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A transaction that credits a BTC address cannot happen off chain. Do you know what a BTC address is? I understand that an exchange can show you a UI, saying yo

A transaction that credits a BTC address cannot happen off chain. Do you know what a BTC address is? I understand that an exchange can show you a UI, saying you have BTC that the exchange does not own..

lottin 5y ago
It DOESN'T credit any BTC address, that's why it's an OFF-CHAIN transaction.
- thebean11 5y ago
  From your comment: > Instead they create a transaction that credits a BTC address but debits no addresses Apologies if I misunderstood?
  - lottin 5y ago
    This is how they print bitcoins on-chain. Centralised payment platforms can do the same thing, except they would credit an internal account, instead of a BTC address. Hopefully now it's clear.
    - thebean11 5y ago
      Got it, yeah that's clear. Centralized platforms can certainly credit accounts for BTC that don't exist, on a technical level. Will this happen in practice? Will it be legal? Will it be possible to transfer these fake BTC to other platforms? I don't think so. In the case of USD, the answer is yes. Banks are incentivized to accept fractional reserve dollars from other banks, because in practice they are exactly the same. Why is that the case? Because the issuer of those dollars, the government, has specifically deemed it to be a legitimate practice. There's no risk in accepting fractional reserve dollars. Fractional reserve dollars can be withdrawn as cash, used to pay taxes, used to pay debts etc. Let's think about Bitcoin now. Fractional reserve BTC cannot be used to pay on-chain transaction fees. It cannot be used on the lightnight network. It cannot be used to participate in smart contracts. Would Coinbase accept fractional reserve BTC from Gemini? There would be no way for Coinbase to redeem them for on chain BTC, without trusting Coinbase to fulfill it. There's no government that can print extra BTC to fulfill Gemini's debts..so it would be surprising if Coinbase accepted these IOUs from Gemini. The issue with fractional reserve BTC is that they are completely unportable. Usable within the issuers ecosystem, sure, but not beyond that.
      - lottin 5y ago
        The thing is that these fractional reserve BTC are indistinguishable from normal BTC. If you receive a payment to your BTC address, you have no way of telling whether these BTC have been created by an exchange. So, to answer your question, yes, Coinbase would accept fractional reserve BTC from Gemini, because they wouldn't know, they would just receive BTC. As long as Gemini has enough BTC reserves to remain solvent, nobody would notice that they have been creating BTC out of thin air.
        thebean11 5y ago
        Wait no, if you receive a payment to your actual Bitcoin address it’s real BTC..I thought we agreed payments to an address can only happen on chain, and on chain BTC cannot be inflated via fractional reserve?
        lottin 5y ago
        Of course, it's real BTC. The exchange debits the internal account and then uses its BTC reserves to make a payment to the BTC address. The supply of BTC is the sum of BTC balances and this includes balances held in BTC addresses as well as balances held in exchange accounts, just like the supply of dollars includes cash and central bank reserves as well as USD balances held in bank accounts. BTC balances in exchange accounts can be spent just like BTC held in BTC addresses, and are therefore as "real" as BTC held in BTC addresses. To think otherwise is an exercise in wishful thinking on your part, or not really understanding how money works.
        thebean11 5y ago
        > To think otherwise is an exercise in wishful thinking on your part, or not really understanding how money works. I think you are missing that, with USD, there's actually no distinction between a dollar and a dollar created by fractional reserve banking. They can be used for exactly the same things. With BTC, it's fundamentally impossible for that to be true. You are comparing fractional reserve dollars generated by a bank to a fractional reserve BTC created by an exchange but it's not an apt analogy. The bank has a charter from the government to essentially create real dollars. I'm certainly not claiming that it's impossible for a BTC exchange to be insolvent, but doing so is likely illegal and, although it may appear to, does not add net new BTC into the system. Fractional reserve banking adds net new dollars into the system which can be redeposited into a different bank (or the same bank) to once again generate new dollars. Won't work with Bitcoin. Let's take existing exchanges and brokerages: Coinbase, Robinhood, and PayPal all keep full reserves or lie about it.

