few of them, maybe not all of them).

Some things I worked on are probably also circulating in some torrents of Flash games or console games also, but a lot of it isn't. And I have some physical copies of things I've worked on also (a lot of board game prototypes, some journals, etc), but I have a feeling a lot of that is just getting thrown away not too long after I die unless I something of mine becomes a big hit, maybe not even then.

You might not personally care about these things, but other people do. Or at least will once the infrastructure and supporting software is built out more.

That is short-term. If BTC supply stays the same while fiat currency keeps inflating, and if people will want the same exposure to BTC, then the price of BTC will increase with the amount of fiat in existence.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the most outlandish route possible to smear someones name". I fail to see why me asserting that not spending the coins isn't strong evidence about Satoshi's motivations is some how a smear or trying to assign guilt?

The entire conversation started because someone pointed out that just because Satoshi said something doesn't mean it has to be true (although they made that point in a rude way.)

The vibe I am getting from your responses is: 'satoshi is a saint, everything he said has to be true, and any attempt to point out that we have little evidence about Satoshi's character is a baseless smear.'

I am sure that is an inaccurate and unfair characterization of what you are trying to see, so please correct me as to where I have it wrong.

> easier/cheaper hashing actually doesn't work -- the yield curve in bitcoin mining is there for a reason, and without it, I doubt PoW would fly.

And yet there are numerous non-SHA256 proof-of-work systems that have worked (pun intended) just fine while having lower energy requirements.

> Reductio ad absurdum: If it doesn't remain dominant, then it has no use case, as it's a lousy investment instrument. If the above goes throw for bitcoin, then, a fortirori, the same reductio can also apply to any other PoW coin.

This presupposes that all PoW coins have the same properties - never mind that pretty much every cryptocurrency created since Bitcoin has had "do it faster and cheaper than Bitcoin" as an implicit if not explicit goal.

> And don't get me started on PoS -- it's literally just an MLM you can buy into.

The people who say this are the same people who know next to nothing about PoS.

> I remember the nineties well -- relatives would go to China and come back with armfuls of factory-pressed CDs and DVDs. Anything you wanted. Clean and new-in-box. That went away because of IP protection baked into trade agreements.

It went away because now you can buy knockoffs on AliExpress instead of relying on relatives in China.

> And before you say 'BitTorrent', please remember, the analogy is _factory_ piracy

Nope. The equivalent to electronic money is electronic piracy. Moving the goalposts does not a good argument make.

> Bitcoin requires mining rigs, and these are large, physical assets, like factories, and this is unlikely to change.

Again: there are other PoW blockchains besides Bitcoin.

Even in Bitcoin's case, hashing ASICs don't have to be large; that's currently the most profitable approach, but mining can and would readily adapt. SHA256 is also a common enough algorithm outside of Bitcoin that hardware accelerators for it have ample non-Bitcoin usecases; you'd have a hard time blanket banning any and all SHA256 hashing unless you're willing to break password authentication for the vast majority of computers in a given jurisdiction, and you'd likewise have a hard time justifying the ban of hardware that makes password hashing faster (even if it just so happens to be capable of mining Bitcoin).

> a helicopter and a FLIR cam would work, as well as cooperation from the energy provider.

And if the farm's off-grid on solar? The energy provider would have zero visibility on that, and the helicopter flying around day in and day out would be far more ecologically destructive.

> Shoot it, then.

Good luck with that.

> Yes, but you can ban the sale of various things.

We're literally talking about a class of electronic currencies which do not give the slightest sliver of a rodent's anus whether there are laws prohibiting a given transaction. That strategy hasn't worked for IP infringement (despite your assertions), it hasn't worked for the drug trade, it didn't work for liquor trade during Prohibition, it's already starting to fail with the firearms trade in gun-restricting countries (thanks, 3D printers and hardware stores!)... there is zero reason to believe it would work for cryptocurrency.

> Expand/explain. I do not understand the point you attempt to make.

What part did you not understand?