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Anti bitcoin people are pretty toxic. What an amazing invention to have the absolute truth published every 10 minutes. Back in the day before naval armies, me

Anti bitcoin people are pretty toxic. What an amazing invention to have the absolute truth published every 10 minutes. Back in the day before naval armies, merchant ships used to have to carry their own cannons and couldn't max out their payload with goods. Bitcoin has a neat feature of not requiring armies or vaults to protect itself. Is it a currency? I think not but it is many things all the same. The people who focus on the price haven't seen the forest for the trees.

isatty 4y ago
Idk if it’s about btc or eth but it really started leaving a foul taste with hundreds of garbage Ponzi scams and NFTs - combined with non tech and older folks getting scammed. The moment someone brings up crypto (coins) not cryptography I just don’t entertain them anymore.
d_watt 4y ago
Relatively few people are against the blockchain as an interesting technology for creating distributed truth in areas that can actually benefit from that. I think if we're extending your age of sail metaphor, I think people are against it being used for the modern version of tulip mania. Personally, I'm now more excited now about blockchain than I have been in the past. I think the the rush to extract money from people via btc, nfts, etc. is what has overshadowed it's ability for interesting/novel use cases.
- 988747 4y ago
  So far the only real use of blockchain technology is Git. Cryptocurrencies are misuse of it :-D
  - layer8 4y ago
    If you count Git, then “blockchain technology” is also used for Evidence Records: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4998 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4998 There’s probably a number of further Merkle-tree-based technologies in current use.
- pcdoodle 4y ago
  Tulip mania is the best stress test we could ask for. You are right though, the greedy will use it to exploit the uninformed. Not the best PR for Bitcoin in general.
- dogma1138 4y ago
  There aren’t many applications if any in which a blockchain can’t be replaced by a simpler and more efficient solution.
  - d_watt 4y ago
    I'll agree that there are many situations where blockchain is being misapplied. I think it's very unfair to say there aren't any applications though. Blockchain solves the problem of "everyone has an agreed upon history of the entries in a ledger, and that ledger can't be edited by a bad actor, and there's a consensus algorithm to ensure new entries to that ledger are maintained." That's exciting for situations where trusting a central actor to be well intentioned forever is not wise. Publishing "news" on a blockchain, so you don't have to worry about a future actor trying to whitewash what history is, as an example.
    - kllrnohj 4y ago
      You can just solve the news issue, if indeed it is an "issue" at all, with just torrents for distribution and signatures for authentication. You don't need to solve transactions, so you don't need wasteful blockchain technology. Which really gets back to blockchain as used by crypto (vs Merkle trees) is really a quite useless technology, in addition to one that's the least efficient computer system so far created.
    - dogma1138 4y ago
      There aren’t that many situations where that it actually useful. A blockchain where everyone is equal also means that any mistake requires far more effort to correct and nearly any system we have still needs some sort of centralized governance. In your example publishing news well corrections and retractions can and do happen all the time and sure you’ll say well then just assume that the updates have to have the same key but that still doesn’t solve the problem you are worried about since the bad actor in this case would either have direct control or influence over the news organization so they can still force them to push a “malicious” update. Then we get to the issue that a blockchain isn’t suitable for storing large pieces of information so in this case what would be published to the blockchain is just a link you can still either edit or remove the content that is referenced by the blockchain since the content itself isn’t on it. A blockchain is a classical example of a solution in search of a problem. In fact it might be the most technically correct example of that term I ever encountered. Other examples I often hear about such as health records and land or vehicle registrars etc also don’t benefit from being on the blockchain as those are all heavily regulated and complex processes which are prone to mistakes and using a blockchain won’t solve those issues. The only remotely plausible situation where a blockchain could work is voting however like with all electronic voting the moment you need a PhD or multiple ones to be able to understand how the system works and even then you won’t trust it completely the overall trust in the result would be completely eroded which defeats the whole purpose of having a more reliable system on paper in the first place.
