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> It was made to be able to do digital transactions without any trusted 3rd party. Which is what makes it even more absurd that people are claiming that adding

> It was made to be able to do digital transactions without any trusted 3rd party. Which is what makes it even more absurd that people are claiming that adding centralized layers on top of Bitcoin is a valid solution to the cost and speed of transactions. They're devoted to Bitcoin itself above any of the reasons why the technology was built in the first place. But if people don't actually care about having distributed payments, and if they're perfectly willing to buy into payment processors that are only using Bitcoin as a store-of-value in the backend, then Proof of Work doesn't matter. Proof of Work/Stake only matter if Bitcoin is actually being used as a trustless and anonymous payment system for regular transactions, which is ironically the task that (among most other cryptocurrencies on the market) it's perhaps least suited for technologically. I'm not saying there's no innovation here. I am saying that I don't see any evidence that Bitcoin's largest proponents care about that innovation. I don't see any evidence that any of this matters beyond giving them an excuse to hype a speculative asset. If they did care, they would have abandoned Bitcoin and moved to basically any other coin -- anything at all that did Proof of Stake to reduce transaction fees and environmental costs, or that fixed its price to the dollar, or that had better privacy. I firmly believe at this point that the technology of Bitcoin matters to the majority of its investors about as much as the technology of Beanie Babies mattered to its investors. That's not to say the technology isn't interesting or that it can't be used in useful ways, but most of the time that people talk about Bitcoin's success, they're not talking about technology.

capableweb 6y ago
> I'm not saying there's no innovation here. I am saying that I don't see any evidence that Bitcoin's largest proponents care about that innovation. I don't see any evidence that any of this matters beyond giving them an excuse to hype a speculative asset. If they did care, they would have abandoned Bitcoin and moved to basically any other coin -- anything at all that did Proof of Stake to reduce transaction fees and environmental costs, or that fixed its price to the dollar, or that had better privacy. To be fair, a large part of the ecosystem doesn't actually deal with Bitcoin at all. The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies seems to reach up to 1.5T USD at this point. Bitcoin is 1T USD of that, with the rest of the ecosystem quickly catching up[1] It's really hard to generalize that everyone in any given ecosystem are the same way or act with the same interest. Yes, most people in the oil industry probably don't care about the environment either, but I'm sure there are many in the oil industry who actually care about the environment as well. Same goes for cryptocurrencies. - [1] "Percentage of Total Market Capitalization (Dominance)" graph - https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/ https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/
- danShumway 6y ago
  That's fair, but how much of that 33% of the overall cryptocurrency ecosystem is going onto forums and arguing specifically about Bitcoin? I don't necessarily want to generalize about all cryptocurrencies or all crypto-enthusiasts -- there is genuinely interesting technology here. But I find it increasingly hard not to generalize about the subset that shows up in these discussions arguing that Bitcoin is the future.
- verdverm 6y ago
  BTC at times has had less than 50% of the total market value, so if it is now 2/3, then the rest of the market has lost ground, the opposite of catching up
smashem 6y ago
> Which is what makes it even more absurd that people are claiming that adding centralized layers on top of Bitcoin is a valid solution to the cost and speed of transactions. Who's claiming this? The Lightning Network is gaining popularity as a decentralized Layer 2 solution, for example. You mean like Cash App and PayPal?
- capableweb 6y ago
  I think things like centralized exchanges doing trading with centralized technology also "claims" this. Some people seem to be fine with using those as well, even though it supposedly goes against their interest of a payment network without trusted 3rd parties.
  - bingbong70 6y ago
    Efficient decentralized exchanges are not easy to build but an increasing number exist with the aim of solving the centralization issue (overreaching regulation attempts will push this into hyperdrive). We can't act like a 12 year old invention should arrive with drop in decentralized replacements for every component of the legacy financial system...this is all being built from scratch as we criticize its shortcomings.
pcthrowaway 6y ago
> Proof of Work/Stake only matter if Bitcoin is actually being used as a trustless and anonymous payment system for regular transactions, which is ironically the task that (among most other cryptocurrencies on the market) it's perhaps least suited for technologically. I agree that many cryptocurrencies are not suited for this... but some are, and of those, Cardano is proof-of-stake from launch, has ~50 billion USD market cap, 20s to 1 minute confirmations (up to 10 for complete irreversibility, but one confirmation is really reliable already), an amazing community, relatively low fees (about $0.20 USD right now but hopefully decreasing in the future), ability to support 1 million transactions/s without fee increasing, and extremely high decentralization. I agree that many cryptocurrencies aren't suited to real use at scale as a transaction layer, but I think the hype about the power of this when done right is very fair.
- danShumway 6y ago
  I should clarify, Proof of Work/Stake for Bitcoin only matters if Bitcoin is actually being used as a trustless and anonymous payment system for regular transactions. I agree that there are other parts of the full crypto ecosystem that are leveraging blockchain more effectively. I don't know how optimistic I am about them overall, but at the very least on the technology side of things they certainly have a lot more potential to turn into real payment systems than Bitcoin does, and I don't mean to disparage the people working on them.

