Bitcoin and other crypto-The CR thread

[wildcat09 29349]

41 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

These people are such fucking dorks. 

Fascists always have been and always will be cosplaying loser dipshits.

No offense intended to non-fascists who just like to do fun and harmless cosplay.

[956 Worldwide 34705]

1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

Fascists always have been and always will be cosplaying loser dipshits.

No offense intended to non-fascists who just like to do fun and harmless cosplay.

I’m reminded of this great short essay about how to spot a possible future Nazi.  Men who are actually cool and confident and self-assured do not go in for fashy/totalitarian shit.  

Anyway, sorry for going CR in the CR Bitcoin thread but damn, these coins and NFTs have the worst fucking people promoting them. 

https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/

[wildcat09 29349]

25 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I’m reminded of this great short essay about how to spot a possible future Nazi.  Men who are actually cool and confident and self-assured do not go in for fashy/totalitarian shit.  

Anyway, sorry for going CR in the CR Bitcoin thread but damn, these coins and NFTs have the worst fucking people promoting them. 

https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/

I love incepting good posters with good opinions.

[pyrohornIII 4814]

The guy who used to be a pretty decent friend who went full Q used to talk about Crypto a lot.  It was the foolproof way to secure immediate and solid wealth.  He got into about the same time he started into Q.    So we drifted apart and I watched now and then from afar.  Figured if he ever got rid of his mom's hand me down suburban and got a Hummer or something, then maybe I'd look into Crypto.    He is extremely bright when it comes to computers and interwebs things.  So if anyone I know can figure out Crypto it'll be him.  

We ran into him a month ago in a Thai place we all enjoy.  It's too small to avoid each other, so we joined him.   I tested the political waters: 

"Lance, I still can't wrap my head around you bragging about marching in the Juneteenth parade and then the next year you are the county's biggest Trump supporter.  How do you reconcile that?"

"Oh man, Trump's not a racist.  The only reason you think that is because MSM tells you too."

I didn't think to bring up the Central Park 5.   He'd have shot it down with something else anyway.  After a long story on his mom nearly dying of COVID but saving her with ivermectin, we just ate pretty much in silence, at least politically.  We left and he got into his old suburban.  

So no crypto for me yet.

 

[RDCanecutter 26411]

On 3/17/2022 at 4:26 PM, elfenix said:

if gold is such a great investment then why are all these guys trying to sell theirs to me

Ooh Ooh I know:

They are trying to sell you $1,000 worth of gold clouded in mystery so that you don't notice they marked it up to $2,000. Then they buy some more and sell it to you at double once again, until the nurses take away your phone at the home. Then they sell it at double to a new guy who is impressed with the grandeur and mystique.

This also builds up a group of people who can either admit they fucked up, or else join a cult-like fervor. Fervors are fun.

Funny thing is, if you really need $1,000 worth of gold, the way jewelers or factories or regular coin collectors might, it's pretty simple, about like buying a sack of potatoes. Expensive potatoes. Next time you hear a gold ad, substitute "potatoes" for "gold" to get a good feel for the smoke and mirrors.

But this is a crypto thread so probably none of that applies.

Edited March 18, 2022 by RDCanecutter
comrade is punished for apostrophe wastage

[RDCanecutter 26411]

7 hours ago, pyrohornIII said:

We left and he got into his old suburban.  

^^^strong competition for

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

[workswithseed 2101]

48 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

^^^strong competition for

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Yikes

[RDCanecutter 26411]

20 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

Yikes

Supposedly Ernest Hemingway's entry in some Shortest Story competition.

People say it's not his. Hard to tell. His style is simple. Easy to imitate. Easier still for a man who has never looked the bull in the eye.

[Bullneck 19078]

I'm manufacturing Cryto Gold in my basement.  I have two 2,000 amp blockchain smelters working overtime.  Sometimes I sprinkle it on my BBQ. I eat all I can, and sell the rest.  

 

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by Bullneck

[RDCanecutter 26411]

16 hours ago, Bullneck said:

I'm manufacturing Cryto Gold in my basement.  I have two 2,000 amp blockchain smelters working overtime.  Sometimes I sprinkle it on my BBQ. I eat all I can, and sell the rest.  

 

 

I know you are saving all your poop, because Crypto Gold doesn't crypto tarnish or crypto decay. You probably already know to make NFTs of your turds so you can sell them for extra, like those lemurs that poop out coffee beans or some shit.

