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PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

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Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#51

Post by loceng »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #25

I have no interest in cryptocurrencies and I don’t own a single cent in any of them. But the continual barrage of hostile comments in every single HN article looks mostly like groupthink to me. Clearly cryptocurrency will continue to play a growing role in the future. Denying this seems simply delusional.

Hostile comments in which direction?

It's an interesting perspective too when you realize:

- people who have counter-narrative to the Bitcoin propaganda aren't financially incentivized to be negative about it, and obviously their commentary will be negative

- people who own Bitcoin are financially incentivized to speak positively about it, while also suppressing those with a counter-narrative

That Bitcoin has a future that isn't going to lead to regulatory capture trying to cause the rest of society to adopt it, so they can realize the unnecessary wealth transfer from later adopters to earlier adopters, isn't so clear - that is if you've actually thought through it.

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#52

Post by ceilingcorner »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #50
ceilingcorner wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of things have environmental problems. I don’t understand why Bitcoin mining gets singled out for it. If the benefits of using it outweigh the downsides, then I don’t see the issue.

The other wastes of electricity are also problems we should address. The difference is that while regulations and tech advancements are improving power efficiency everywhere else, proof of work systems incentive ever-increasing wastes of electricity. What other system is designed to get increasingly less efficient over time, while paying people to be inefficient, as a core principle of how it operates? Cryptocurrency…

But if the sociopolitical benefits of cryptocurrency are so great, then the electric cost is worth it.

It just seems like groupthink to me. Where are the armies of people against air conditioning or disposable medical tools? Both are pretty wasteful yet clearly worth it.

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#53

Post by ahelwer »

trident5000 wrote: post #49
ahelwer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so it isn't 3 tx/sec. It's a bit more than that. Not an order of magnitude more, or two orders of magnitude, or the five orders of magnitude more to have the throughput required for everyone on earth to be able to transact once per day, say to buy lunch. You talk about BTC as a settlement layer. A settlement layer for what? The lightning network? Laughable. BTC might have a future as a store of value like gold,…

Just pointing out that you dont know what you're talking about and/or blatantly lying for an underlying bias/goal.

According to this chart BTC oscillates between 3 and 5 transactions per second: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/charts/transactions-per-secon...

What is my blatant lie?

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#54

Post by trident5000 »

ahelwer wrote: post #53
trident5000 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just pointing out that you dont know what you're talking about and/or blatantly lying for an underlying bias/goal.

According to this chart BTC oscillates between 3 and 5 transactions per second: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/charts/transactions-per-secon... What is my blatant lie?

https://www.blockchain.com/charts/transactions-per-second

The maximum is about 8. But who cares at the end of the day. Settlement will be a rare event and needs to be for the reasons I just mentioned. Its the only system that works for decentralization and to deal with the bloating issue.

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#56

Post by xur17 »

ahelwer wrote: post #47
trident5000 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, 3 tx/sec is just incorrect and easily disproved by dividing the total transactions per day (readily available online) by the total seconds in a day. Also the btc main layer is a major settlement layer. It doesnt even compare to ACH or wires in frequency. The fees going up if its tried to be used in that way will force it, and that is a good thing. A chain cannot grow so fast with high tx so that it…

Okay, so it isn't 3 tx/sec. It's a bit more than that. Not an order of magnitude more, or two orders of magnitude, or the five orders of magnitude more to have the throughput required for everyone on earth to be able to transact once per day, say to buy lunch. You talk about BTC as a settlement layer. A settlement layer for what? The lightning network? Laughable. BTC might have a future as a store of value like gold,…

> Okay, so it isn't 3 tx/sec. It's a bit more than that. Not an order of magnitude more, or two orders of magnitude, or the five orders of magnitude more to have the throughput required for everyone on earth to be able to transact once per day, say to buy lunch.

> You talk about BTC as a settlement layer. A settlement layer for what? The lightning network? Laughable.

Personal opinion: I think the part you are missing here is that lots of transactions shouldn't be occurring on the base layer. Remember that every transaction that occurs is stored in perpetuity on every node in the Bitcoin network. It should be expensive for a transaction like that to occur, and we should create incentives that limit the creation of these as much as possible.

Why is it "laughable" for the lightning network to use BTC as a settlement layer? I think it's perfectly reasonable to have second and third layer networks that sit on top of Bitcoin acting as transaction networks, while the main BTC chain is used for larger transactions or to settle large batches of transactions from other layers.

