121–130 of 161 posts
I'm still surprised that bitcoin is hated here, such a great technology. It's a decentralised currency, and it's working really well. A lot of big institutions are taking it seriously now. Does paper cash printed by government make more sense?
I'm still surprised that bitcoin is hated here, such a great technology. It's a decentralised currency, and it's working really well. A lot of big institutions are taking it seriously now. Does paper cash printed by government make more sense?
One of the big selling points of Bitcoin was it was supposed to enable free and fast transactions. As it turns out, the average transaction clearing time is 200 minutes and transaction fee is about $11. Now, compare that to Australia's New Payments Platform, which enable instant free transfers of fiat. https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-transaction-fees-hashrate https://www.blockchain.com/charts/avg-confirmation-time
What's the risk for bitcoin pertinent to entrenched pre-quantum encryption? Are the wallet/private key pairs based on such cryptography? What's the technical feasibility of migrating BTC's pow scheme to quantum-resistant hashing? What is the technical feasibility of migrating wallet/private keys to quantum-resistant crypto? Would any such migration of wallet/private keys be dependent on public/non-public interactions…
There is no particular negative interactions with the hash functions and quantum cryptography. Bitcoin is designed so that different asymmetric crypto governing controlling coins can be compatibility introduced-- as has been done a couple times in the past (to introduce revisions to the script system). PQ crypto could be introduced in that way. Unfortunately existing PQ signature schemes don't have a great mix of mat…
The problem with Bitcoin and is that it creates real negative effects, with little positive effects to show for it. The most prominent negative effect is the huge energy waste, which doesn't help when we are trying to cut on our carbon footprint The second one is that it makes illegal activities easier, and at a larger scale. It's quite common right now for companies to be coerced pay millions of dollars to anonymous…
For the vast majority of businesses/individuals, it is governments and banking cartels the ones stealing your money (via inflation and fractional reserve respectively) without recourse. Switching to a world in which, instead of all of us, but only a few, are stolen money, is a bit better.
> The most prominent negative effect is the huge energy waste, which doesn't help when we are trying to cut on our carbon footprint
Debunked. Sources:
* https://newmoneyreview.com/index.php/2020/09/03/big-oil-goes...
* https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-12-07/bitcoi...
* https://blog.bitcoin.org.hk/bitcoin-mining-and-energy-consum...
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T0OUIW89II
* https://cointelegraph.com/news/study-over-74-of-bitcoin-mini...
The problem with Bitcoin and is that it creates real negative effects, with little positive effects to show for it. The most prominent negative effect is the huge energy waste, which doesn't help when we are trying to cut on our carbon footprint The second one is that it makes illegal activities easier, and at a larger scale. It's quite common right now for companies to be coerced pay millions of dollars to anonymous…
> The second one is that it makes illegal activities easier, and at a larger scale. It's quite common right now for companies to be coerced pay millions of dollars to anonymous criminals, all enabled with cryptocurrencies. For the vast majority of businesses/individuals, it is governments and banking cartels the ones stealing your money (via inflation and fractional reserve respectively) without recourse. Switching t…
Re: Energy use - A single Bitcoin transaction is around $8 today. If you assume an efficient market, where the cost to compute Bitcoin is roughly equivalent to the energy cost, that's a crazy 80kWh in US energy cost for a single transaction (and probably more, since Bitcoin mining is done where energy cost is lower). The claim that a fraction of that comes from renewable is silly, this renewable energy could go to other means.
I've got a lot here to read for the next newsletter. Thanks folks that gave insightful comments.
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https://thinkoutloudnews.substack.com/p/why-you-should-read-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of the big selling points of Bitcoin was it was supposed to enable free and fast transactions. As it turns out, the average transaction clearing time is 200 minutes and transaction fee is about $11. Now, compare that to Australia's New Payments Platform, which enable instant free transfers of fiat. https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-transaction-fees-hashrate https://www.blockchain.com/charts/avg-confirmation-time
Perhaps there were people who thought Bitcoin was supposed to enable free and fast transactions but obviously it isn't. There are other cryptocurrencies that are. Bitcoin is more like digital gold.
As pointed out elsewhere here, fiat currency is as equally arbitrary as bitcoin is.
Bitcoin's age and seeming resistance to network manipulation and cracking over a long period of time is really the source of its enduring value.
In my personal opinion/perception, the true devaluation of other cryptocurrencies occurred in the "aaaand its gone" twitter moment. Even if it was a joke/stunt, it really highlighted the superfluous nature of almost all cryptocurrencies besides BTC.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
bitcoin uses less resources than traditional banking. I think people should stop judging it in a vacuum and instead speak in relative terms. If energy use is a concern then fiat is the greater offender. https://bitcoinist.com/banks-consume-energy-bitcoin/ further crypto would be a much more flexible domain at working towards reducing carbon emission than deeply embedded and slow changing fiat systems
Banks use way less energy per customer
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The second one is that it makes illegal activities easier, and at a larger scale. It's quite common right now for companies to be coerced pay millions of dollars to anonymous criminals, all enabled with cryptocurrencies. For the vast majority of businesses/individuals, it is governments and banking cartels the ones stealing your money (via inflation and fractional reserve respectively) without recourse. Switching t…
Re: Money transfer - it's not clear why money going to criminal organization is better than the government. Also, since most people actually have negligible savings, it's not clear that inflation actually "steals" money from the people. Re: Energy use - A single Bitcoin transaction is around $8 today. If you assume an efficient market, where the cost to compute Bitcoin is roughly equivalent to the energy cost, that's…
One of the biggest misconceptions around Bitcoin is somehow that it was supposed to sort all this out before it bootstrapped to a large enough network, but we all know that´s impossible.