enduser 4y ago
Digital fiat currency also does not require traditional armies or physical vaults. Digital fiat and crypto both require armies of cybersecurity geeks and "vaults" of servers participating in the network. I don't see your point.
- adventured 4y ago
  They all require militaries with guns to protect them, to the extent they're worth anything of consequence. Obvious, exaggerated example to prove the point: Ukraine is the center of the Bitcoin universe. Every computer that powers the Bitcoin network resides in Ukraine. Does Bitcoin require a military to protect it or not? I guess the electronic stock exchange systems of the US don't require a military to ultimately protect them either according to that premise. Bitcoin is also a physical asset in the end, because it can't exist without the hardware. It's exceptionally obvious that you have to protect the hardware with a military (both the ability to defend and respond if need be, to an attack). This is particularly an issue if you're going to build an economy around it, or otherwise allow Bitcoin & Co. to become a supersized asset class (such that your economy could be severely damaged if that asset class is severely damaged). Oh hey there Latvia, your domestic systems are holding $13 trillion worth of Bitcoin (which has become the globally dominant asset). You're the Switzerland of the Baltics. No need to protect your systems with guns, don't worry about it, you don't need a military for that, because Bitcoin is magical pixie dust that only exists in the digital realm. Oh whoops, the digital realm exists on physical hardware (that someone somewhere has to protect with guns).
  - enduser 4y ago
    Fair point
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    > Every computer that powers the Bitcoin network resides in Ukraine. care to explain? I have never heard this before.
Sebb767 4y ago
On the other hand, Bitcoin obviously has a lot of drawbacks and so do most other cryptos. And, although crypto might has it's uses, it's currently used pretty exclusively as very speculative investment medium and for scamming people.
adventured 4y ago
> Bitcoin has a neat feature of not requiring armies or vaults to protect itself. That premise is false. If Bitcoin wins out and becomes dominant, nations with very large economies (in particular) and a lot to lose accordingly, will absolutely have to use their militaries to defend the networks that power Bitcoin. There is no scenario where Bitcoin becomes a lot bigger and doesn't require military protection globally. It'll require military protection as much as any other super asset, if it reaches the scale of the others that comprise a large chunk of national wealth in a given country.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
wonderwonder 4y ago
"Bitcoin has a neat feature of not requiring armies or vaults to protect itself." I hear what you are saying but this premise is actually wrong. To steal someones money from the bank criminals probably need a group of armed men and must attempt to breach the banks vault. Which is very unrealistic. At any moment an army of police could arrive and kill them plus they have bank employees and customers to deal with and likely a security guard. To try and take fiat digitally is even harder as you have to actually hack your way into a banks systems and transfter the money and still withdraw or launder it somehow later. To take someones btc they just need to get into someones house with a gun or some pliers and a hammer and their target will just send it to their wallet from their laptop. Its far easier to steal large amounts of crypto currency than it is to steal large amounts of fiat.
hourago 4y ago
> Bitcoin has a neat feature of not requiring armies or vaults to protect itself. Not even cannons can protect it. - One day, due to the accidental wallet destruction during the server reboot, they lost keys to all BTC wallets, resulting in loss of 17k BTC. - The hackers breached Bitcoin7 servers and gained full access to the main BTC depository and 2 of the 3 backup wallets. - The 43,000 BTC Linode theft was not enough, and another 18,457 BTC was stolen from Bitcoinica’s reserves. The CEO Zhou Tong was barely able to prevent the loss of 30,000 more. The site was immediately shut down for security reasons. - Hackers outside the country infected the internal network of the exchange with a virus that was transmitted through email, and it allowed them to steal private keys. - ... https://medium.com/hackernoon/a-huge-list-of-cryptocurrency-thefts-16d6bf246389 https://medium.com/hackernoon/a-huge-list-of-cryptocurrency-... Bitcoin is not safer than the security of your key storage.
eltradero 4y ago
Most people around here eat (or wish to) at the Silicon Valley VC money manger. They are ultra-fiat people. It's understandable that a decentralized form of money that removes money mangers (other notable ones are the military and medical industrial complexes) makes them unhappy.

