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It's probably why the NSA created Bitcoin in the first place. Or was it really the totally benevolent mysteriously unknown Satoshi Nakamoto who is worth $70 bil
by yucky 5y ago
It's probably why the NSA created Bitcoin in the first place. Or was it really the totally benevolent mysteriously unknown Satoshi Nakamoto who is worth $70 billion but never spent a dime.
- ashwagary 5y agoI tend to doubt this narrative, dedollarization would generally not be in the interest of any US government entity.
- lazide 5y agoPutting on a bit of a devils advocate hat - if you knew SOMETHING was going to happen in the space, wouldn’t it make sense to build the first thing in a way it helps your interest to help starve out alternatives or get a chunk of the traffic in a way you can use? I don’t think that’s what happened, but the NSA and CIA have spun up or invested in a number of tech and cryptography firms over the years (as came out later).
- ashwagary 5y agoThe one scenario I can see is a possible anti-war faction in the NSA or CIA trying to decimate the military industrial complex...but I feel other countries with talented devs have more incentives to create this than US based orgs that are protected by this complex. I should probably mention, for those that are unaware, removing power from central banks (aka what Bitcoin does by existing) makes large scale drawn out wars extremely difficult to fund and sustain.
- lazide 5y agoBitcoin doesn’t actually do that though. It literally maxes out at 7 transactions per second. No central bank (or any other bank besides maybe one in rural Wyoming) does that few. By LOOKING like it might be, while also definitely NOT being, it is filling the vacuum.
- ashwagary 5y agoThis view is a limitation of your understanding of Bitcoin. Layer 2 solutions like lightning and liquid network are built to scale to infinite transactions per seconds at near $0 cost if p2p participants choose that fee price point, which many current routing nodes do.
- lazide 5y agoHardly - it’s a factual statement on it’s face, and what you said doesn’t refute it either. Lightning is not only very recent (welll past any planning timeline for anyone), but not widely adopted - and it would be nice if it would be, but it basically makes bitcoin that same thing it was trying to get away from for those clients - beholden to transaction brokers. Not as familiar with liquid, but if grouped the same way I imagine it’s the same problem. If you use bitcoin, it’s the same limitation as it ever has been, and good luck getting community consensus to change it - I was there for the Bitcoin cash split (and a lot of other discussions before that).
- ashwagary 5y ago>Hardly - it’s a factual statement on it’s face, and what you said doesn’t refute it either. This is wrong, Bitcoin can process infinite transactions in batched form using Layer 2. The scaling path was clear from the early years, your understanding of how this network was designed to scale while maintaining sufficient decentralization is limited. I stand by my original statement. Your view is a limitation of your understanding of Bitcoin.
- randomhodler84 5y agoYour understanding may be from circa 2017 too. LN is in production for years now and is used by small countries for retail payments. We can only see the amount of capital in channels in aggregate, we have no visibility into it’s actual use. I don’t hear too many complaints?
- lazide 5y ago
- yucky 5y agoBitcoin doesn't do damage to the dollar, it enables easier wealth extraction from US adversary countries.