[Bullneck 19078]

1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

I know you are saving all your poop, because Crypto Gold doesn't crypto tarnish or crypto decay. You probably already know to make NFTs of your turds so you can sell them for extra, like those lemurs that poop out coffee beans or some shit.

Who had the idea of "Hey, we'll just wash 'em off and sell them.  No one will know."

[RDCanecutter 26411]

3 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

Who had the idea of "Hey, we'll just wash 'em off and sell them.  No one will know."

Somebody who has kids.

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

On 3/17/2022 at 3:59 PM, wildcat09 said:

Oh cool, blatantly white supremacist propaganda. Good shit, dude.

 

On 3/17/2022 at 4:03 PM, Brisketexan said:

Jesus.

Fucking.

Christ.

Seriously, what the actual fuck?

 

On 3/17/2022 at 4:07 PM, hayden_horn said:

 

yeah, so i gave him three days off for that. next one is a permaban.

i also left it up so people could see what a racist shitbag of a poster that is.

Well in my defense, not that any of you care, I thought the frog thing was just a shitposting thing like CaptainAnt. I didn’t think anything of it, certainly not that it was related to white supremacy. Given that the author of the piece is a black guy I’m guessing that it’s not as widely known or assumed as y’all may think. Unfortunately it’s attached to both the tweet and the article itself so I’ll have to take it all down. 
 

Hard to summarize such a long piece succinctly, but given that freezing of FX reserves is now on the table going forward, countries will be looking for ways to diversify their reserves. It’s most pressing for the countries with current account surpluses. 
 

Those surpluses have to be invested. They’ve typically been in government bonds. Mostly USTs but also euro bonds, Japanese etc. The big one is obviously China and what do they do. The author believes they will start buying more gold and other storable commodities while we will have to fund more of our own deficit spending via money printing due to decreased buying of our bonds over time. As a result other countries currencies will get stronger/harder while ours will get weaker. Again there’s a lot to digest in it, but I understand why people will skip clicking the link. 

[YChang 3443]

Welcome to the green movement Crypto-fans! 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/technology/bitcoin-miners-environment-crypto.html?smid=url-share

 

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

8 hours ago, YChang said:

Welcome to the green movement Crypto-fans! 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/technology/bitcoin-miners-environment-crypto.html?smid=url-share

 

The main input for bitcoin mining is electricity cost. If and when green energy sources are cheap enough they are utilized. 
 

The point about each bitcoin transaction requiring a certain amount of energy is factually incorrect. 

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

On 3/14/2022 at 12:30 PM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

 

Re: CBDC

As a replacement for cash, I don't necessarily see a problem with this since a country has a right to create their own fiat currency. But the backing of it will just be the faith in the country and not actual reserves like with USDC, Dai or Tether (in theory.)

btw, I was curious about USDC reserves so I checked. A year ago it was just under 10B USD. Today's it's 52B. It's absorbing a lot of wealth.

The problem is the centralized programmability. Fortunately it appears DeSantis gets it. 
 

 

[bernorange 8359]

22 hours ago, YChang said:

Welcome to the green movement Crypto-fans

I wonder if anyone has ever studied the power consumption/cost of the banking system - atms, atm network infrastructure, ach (electronic check) network, eft network, SWIFT, etc. and how it compares to crypto energy consumption/cost.

Edited March 23, 2022 by bernorange

[Captainant 27654]

Just now, bernorange said:

I wonder if anyone has ever studied the power consumption/cost of the banking system - atms, atm network infrastructure, ach (electronic check) network, eft network, etc. and how it compares to crypto energy consumption/cost.

Per transaction, it's considerably lower than cryptocurrency. The long video essay posted a few pages ago broke it down, I'd be happy to dig it up for you.

Crypto is the opposite of power efficient - by design, it throws away 99.99999% of the work done by the electricity

[bernorange 8359]

3 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Per transaction, ...

I prefer written sources over videos.  I can't dedicate time and attention to watching long videos.

That said, beaking down power consumption by transaction seems silly.  If a computer/server/router/etc. is dedicated to running a network, it's consuming power 24/7 regardless of how many transactions are occurring.  

 

[Captainant 27654]

Just now, bernorange said:

I prefer written sources over videos.  I can't dedicate time and attention to watching long videos.

