Bitcoin discussion and news

[mojo pixy]

stop blaming others for your short-comings.

Ah no there it is, the golden future of humanity: 'fuck you'.

If you want a picture of the future, picture a boot stamping on a human face - for ever.

 

[Storm Fox]

OK that's me done for now, we're way way too far down the rabbit hole, there are too many branches going deeper and I need some fresh air.


One thing, only then: I care for people with brain injuries and dementia. It's good for them that what wealth they have isn't only accessible via their memory because if it was they'd be pretty fucked. How in libertarian cryptopia will people with acquired long-term disabilities or brain injuries, whose assets are lost because they don’t recall their phrase, get cared for?

As well as those points. You either have to rely on an unregulated untrusted 3rd party to store your wallet or a hardware wallet which is just as likely to be seized (even if it's just so the border guard has somewhere to store his porn stash)or get corrupted.

Looking at the year-on-year price change in Etherium and the Ukrainian Hryvnia ETH has lost more value and banks are still processing those accounts.

Time and time again through human history when things are unregulated the rich get richer and the poor don't and the same is happening here.
Eth is going from fucking the environment to fucking the poorer investors with the move to PoS. This is being organised Off-chain, so even the organisation that enabled DAOs aren't even a DAO themselves. To do this they need to bring the large exchanges along with them as well. So it is the large businesses in the Eth space that are dictating terms, not the many more small investors and even though people can fork the chain, the money is going to go with these big players.

 

[q_w_e_r_t_y]

However they're doing it, they're wasting energy and calling it value.

Its not wasted, its turned into information. Information can be turned back into energy, bitcoin stores the energy put into the network in the form of information.

A decentralised, permissionless ledger does not necessarily produce a decentralisation of wealth and power. Without anything (like a society, for instance) to stop wealth from accumulating more wealth, the most likely outcome of such a system is extreme concentration of wealth and power, and indeed this is exactly what has happened with both bitcoin and ethereum - a few individuals holding huge stakes.

If you look at bitcoin (and eth, but I'm not going to argue that one, cos I think the merge might be significantly problematic), bitcoin has become progressively more decentralised over time.

Its primary barrier is the reliance on exchanges, where people "buy bitcoin" and actually get a promisory note for their fiat money rather than bitcoin itself, which is why everyone who understands crypto will drone on endlessly about why you need to get your bitcoin off exchanges and into a wallet that you control the private key for. Although exchanges are companies not individuals.

One thing, only then: I care for people with brain injuries and dementia. It's good for them that what wealth they have isn't only accessible via their memory because if it was they'd be pretty fucked. How in libertarian cryptopia will people with acquired long-term disabilities or brain injuries, whose assets are lost because they don’t recall their phrase, get cared for?

But you dont have to remember it. There are a zillion ways of securing a private key.
The point is that you can do this. So if I'm fleeing a warzone, and need to go through a checkpoint where any cash, valuables jewellery etc will be confiscated, by remembering 12 words in order I'm sorted.

As well as those points. You either have to rely on an unregulated untrusted 3rd party to store your wallet or a hardware wallet which is just as likely to be seized (even if it's just so the border guard has somewhere to store his porn stash)or get corrupted.

You dont need a third party or a hardware wallet, bitcoin was around long before the first hardware wallets were invented.
You dont have to rely on anyone at all. You just need the private key, thats it.
If you have the private key to a bitcoin address, you have the bitcoin in that address. Its really that simple.

Eth is going from fucking the environment to fucking the poorer investors with the move to PoS. This is being organised Off-chain, so even the organisation that enabled DAOs aren't even a DAO themselves. To do this they need to bring the large exchanges along with them as well. So it is the large businesses in the Eth space that are dictating terms, not the many more small investors and even though people can fork the chain, the money is going to go with these big players.

I have my doubts about the merge but, you're really misunderstanding the whole thing.

1. The merge can only happen on-chain. Yes, people can discuss it on forums, email threads, whatever, but if nothing happens onchain, nothing happens.
2. They dont need large exchanges to go along with them. Eth will fork into Eth(PoW) and Eth(PoS). Centralised exchanges will buy and sell both initially, then delist one of them if they feel that it is getting no tractions (as with Bitcoin/BitcoinCash/BitcoinSV) decentralised exchanges will pick a chain (or perhaps support both).
3. IDK what organisation you are talking about here (Ethereum Foundation?), there are lots of DAOs that enable DAOs (Moloch, Aragon, DaoHous), these are all DAOs.
4. which large businesses are you talking about here?