lottin 5y ago

It DOESN'T credit any BTC address, that's why it's an OFF-CHAIN transaction.

thebean11 5y ago
From your comment: > Instead they create a transaction that credits a BTC address but debits no addresses Apologies if I misunderstood?
- lottin 5y ago
  This is how they print bitcoins on-chain. Centralised payment platforms can do the same thing, except they would credit an internal account, instead of a BTC address. Hopefully now it's clear.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    Got it, yeah that's clear. Centralized platforms can certainly credit accounts for BTC that don't exist, on a technical level. Will this happen in practice? Will it be legal? Will it be possible to transfer these fake BTC to other platforms? I don't think so. In the case of USD, the answer is yes. Banks are incentivized to accept fractional reserve dollars from other banks, because in practice they are exactly the same. Why is that the case? Because the issuer of those dollars, the government, has specifically deemed it to be a legitimate practice. There's no risk in accepting fractional reserve dollars. Fractional reserve dollars can be withdrawn as cash, used to pay taxes, used to pay debts etc. Let's think about Bitcoin now. Fractional reserve BTC cannot be used to pay on-chain transaction fees. It cannot be used on the lightnight network. It cannot be used to participate in smart contracts. Would Coinbase accept fractional reserve BTC from Gemini? There would be no way for Coinbase to redeem them for on chain BTC, without trusting Coinbase to fulfill it. There's no government that can print extra BTC to fulfill Gemini's debts..so it would be surprising if Coinbase accepted these IOUs from Gemini. The issue with fractional reserve BTC is that they are completely unportable. Usable within the issuers ecosystem, sure, but not beyond that.
    - lottin 5y ago
      The thing is that these fractional reserve BTC are indistinguishable from normal BTC. If you receive a payment to your BTC address, you have no way of telling whether these BTC have been created by an exchange. So, to answer your question, yes, Coinbase would accept fractional reserve BTC from Gemini, because they wouldn't know, they would just receive BTC. As long as Gemini has enough BTC reserves to remain solvent, nobody would notice that they have been creating BTC out of thin air.
      - thebean11 5y ago
        Wait no, if you receive a payment to your actual Bitcoin address it’s real BTC..I thought we agreed payments to an address can only happen on chain, and on chain BTC cannot be inflated via fractional reserve?
        lottin 5y ago
        Of course, it's real BTC. The exchange debits the internal account and then uses its BTC reserves to make a payment to the BTC address. The supply of BTC is the sum of BTC balances and this includes balances held in BTC addresses as well as balances held in exchange accounts, just like the supply of dollars includes cash and central bank reserves as well as USD balances held in bank accounts. BTC balances in exchange accounts can be spent just like BTC held in BTC addresses, and are therefore as "real" as BTC held in BTC addresses. To think otherwise is an exercise in wishful thinking on your part, or not really understanding how money works.
        thebean11 5y ago
        > To think otherwise is an exercise in wishful thinking on your part, or not really understanding how money works. I think you are missing that, with USD, there's actually no distinction between a dollar and a dollar created by fractional reserve banking. They can be used for exactly the same things. With BTC, it's fundamentally impossible for that to be true. You are comparing fractional reserve dollars generated by a bank to a fractional reserve BTC created by an exchange but it's not an apt analogy. The bank has a charter from the government to essentially create real dollars. I'm certainly not claiming that it's impossible for a BTC exchange to be insolvent, but doing so is likely illegal and, although it may appear to, does not add net new BTC into the system. Fractional reserve banking adds net new dollars into the system which can be redeposited into a different bank (or the same bank) to once again generate new dollars. Won't work with Bitcoin. Let's take existing exchanges and brokerages: Coinbase, Robinhood, and PayPal all keep full reserves or lie about it.