6 ms·

I hope the price tanks so that BTC will be primarily used for its intended purpose, like it was in the Silk Road days.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
I’m far more selfish, I would just like to hear amateur investors stop talking about it. I’d really like for people to stop suggesting a database (blockchain) will fix any problem, even when problems are explicitly not database issues. I think we’re well past either of those things being possibilities though.
- jackric 6y ago
  > I’d really like for people to stop suggesting a database (blockchain) will fix any problem I'm developing a blockchain to block these people using sustainable AI. Want to get in on the initial coin offering?
- metalliqaz 6y ago
  cryptocurrency proponents often discuss how manipulated and encumbered with politics normal fiat currencies are, but they don't seem to mind the obvious nation-state-level manipulation of BTC's price shrug
- justapassenger 6y ago
  If Silicon Valley was filmed today, their disrupt parody would include “we’re making a world a better place by using blockchain for database”, instead of Paxos (https://youtu.be/B8C5sjjhsso https://youtu.be/B8C5sjjhsso)
llcoolv 6y ago
Silk road days are gone. Ulbrich got disproportionately punished + convicted on very very dubious hired gun charges. Since then a similar approach was applied on almost every darknet marketplace around, resulting in that these days with BTC at ATH the darknet marketplaces are at an all-time crisis (even though legacy media is still pushing the "criminal's money" narrative :/). Not to mention that all the major mining pools have voluntarily chosen to collaborate with governments on censoring the blockchain, etc. Let's hope it is just a side-step given that BTC with censorship/regulation is just a breaking of a glass-wall away from perfectly free monetary unit. P.S. If you are looking to get no-KYC truly anonymous BTC you'd better live in a top-10 city (e.g. Prague), because in a top-100 city (e.g. Sofia) it is not quite straight-forward and takes tons of waiting/selecting.
- lftl 6y ago
  I haven't heard about the mining pools collaborating on censorship. Do you have any sources I can read up on?
  - llcoolv 6y ago
    Sure, here is a great article by Juraj Bednar (close the slushpool people): https://juraj.bednar.io/en/blog-en/2020/11/12/how-could-regulators-successfully-introduce-bitcoin-censorship-and-other-dystopias/ https://juraj.bednar.io/en/blog-en/2020/11/12/how-could-regu... BTW Juraj is a great source on anything crypto-related. And from what I now there has been no resistance from the pools so far (at least the EU/US-based ones, though in Chine it is probably even more difficult.)
    - lftl 6y ago
      This seems to nicely lay out how the censorship may happen and be implemented. But it only briefly touches on one small example of censorship currently taking place. Is there anything else to support this portion of your previous post? > Not to mention that all the major mining pools have voluntarily chosen to collaborate with governments on censoring the blockchain, etc.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Ulbrich got [...] convicted on very very dubious hired gun charges. No, he didn't. He got convicted of money laundering, conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics. Evidence related to the alleged murder for hire scheme was presented at trial and was weighed in the sentencing phase in terms of what sentence he got within the range authorized for the crimes he was convicted of, but he was not tried, convicted, or sentenced for “hired gun charges”.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- ggreer 6y ago
goda90 6y ago
Maybe we can focus on crypto that doesn't have such high electricity demands for that purpose.
- centimeter 6y ago
  Maybe when someone invents a “free” consensus scheme that actually competes with PoW’s security properties. There are plenty of reasons to suspect this isn’t possible.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    If proof of work is necessary, how much work does proof of work need to do fundamentally? Is there any reason a cryptocurrency can’t be made that uses very little energy?
    - centimeter 6y ago
      The structure of your comment suggests you don't grasp the fundamental point of proof-of-work, which is precisely to prove that a certain amount of (physical) resources were expended. > Is there any reason a cryptocurrency can’t be made that uses very little energy? As far as proof-of-work is concerned, if you don't use enough energy, you are vulnerable to 51% attacks. As far as other schemes (e.g. proof-of-stake) are concerned - none of them have the same desirable security properties as PoW.
- llcoolv 6y ago
  Given that the current world exchange currency requires 43 aircraft carriers and 6,185 nuclear warheads (+ all the support they need, thousands of very worhtwhile human lives a year, etc), any electricity consumption seems a small problem. Not to mention that the oil-to-electricity transition would require ridiculous investments anyway.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    Is the hypothesis that the U.S. switching to Bitcoin as legal tender would let it liquidate its military?
solosoyokaze 6y ago
It's primary purpose is a store of value that can't be manipulated by the government. It's succeeding wildly at this. There's a lot of extreme Bitcoin hate on this site, but BTC is helping a ton of people right now, as evidenced by the rapidly increasing demand and money flowing into Bitcoin investment.
- u10 6y ago
  Instead it's being manipulated by a few large whales.
  - solosoyokaze 6y ago
    For a decade? There really is no alternative for where to park your money in 2021 unless you want to buy real-estate or stocks both of which come with their own massive set of problems.
    - justapassenger 6y ago
      So virtual asset, with multiple price swings, much wider than real estate during housing crisis, is the place to park money?
      - solosoyokaze 6y ago
        The trend has very consistently been for BTC to increase in value (helped by USD decreasing in value). There are only "wide" price swings at very high resolution.
      - oarsinsync 6y ago
        What's the major downside of parking 1% of your money in a volatile asset that may or may not yield great returns? (Am long BTC)
- darkstar999 6y ago
  It was never meant to be a value store. First sentence of the whitepaper: "A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution".
ashtonkem 6y ago
Bitcoin is an awful currency for illegal transactions. A permanent public ledger waiting for eventual de-anonymization sounds like a prosecutors dream. I never understood why people described Bitcoin as an anonymous currency, it really isn’t. Arguably physical currency is much, much more anonymous than Bitcoin.
- ragnese 6y ago
  A valid point and definitely something people should be aware of. It's disingenuous to call Bitcoin anonymous. On the other hand, "anonymous" is to some degree like computer "security". Secure against what threat? Anonymous to who? Paper money is certainly traceable to some degree. Plus it almost requires you to meet in person, where the other person in the transaction can see your physical appearance (or your proxy/accomplice's). Both mediums of exchange have similar risk profiles, but they are a little bit different. Not sure that I'd argue one is better than the other, generally. Depends on the use case.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  It's anonymous in the sense that I an use a craigslist-laptop bought with cash at coffeeshop wifi -- paying for that coffee in cash too -- and not have it traced back to me, John Doe. Plus there isn't any way to order 500 hits of acid from 3 timezones away in-person without a lot of issues. Lotta ID checks at the airport, and lots of cameras on highways. If something goes weird with the darknet shipment I walk, feign ignorance, burn the laptop. If I'm carrying drugs on a plane and get busted then it's on me, no question. But yeah, if you didn't pull good OpSec in 2014 it's possible the feds might link it to you in 2023, or whenever they get around to it.
freebuju 6y ago
Not a chance. On the anonymous use. Pirate dread would be shaking his head in admonishment at your misguided utterances if he were on HN. Monero solves this problem currently.

