381–390 of 1001 posts
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Yes, you convert them into bread and milk the same way you convert little pieces of paper into bread and milk: You find someone who's willing to give you bread and milk in return for them.
Good luck finding someone who will accept btc for literal bread and milk
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With the Lightning network, L2 is basically a database between only 2 parties that are required to be online during the transaction. It's not possible to double spend in that situation. There's the possibility of double spending by committing to the bitcoin blockchain an old version of your "database", but then you would face the penalty of having your entire balance confiscated by the other party. More details here:…
> but then you would face the penalty of having your entire balance confiscated by the other party. Only if the other party notices in time that you did this. You are reliant on active monitoring of the blockchain to know that your transactions actually happened. And the more you want to scale (i.e. the more transactions you do on a single Lightning channel without settling it on the BTC blockchain), the bigger the r…
There are conditions on every payment system. With bitcoin you also have something to do to prevent double spending: wait for some number of confirmations (and making sure you're on the right chain).
And "double-spend protection guarantees of blockchains" is very dependent on the cost of doing a 51% attack, so it's not strong by itself. It's very strong in bitcoin only because the quantity of hashrate/money required to do one is astronomical. It's not so strong on small blockchains.
And I fail to see how the risk increases with more transactions on a single lightning channel.
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> I want to buy subversive literature from someone I already trust not to rip me off Subversive literature printed on blotter paper. Outside of buying sex and drugs the only uses for cryptocoins are, and always has been, ransoms, scams and gambling.
Okay, tell me how I buy something over the internet without tying the purchase to my government ID. Your argument seems like "only criminals want privacy" which is a no.
Also, if you want privacy, don't use crypto.
The original promise of crypto was lost a LONG time ago. Instead of being a true rival to FIAT, it became a thing with a toxic-as-hell commumity, fraud, and basically its nothing more than a high risk stock. The risk is NOT only "will this go up or down" but you have a high risk of being robbed, as have happened to millions of people. Maybe there will be a better alternative in the future, but right now bitcoin is no…
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The decentralized nature of banks makes it hard to offer a good payment experience to consumers and businesses.
Only in America. The rest of the world figured it out.
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In the current election system also almost no one can do anything to verify the results. The percentage is way higher than 95%. There are many arguments against electronic voting but the current system is terrible and insecure. >>And this is a deal breaker, as having the population believe and easily able to convince themselves that their elections are free is an extremely important part of democracy, especially when…
It is extremely easy to convince yourself that the current system works. Numerous people volunteer to work in election monitoring every year, and any person who is not sure can take a day or two off work to do so at their next election. Plus, the system overall is dead simple, first grade math skills are enough to understand it: we just count the votes in every precinct, and sum up the votes later up. No hashes, no s…
If crypto allows people to do something that was previously not possible(order drugs in the mail with the convenience of amazon, invest at consistently insanely chaotic conditions, run multimillion hustles with total impunity) versus doing something that was possible already, just re-skinned(make bank transfers), then it's really no surprise what will see better adoption. The biggest value-add is in the degenerate stuff.
The original promise of crypto was lost a LONG time ago. Instead of being a true rival to FIAT, it became a thing with a toxic-as-hell commumity, fraud, and basically its nothing more than a high risk stock. The risk is NOT only "will this go up or down" but you have a high risk of being robbed, as have happened to millions of people. Maybe there will be a better alternative in the future, but right now bitcoin is no…
Using a cryptocurrency (originally) meant basically opting out of the governmental violence-as-a-service for cryptocurrency/-token purposes and taking care of this aspect by yourself.
Depending on your resourcefulness and lifestyle, this may mean
- hiring personal security
- being very careful about privacy aspects, e.g. making it very hard to link your personal identity to your cryptographic keys; distribute your crypto-tokens among many keys so that if one key gets "linked", the attacker will find only few tokens there; use anonymization services; ...
- think about what mitigations you have in place against "rubber hose attacks"
- live a modest life so that people (and also taxation authorities?) don't get suspicious that you are secretly rich, i.e. don't boast about your richness
- ...
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Putting absolute trust and surrendering too much agency to the state has been proven a mistake many times throughout history. Citizens need fallbacks when the state fails them. Concrete example where crypto achieves this: many trans people in places with an inadequate medical system or hostile government turn to buying gray-market DIY hormones online, facilitated by crypto.
I also use crypto to bypass government prohibition on unprescribed self-medication. Is it still noble if I'm buying cocaine?
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The purposes of money are: - store of value - unit of account (a measuring stick for value) - medium of exchange Allowing the financial system to inflate the money supply destroys two of those fundamental qualities. The fact it can additionally charge interest on the money funnels the stolen value into its hands. Interest on money loaned out is the only incentive required for putting money to "productive uses". Nothi…
Bitcoin was envisioned by its creator to be used as a currency. To buy and sell stuff using it. If you ask today what is bitcoin you'll be told that it is a store of value. The purpose of money is not to be a store of value. It can be, but that is not its purpose which the case of bitcoin clearly illustrates. > Interest on money loaned out is the only incentive required for putting money to "productive uses". And wha…
What if Henry Ford evisaged his Model T being used as a temporary alternative for when your horse is unwell? Or a fairground ride? Bitcoin is what it is.
> And what is the incentive to loan money in your system?
Interest - the age-old solution. Offer me interest that both compensates me for not having use of my money and for the risk of getting it back, and we have a deal.