That said, beaking down power consumption by transaction seems silly.  If a computer/server/router/etc. is dedicated to running a network, it's consuming power 24/7 regardless of how many transactions are occurring.  

I did a quick Google to find a source (since you can't apparently?) And found a decent Nasdaq article (and the underlying research piece) from a year ago examining only bitcoins consumption. There's many more cryptos than just BTC that make up the crypto ecosystem too.

This article is interesting because it's authored by Bitcoin Magazine, and it's making all the same arguments as y'all as to WHY it's good, but it makes the same mistake y'all do. 

This image effectively summarizes the research and an answer to your question. The key consideration is the massive volume and activity of the banking system, whereas BTC can iterate only once every 10 minutes. By design. And it uses 50% the power of the ENTIRE GLOBAL BANKING SYSTEM just to process a batch of transactions every 10 minutes.

And then there's the rest of the zoo of cryptocurrencies, all with similarly inefficient characteristics.

Analyzing by atomic action is what you do if you care about scalability. Trust me, tech doesn't work if you don't plan for scalability - nevermind that it becomes hideously expensive to do business if a system doesn't scale well.

By discounting the per transaction power consumption, you're also ignoring the single worst flaw of BTC and ETH. The transaction fees that you pay to incentivize miners to process YOUR transaction over another. In the banking system, it's a fraction of a cent to sent a dollar. In BTC, it would currently cost me an average of $1.75 to send that dollar. And it will take a fucking while to confirm the transaction on the blockchain because you normally wait for two blocks to ensure you get the funds to your wallet

[bernorange 8359]

Thanks.  I was posting from my phone earlier and not near a computer (and I don't do any internets work on my phone).

I hope to review the study when I get some time.  I'm interested in what their assumptions and methodology was.

From what I've read in the past, Bitcoin is the most inefficient of all the cryptos and by a large margin (several orders of magnitude in some [most?] cases).  I don't think you can really extrapolate/estimate the total crypto space energy or per transaction energy cost for the whole crypto space based just upon an analysis of Bitcoin.

[Captainant 27654]

1 minute ago, bernorange said:

I don't think you can really extrapolate/estimate the total crypto space energy or per transaction energy cost for the whole crypto space based just upon an analysis of Bitcoin.

I agree that Bitcoin is probably the worst case to examine since it's the oldest and least technologically advanced crypto - but as elaborated on at length, BTC is also the gold standard in the crypto space. It's the reserve currency that all other cryptos are measured against for exchange rates. It's what underpins EVERY other cryptos value and utility. Not to mention it's the largest network by a country mile.

The main problem is the utility of the transactions being done. Have you ever tried to buy anything with BTC? Directly, as in you transfer BTC from your wallet (not an exchange or side chain) to your vendors wallet? I have - hell, the mic I gave Immamac a few years ago for the surly podcast was bought with BTC via tiger direct back in the Bitcoin Black Friday days - along with another GPU and some other tech stuff. Takes damn near a fucking half hour man. And if your transaction is never confirmed, you just wasted half an hour waiting for it to confirm, and get to deal with customer support to unfuck it.

I've gone down the crypto rabbit hole, I implemented a fork of BTC back in UTCS undergrad as a side project, I mined a couple of BTC on my Radeon 7970's, the whole nine yards. It's a cool technology, but the utility is horribad compared to current infrastructure and systems, and the risks the cryptos writ large aim to address (man in the middle, double spend, etc) aren't really a factor in actuality.

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

53 minutes ago, bernorange said:

I wonder if anyone has ever studied the power consumption/cost of the banking system - atms, atm network infrastructure, ach (electronic check) network, eft network, SWIFT, etc. and how it compares to crypto energy consumption/cost.

Or as another example could we run the numbers on the carbon footprint of maintaining the petrodollar?

 

55 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Per transaction, it's considerably lower than cryptocurrency. The long video essay posted a few pages ago broke it down, I'd be happy to dig it up for you.

Crypto is the opposite of power efficient - by design, it throws away 99.99999% of the work done by the electricity

It’s an incorrect framing of the energy used to secure the bitcoin network. The energy used is for finding blocks. It has no connection to how many transactions there are. It’s analogous to assigning the energy needed to extract gold to every gold transaction thereafter. It requires energy to mine gold, relatively little to transact it. There’s also the fact that layers built on top of the settlement layer exponentially increase the amount transactions performed and these analyses do not account for that. 
 