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Its not wasted, its turned into information. Information can be turned back into energy, bitcoin stores the energy put into the network in the form of information.

This is not a real thing that actually exists in any shape or form.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

If you look at bitcoin (and eth, but I'm not going to argue that one, cos I think the merge might be significantly problematic), bitcoin has become progressively more decentralised over time.

This study from a year ago suggests otherwise. A large amount of bitcoin is in just a few hands, and the researchers make the point that their estimates of the concentration of wealth are probably underestimates.

It suggests that the concentration of mining into a few hands increases when the price goes down. Makes sense - the largest operators are likely to the the most efficient and have the greatest reserves, and so stay in business for longer.

The concentration of miners is even more profound, data show. NBER found that the top 10% of miners control 90% of the Bitcoin mining capacity, and just 0.1% (about 50 miners) control 50% of mining capacity.

Such a high concentration could make the Bitcoin network vulnerable to a 51% attack, where a colluding set of miners or one miner is able to take control of a majority of the network. NBER found the concentration also decreases following sharp increases in the Bitcoin price, meaning the probability the network is vulnerable to a 51% attack is higher when Bitcoin’s price drops sharply.

“Our results suggest that despite the significant attention that Bitcoin has received over the last few years, the Bitcoin ecosystem is still dominated by large and concentrated players, be it large miners, Bitcoin holders or exchanges,” the researchers wrote. “This inherent concentration makes Bitcoin susceptible to systemic risk and also implies that the majority of the gains from further adoption are likely to fall disproportionately to a small set of participants.”

Just 0.1% Bitcoin miners control half of all mining capacity, according to NBER study

Research carried out by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

 

[Storm Fox]

Its not wasted, its turned into information. Information can be turned back into energy, bitcoin stores the energy put into the network in the form of information.

We did the maths a while back the conversion rate is terrible and on top of that, it is only a conjecture.

If you look at bitcoin (and eth, but I'm not going to argue that one, cos I think the merge might be significantly problematic), bitcoin has become progressively more decentralised over time.

Its primary barrier is the reliance on exchanges, where people "buy bitcoin" and actually get a promisory note for their fiat money rather than bitcoin itself, which is why everyone who understands crypto will drone on endlessly about why you need to get your bitcoin off exchanges and into a wallet that you control the private key for. Although exchanges are companies not individuals.


But you dont have to remember it. There are a zillion ways of securing a private key.
The point is that you can do this. So if I'm fleeing a warzone, and need to go through a checkpoint where any cash, valuables jewellery etc will be confiscated, by remembering 12 words in order I'm sorted.

You dont need a third party or a hardware wallet, bitcoin was around long before the first hardware wallets were invented.
You dont have to rely on anyone at all. You just need the private key, thats it.
If you have the private key to a bitcoin address, you have the bitcoin in that address. Its really that simple.


I have my doubts about the merge but, you're really misunderstanding the whole thing.

1. The merge can only happen on-chain. Yes, people can discuss it on forums, email threads, whatever, but if nothing happens onchain, nothing happens.

Ethereum Governance | ethereum.org

An introduction to how decisions about Ethereum are made.

ethereum.org

On-chain vs off-chain governance​

Blockchain technology allows for new governance capabilities, known as on-chain governance. On-chain governance is when proposed protocol changes are decided by a stakeholder vote, usually by holders of a governance token, and voting happens on the blockchain. With some forms of on-chain governance, the proposed protocol changes are already written in code and implemented automatically if the stakeholders approve the changes.

The opposite approach, off-chain governance, is where any protocol change decisions happen through an informal process of social discussion, which, if approved, would be implemented in code.

Ethereum governance happens off-chain with a wide variety of stakeholders involved in the process.

Whilst at the protocol level Ethereum governance is off-chain, many use cases built on top of Ethereum, such as DAOs, use on-chain governance.

