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Not sure why Visa is a relevant comparison. I can setup a dozen nodes on AWS and build a crypto with a million times the transaction capacity of Bitcoin. Obvio

Not sure why Visa is a relevant comparison. I can setup a dozen nodes on AWS and build a crypto with a million times the transaction capacity of Bitcoin. Obviously the downside to this is centralization; someone can be banned or censoredfor any reason. Blockchains are first decentralized, permissionless, censorship resistant solutions.

jasonlaramburu 6y ago
BTC mining is highly centralized. Fiat on/off ramps (essential if one wishes to spend her BTC) are regulated by local governments and relatively easy to censor. If there really were global demand for a censorship resistant currency don’t you think there would be more merchants accepting BTC by now?
- coralreef 6y ago
  https://twitter.com/real_vijay/status/968854238095753216?lang=en https://twitter.com/real_vijay/status/968854238095753216?lan... 1/ There are four stages that all market-based monetary goods pass through in their evolution to becoming a fully fledged money: 1. Collectible 2. Store of Value 3. Medium of exchange 4. Unit of account
  - jasonlaramburu 6y ago
    How many examples of this exist besides gold and silver?
    - coralreef 6y ago
      Depends how far back you go. I'm not a historian, but there are obviously local systems of currency; some used gems, feathers, etc. Rai stones were used by islanders as a ledger and store of value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
tgtweak 6y ago
If anyone is looking for energy/txn as the main metric for measurement, there are many other fully decentralized blockchains can also perform 500,000x more efficiently than bitcoin.
UncleMeat 6y ago
> Not sure why Visa is a relevant comparison. Because humans are deciding on whether to use BTC or another option for handling payments. This means that we must decide whether "decentralization, permissionlessness, and censorship resistance" are worth the astronomical other costs.
- coralreef 6y ago
  https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1 M1 Money supply graph. As your purchasing power gets eroded away ("stolen" by central banks), we each decide for ourselves how much we want to participate in the propping up a broken system.
boardwaalk 6y ago
... it's relevant because to the end user, moving money from place to place is moving money place to place. Bitcoin is the defacto main cryptocurrency and Visa is one of the main payment processors. A cryptocurrency not attached to anything else is useless. I'm sure you could easily beat Visa too by having a little app that "processes transactions" on some modern 5nm scale mobile device. But it wouldn't be real world useful.
- coralreef 6y ago
  ... it's relevant because to the end user, moving money from place to place is moving money place to place. Yes, moving money to protect it from hyperinflation. Protecting it from being seized or appropriated by corrupt regimes. Bitcoin moves money very well in those contexts, can Visa do those things?
noxer 6y ago
But you dont need PoW for being decentralized, permission less and censorship resistant. See https://xrpl.org/carbon-calculator.html https://xrpl.org/carbon-calculator.html instead and ignore visa/mastercard PoW is still the worst even worse than than paper money.
- coralreef 6y ago
  Not sure these models are accurate as they don't provide citation. They seem to equate kwh to some co2 emissions value and just multiplies them to create a comparative value.
  - noxer 6y ago
    The paper is linked on the page > https://xrpl.org/assets/pdf/xrpl-sustainability-methodology-2020.pdf https://xrpl.org/assets/pdf/xrpl-sustainability-methodology-... The conversation is just multiplied yes.

jasonlaramburu 6y ago

BTC mining is highly centralized. Fiat on/off ramps (essential if one wishes to spend her BTC) are regulated by local governments and relatively easy to censor. If there really were global demand for a censorship resistant currency don’t you think there would be more merchants accepting BTC by now?

coralreef 6y ago
https://twitter.com/real_vijay/status/968854238095753216?lang=en https://twitter.com/real_vijay/status/968854238095753216?lan... 1/ There are four stages that all market-based monetary goods pass through in their evolution to becoming a fully fledged money: 1. Collectible 2. Store of Value 3. Medium of exchange 4. Unit of account
- jasonlaramburu 6y ago
  How many examples of this exist besides gold and silver?
  - coralreef 6y ago
    Depends how far back you go. I'm not a historian, but there are obviously local systems of currency; some used gems, feathers, etc. Rai stones were used by islanders as a ledger and store of value. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones

tgtweak 6y ago

If anyone is looking for energy/txn as the main metric for measurement, there are many other fully decentralized blockchains can also perform 500,000x more efficiently than bitcoin.

UncleMeat 6y ago

> Not sure why Visa is a relevant comparison. Because humans are deciding on whether to use BTC or another option for handling payments. This means that we must decide whether "decentralization, permissionlessness, and censorship resistance" are worth the astronomical other costs.

coralreef 6y ago
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1 M1 Money supply graph. As your purchasing power gets eroded away ("stolen" by central banks), we each decide for ourselves how much we want to participate in the propping up a broken system.

boardwaalk 6y ago

... it's relevant because to the end user, moving money from place to place is moving money place to place. Bitcoin is the defacto main cryptocurrency and Visa is one of the main payment processors. A cryptocurrency not attached to anything else is useless. I'm sure you could easily beat Visa too by having a little app that "processes transactions" on some modern 5nm scale mobile device. But it wouldn't be real world useful.

coralreef 6y ago
... it's relevant because to the end user, moving money from place to place is moving money place to place. Yes, moving money to protect it from hyperinflation. Protecting it from being seized or appropriated by corrupt regimes. Bitcoin moves money very well in those contexts, can Visa do those things?

noxer 6y ago

But you dont need PoW for being decentralized, permission less and censorship resistant. See https://xrpl.org/carbon-calculator.html https://xrpl.org/carbon-calculator.html instead and ignore visa/mastercard PoW is still the worst even worse than than paper money.

coralreef 6y ago
Not sure these models are accurate as they don't provide citation. They seem to equate kwh to some co2 emissions value and just multiplies them to create a comparative value.
- noxer 6y ago
  The paper is linked on the page > https://xrpl.org/assets/pdf/xrpl-sustainability-methodology-2020.pdf https://xrpl.org/assets/pdf/xrpl-sustainability-methodology-... The conversation is just multiplied yes.