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/02/08/what-bloomberg-gets-wrong-about-bitcoins-climate-footprint/
 

Spoiler

And not only can transactions be very large, but they can direct value to a number of recipients all at once. The largest-ever transaction in terms of payments contained 13,107 outputs. Under current constraints, a Bitcoin transaction could theoretically contain up to 32,256 outputs. And of course, layered or sidechain approaches which propose new trust models like Lightning, Liquid, RSK, and Stacks introduce the potential to batch thousands of transactions and settle them on the base layer. A single Bitcoin transaction can settle millions of lightning payments.

 

[Captainant 27654]

1 minute ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

Or as another example could we run the numbers on the carbon footprint of maintaining the petrodollar?

 

It’s an incorrect framing of the energy used to secure the bitcoin network. The energy used is for finding blocks. It has no connection to how many transactions there are. It’s analogous to assigning the energy needed to extract gold to every gold transaction thereafter. It requires energy to mine gold, relatively little to transact it. There’s also the fact that layers built on top of the settlement layer exponentially increase the amount transactions performed and these analyses do not account for that. 
 

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/02/08/what-bloomberg-gets-wrong-about-bitcoins-climate-footprint/
 

  Reveal hidden contents

And not only can transactions be very large, but they can direct value to a number of recipients all at once. The largest-ever transaction in terms of payments contained 13,107 outputs. Under current constraints, a Bitcoin transaction could theoretically contain up to 32,256 outputs. And of course, layered or sidechain approaches which propose new trust models like Lightning, Liquid, RSK, and Stacks introduce the potential to batch thousands of transactions and settle them on the base layer. A single Bitcoin transaction can settle millions of lightning payments.

 

Bruh. Your own source explains the theoretical maximum # of transactions BTC can handle in a block - about 32,000. Every 10 minutes. That's all ya get.

Unless you go off and do a side chain, but then you're relying on a centralized authority that's TOTALLY not a bank to validate your transactions and keep your books and pwooooomise to not rugpull you. Which is just the current system with more steps and fees, and less protection under law.

 

And if you'd like to argue that maintaining the Petrodollar is bad for the environment, you'll get no disagreement from me lol. However unlike Bitcoin, the Petrodollar actually has societal benefits and real utility that provide some justification for the cost in carbon. As opposed to tracking who owns this specific link to a shitty doodle of a cat-ape.

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

2 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Bruh. Your own source explains the theoretical maximum # of transactions BTC can handle in a block - about 32,000. Every 10 minutes. That's all ya get.

Unless you go off and do a side chain, but then you're relying on a centralized authority that's TOTALLY not a bank to validate your transactions and keep your books and pwooooomise to not rugpull you. Which is just the current system with more steps and fees, and less protection under law.

 

And if you'd like to argue that maintaining the Petrodollar is bad for the environment, you'll get no disagreement from me lol. However unlike Bitcoin, the Petrodollar actually has societal benefits and real utility that provide some justification for the cost in carbon. As opposed to tracking who owns this specific link to a shitty doodle of a cat-ape.

Bruh you’re wrong. Transactions contain inputs and outputs, or utxos. Many inputs can be put into one transaction. Many transactions are put in a block.  One transaction does not equal one block. 
 

13 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I agree that Bitcoin is probably the worst case to examine since it's the oldest and least technologically advanced crypto - but as elaborated on at length, BTC is also the gold standard in the crypto space. It's the reserve currency that all other cryptos are measured against for exchange rates. It's what underpins EVERY other cryptos value and utility. Not to mention it's the largest network by a country mile.

The main problem is the utility of the transactions being done. Have you ever tried to buy anything with BTC? Directly, as in you transfer BTC from your wallet (not an exchange or side chain) to your vendors wallet? I have - hell, the mic I gave Immamac a few years ago for the surly podcast was bought with BTC via tiger direct back in the Bitcoin Black Friday days - along with another GPU and some other tech stuff. Takes damn near a fucking half hour man. And if your transaction is never confirmed, you just wasted half an hour waiting for it to confirm, and get to deal with customer support to unfuck it.

