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The possibility of change exists, but one of the hardest promises Bitcoin makes is that you can't change the rules mid-game like what happened with stocks. That

by roenxi 3y ago

The possibility of change exists, but one of the hardest promises Bitcoin makes is that you can't change the rules mid-game like what happened with stocks. That is one of the most attractive things about this asset class - if the US regulators want to change how a crypto is traded ... tough biscuits. They have to convince the market participants, globally, to trade the new way. The bar might be orders of magnitude higher than for getting rid of stock certificates. People underestimate, I think, how much nudging happens at the institutional level which cryptocurrencies might shut down. It is a really exciting experiment from that perspective.

petesergeant 3y ago
> but one of the hardest promises Bitcoin makes is that you can't change the rules mid-game Am I misremembering or did the other blockchain do exactly that in response to the DAO hack?
- roenxi 3y ago
  Compare that to the ease of rolling back a transaction in USD. I think we'll find the cost was orders of magnitude higher.
  - petesergeant 3y ago
    That doesn’t sound like a “hard promise”
    - ericd 3y ago
      Wasn't that on Ethereum? My impression is that it has very different governance/promises.
      - hanniabu 3y ago
        Governance on ethereum is the same as bitcoin, regardless of what bitcoin maxis want you to believe
    - lucw 3y ago
      You need support of the miners to effect a change on bitcoin, they won't support a change which is contrary to their interests.
      - Psychoshy_bc1q 3y ago
        not Miners, Users. The Users with their own Node govern the rules of Bitcoin. The Miners are bending to our will.
- Psychoshy_bc1q 3y ago
  That was Ethereum, not Bitcoin.
  - LikesPwsh 3y ago
    Bitcoin did the same, to be fair. https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-history-part-10-the-184-billion-btc-bug/ https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-history-part-10-the-184-bil...
pyvpx 3y ago
this assumes USD hegemony is a distant memory. does bitcoin have the largest weapons cache and standing military in the history of humanity? best of luck to your imagined future; but it reads very naive to me.
- amjnsx 3y ago
  So what, it's "play by our rules or get bombed" ?
  - ibz 3y ago
    It is. It always was.
    - npoc 3y ago
      Bitcoin equalises this. USD is going to hyper-inflate to 0 relative to bitcoin, and bitcoin will ultimately be the world reserve asset.
      - bobim 3y ago
        And mostly all in the pockets of a few whales.
        pixelpoet 3y ago
        As opposed to the US dollar, or euro, or ruble or ...? I will never understand how people fault crypto for not somehow magically solving the world's financial ills, as if humanity has ever had another (successful) plan for wealth distribution. How's that communism working out? Crypto is meant to solve the trustless distributed ledger problem, nothing more, nothing less. Expecting human nature to somehow change because of this technology is ridiculous.
        bobim 3y ago
        Exactly the point, it’s not bringing any value to the society beyond what any currency is already providing.
tsimionescu 3y ago
Aren't the vast majority of market participants already operating outside the blockchain, relying on exchanges and sometimes on so-called "L2" networks like Lightning? I think the majority of Bitcoin and Ethereum proponents are already talking about them as "digital gold" instead of digital currency. The mining pools have also blocked any attempt to make the Bitcoin blockchain more efficient at transactions (by keeping the block size small), so on-chain trading is doomed to remain an extremely low-rate event for the foreseeable future. Is it still at 7-10 transactions/second globally? So overall it seems quite easy to force the matter and implement KYC and AML for msot legal Bitcoin transactions.
- rfoo 3y ago
  > So overall it seems quite easy to force the matter and implement KYC and AML for msot legal Bitcoin transactions. At that point people would seriously have more interest in the so-called "L1 scaling solutions" which mining pools blocked. And mining blocks can't block such things anymore given that there is enough interest.
- xiphias2 3y ago
  While you're right that Lightning L2 transactions generally aren't published on the blockchain, while following the lightning protocol, real Bitcoin transactions are passed between network participants that can be published by any of the participants if another other party doesn't follow the lightning channel rules.
  - yuvadam 3y ago
    Force closed channels are an edge case that usually occurs due to unresolved HTLCs during network disconnects, and hardly ever due to malice. Channels can also be closed cooperatively between nodes at any time. Lightning transactions themselves never hit the blockchain - channel opens and closes do.
- LikesPwsh 3y ago
  Seven TPS was a theoretical maximum, it normally ranges from three to six.
Nursie 3y ago
> if the US regulators want to change how a crypto is traded ... tough biscuits They can happily regulate on and off ramps, and enforce traceability etc for anything that touches the 'real' economy though, should they wish.
- npoc 3y ago
  Decentralised exchanges provide a solution, but if a country tries to stifle bitcoin like this, then the bitcoiners can just leave and live somewhere else, taking their wealth with them as 12 words in their head. History shows that societies with the hardest money win.
  - amanaplanacanal 3y ago
    > History shows that societies with the hardest money win. I think I’d like that to be true, but I don’t see much evidence of it. Do you have some examples?
    - npoc 3y ago
      The simple fact that there's no societies left using shells, beads, Rai stones, etc. Only the hardest money survived - gold. However although gold is hard, it fair to say that it was beaten somewhat by soft fiat money, simply due to the overwhelmingly better other monetary qualities of fiat (e.g. portability and divisibility) especially in the digital age. Bitcoin is a hard money that takes the best monetary qualities of both fiat and gold, improves them, and combines them into a single asset with which neither fiat or gold (or shells or beads for that matter) can compete. It would have been more accurate for me to have said "societies with the _best_ money win"
      - qwytw 3y ago
        > Bitcoin is a hard money that takes the best monetary qualities of both fiat and gold Not it doesen't. Also bitcoin is not money (why do people keep claiming this?), it's a speculative asset.
beambot 3y ago
Doesn't the ETF completely bypass such rules? Now you aren't trading actual Bitcoin -- you're trading entitlements at the DTC, managed on their own settlement system and centralized databases. All you need to do is look into RegSHO to see all the ways that system can be gamed.
- genge 3y ago
  It doesn't bypass the rule. It just creates an alternative american market for it. You can still buy bitcoin following the rules of bitcoin if you chose so.
  - _heimdall 3y ago
    Its a totally different market though if you aren't buying actual bitcoin. People can play around with derivatives all they want, there's nothing wrong with that. But to even call these a bitcoin ETF is disingenuous at best. All this is is a new fiat money with a "bitcoin" sticker slapped in the box.
injeolmi_love 3y ago
There’s a very small number of mining pools that control Bitcoin. All the USA has to do to force a hard fork is order them to run alternative mining software.
- junofan 3y ago
  Ethereum miners weren’t very successful at stopping the proof-of-stake transition. Why would Bitcoin miners be any different?
- psychlops 3y ago
  I guess they'd enjoy running their expensive hardware on a worthless fork while the rest of the planet used bitcoin.
  - audleman 3y ago
    And of course, like when China banned mining, they would simply pick up shop and move to another country. One with fewer regulatory risks.
hanniabu 3y ago
> the hardest promises Bitcoin makes is that you can't change the rules mid-game Except that it can with an update

