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Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

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Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#371

Post by sparkie »

grumple wrote: post #266
sparkie wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but with monetary policy now in the hand of a select few individuals instead of governments Bitcoin's monetary policy is fixed. It is in nobody's hand, but everybody who decides to run a validating node. Monetary policy is controlled by central banks, which are privately owned. On paper, they're regulated by government, but in practice, politicians are easily bought, bribed or have their hands tied. The monetary po…

> It is in nobody's hand, but everybody who decides to run a validating node. Those nodes are literally owned by people. The wealthier the person, the more nodes they can run. Which is exactly how crypto took off; drug cartels mined it, dealt with it, making money both on selling the coins to buyers for cash and on selling the product to the buyers. Large organizations and wealthy people, criminal or not, can and do…

Miners are not able to adjust the monetary policy of bitcoin, because attempting to do so causes a hard-fork, which would have them mining a chain which has no economic use in the real world.

The chain which everybody is using in the real world is the only one that matters. Miners are forced to mine blocks which adhere to the consensus of economic users. If some people run a million "Sybil" nodes, it makes no difference, because those sybils do not have any economic use, they're effectively ignored.

Bitcoin is not a democracy. There is a network effect which is now far too large and diverse for any small group to sway, and with time, the protocol will become further ossified to the point where it will literally be impossible to enforce changes, because there is no way to coordinate them globally to so many users.

The only control a majority of miners can have is that they can withhold transactions from the chain by orphaning any block they don't want to include. That is, they can cause denial-of-service for as long as they hold the majority of hash-power, but in doing so, they withhold revenue from themselves by failing to include paying transactions into blocks.

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#372

Post by [deleted] »

rg111 wrote: post #329
nemothekid wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s used to be widely accepted that all light travelled through a luminiferous aether that encompasses the entire universe. Then we learned about special relativity. Societies learn and adapt.

I will point out that this comment is factually wrong. The concept of luminiferous aether was discarded- not because of the discovery of Theory of Relativity, but becauae of the Michelson and Morley Experiment [0]. It is often joked about in High School and college Freshman Physics circles- Michelson received Nobel Prize in Physics [1] for a literally failed experiment. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson–Mo…

[deleted]

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#373

Post by sparkie »

ketzu wrote: post #357
sparkie wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but with monetary policy now in the hand of a select few individuals instead of governments Bitcoin's monetary policy is fixed. It is in nobody's hand, but everybody who decides to run a validating node. Monetary policy is controlled by central banks, which are privately owned. On paper, they're regulated by government, but in practice, politicians are easily bought, bribed or have their hands tied. The monetary po…

> Bitcoin's monetary policy is fixed. It is in nobody's hand, but everybody who decides to run a validating node. My understanding is that bitcoins monetary policy can be changed through code, something a very small group is allowed to do in practice, even though theoretically it could be forked easily. Previous attempts at democratication of decisions have been prevented by various questionable tactics and by measur…

> My understanding is that bitcoins monetary policy can be changed through code, something a very small group is allowed to do in practice, even though theoretically it could be forked easily. Previous attempts at democratication of decisions have been prevented by various questionable tactics and by measures of share of computer power, something also held by very few people. Maybe this changed since I stopped paying attention to it, though.

The monetary policy cannot be changed by modifying the code. If you modify the code of your own node, you simply create a different set of rules to the network, which might lead you to eventually end up on a forked chain which has no economic use.

The monetary policy is not only in the code, but it is in the network. Every user who validates blocks enforces the monetary policy. No miners are able to dive into another user's machine and update the code which their nodes are running. Bitcoin is not a democracy. It isn't most-votes-wins. If somebody were to propose adjusting the monetary policy, they need overwhelming consensus of all bitcoin users. Something which will get increasingly more difficult with passing time and adoption growth.

Changing the code to adjust the bitcoin issuance rate is effectively creating a shitcoin which integrates bitcoin's historical ledger into it. That's simple to do. Now you have the insurmountable task of convincing all bitcoin users to switch away from using the bitcoin they know and love to using your new shitcoin. This has been attempted and failed (Bitcoin Cash).