capableweb 6y ago

> I'm not saying there's no innovation here. I am saying that I don't see any evidence that Bitcoin's largest proponents care about that innovation. I don't see any evidence that any of this matters beyond giving them an excuse to hype a speculative asset. If they did care, they would have abandoned Bitcoin and moved to basically any other coin -- anything at all that did Proof of Stake to reduce transaction fees and environmental costs, or that fixed its price to the dollar, or that had better privacy. To be fair, a large part of the ecosystem doesn't actually deal with Bitcoin at all. The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies seems to reach up to 1.5T USD at this point. Bitcoin is 1T USD of that, with the rest of the ecosystem quickly catching up[1] It's really hard to generalize that everyone in any given ecosystem are the same way or act with the same interest. Yes, most people in the oil industry probably don't care about the environment either, but I'm sure there are many in the oil industry who actually care about the environment as well. Same goes for cryptocurrencies. - [1] "Percentage of Total Market Capitalization (Dominance)" graph - https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/ https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/

danShumway 6y ago
That's fair, but how much of that 33% of the overall cryptocurrency ecosystem is going onto forums and arguing specifically about Bitcoin? I don't necessarily want to generalize about all cryptocurrencies or all crypto-enthusiasts -- there is genuinely interesting technology here. But I find it increasingly hard not to generalize about the subset that shows up in these discussions arguing that Bitcoin is the future.
verdverm 6y ago
BTC at times has had less than 50% of the total market value, so if it is now 2/3, then the rest of the market has lost ground, the opposite of catching up

smashem 6y ago

> Which is what makes it even more absurd that people are claiming that adding centralized layers on top of Bitcoin is a valid solution to the cost and speed of transactions. Who's claiming this? The Lightning Network is gaining popularity as a decentralized Layer 2 solution, for example. You mean like Cash App and PayPal?

capableweb 6y ago
I think things like centralized exchanges doing trading with centralized technology also "claims" this. Some people seem to be fine with using those as well, even though it supposedly goes against their interest of a payment network without trusted 3rd parties.
- bingbong70 6y ago
  Efficient decentralized exchanges are not easy to build but an increasing number exist with the aim of solving the centralization issue (overreaching regulation attempts will push this into hyperdrive). We can't act like a 12 year old invention should arrive with drop in decentralized replacements for every component of the legacy financial system...this is all being built from scratch as we criticize its shortcomings.

pcthrowaway 6y ago

> Proof of Work/Stake only matter if Bitcoin is actually being used as a trustless and anonymous payment system for regular transactions, which is ironically the task that (among most other cryptocurrencies on the market) it's perhaps least suited for technologically. I agree that many cryptocurrencies are not suited for this... but some are, and of those, Cardano is proof-of-stake from launch, has ~50 billion USD market cap, 20s to 1 minute confirmations (up to 10 for complete irreversibility, but one confirmation is really reliable already), an amazing community, relatively low fees (about $0.20 USD right now but hopefully decreasing in the future), ability to support 1 million transactions/s without fee increasing, and extremely high decentralization. I agree that many cryptocurrencies aren't suited to real use at scale as a transaction layer, but I think the hype about the power of this when done right is very fair.

danShumway 6y ago
I should clarify, Proof of Work/Stake for Bitcoin only matters if Bitcoin is actually being used as a trustless and anonymous payment system for regular transactions. I agree that there are other parts of the full crypto ecosystem that are leveraging blockchain more effectively. I don't know how optimistic I am about them overall, but at the very least on the technology side of things they certainly have a lot more potential to turn into real payment systems than Bitcoin does, and I don't mean to disparage the people working on them.