I've gone down the crypto rabbit hole, I implemented a fork of BTC back in UTCS undergrad as a side project, I mined a couple of BTC on my Radeon 7970's, the whole nine yards. It's a cool technology, but the utility is horribad compared to current infrastructure and systems, and the risks the cryptos writ large aim to address (man in the middle, double spend, etc) aren't really a factor in actuality.

It’s like you’re stuck in the past or something. Your FUD is outdated. 
 

So you did a BTC transaction a few years ago? Probably not Lightning network enabled. It’s a game changer as far as user experience. 

[Captainant 27654]

2 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

Bruh you’re wrong. Transactions contain inputs and outputs, or utxos. Many inputs can be put into one transaction. Many transactions are put in a block.  One transaction does not equal one block. 
 

It’s like you’re stuck in the past or something. Your FUD is outdated. 
 

So you did a BTC transaction a few years ago? Probably not Lightning network enabled. It’s a game changer as far as user experience. 

Lot to unpack here - I'll do my best to honestly address each of your points:

 

Bitcoin's blockchain at a technological level has a theoretical maximum number of transactions at around 7 transactions per second. Transactions are compiled as many inputs (along with the output of the previous block) into the current block. The block is computed until a valid output is found by a miner and then broadcast to the rest of the network. Computing that block is 99.9999999999999999999999999999% wasted work, by definition and design. 

I'm not stuck in the past - I'm stuck in reality where I'm honest with myself and have first hand, hands-on experience with cryptocurrency at a nuts and bolts, protocol level.

Lightning is just a sidechain, a third party (totally not a bank amirite) that you extend trust to in order to expedite transactions.

In software/programming terms, instead of committing an explicit value to the chain, it commits a pointer to another sidechain. At that point, it's no longer bitcoin, no longer decentralized, no longer trustless, and is missing THE defining feature that pages ago you claimed was what imbues BTC with its intrinsic value.

 

Because if you're just fine with extending trust to a third party to process your transaction, why are you using BTC in the first place? Economically and ecologically, it's a horrible alternative to existing means and methods. 

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

Lot to unpack here - I'll do my best to honestly address each of your points:

 

Bitcoin's blockchain at a technological level has a theoretical maximum number of transactions at around 7 transactions per second. Transactions are compiled as many inputs (along with the output of the previous block) into the current block. The block is computed until a valid output is found by a miner and then broadcast to the rest of the network. Computing that block is 99.9999999999999999999999999999% wasted work, by definition and design. 

I'm not stuck in the past - I'm stuck in reality where I'm honest with myself and have first hand, hands-on experience with cryptocurrency at a nuts and bolts, protocol level.

Lightning is just a sidechain, a third party (totally not a bank amirite) that you extend trust to in order to expedite transactions.

In software/programming terms, instead of committing an explicit value to the chain, it commits a pointer to another sidechain. At that point, it's no longer bitcoin, no longer decentralized, no longer trustless, and is missing THE defining feature that pages ago you claimed was what imbues BTC with its intrinsic value.

 

Because if you're just fine with extending trust to a third party to process your transaction, why are you using BTC in the first place? Economically and ecologically, it's a horrible alternative to existing means and methods. 

For having experience at a nuts and bolts protocol level, you seem to misstate or misunderstand some basic things.

The Lightning network is not a side chain. Maybe you’re confusing it with Liquid? It doesn’t have its own blocks. It’s a permissionless routing network built on top of the existing bitcoin blockchain. Two users can open a channel between each other, that is broadcast to the main chain, then it remains open processing unlimited transactions until the channel is closed. Then that is broadcast to the blockchain.

Since it is a permissionless network, any company can build on it or access it. The level of trust you give up is up to you. There are non custodial wallets, meaning you can have total control of you coins at all times. 
 

Here’s some links  

https://messari.io/resource/lightning-network

 

For users, a few manageable trade-offs exist which allow Lightning payments to be instant and extremely low-cost. Namely, Lightning users need a server with high uptime, a secure hot wallet, and must continuously backup their Lightning data. With these precautions, Lightning shares the trustless security and monetary scarcity properties of the core Bitcoin protocol.

 

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/muun-wallet/id1482037683
 

[Captainant 27654]

And you are intentionally getting yourself wrapped around the axle on terminology like "side-chain" when perhaps I would have been more accurate to say "off-chain". Regardless it's still shifting from a decentralized and trustless system to a centralized, off-chain ledger that both parties form a trust around.

