I understand how Distributed Ledger Technology works at a very low level. I wasn't a fan of the lightening network until I read "Mastering the Lightening Network"
https://github.com/lnbook/lnbook
When I realized that its actually just bitcoin - using multi-sig wallets with partially signed transactions to enable instant/cheap/scalable transactions (solving bitcoins 3 biggest problems) - that's when I came to my conclusion that Bitcoin is the future of money.
I have no doubt that there's "fuckery" in the system. There will be with anything that has value. But at its core, bitcoin is quite simple. Public ledger, self-hosted wallet, permission less transactions, quasi-private, unalterable supply - it has more features of sound money than anything else in existence.
"It's already under their control" is a pretty bold statement. I wouldn't ask you to prove it, but could you at least offer some evidence that helped you form that conclusion?
"It's already under their control" is a pretty bold statement. I wouldn't ask you to prove it, but could you at least offer some evidence that helped you form that conclusion?
Absolutely. "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws."
Modern adaptation for crypto: "Give me control of a crypto's asset value and I care not who runs the network."
it's the same principle with bitcoin and any cryptocurrency. What people fail to understand is that when you tie a technology to economic factors (if the price of the coin goes up, the cost to communicate/use the network goes up as well) you're fundamentally handing the control of the network to those who control money. "Money" in this instance is tied to the global economic system.
Let's take an example. We've got a crypto which is part of a larger decentralized communications platform. All is well. It only takes 0.000341 of cryptoX to send a message. That's only 0.0000472 USD!
The network is thriving, everyone is having a great time and it's all secure and shit. "Uh-oh!" says the elite. "We've got a problem here! This network is too secure and effective! Let's fuck it up." They proceed to buy up large amounts of the crypto and do their typical currency manipulation thing. Now it's still 0.000341 of cryptoX to send a message on the network, but that 0.0000472 USD is now 0.21 USD. Meaning your application, which communicates 100 times per minute on the network, now costs you $21/minute to run, instead of $0.00472/minute.
Cryptos serve a very specific purpose. What they do, they do well. Their strength is in financial applications. A DLT is very valuable tool. But the problem is (and this is intentional by the elite) people want to use cryptos/DLT's as the answer to ALL problems related to decentralized/distributed tech. Look at something like IPFS w/IPFS-cluster (not filecoin). You've got a P2P solution which is highly scalable and requires zero crypto interation. Bandwidth is the budgeting tool. Not a crypto. And dammit if it doesn't work fucking beautifully.
TL;DR: Cryptos serve a specific, financial purpose. They are NOT the solution to "web3.0"/decentralized internet. Cryptos are being pushed as THE solution because they give ultimate control to the global economic system and thus the global elite.
They proceed to buy up large amounts of the crypto and do their typical currency manipulation thing.
What does that mean? If they buy up large amounts of crypto, that makes crypto rise in value. It might go from $40K USD to 60K USD. Is this something you think is bad for the crypto community? Cause I wouldn't mine... If they then "dump" they might "crash" the price from 60K to 40K USD. This would make the "cost in USD to send a transaction in BTC" drop from $.21USD back to $.00000472 USD, which would be good?
It doesn't really matter how they manipuate USD, because they're only manipulating USD. 1 BTC still equals 1 BTC. Our tie to USD is what allows them to fuck with all of these things. They can (and do, independent of Bitcoin) manipulate USD through fractional lending, bond buying, etc. etc. etc. They can't manipulate bitcoin. They can only manipuluate the BTC/USD relationship through their control of USD. When I step back and look at that, I say, "How can I get away from them fucking with me? Oh, USD is the problem. I want to get away from that."
Good point. Something that concerns me with Bitcoin is that anyone can see how much is in my account. Would love to see privacy coins become more of the norm.
Except USD is the medium by which you acquire your crypto. If you control a majority of the crypto asset then you control who gets to have, and who gets to have not. Thus, you're able to artificially block people out of the network.
You've missed my point about how the price of the crypto increasing causes the cost of communication to increae along with it. Hence, it's not viable as the basis of a decentralized communication infrastructure.
I believe you're speaking about crypto in the purely financial sense. I am talking about the intended use of DLT's as the backbone of future decentralized infrastructure.
As a financial asset, it's good for the price to go up. If you're trying to use the crypto network for anything else, it's very very bad.
The problem I have with digital currencies? The "digital" part
The problem I have with bitcoin? The fact that, to this day, nobody has come forward to claim "paternity"... There isn't one major modern invention in that situation, even tetris has an author
And why is that? I mean it's too late, no need to off the guy the tech is everywhere, so there must be a reason, which is? You tell me
Nobody knows for sure what the motivation is outside of attempting to determine motive by reading Satoshi's old posts on the message boards.
What I've seen speculated, which makes sense to me, is that he/she/they didn't want a central authority that could be corrupted.
For instance, if Satoshi was well known and public - his/her/their opinion would carry a disproportionate amount of weight in decision making (expand block size - for instance). If he/she/they were coerced into taking a detrimental stance, that could influence the community into making detrimental changes.
I'm also of the opinion that Satoshi was Hal Finny, who is no longer with us, which would explain why none of the coins thought to be owned by "Satoshi" have ever moved.
I remember reading about the possibility that bitcoin, or more specifically the block-chain, was created by an AI. The rest of the hypothesis (which explained why an AI would do that) was also interesting. Not saying I believe or don't, but it was an interesting idea.
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