I’m far more selfish, I would just like to hear amateur investors stop talking about it. I’d really like for people to stop suggesting a database (blockchain) will fix any problem, even when problems are explicitly not database issues. I think we’re well past either of those things being possibilities though.

jackric 6y ago
> I’d really like for people to stop suggesting a database (blockchain) will fix any problem I'm developing a blockchain to block these people using sustainable AI. Want to get in on the initial coin offering?
metalliqaz 6y ago
cryptocurrency proponents often discuss how manipulated and encumbered with politics normal fiat currencies are, but they don't seem to mind the obvious nation-state-level manipulation of BTC's price shrug
justapassenger 6y ago
If Silicon Valley was filmed today, their disrupt parody would include “we’re making a world a better place by using blockchain for database”, instead of Paxos (https://youtu.be/B8C5sjjhsso https://youtu.be/B8C5sjjhsso)

llcoolv 6y ago

Silk road days are gone. Ulbrich got disproportionately punished + convicted on very very dubious hired gun charges. Since then a similar approach was applied on almost every darknet marketplace around, resulting in that these days with BTC at ATH the darknet marketplaces are at an all-time crisis (even though legacy media is still pushing the "criminal's money" narrative :/). Not to mention that all the major mining pools have voluntarily chosen to collaborate with governments on censoring the blockchain, etc. Let's hope it is just a side-step given that BTC with censorship/regulation is just a breaking of a glass-wall away from perfectly free monetary unit. P.S. If you are looking to get no-KYC truly anonymous BTC you'd better live in a top-10 city (e.g. Prague), because in a top-100 city (e.g. Sofia) it is not quite straight-forward and takes tons of waiting/selecting.