As I said earlier - it's violating the core design principle (and selling point according to your prior posts) of cryptocurrency which is a distributed and immutable ledger by changing a discreet value on the blockchain to be simply a pointer to another value (in a similar pattern to NFT's). With lightning, it's simply a side-channel to aggregate many transactions into one final update to the actual source of record - the block chain. But the actual update to the source of record - the BTC blockchain - is still constrained if everyone is using their own lightning side channel. It's the same problem as before, just with more complexity. 

That is, unless you instead decide to aggregate all the lightning side channels into a single clearing house and centralize things in the name of efficiency and scalability. But then you're just building the banking system again and giving third parties your trust, which cuts to the core of your entire philosophical argument for using BTC.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Captainant

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

1 hour ago, Captainant said:

And you are intentionally getting yourself wrapped around the axle on terminology like "side-chain" when perhaps I would have been more accurate to say "off-chain". Regardless it's still shifting from a decentralized and trustless system to a centralized, off-chain ledger that both parties form a trust around.

As I said earlier - it's violating the core design principle (and selling point according to your prior posts) of cryptocurrency which is a distributed and immutable ledger by changing a discreet value on the blockchain to be simply a pointer to another value (in a similar pattern to NFT's). With lightning, it's simply a side-channel to aggregate many transactions into one final update to the actual source of record - the block chain. But the actual update to the source of record - the BTC blockchain - is still constrained if everyone is using their own lightning side channel. It's the same problem as before, just with more complexity. 

That is, unless you instead decide to aggregate all the lightning side channels into a single clearing house and centralize things in the name of efficiency and scalability. But then you're just building the banking system again and giving third parties your trust, which cuts to the core of your entire philosophical argument for using BTC.

It’s a scaling solution. It’s how you get to higher potential transaction numbers while allowing final, immutable settlement on the base layer. Anyone can send an on chain transaction anytime they want. For larger amounts you would want to do it that way. 

As to your bolded, how is two parties sending coins peer to peer, that are in their custody, over lightning involving a centralized ledger?
 

 

[Captainant 27654]

4 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

As to your bolded, how is two parties sending coins peer to peer, that are in their custody, over lightning involving a centralized ledger?

This is not the usecase that lightning was made for. Lightning was made to be a secondary ledger - almost like a common bank account that only a couple people can transact against. Rather than broadcasting each and every minor transaction against that ledger, you use the lightning protocol to separately track each microtransaction and then only broadcast the final state after you're done with your many small transactions. That means (if you're not using a centralized exchange or 3rd party infrastructure) you're setting up individual lightning transactions with each and every entity you want to do business with. 

...

You're really telling me that Joe Average will go through that trouble? Or are they more likely to just go to coinbase or crypto.com and use their not-a-bank banking system to speed up their transactions, thereby centralizing your decentralized crypto? Because what we're describing is exactly how BTC Cash and BTC Classic  other forks of BTC came into being after disagreements off-chain could not be reconciled on-chain. And yes yes yes MuH sMaRt CoNtRaCt will magically fix everything because code is law and we humans never write bad code that has unintended behaviors!

My point is that scalability - the main benefit - of the lightning protocol only happens when you centralize the transactions. Otherwise, you have only created a one-off payment system for your specific business relationship with that specific entity. Which doesn't increase aggregate throughput of the blockchain. It's just adding complexity and reliance on 3rd party systems to paper over material scalability issues with the protocol.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20395]

On 3/17/2022 at 4:21 PM, Judge Roybeanbag said:

So what’s up with bitcoin and the Fox News crowd?  It seems all the rage along with horse paste now.

I noticed the same correlation a long time ago between Fox news watchers and beanie babies, leading me to suspect that crypto = electronic beanie babies. 

[TurkeyChew 383]

Since this is CR, read an interesting article about how El Salvador's gimmicky bitcoin political gambit is failing. I'll try to find it and post if anyone cares or has followed the young president who was trying to differentiate a nothing-burger country in Central America to be a somebody. Can't blame him for making the big bet, but doesn't look like the populace is interested.

[Captainant 27654]

On 3/23/2022 at 1:41 PM, TurkeyChew said:

Since this is CR, read an interesting article about how El Salvador's gimmicky bitcoin political gambit is failing. I'll try to find it and post if anyone cares or has followed the young president who was trying to differentiate a nothing-burger country in Central America to be a somebody. Can't blame him for making the big bet, but doesn't look like the populace is interested.

