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What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We Still Don’t Know (2018)

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Re: What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We Still Don’t Know (2018)

#181

Post by gruez »

Retric wrote: post #124
jhoechtl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other blockchains are vastly expanding scalability, as well as eliminating the energy usage. The energy usage combined with proof of work is the backing. If you break that for Bitcoin als is left is trust. The energy used and consumed is like the USD tied to gold (which it is no longer since quite some time)

You can do proof of work based on random memory access for example rather than pure computation. The monetary cost ends up being identical, but it’s much better for the environment.

>but it’s much better for the environment.

Why? If OPEX is reduced (lower electricity costs), it's logical to assume that it will be replaced with CAPEX, given how competitive mining operations are. If that's the case, that will mean electricity being used to power ASICs being replaced with chemicals required to fab semiconductors (along with electricity for those fabs). It might be better in terms of GHG emissions, it would be a wash for overall environmental impact.

Re: What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We Still Don’t Know (2018)

#182

Post by gruez »

nyhc99 wrote: post #164
jhoechtl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other blockchains are vastly expanding scalability, as well as eliminating the energy usage. The energy usage combined with proof of work is the backing. If you break that for Bitcoin als is left is trust. The energy used and consumed is like the USD tied to gold (which it is no longer since quite some time)

It is hoped among Ethereum enthusiasts that moving from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake in Ethereum 2.0 will solve those massive energy usage problems without introducing vulnerabilities into the system.

>without introducing vulnerabilities into the system.

Did they end up solving the "nothing at stake" problem?

Re: What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We Still Don’t Know (2018)

#184

Post by dnautics »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #127
dnautics wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's not why gold is valuable, historically. Historically gold is valuable because it's rivalrous, fungible, and most importantly, easily verifiable. You can assess approximate purity of the metal with very low-level technology ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchstone_(assaying_tool) ). Transactions thus have a lowered barrier of trust. Before gold and money, you could only transact in debt to labor (see debt: 50…

This is correct. Gold is the original “it’s valuable because everyone agrees it is,” and retains that first mover advantage. Over the centuries there have been numerous challengers. Almost all (silver being a notable exception) failed.

I think just saying "it's only valuable because it's agreed upon" is shortchanging gold. Its verifiability is an intrinsic property if ever there was one, and has to do with quantum relativistic effects in its outer electron shell that only gold has.

Re: What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We Still Don’t Know (2018)

#185

Post by aeternum »

saalweachter wrote: post #145
lozf wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days there's the Lightning Network - an off-chain "layer" that enables both fast and small, cheap transactions - perfect for "mundane payments" - and even micro-payments with Bitcoin. It's already usable and still improving. Adoption will grow as the infrastructure continues to be built out. It's still early days for Bitcoin - no one sends AT commands to their modem to get online any more.

Eh, the Lightning Network has been a thing long enough that the appropriate question is no longer "when will it be ready?" but "how much is it being used and for what?" and if the answer is "not much for anything", "why?".

Lightning is still relatively new, one of the answers to the "why" is that none of the large wallets such as Coinbase / Cash App support it yet.

Once it gets a few user-friendly wallet and merchant apps, I'd expect to see adoption. Especially since it's much safer for merchants as they do not need to wait for confirmations, and transactions fees are fractions of a penny so merchants actually benefit compared to creditcard interchange fees.

Re: What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We Still Don’t Know (2018)

#186

Post by JumpCrisscross »

stale2002 wrote: post #167
uniqueid wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of our governments are liberal democracies. It sounds less positive when you rephrase it like that; ie: "Bitcoin is a threat to liberal democracy" I don't want some drug lord to pump/dump/coerce/tax-evade their way into being the richest person on my continent, and then hire an army to take my nation over. That is easier with crypto currency than it is with fiat. The tech community dropped the ball in the '90s b…

> Many of our governments are liberal democracies. The liberal democracies are pretty open and positive on cryptocurrencies. So no, it does not seem to be threat to them. Instead, it is more of a threat to the less liberal countries.

OP advocates wilful tax fraud [1].

If large portions of the economy aren’t paying taxes, I am not paying taxes. This breaks down the social contract. Given authoritarian nations’ increased force projection, this vision of cryptocurrencies first corrodes liberal democracies, where those not paying have courts and Constitutions between them and the state.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24953317

Re: What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We Still Don’t Know (2018)

#187

Post by stale2002 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #186
stale2002 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many of our governments are liberal democracies. The liberal democracies are pretty open and positive on cryptocurrencies. So no, it does not seem to be threat to them. Instead, it is more of a threat to the less liberal countries.

OP advocates wilful tax fraud [1]. If large portions of the economy aren’t paying taxes, I am not paying taxes. This breaks down the social contract. Given authoritarian nations’ increased force projection, this vision of cryptocurrencies first corrodes liberal democracies, where those not paying have courts and Constitutions between them and the state. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24953317

> OP advocates wilful tax fraud

Nope! Liberal democracies allow cryptocurrency and it very well could be the case that some of these crypto events are non taxable events.

Thats just working within what liberal democracies allow.

> have courts and Constitutions

Courts and constitutions are pretty important in liberal democracies. I support the protections that those provide, personally.

Re: What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We Still Don’t Know (2018)

#188

Post by BMSmnqXAE4yfe1 »

wmf wrote: post #177
BMSmnqXAE4yfe1 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of young people who think that stocks only ever go up. Wait until the the stock market crashes, and target date funds with it.

Target date funds aren't all stocks specifically to avoid this problem.

"Target date" means the ratio of stocks to bonds in them is getting rebalanced each year - the closer the target date (retirement), more bonds and less stocks. They have 60% or more in stocks.

Re: What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We Still Don’t Know (2018)

#189

Post by inquirerofsorts »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #98

I believe BitCoin is one of the very few successful crypto protocols that, instead of being developed in the open, pretty much came out fully formed. In addition, it was developed first as a Windows program. This makes the conspiracy part of me, suspect that BitCoin may in fact have been developed by the NSA to enable moving black ops money around more easily. It was released to the public so there would be enough ba…

There were numerous prior attempts to create digital cash publicly, some of them went to jail for trying. Szabo was asking if anyone wanted to help build bitgold, apparently no one answered the call. The initial Bitcoin release was very far from a finished codebase or "fully formed".

Re: What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We Still Don’t Know (2018)

#190

Post by trevelyan »

textfoo wrote: post #168
xorcist wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2017-18 when it became apparent that the bitcoin network was unsuitable That's an extraordinary statement. The scaling aspects of Bitcoin was apparent to everyone involved in the project from the start, including Satoshi. The limits of an architecture where everyone processes everyone else's transactions should be obvious to anyone reading the whitepaper. It is also the focus of the very first email replies. Few re…

Seriously. Like an append, write only database is going to scale. Contemporarily, lightning is a thing that covers most of the gripes that I've seen above your comment.

Blockchains does not require append-only. There are pruning techniques like Automatic Transaction Rebroadcasting coming out on high-throughput blockchains like Saito:

https://youtu.be/agppUdX9YvI?t=65

These techniques will eventually get ported over to Bitcoin or whatever survives long-enough to need it. We'll get 20, 50 and 100-year rebroadcasting chains. Fees will be higher if the data needs to be stored longer. Spectrum of uses from investment to cash with different degrees of value-persistence.

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