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#374

Post by sennight »

ben-schaaf wrote: post #164
sennight wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must not be paying attention then, because many detractors have made the claim repeatedly. It would be funny if it wasn't clearly the result of a predictable feedback loop. I'm really not interested in skylining one particular individual, but if you are genuinely interested in understanding what is happening: pick any one of the many tech writers appearing in the multitude of obituary compilations, then pull up t…

> As far as it being a "ponzi scheme", a pump and dump, a tulip mania, a beanie-baby fad, etc... Just look at the time scale for a big clue as to why such an argument is laughable. To look at why this counter argument is laughable you simply have to do a bit of research into actual ponzi schemes: * Bernie Madoff ran a ponzi scheme for ~18-28 years * Reed Slatkin, 15 years * Dona Branca, 14 years * Tenka Ikka no Kai,…

I know enough about the Madoff point to know that it can't be argued in good faith. Not unless you are willing to describe everyone who ever got looked into by the SEC, and then not prosecuted, as a scammer engaged in a scheme. Because that time scale requires the inclusion of investigations that found no fraud. Now if you are willing to expand your definition of fraud to include the whole of Wall St activity - then I definitely won't argue otherwise, sure - bitcoin is just like that except less concentrated and more transparent.

The larger point being that any plausible definition for fraud applied to crypto actually undermines the legitimacy of the modern financial system to a much greater degree.

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#375

Post by sparkie »

lxgr wrote: post #268
sparkie wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority of miner revenue is a subsidy given via inflation. It's effectively paid for by all bitcoin holders, and is decoupled from usage and fees. Fewer people transacting is going to make no difference. Miners aren't going to suddenly think "Oh, perhaps I should mine less now that these clowns at Wikimedia aren't taking donations."

This is the case now, but every halving shifts that proportion towards fees.

Correct, but miners are operating on the assumption of revenue now, and not 8 or 12 years down the line when transaction fees eventually exceed the block subsidy.

By that time, the network effect will be so large that Wikimedia will not be able to just ignore it to pacify a small group of whining overgrown children.

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#376

Post by sennight »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #277
sennight wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must not be paying attention then, because many detractors have made the claim repeatedly. It would be funny if it wasn't clearly the result of a predictable feedback loop. I'm really not interested in skylining one particular individual, but if you are genuinely interested in understanding what is happening: pick any one of the many tech writers appearing in the multitude of obituary compilations, then pull up t…

None of those have any claims about short-term BTC value. > https://99bitcoins.com/category/bitcoin-obituaries/2022/

lol, yeah - Newsweek's claims about the Internet in the 90s had nothing to do with the short-term value... they'll likely be proven right in a thousand years! Take that, peanut-gallery - it was a fad after all.

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#377

Post by danlugo92 »

LosWochosWeek wrote: post #365
danlugo92 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Crypto has been on a 10+ year long quest for “adoption” 2018: Only criminals use it 2020: Only fringe websites use it 2022: Only small countries use it 2024: ????

Must be nice living in a fantasy. First of all, the things you've listed are not building not "one level above the former". The question should be: Are more criminals using crypto now than in 2018? Are more website using using crypo now than in 2020? For the former: I definitely can't the buy the shit that I used to be able to with the mainstream coins. So I'm not sure how that is going to play out. The market defini…

Why are you trying to win an argument against something that was quite literally invented to benefit you, me and everyone else.

I'm not trying to win an argument either, I only respond with witty remarks such as grandparent (in the vein of you'll see) to people like you.

I'm not going to argue any of your points.

Just get on with the times man, this is the future.

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#379

Post by ea550ff70a »

thehappypm wrote: post #344
ea550ff70a wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> behind as a means for illegal activities which are less than 1% of the yearly transaction volume according to Chainalysis lol

Right, because criminals are so easy to analyze

Not as easy as googling for a restaurant, but definitely doable with the right tools.

Re: Wikipedia RFC to stop accepting cryptocurrencies passes by majority vote

#380

Post by ea550ff70a »

robonerd wrote: post #324
ea550ff70a wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you earnestly believe their begging ads, you must be naive. Give me a break. wow you are such an enlightened individual aren't you? Give me a break.

If you don't believe me, go read the financial documents they publish. This topic has been beaten to death innumerable times on this forum and others. They're sitting on a huge pile of cash, far more than they need to operate their already massively bloated organization for many years to come. They earnestly do not need your funny money.

> They're sitting on a huge pile of cash, far more than they need to operate their already massively bloated organization for many years to come.

This is the most ignorant comment I've ever read on an org that relies on donations. Cash runs out my friend (shit happens, operations change and scale, bad decisions occur). It's not like they are a for profit business that can rely on other methods.

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