1) lmao classic chrispy to not post a link.

2) inb4 y'all pivot to the latest web3.0 innovation QFS! 

 

 

[TurkeyChew 383]

22 minutes ago, Captainant said:

1) lmao classic chrispy to not post a link.

2) inb4 y'all pivot to the latest web3.0 innovation QFS! 

 

 

lmao forgot about coming back here to post the link (seriously, did you think I made this up and didn't read an article about this?): https://restofworld.org/2022/el-salvador-bitcoin/

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

22 minutes ago, Captainant said:

1) lmao classic chrispy to not post a link.

2) inb4 y'all pivot to the latest web3.0 innovation QFS! 

 

 

I denounce pretty much all other crypto projects outside of bitcoin. They’re fun for people to speculate on, but a lot of very scammy marketing and not gonna help people in the way they need right now and the next few years. 

[Serak The Preparer 3431]

12 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

I denounce pretty much all other crypto projects outside of bitcoin. They’re fun for people to speculate on, but a lot of very scammy marketing and not gonna help people in the way they need right now and the next few years. 

So in your defense of crypto's energy usage you made a point that bitcoin is not the only crypto. I'm glad all of the scammy ones are at least energy efficient, so they've got that going for them.

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake

It’s pretty obvious why a lot of big banks and govts will try to push proof of Stake. It’s not because of the environment.  

[Serak The Preparer 3431]

55 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

Proof of Work vs Proof of Stake

It’s pretty obvious why a lot of big banks and govts will try to push proof of Stake. It’s not because of the environment.  

Is the suggestion that Twitter code had remained unchanged for a year, and is now changing because Musk bought into it? It seems laughable to me to suggest that the Twitter code base hasn't changed. I have no idea if they push daily updates, weekly, monthly, etc., but there is no way that it was a static monolith. That comparison makes no sense at all.

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

29 minutes ago, Serak The Preparer said:

Is the suggestion that Twitter code had remained unchanged for a year, and is now changing because Musk bought into it? It seems laughable to me to suggest that the Twitter code base hasn't changed. I have no idea if they push daily updates, weekly, monthly, etc., but there is no way that it was a static monolith. That comparison makes no sense at all.

Change the code is referencing a recent ad push by some bitcoin haters to “change the code” for environmental reasons and go away from Proof of Work. That’s not how it works though.

 

But Elon can buy enough Twitter stock that material changes will be made pretty quickly. The same thing would be possible in Proof of Stake crypto networks. 

[elfenix 34230]

evidence that elon wants to change the bitcoin coding?

evidence that twitter doesn't make material changes?

Edited April 5, 2022 by elfenix

[Neonmoon 38129]

every time IV bumps this thread, I immediately think of this scene

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

1 hour ago, elfenix said:

evidence that elon wants to change the bitcoin coding?

It doesn’t matter if he wants to. He can’t. 
 

1 hour ago, elfenix said:

 

evidence that twitter doesn't make material changes?

I’m sure they do. Elon is already making waves though. 
 

I know this seems like a trivial detail to a non user, but it’s been hotly debated on Twitter for a long time. 
 

Here’s Elon a couple weeks ago. He’s not becoming the largest shareholder and joining the board to add an edit button. 
 

But back to the point of this thread, these kind of actions dictated by oligarchs or other orgs are not possible with bitcoin like potentially with other chains. 
 

 

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

 

[Bullneck 19078]

Does this come as a surprise to you?

Researchers from The Queensland University of Technology surveyed 556 participants who identified as crypto investors and found they showed signs of the ‘dark tetrad’. In psychology, ‘dark tetrad’ refers to someone who displays narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

According to 10 News, lead researcher of the study and senior lecturer at the university Dr Di Wang said that digital currency fanatics share many concerning personality traits, making it easier for them to exploit people. Dr Wang also identified two prevalent reasons why cryptocurrency attracts users, the first idea being the ‘appeal’ of high-risk rewards.

In his article that Wang published alongside Dr Brett Martin and Dr Jun Yao, they wrote: “We identified two main areas of appeal. First, the high risks and high potential returns of crypto trading make it attractive to the kind of people who like gambling.”