lftl 6y ago
I haven't heard about the mining pools collaborating on censorship. Do you have any sources I can read up on?
- llcoolv 6y ago
  Sure, here is a great article by Juraj Bednar (close the slushpool people): https://juraj.bednar.io/en/blog-en/2020/11/12/how-could-regulators-successfully-introduce-bitcoin-censorship-and-other-dystopias/ https://juraj.bednar.io/en/blog-en/2020/11/12/how-could-regu... BTW Juraj is a great source on anything crypto-related. And from what I now there has been no resistance from the pools so far (at least the EU/US-based ones, though in Chine it is probably even more difficult.)
  - lftl 6y ago
    This seems to nicely lay out how the censorship may happen and be implemented. But it only briefly touches on one small example of censorship currently taking place. Is there anything else to support this portion of your previous post? > Not to mention that all the major mining pools have voluntarily chosen to collaborate with governments on censoring the blockchain, etc.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Ulbrich got [...] convicted on very very dubious hired gun charges. No, he didn't. He got convicted of money laundering, conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics. Evidence related to the alleged murder for hire scheme was presented at trial and was weighed in the sentencing phase in terms of what sentence he got within the range authorized for the crimes he was convicted of, but he was not tried, convicted, or sentenced for “hired gun charges”.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ggreer 6y ago

goda90 6y ago

Maybe we can focus on crypto that doesn't have such high electricity demands for that purpose.

centimeter 6y ago
Maybe when someone invents a “free” consensus scheme that actually competes with PoW’s security properties. There are plenty of reasons to suspect this isn’t possible.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  If proof of work is necessary, how much work does proof of work need to do fundamentally? Is there any reason a cryptocurrency can’t be made that uses very little energy?
  - centimeter 6y ago
    The structure of your comment suggests you don't grasp the fundamental point of proof-of-work, which is precisely to prove that a certain amount of (physical) resources were expended. > Is there any reason a cryptocurrency can’t be made that uses very little energy? As far as proof-of-work is concerned, if you don't use enough energy, you are vulnerable to 51% attacks. As far as other schemes (e.g. proof-of-stake) are concerned - none of them have the same desirable security properties as PoW.
llcoolv 6y ago
Given that the current world exchange currency requires 43 aircraft carriers and 6,185 nuclear warheads (+ all the support they need, thousands of very worhtwhile human lives a year, etc), any electricity consumption seems a small problem. Not to mention that the oil-to-electricity transition would require ridiculous investments anyway.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  Is the hypothesis that the U.S. switching to Bitcoin as legal tender would let it liquidate its military?

solosoyokaze 6y ago

It's primary purpose is a store of value that can't be manipulated by the government. It's succeeding wildly at this. There's a lot of extreme Bitcoin hate on this site, but BTC is helping a ton of people right now, as evidenced by the rapidly increasing demand and money flowing into Bitcoin investment.

u10 6y ago
Instead it's being manipulated by a few large whales.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago
  For a decade? There really is no alternative for where to park your money in 2021 unless you want to buy real-estate or stocks both of which come with their own massive set of problems.
  - justapassenger 6y ago
    So virtual asset, with multiple price swings, much wider than real estate during housing crisis, is the place to park money?
    - solosoyokaze 6y ago
      The trend has very consistently been for BTC to increase in value (helped by USD decreasing in value). There are only "wide" price swings at very high resolution.
    - oarsinsync 6y ago
      What's the major downside of parking 1% of your money in a volatile asset that may or may not yield great returns? (Am long BTC)
darkstar999 6y ago
It was never meant to be a value store. First sentence of the whitepaper: "A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution".

ashtonkem 6y ago

Bitcoin is an awful currency for illegal transactions. A permanent public ledger waiting for eventual de-anonymization sounds like a prosecutors dream. I never understood why people described Bitcoin as an anonymous currency, it really isn’t. Arguably physical currency is much, much more anonymous than Bitcoin.

ragnese 6y ago
A valid point and definitely something people should be aware of. It's disingenuous to call Bitcoin anonymous. On the other hand, "anonymous" is to some degree like computer "security". Secure against what threat? Anonymous to who? Paper money is certainly traceable to some degree. Plus it almost requires you to meet in person, where the other person in the transaction can see your physical appearance (or your proxy/accomplice's). Both mediums of exchange have similar risk profiles, but they are a little bit different. Not sure that I'd argue one is better than the other, generally. Depends on the use case.
blaser-waffle 6y ago
It's anonymous in the sense that I an use a craigslist-laptop bought with cash at coffeeshop wifi -- paying for that coffee in cash too -- and not have it traced back to me, John Doe. Plus there isn't any way to order 500 hits of acid from 3 timezones away in-person without a lot of issues. Lotta ID checks at the airport, and lots of cameras on highways. If something goes weird with the darknet shipment I walk, feign ignorance, burn the laptop. If I'm carrying drugs on a plane and get busted then it's on me, no question. But yeah, if you didn't pull good OpSec in 2014 it's possible the feds might link it to you in 2023, or whenever they get around to it.

freebuju 6y ago

Not a chance. On the anonymous use. Pirate dread would be shaking his head in admonishment at your misguided utterances if he were on HN. Monero solves this problem currently.