2. They dont need large exchanges to go along with them. Eth will fork into Eth(PoW) and Eth(PoS). Centralised exchanges will buy and sell both initially, then delist one of them if they feel that it is getting no tractions (as with Bitcoin/BitcoinCash/BitcoinSV) decentralised exchanges will pick a chain (or perhaps support both).
3. IDK what organisation you are talking about here (Ethereum Foundation?), there are lots of DAOs that enable DAOs (Moloch, Aragon, DaoHous), these are all DAOs.

See point 1

4. which large businesses are you talking about here?

I can't find the webpage now, but it was related to the large exchanges are going to stop using PoW and starting to use PoS so the big players make the rules. The same with Etherium and Etherium Classic. Build a dodgy DAO, get hacked pretend it didn't happen.

 

[prunus]

Its not wasted, its turned into information. Information can be turned back into energy, bitcoin stores the energy put into the network in the form of information.

No, I think you're conflating 'information' as in the record of a transaction and 'information' as 'order' [ie departure from randomness] in a closed entropic system. One can in theory, and it seems just about in practice, extract useful* work from an ordered system by piggybacking on its natural tendency to disorder (similar to how one can float goods on a boat downstream by piggybacking on water's natural tendency to flow downhill). There is no way to do the same from a blockchain record, and not even in theory a way to recover the energy used globally to write it.

* another problematic word when removed carelessly from its scientific usage - for us 'useful' means doing something of use, whereas to physics useful just means can do something - however tiny or, well, useless.

 

[NoXion]

This is not a real thing that actually exists in any shape or form.

It's also got absolutely NOTHING to do with crypto. Furthermore, arXiV isn't a repository of peer-reveiewed literature, it's a pre-print site which means it's where papers are uploaded before review.

I also very strongly doubt that q_w_e_r_t_y really understands the paper in question. Perhaps they can dispell that notion by breaking down, in their own words, how it's actually relevant.

 

[kabbes]

To put it another way, as I understand it, the state of the information before it was arranged into a blockchain can be turned into energy just as “usefully” as it can be after it has been arranged into a blockchain. Because the ordering of the blockchain is not, from an entropic perspective, a particularly meaningful ordering.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

To put it another way, as I understand it, the state of the information before it was arranged into a blockchain can be turned into energy just as “usefully” as it can be after it has been arranged into a blockchain. Because the ordering of the blockchain is not, from an entropic perspective, a particularly meaningful ordering.

That is my understanding as well. At risk of tautology, to use the information, it has to be useful, as in the example of Maxwell's demon pumping heat. The demon not only identifies the high energy molecules (the information), it also has something useful to do with that information - sending them in one particular direction.

(The solution to the apparent paradox of Maxwell's demon is quite simple, btw. Maxwell's original formulation failed to take into account the energy the demon consumes - an observer needs energy to exist and observe.)

 

[Supine]

I suppose you could burn the servers to release blockchain energy. But that applies to any software/files, it isnt blockchain specific.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Cryptocurrencies can be transmitted. You know this, but you'r deliberatly being disengenous.
The private key to a wallet can be a small hardware wallet the size of a USB stick OR the ultimate portability of one's own wallet would be to simply memorise a 12 word phrase that is the backup of the wallet.

Sure. But eventually, you'll dig up the gold and the partisans will confiscate the fucking lot when you get to one of their checkpoints.
Crypto? See above, you'll sail past the partisan checkpoint because they don't know about the 12 words you've memorised. Then when you get to civilisation, you can access the crypto.

It means something similar to earning interest. There's loads of different ways to earn yield.

I endorse a technology which is freedom squared. Nothing fascist about that.

As for whether I believe in freedom, well the bloody thing is permissionless, can't be confiscated and is censorship resistant and you can't even bring yourself to say "Well, that sounds good ... but"

You lose your credibility when you lose objectivity and perspective.

I'm not saying you're an authoratarian who wants all powerful government dictating to the people what they can and can't do, with everyone reliant on the state, but you sure sound like one!

Freedom squared lol you're fucking nuts

 

[SpineyNorman]

All you can eat freedom!

 

[mojo pixy]

Freedom squared lol you're fucking nuts

10,000% freedom yeah

There are a zillion ways of securing a private key.