isatty 4y ago

Idk if it’s about btc or eth but it really started leaving a foul taste with hundreds of garbage Ponzi scams and NFTs - combined with non tech and older folks getting scammed. The moment someone brings up crypto (coins) not cryptography I just don’t entertain them anymore.

d_watt 4y ago

Relatively few people are against the blockchain as an interesting technology for creating distributed truth in areas that can actually benefit from that. I think if we're extending your age of sail metaphor, I think people are against it being used for the modern version of tulip mania. Personally, I'm now more excited now about blockchain than I have been in the past. I think the the rush to extract money from people via btc, nfts, etc. is what has overshadowed it's ability for interesting/novel use cases.

988747 4y ago
So far the only real use of blockchain technology is Git. Cryptocurrencies are misuse of it :-D
- layer8 4y ago
  If you count Git, then “blockchain technology” is also used for Evidence Records: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4998 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc4998 There’s probably a number of further Merkle-tree-based technologies in current use.
pcdoodle 4y ago
Tulip mania is the best stress test we could ask for. You are right though, the greedy will use it to exploit the uninformed. Not the best PR for Bitcoin in general.
dogma1138 4y ago
There aren’t many applications if any in which a blockchain can’t be replaced by a simpler and more efficient solution.
- d_watt 4y ago
  I'll agree that there are many situations where blockchain is being misapplied. I think it's very unfair to say there aren't any applications though. Blockchain solves the problem of "everyone has an agreed upon history of the entries in a ledger, and that ledger can't be edited by a bad actor, and there's a consensus algorithm to ensure new entries to that ledger are maintained." That's exciting for situations where trusting a central actor to be well intentioned forever is not wise. Publishing "news" on a blockchain, so you don't have to worry about a future actor trying to whitewash what history is, as an example.
  - kllrnohj 4y ago
    You can just solve the news issue, if indeed it is an "issue" at all, with just torrents for distribution and signatures for authentication. You don't need to solve transactions, so you don't need wasteful blockchain technology. Which really gets back to blockchain as used by crypto (vs Merkle trees) is really a quite useless technology, in addition to one that's the least efficient computer system so far created.
  - dogma1138 4y ago
    There aren’t that many situations where that it actually useful. A blockchain where everyone is equal also means that any mistake requires far more effort to correct and nearly any system we have still needs some sort of centralized governance. In your example publishing news well corrections and retractions can and do happen all the time and sure you’ll say well then just assume that the updates have to have the same key but that still doesn’t solve the problem you are worried about since the bad actor in this case would either have direct control or influence over the news organization so they can still force them to push a “malicious” update. Then we get to the issue that a blockchain isn’t suitable for storing large pieces of information so in this case what would be published to the blockchain is just a link you can still either edit or remove the content that is referenced by the blockchain since the content itself isn’t on it. A blockchain is a classical example of a solution in search of a problem. In fact it might be the most technically correct example of that term I ever encountered. Other examples I often hear about such as health records and land or vehicle registrars etc also don’t benefit from being on the blockchain as those are all heavily regulated and complex processes which are prone to mistakes and using a blockchain won’t solve those issues. The only remotely plausible situation where a blockchain could work is voting however like with all electronic voting the moment you need a PhD or multiple ones to be able to understand how the system works and even then you won’t trust it completely the overall trust in the result would be completely eroded which defeats the whole purpose of having a more reliable system on paper in the first place.

enduser 4y ago

Digital fiat currency also does not require traditional armies or physical vaults. Digital fiat and crypto both require armies of cybersecurity geeks and "vaults" of servers participating in the network. I don't see your point.

