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Bitcoin is a Cult

adamcaudill.com

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Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#191

Post by shiado »

askmike wrote: post #86
shiado wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to read an interesting story read this. https://old.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/6rxw7k/info...

Pretty biased story, sounds like it was Blockstream against everyone else (it wasn't). Most people on the mailinglist thought it was dangerous to increase the blocksize, not just people who worked for Blockstream. > Some of the employees of Blockstream also put forth some proposals, but all were so conservative, it would take bitcoin many decades before it could reach a scale of VISA. I hate to bring it to you, but n…

I definitely agree about Bitcoin and scaling, as anybody who can do napkin math would realize that increases in block size to scale to a level of transactions/second competitive with a credit card network would cause the blockchain to grow at a catastrophically unsustainable rate. Bitcoin Cash imho offers absolutely nothing of value because it runs up against the exact same technical problems. Think of it like slightly reducing a constant factor to an O(n^3) algorithm, you haven't made things more efficient in the required way.

I think the main takeaway about /r/bitcoin is that bitcoin claims to be this decentralized democratic technical project where anybody can contribute but in reality many of the places where discussion takes place are completely censored and controlled by entities who aren't transparent about their intentions like Blockstream and Theymos. This also applies to /r/btc for Bitcoin Cash shills.

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#192

Post by btown »

apo wrote: post #188

The Bitcoin community has changed greatly over the years; from technophiles that could explain a Merkle tree in their sleep, to speculators driven by the desire for a quick profit & blockchain startups seeking billion dollar valuations led by people who don’t even know what a Merkle tree is. I'm not sure which version of history this guy was on, but it clearly hasn't been the one I followed. He's describing a past th…

Technically, when the community was just Satoshi, what he said held true :)

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#193

Post by EliRivers »

apo wrote: post #188

The Bitcoin community has changed greatly over the years; from technophiles that could explain a Merkle tree in their sleep, to speculators driven by the desire for a quick profit & blockchain startups seeking billion dollar valuations led by people who don’t even know what a Merkle tree is. I'm not sure which version of history this guy was on, but it clearly hasn't been the one I followed. He's describing a past th…

Given that he read the bitcoin white paper the day it was released and found it an interesting use of Merkle trees, I suspect that he's describing the past he experienced. When he read it, the community was such people.

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#194

Post by m-i-l »

"Evolution is brutal, it requires death"

The problem here is simple: people have too much money at stake now. The solution is not so simple, given this is a technology about money.

But I do feel that it may be possible to learn from all of this, and preserve what is useful and use technology to eliminate the negative influence. For example, preserve the incentive mechanism for decentralising certain services (which could have genuine benefits for some use cases) while ensuring there isn't a publicly tradeable token or that if there is that it is protected by a stablecoin mechanism to prevent speculation. (Just one example.)

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#195

Post by School-Cotton »

sparkie wrote: post #106
eksemplar wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not illegal, it’s just really inconvenient. Today we’ve linked instant payment methods to our credit cards, if the card isn’t rfid enabled on its own. So you just swipe your payment method and you’re done. We even have a banking app that lets you instantly transfer funds between you, between banks as well, for free. Called mobile pay. So smaller stores that can’t afford to have a credit card system, use that. So…

I'm guessing it's more to do with transaction times than anything. A merchant needs to wait 10, 20 or 30 minutes to get a confirmation in Bitcoin, because he can't be sure there will not be a double-spend of the money until it is confirmed. Technically, this has always been the case, but there was a false belief that 0conf transactions were secure, because Bitcoin clients rejected double-spend attempts by default (as…

What does bitcoin have to do with banking? Banking would have to be built on top of Bitcoin, as it was already for gold in the past.

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#197

Post by zymhan »

btown wrote: post #192
apo wrote: post #188

The Bitcoin community has changed greatly over the years; from technophiles that could explain a Merkle tree in their sleep, to speculators driven by the desire for a quick profit & blockchain startups seeking billion dollar valuations led by people who don’t even know what a Merkle tree is. I'm not sure which version of history this guy was on, but it clearly hasn't been the one I followed. He's describing a past th…

Technically, when the community was just Satoshi, what he said held true :)

Is this really even worth saying? Saying you're being pedantic doesn't cover it.

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#198

Post by [deleted] »

justincormack wrote: post #177
dingo_bat wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps some kind of coin where everybody in the world is issued the same amount or something. What would be the point of such a currency? Trade and wealth exist because of inequalities. Having the same amount of a currency is same as having none of it!

No, trade exists to get things from one person to another precisely because they have different things.

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#199

Post by 21 »

apo wrote: post #188

The Bitcoin community has changed greatly over the years; from technophiles that could explain a Merkle tree in their sleep, to speculators driven by the desire for a quick profit & blockchain startups seeking billion dollar valuations led by people who don’t even know what a Merkle tree is. I'm not sure which version of history this guy was on, but it clearly hasn't been the one I followed. He's describing a past th…

I've been following bitcoin since 2012 and that is also my observation.

It was always dollar is worthless and bitcoin is going to replace it, and drugs and assassination markets will run in the open fueled by bitcoin, no taxes will be paid anymore, and government will be powerless to stop any of this.

Re: Bitcoin is a Cult

#200

Post by Keyframe »

smudgymcscmudge wrote: post #189
matthewwiese wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah! That is incredibly endearing. I've also had friends remark (more joking than serious) that if you happen to glance at a clock that reads 11:11 to make a wish because it's lucky. I have obsessive compulsive disorder, so unfortunately these cosmic peccadillos really throw my brain for a loop!

Read this comment, then checked my clock. It was 11:11. This will be a lucky day.

You digital people, you. On analog watch, if two hands (hours and minutes) overlap when you take a look, that means someone is thinking of you!
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