bitcoininthevp wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:30 am
Im not sure how CBDCs compete for market share. See:
I said "CBDC and regulations" together on purpose. It's less a matter of technical implementation and more about the broad adoption of a system that provides utility. All of the things you mentioned are technical positives in theory, but that people will still "keep BTCs around" when the dominant medium of exchange and denomination is in CBDCs makes usage of BTC nothing more than a novelty. Regulations are also something that sways public opinion greatly and six years of catch up for governments is
a lot of wasted time.
bitcoininthevp wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:30 am
(First "Lightning" not "Lightening" we arent discussing pregnancy I dont believe
)
Hold on, this isn't a maternity forum?
bitcoininthevp wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:30 am
Im not totally clear on the criticism here. There are many businesses working with the Lightning Network (LN) in different ways.
Yes...and? The criticism was that a graphic splattered with a bunch of different names of companies to imply "serious adoption" is ridiculous. And Lyn, a very smart person, knows that most people won't spend even a second verifying this adoption, but that they
will take an infographic by a well regarded economic commentator as proof in itself.
It was just one example.
bitcoininthevp wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:30 am
There are different ways to use LN. You can have private channels or public channels. You can have custodial channels or channels you manage yourself. And combinations of each as well. Seems good to have options for different users technical proficiency and use cases, no?
Regarding the hub and spoke model of LN, that really isnt true. LN isnt designed as a hub a spoke model from a technical perspective. There are reasons that it could be advantageous to use a well connected LN node to route payments through and hub and spokes can and will develop, but these are totally opt-in, and Im pointing out that isnt inherent to LN's tech.
Yes there are many ways to us LN. I have no qualms about what it's trying to achieve (I'm even a fan), but I do have serious reservation about its slow development and the void it created which allowed "other solutions" to come in and provide a quick market solutions that greatly hinder all the supposed fundamental aspects of Bitcoin (e.g. p2p, permissionlessness, decentralization, etc.). Refer to my arguments implying "if the mainchain is "perfect" but everyone uses a layer 2 that is much worse than a slightly less ideal Layer 1, you're still worse off.)
Side note, lightening works just as well on a bigger block blockchain, potentially even better...
bitcoininthevp wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:30 am
I believe you are conflating Strike's business
using Lightning with Lightning itself and they are only somewhat related.
Strike (
https://strike.me/en/) is using LN as the rails for sending money internationally. So instead of doing a traditional wire and currency conversion, Strike uses BTC/LN. For example, if you have USD and want to send to someone's EUR account, Strike would take your USD, buy BTC on an exchange, send BTC via LN to (potentially) another exchange and sell the BTC for EUR and credit the users account with EUR, ~instantly. If Mallers has history in trading, you could see how it would be useful in Strikes business.
I'm not. See my point above. Keep this in mind: "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they aren't."
That LN can be used totally free of Strike and other services is true (and great), but when you're using money and connections (some tied to legacy finance, the thing which many BTC maximalists claim to want to "dismantle") to onboard people (or dare I say, whole countries?) to use your custodial solutions, it does go against the implied narrative.
I have nothing against Jack, but the fact that the hypocrisy of this adoption is simply swept under the rug is not the Bitcoin I was a part of.
bitcoininthevp wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:30 am
It is funny, two people can look at LN developments, improvements (like taproot) to Bitcoin, and BTC "market cap" growing and becoming less volatile and person 1 says "seems like great progress" and another person says "moving goal posts". I assume if there were no innovation going on youd just say "look bitcoin is stagnant"?
Correct, I said the narrative was moving goal posts and i'm completely justified in saying so.
It is
a fact that many of Blockstream's top employees have consistently said "BTC isn't meant for small transactions", "those who can't afford it shouldn't use it" etc. This was, clearly, an attack to justify the deficiencies of the BTC chain. Now that there's a (still incomplete) solution for smaller payments, suddenly the power of providing a solution to the unbanked and poor is a top priority and BTC takes on the role of "the true moral answer". Other times, BTC maximalists berated anyone who found value in NFTs and smart contracts and now, with miniscule improvements, champion these advances as "gamechangers".
If there was no innovation going on I would definitely say "look bitcoin is stagnant." That's a given...wouldn't you?
That doesn't undermine my still very legitimate criticism that it's still
relatively stagnant and that it compensates by constantly referring to an ever-changing narrative. In theory it does everything, in practice it does nothing.
bitcoininthevp wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:30 am
This sort of comment from someone knowledgable like you blows my mind. Im sure you’ve seen me (re)(re)(re)post this before but:
I've seen you post it and I gave my arguments there. I'm not against crypto...there are simply better alternatives.
To imply there's 1 coin to rule them all and even more brazenly, that it's BTC is simply incorrect.
I won't let me financial considerations sway my rationality.
bitcoininthevp wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:30 am
Now,
you might not like some of these and in some cases there are better alternatives, but the fact is this
is what people are using Bitcoin for.
Bitcoin isn't for daily payments and buying your Starbucks (yet?). (Where I think your valued uses cases reside)
It's not that I don't like them. It's that they aren't necessarily true and yes, in some cases there are better alternatives.
I think Lyn saying "Bitcoin is gold and a tech stock combined" is an ironically perfect analogy to what i'm saying. We've been in an outlier tech-fueled bull run of a decade partially propped up by funny money and insane fiscal policy. Apparently the fact that BTC has done so well during this period is "entirely about its properties as a SoV monetary network." Uh, what?
So it's like a tech stock. But when things get bad remember that it's the greatest wealth preserver the world has ever seen...
Okay.
I'll refer people back to Gavin's article.
bitcoininthevp wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:30 am
I am not a big fan of any of the sidechains currently so I wont take a position of defending them here.
On the scaling comments, I think things like
joinpools,
channel factories, combined with
splicing/submarine swaps,
statechains could have potential as well (with trade offs).
I would like to see more discussion from Bitcoin devs about BIP300/Drivechains, personally.
They won't discuss it until they have to. For a very simple reason:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
But when the time demands it, I can assure you there will another narrative shift.
vincent_c wrote: ↑Tue Nov 30, 2021 11:09 am
Shame on me for prematurely getting excited thinking someone actually wants to engage in a real discussion.
It's so frustrating that people on here are so opinionated but do not want to discuss things because they have an opinion and are not interested in anything else. So many times those opinions are actually based on things that are not factual too.
It already takes a lot of time and energy to keep up with technology that if we have disinterested or resistive discussion rather than thoughtful and constructive discourse then it is too much of an energy drain to participate.
If this is directed at me I'm actually shocked. I've spent all this time explaining, providing sources to back up claims, etc. and if your takeaway is that people "do not want to discuss things because they have an opinion and are not interested in anything else" or that "those opinions are actually based on things that are not factual" then you're out of your depth.
I've not only provided criticisms even held by BTC maximalists, but also solutions provided by BTC maximalists.
Disinterested and resistive? As opposed to thoughtful and constructive? You can just say you're mainly trying to justify your present/future financial investment. It would save you a lot of words.
As for me, i'll continue discussing monetary theory, relevant technical implementations and their shortcomings, government/company/individual influence to sway public opinion, etc.
If that's not to your liking you're welcome to drown all of that out as you continue your search for investment justification. But don't put the blame on me if you're not getting the answers you like.