adventured 4y ago
They all require militaries with guns to protect them, to the extent they're worth anything of consequence. Obvious, exaggerated example to prove the point: Ukraine is the center of the Bitcoin universe. Every computer that powers the Bitcoin network resides in Ukraine. Does Bitcoin require a military to protect it or not? I guess the electronic stock exchange systems of the US don't require a military to ultimately protect them either according to that premise. Bitcoin is also a physical asset in the end, because it can't exist without the hardware. It's exceptionally obvious that you have to protect the hardware with a military (both the ability to defend and respond if need be, to an attack). This is particularly an issue if you're going to build an economy around it, or otherwise allow Bitcoin & Co. to become a supersized asset class (such that your economy could be severely damaged if that asset class is severely damaged). Oh hey there Latvia, your domestic systems are holding $13 trillion worth of Bitcoin (which has become the globally dominant asset). You're the Switzerland of the Baltics. No need to protect your systems with guns, don't worry about it, you don't need a military for that, because Bitcoin is magical pixie dust that only exists in the digital realm. Oh whoops, the digital realm exists on physical hardware (that someone somewhere has to protect with guns).
- enduser 4y ago
  Fair point
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > Every computer that powers the Bitcoin network resides in Ukraine. care to explain? I have never heard this before.

Sebb767 4y ago

On the other hand, Bitcoin obviously has a lot of drawbacks and so do most other cryptos. And, although crypto might has it's uses, it's currently used pretty exclusively as very speculative investment medium and for scamming people.

adventured 4y ago

> Bitcoin has a neat feature of not requiring armies or vaults to protect itself. That premise is false. If Bitcoin wins out and becomes dominant, nations with very large economies (in particular) and a lot to lose accordingly, will absolutely have to use their militaries to defend the networks that power Bitcoin. There is no scenario where Bitcoin becomes a lot bigger and doesn't require military protection globally. It'll require military protection as much as any other super asset, if it reaches the scale of the others that comprise a large chunk of national wealth in a given country.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

wonderwonder 4y ago

"Bitcoin has a neat feature of not requiring armies or vaults to protect itself." I hear what you are saying but this premise is actually wrong. To steal someones money from the bank criminals probably need a group of armed men and must attempt to breach the banks vault. Which is very unrealistic. At any moment an army of police could arrive and kill them plus they have bank employees and customers to deal with and likely a security guard. To try and take fiat digitally is even harder as you have to actually hack your way into a banks systems and transfter the money and still withdraw or launder it somehow later. To take someones btc they just need to get into someones house with a gun or some pliers and a hammer and their target will just send it to their wallet from their laptop. Its far easier to steal large amounts of crypto currency than it is to steal large amounts of fiat.

hourago 4y ago

> Bitcoin has a neat feature of not requiring armies or vaults to protect itself. Not even cannons can protect it. - One day, due to the accidental wallet destruction during the server reboot, they lost keys to all BTC wallets, resulting in loss of 17k BTC. - The hackers breached Bitcoin7 servers and gained full access to the main BTC depository and 2 of the 3 backup wallets. - The 43,000 BTC Linode theft was not enough, and another 18,457 BTC was stolen from Bitcoinica’s reserves. The CEO Zhou Tong was barely able to prevent the loss of 30,000 more. The site was immediately shut down for security reasons. - Hackers outside the country infected the internal network of the exchange with a virus that was transmitted through email, and it allowed them to steal private keys. - ... https://medium.com/hackernoon/a-huge-list-of-cryptocurrency-thefts-16d6bf246389 https://medium.com/hackernoon/a-huge-list-of-cryptocurrency-... Bitcoin is not safer than the security of your key storage.

eltradero 4y ago

Most people around here eat (or wish to) at the Silicon Valley VC money manger. They are ultra-fiat people. It's understandable that a decentralized form of money that removes money mangers (other notable ones are the military and medical industrial complexes) makes them unhappy.