What is a zillion, exactly? How many zeroes? I bet there aren't even a zillion things on Earth but more importantly it's this kind of pointless hyperbole that gets really tedious. If there are 'a zillion' ways of securing a privte key there are a zillion ways to secure physical wealth, the smaller and lighter the zillioner.

But this is one tiny side-alley to the main track which is that cryptocurrencies do not now have nor ever will have, any real usefulness for most users other than for untraceable purchases / sales across borders. Beside that the speculation bubbles will continue, mainly blown up deliberately by groups deeply invested, in order to bleed a new wave of 'investors', some of whom will survive to help bleed the next wave. Revolutionary, man.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Just… fucking hell. The absolute state of these two.

 

[StakerOne]

OK that's me done for now, we're way way too far down the rabbit hole, there are too many branches going deeper and I need some fresh air.


One thing, only then: I care for people with brain injuries and dementia. It's good for them that what wealth they have isn't only accessible via their memory because if it was they'd be pretty fucked. How in libertarian cryptopia will people with acquired long-term disabilities or brain injuries, whose assets are lost because they don’t recall their phrase, get cared for?

If you the 12 words are a backup. It's a feature. You don't need to remember 12 words for everyday use.
There are ways to leave 3 sets of a partial backup with 3 different family and friends. In the event of you death it would take two of them to recover your funds but I woulsn trexxomend that for eye watering sums, you the kind of money that people murder each other for.
You can make vaults in which multiple people you trust would vote to release the funds.
Also there are social wallets that can use text messagess, Gmail and outlook to identify trustees.
To summarize, there are loads of options to stash crypto in a way that can be recovered.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Sure it's not 14 words?

 

[stdP]

Sure it's not 14 words?

There was some funny dude, Carl Georgin or something, who managed to sum up the state of this thread in only seven.

 

[StakerOne]

Sure it's not 14 words?

Protocols don't discriminate.

You however want the government to have full spectrum dominance and control over our lives.

Anti-monery laundering regulations exclude billions of people from the financial system, who are rich in melatonin but cash poor and for what? To frustrate about 1% of criminal market, to keep the status quo, to the exclusion of citizens in developing and marginalised countries

You cheer all that on, because out of the two of us, you're more likely to be a closet white nationalist, who wants to keep the status quo, with the likes of Sri Lanka and other developing countries to be debt slaves to the IMF.

Out of the two of us, you're supporing the side where the rich are the only ones who get a say, with an old German white man in the WEF coordinating the dystopian shit show of a dystopian one world government.

With public blockchains, people can do what the fuck they want and there's nothing you can do about it, suck it up!!!

 

[SpineyNorman]

Protocols don't discriminate.

The ones circulating in central and eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century sort of did a bit.

You however want the government to have full spectrum dominance and control over our lives.

Anti-monery laundering regulations exclude billions of people from the financial system, who are rich in melatonin but cash poor and for what? To frustrate about 1% of criminal market, to keep the status quo, to the exclusion of citizens in developing and marginalised countries

You cheer all that on, because out of the two of us, you're more likely to be a closet white nationalist, who wants to keep the status quo, with the likes of Sri Lanka and other developing countries to be debt slaves to the IMF.

Out of the two of us, you're supporing the side where the rich are the only ones who get a say, with an old German white man in the WEF coordinating the dystopian shit show of a dystopian one world government.

This sounds like great reset lunacy to me.

With public blockchains, people can do what the fuck they want and there's nothing you can do about it, suck it up!!!

You're a very silly boy.

 

[StakerOne]

The ones circulating in central and eastern Europe in the first half of the 20th century sort of did a bit.

Elaborate.

This sounds like great reset lunacy to me.

Search
The Great Reset

There is an urgent need for global stakeholders to cooperate in simultaneously managing the direct consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. To improve the state of the world, the World Economic Forum is starting The Great Reset initiative.

Anti-Democratic German white man:

Humanity had one of those in the former part of the 20th century.

These man and his organisation, clearly wants to "reset capitalism".

A good question to ask you is whether you're on his side or not?

 

[StakerOne]

Freedom squared lol you're fucking nuts

OK more then freedom squared.
Immutability and censorship resistant X permisionless X unconfiscatable.