They also said the second reason was that crypto is not monitored by traditional lawmakers, alluring many ‘dark tetrad’ personalities as they distrust the government

[Bullneck 19078]

On 4/11/2022 at 10:09 AM, Immaculate Vibes said:

 

Great news, huh?  Some dipshit politician who fathered a politician even more stupid and looney than himself still wants to destroy whatever he can of our democracy.  

[Neonmoon 38129]

16 minutes ago, Bullneck said:

Great news, huh?  Some dipshit politician who fathered a politician even more stupid and looney than himself still wants to destroy whatever he can of our democracy.  

IV will continue to post anything and everything to further division. It doesn’t matter the subject. 

[F250 28767]

1 hour ago, Bullneck said:

Does this come as a surprise to you?

Researchers from The Queensland University of Technology surveyed 556 participants who identified as crypto investors and found they showed signs of the ‘dark tetrad’. In psychology, ‘dark tetrad’ refers to someone who displays narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

According to 10 News, lead researcher of the study and senior lecturer at the university Dr Di Wang said that digital currency fanatics share many concerning personality traits, making it easier for them to exploit people. Dr Wang also identified two prevalent reasons why cryptocurrency attracts users, the first idea being the ‘appeal’ of high-risk rewards.

In his article that Wang published alongside Dr Brett Martin and Dr Jun Yao, they wrote: “We identified two main areas of appeal. First, the high risks and high potential returns of crypto trading make it attractive to the kind of people who like gambling.”

They also said the second reason was that crypto is not monitored by traditional lawmakers, alluring many ‘dark tetrad’ personalities as they distrust the government

Now do stock brokers, lawyers, salesmen and politicians.

 

[Bullneck 19078]

29 minutes ago, F250 said:

Now do stock brokers, lawyers, salesmen and politicians.

 

Other threads for those guys.

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

2 hours ago, Bullneck said:

Does this come as a surprise to you?

Researchers from The Queensland University of Technology surveyed 556 participants who identified as crypto investors and found they showed signs of the ‘dark tetrad’. In psychology, ‘dark tetrad’ refers to someone who displays narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

According to 10 News, lead researcher of the study and senior lecturer at the university Dr Di Wang said that digital currency fanatics share many concerning personality traits, making it easier for them to exploit people. Dr Wang also identified two prevalent reasons why cryptocurrency attracts users, the first idea being the ‘appeal’ of high-risk rewards.

In his article that Wang published alongside Dr Brett Martin and Dr Jun Yao, they wrote: “We identified two main areas of appeal. First, the high risks and high potential returns of crypto trading make it attractive to the kind of people who like gambling.”

They also said the second reason was that crypto is not monitored by traditional lawmakers, alluring many ‘dark tetrad’ personalities as they distrust the government

 

2 hours ago, Bullneck said:

Great news, huh?  Some dipshit politician who fathered a politician even more stupid and looney than himself still wants to destroy whatever he can of our democracy.  

Yep old Ron, waging war on our democracy from his garage studio. 
 

1 hour ago, Neonmoon said:

IV will continue to post anything and everything to further division. It doesn’t matter the subject. 

Didn’t realize Ron Paul was so divisive. 
 

55 minutes ago, F250 said:

Now do stock brokers, lawyers, salesmen and politicians.

 

Don’t forget doctors. 

[Goredho 17399]

11 hours ago, Bullneck said:

Does this come as a surprise to you?

Researchers from The Queensland University of Technology surveyed 556 participants who identified as crypto investors and found they showed signs of the ‘dark tetrad’. In psychology, ‘dark tetrad’ refers to someone who displays narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

According to 10 News, lead researcher of the study and senior lecturer at the university Dr Di Wang said that digital currency fanatics share many concerning personality traits, making it easier for them to exploit people. Dr Wang also identified two prevalent reasons why cryptocurrency attracts users, the first idea being the ‘appeal’ of high-risk rewards.

In his article that Wang published alongside Dr Brett Martin and Dr Jun Yao, they wrote: “We identified two main areas of appeal. First, the high risks and high potential returns of crypto trading make it attractive to the kind of people who like gambling.”

They also said the second reason was that crypto is not monitored by traditional lawmakers, alluring many ‘dark tetrad’ personalities as they distrust the government

Now do the Surly posters who identify as crypto investors...