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#57

Post by rawtxapp »

ahelwer wrote: post #47
trident5000 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, 3 tx/sec is just incorrect and easily disproved by dividing the total transactions per day (readily available online) by the total seconds in a day. Also the btc main layer is a major settlement layer. It doesnt even compare to ACH or wires in frequency. The fees going up if its tried to be used in that way will force it, and that is a good thing. A chain cannot grow so fast with high tx so that it…

Okay, so it isn't 3 tx/sec. It's a bit more than that. Not an order of magnitude more, or two orders of magnitude, or the five orders of magnitude more to have the throughput required for everyone on earth to be able to transact once per day, say to buy lunch. You talk about BTC as a settlement layer. A settlement layer for what? The lightning network? Laughable. BTC might have a future as a store of value like gold,…

> The lightning network? Laughable.

Why is it laughable?

The whole world doesn't need every little transaction to be permanently recorded on the public blockchain.

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#58

Post by rawtxapp »

loceng wrote: post #51
ceilingcorner wrote: post #25

I have no interest in cryptocurrencies and I don’t own a single cent in any of them. But the continual barrage of hostile comments in every single HN article looks mostly like groupthink to me. Clearly cryptocurrency will continue to play a growing role in the future. Denying this seems simply delusional.

Hostile comments in which direction? It's an interesting perspective too when you realize: - people who have counter-narrative to the Bitcoin propaganda aren't financially incentivized to be negative about it, and obviously their commentary will be negative - people who own Bitcoin are financially incentivized to speak positively about it, while also suppressing those with a counter-narrative That Bitcoin has a futur…

> people who have counter-narrative to the Bitcoin propaganda aren't financially incentivized to be negative about it

They are incentivized to be negative about it, because whether you like it or not, not buying into it has real opportunity costs. If it ends up becoming the global currency, then you'd be left behind.

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#59

Post by PragmaticPulp »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #52
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other wastes of electricity are also problems we should address. The difference is that while regulations and tech advancements are improving power efficiency everywhere else, proof of work systems incentive ever-increasing wastes of electricity. What other system is designed to get increasingly less efficient over time, while paying people to be inefficient, as a core principle of how it operates? Cryptocurrency…

But if the sociopolitical benefits of cryptocurrency are so great, then the electric cost is worth it. It just seems like groupthink to me. Where are the armies of people against air conditioning or disposable medical tools? Both are pretty wasteful yet clearly worth it.

The armies against HVAC come in the form of ever-increasing insulation and efficiency requirements. Modern construction methods are far more energy efficient than even a few decades ago and they’re increasing all the time. New construction is remarkably efficient from a heating and cooling perspective.

Contrast with Bitcoin, where the inefficiency increases with each new miner that comes online, all without producing any more transactions per second. Ironically, the mining power only seems to become more centralized over time, which was the opposite of what was intended by going to proof of work.

Re: PayPal Bids $500M to Acquire Crypto Startup Curv

#60

Post by G3rn0ti »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #33
ceilingcorner wrote: post #25

I have no interest in cryptocurrencies and I don’t own a single cent in any of them. But the continual barrage of hostile comments in every single HN article looks mostly like groupthink to me. Clearly cryptocurrency will continue to play a growing role in the future. Denying this seems simply delusional.

Cryptocurrency isn’t going away, but it’s dishonest to pretend that it’s not without major problems such as the energy consumption issues. The popular narrative has also become almost indistinguishable from a pump scheme, where we’re all supposed to buy and home (never sell) until we’re all rich. If cryptocurrency becomes commonplace, it likely won’t look anything like our current crypto infrastructure. The problem i…

> major problems such as the energy consumption issues

You don’t seem to know much about crypto currencies to name energy usage as a real problem of crypto.

While Bitcoin will keep it’s “proof of work” approach to mining in the foreseeable future, there are now quite a few alternative crypto currencies in circulation employing “proof of stake” that do not suffer from large computer power usage e.g. Cardano, Solana or Algorand just to name a few. Furthermore, Ethereum, the second largest Crypto currency in circulation, plans to migrate to “proof of stake” by 2022. Stakes are already online.

So please inform yourself before stating that Crypto will destroy the planet. No one is forcing you to like Bitcoin but you need to keep in mind this project has been invented over 13 years ago. It would have been impossible for the creator to anticipate its popularity and fix all its technical issues including energy consumption.

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