 

[StakerOne]

Bitcoin price day Russia invaded: £28k
Bitcoin price today: £18k

During the early days after the invasion, various groups made a big deal about sending bitcoin to Ukraine, about how this was the revolutionary new way to send money into war zones.

Yours is a variation on that - a revolutionary new way to take money out of war zones.

Both of these look rather less attractive when the value of the thing plummets. Bear in mind also that the value of the pound has fallen in this period - the fall in the actual buying power of bitcoin is a little greater than its fall relative to the pound.

And you appear to suffer from the same delusion as qwerty that in some way the work done to operate the mechanism for token mining transfers itself into the token as some form of stored energy. Like a battery. Except that the tokens aren't batteries. It's magical thinking and it's utter nonsense. The reality is of course the exact opposite - the energy wasted in the mining is an energy debt that each token carries with it when you carry out an audit of the real-world effect cryptocurrencies are having. They are destroying value by wasting energy. If it weren't for this aspect, I would be much less bothered by the various nonsense pyramid schemes, but this kind of wanton destruction affects all of us and it needs to stop.

You are not taking on board a single fact you are being told.

If you are a refugee (or anyone else) and you don't like the short term volatility of bitcoin or ethereum, no matter.

You can simply stack up USD on the Ethereum network. I have told you and others many many times, over and over again, on Ethereum (and any other smart contract chain for that matter), that assets such as fiat currencies can be bought on sold on those public blockchains.

 

[StakerOne]

This is not a real thing that actually exists in any shape or form.

Why are you replying to comments? They are just digital 1's and 0's. They aren't real! /s

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Protocols don't discriminate.

You however want the government to have full spectrum dominance and control over our lives.

Anti-monery laundering regulations exclude billions of people from the financial system, who are rich in melatonin but cash poor and for what? To frustrate about 1% of criminal market, to keep the status quo, to the exclusion of citizens in developing and marginalised countries

You cheer all that on, because out of the two of us, you're more likely to be a closet white nationalist, who wants to keep the status quo, with the likes of Sri Lanka and other developing countries to be debt slaves to the IMF.

Out of the two of us, you're supporing the side where the rich are the only ones who get a say, with an old German white man in the WEF coordinating the dystopian shit show of a dystopian one world government.

With public blockchains, people can do what the fuck they want and there's nothing you can do about it, suck it up!!!

You're mixing a few things up, I think. You're not going to get anyone cheering on the WEF on here.

With functioning democratic processes, having a government with a broad spectrum of responsibilities is something that will get support on here. The obvious examples would be health care and education plus things like maintaining roads, enforcing environmental legislation, etc. And I'd like that to be extended to coverage of all resources that are essential but limited - a retaking of control of the commons from private hands. Being beholden to a private company that owns essential, limited resources isn't freedom.

So I won't speak for others, but I'm not a 'small state' rightist for the above reason. But backing a growth in state ownership doesn't necessarily imply a backing of an extension of government dominance or control over our lives. These are two separate things. So-called 'small states' can need to exercise high levels of control over people in order to maintain order and keep the profits rolling in for those who have stolen the commons from us. The greater the level of social injustice, the greater the need for control. Measure the sizes of the prison populations in the US and Russia to see that in action.

Your crypto-fantasies don't touch any of that. They're not only unworkable. They're beside the point.

 

[NoXion]

The irony of a crypto loonshitter calling us "closet white nationalists" when he's spewing the same conspiratwat "Great Reset" nonsense from the crowd that's absolutely shot through with alt-right manipulators.

 

[pbsmooth]

I've had to stick him on Ignore

 

[SpineyNorman]

Elaborate.

Learned elders of Zion.

Search
The Great Reset


Anti-Democratic German white man:

Humanity had one of those in the former part of the 20th century.

These man and his organisation, clearly wants to "reset capitalism".

A good question to ask you is whether you're on his side or not?

Fucking loon

 

[Smangus]

Pining for Dr Jazzz over here, just the hear some sense for a change. Sense squared that is ....

 

[StakerOne]

The irony of a crypto loonshitter calling us "closet white nationalists" when he's spewing the same conspiratwat "Great Reset" nonsense from the crowd that's absolutely shot through with alt-right manipulators.

You're not very big on logic are you?