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Becoming the most trusted decentralized worldwide settlement layer is considered a failure now? Many of the cryptos that claim to scale to thousands of tps on

Becoming the most trusted decentralized worldwide settlement layer is considered a failure now? Many of the cryptos that claim to scale to thousands of tps on layer 1 are all sacrificing decentralization to achieve it, at which point, I might as well use Paypal/Visa. There's no point in being able to scale to those levels in theory if in practice no one uses them.

riffraff 5y ago
> Becoming the most trusted decentralized worldwide settlement layer is considered a failure now? it is, if the original goal was to be something else. If you start a marathon and stop to eat the greatest hot dog ever made, it wouldn't be considered a successful run, although you can say "but it was the best!" and be happy about it.
- hungryforcodes 5y ago
  Huh, so every startup thats ever pivoted -- including for example Instagram, AirBnB, and Twitter -- are failures huh? Interesting.
  - xorcist 5y ago
    Not sure if it can be called a pivot when it was in the original release of the software. Payment channels aren't in the white paper but they were in the first public release and had dedicated opcodes. That first implementation wasn't very practical nor was it secure. The fact that modern payment channels are implemented with other opcodes may be a pivot in implementation but not in concept.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    Startups have a duty to their shareholders to make money, whereas Bitcoin has at least a nominal duty to its inventor[0] and its whitepaper. There's nothing wrong, though, with someone taking the open source code and creating LightningCoin from it, though. That would be the equivalent of a pivot. [0] http://satoshinakamoto.me/2008/11/02/re-bitcoin-p2p-e-cash-paper/ http://satoshinakamoto.me/2008/11/02/re-bitcoin-p2p-e-cash-p...
    - nullc 5y ago
      Payment channels were invented by Satoshi and actually baked into the transaction format from day one-- it's why transactions have locktimes and sequence numbers.
  - riffraff 5y ago
    the company is successful, the original project is failed. Twitter is a successful company, but Odeo was a failed product. Bitcoin was supposed to be much more than it currently is, and the "success" of it is a product of continuous goalpost shifting.
- gverrilla 5y ago
  it's not a marathon, but a permanent olympics

riffraff 5y ago

> Becoming the most trusted decentralized worldwide settlement layer is considered a failure now? it is, if the original goal was to be something else. If you start a marathon and stop to eat the greatest hot dog ever made, it wouldn't be considered a successful run, although you can say "but it was the best!" and be happy about it.

hungryforcodes 5y ago
Huh, so every startup thats ever pivoted -- including for example Instagram, AirBnB, and Twitter -- are failures huh? Interesting.
- xorcist 5y ago
  Not sure if it can be called a pivot when it was in the original release of the software. Payment channels aren't in the white paper but they were in the first public release and had dedicated opcodes. That first implementation wasn't very practical nor was it secure. The fact that modern payment channels are implemented with other opcodes may be a pivot in implementation but not in concept.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  Startups have a duty to their shareholders to make money, whereas Bitcoin has at least a nominal duty to its inventor[0] and its whitepaper. There's nothing wrong, though, with someone taking the open source code and creating LightningCoin from it, though. That would be the equivalent of a pivot. [0] http://satoshinakamoto.me/2008/11/02/re-bitcoin-p2p-e-cash-paper/ http://satoshinakamoto.me/2008/11/02/re-bitcoin-p2p-e-cash-p...
  - nullc 5y ago
    Payment channels were invented by Satoshi and actually baked into the transaction format from day one-- it's why transactions have locktimes and sequence numbers.
- riffraff 5y ago
  the company is successful, the original project is failed. Twitter is a successful company, but Odeo was a failed product. Bitcoin was supposed to be much more than it currently is, and the "success" of it is a product of continuous goalpost shifting.
gverrilla 5y ago
it's not a marathon, but a permanent olympics