by roenxi 3y ago

petesergeant 3y ago

> but one of the hardest promises Bitcoin makes is that you can't change the rules mid-game Am I misremembering or did the other blockchain do exactly that in response to the DAO hack?

roenxi 3y ago
Compare that to the ease of rolling back a transaction in USD. I think we'll find the cost was orders of magnitude higher.
- petesergeant 3y ago
  That doesn’t sound like a “hard promise”
  - ericd 3y ago
    Wasn't that on Ethereum? My impression is that it has very different governance/promises.
    - hanniabu 3y ago
      Governance on ethereum is the same as bitcoin, regardless of what bitcoin maxis want you to believe
  - lucw 3y ago
    You need support of the miners to effect a change on bitcoin, they won't support a change which is contrary to their interests.
    - Psychoshy_bc1q 3y ago
      not Miners, Users. The Users with their own Node govern the rules of Bitcoin. The Miners are bending to our will.
Psychoshy_bc1q 3y ago
That was Ethereum, not Bitcoin.
- LikesPwsh 3y ago
  Bitcoin did the same, to be fair. https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-history-part-10-the-184-billion-btc-bug/ https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-history-part-10-the-184-bil...

pyvpx 3y ago

this assumes USD hegemony is a distant memory. does bitcoin have the largest weapons cache and standing military in the history of humanity? best of luck to your imagined future; but it reads very naive to me.

amjnsx 3y ago
So what, it's "play by our rules or get bombed" ?
- ibz 3y ago
  It is. It always was.
  - npoc 3y ago
    Bitcoin equalises this. USD is going to hyper-inflate to 0 relative to bitcoin, and bitcoin will ultimately be the world reserve asset.
    - bobim 3y ago
      And mostly all in the pockets of a few whales.
      - pixelpoet 3y ago
        As opposed to the US dollar, or euro, or ruble or ...? I will never understand how people fault crypto for not somehow magically solving the world's financial ills, as if humanity has ever had another (successful) plan for wealth distribution. How's that communism working out? Crypto is meant to solve the trustless distributed ledger problem, nothing more, nothing less. Expecting human nature to somehow change because of this technology is ridiculous.
        bobim 3y ago
        Exactly the point, it’s not bringing any value to the society beyond what any currency is already providing.

tsimionescu 3y ago

Aren't the vast majority of market participants already operating outside the blockchain, relying on exchanges and sometimes on so-called "L2" networks like Lightning? I think the majority of Bitcoin and Ethereum proponents are already talking about them as "digital gold" instead of digital currency. The mining pools have also blocked any attempt to make the Bitcoin blockchain more efficient at transactions (by keeping the block size small), so on-chain trading is doomed to remain an extremely low-rate event for the foreseeable future. Is it still at 7-10 transactions/second globally? So overall it seems quite easy to force the matter and implement KYC and AML for msot legal Bitcoin transactions.

rfoo 3y ago
> So overall it seems quite easy to force the matter and implement KYC and AML for msot legal Bitcoin transactions. At that point people would seriously have more interest in the so-called "L1 scaling solutions" which mining pools blocked. And mining blocks can't block such things anymore given that there is enough interest.
xiphias2 3y ago
While you're right that Lightning L2 transactions generally aren't published on the blockchain, while following the lightning protocol, real Bitcoin transactions are passed between network participants that can be published by any of the participants if another other party doesn't follow the lightning channel rules.
- yuvadam 3y ago
  Force closed channels are an edge case that usually occurs due to unresolved HTLCs during network disconnects, and hardly ever due to malice. Channels can also be closed cooperatively between nodes at any time. Lightning transactions themselves never hit the blockchain - channel opens and closes do.
LikesPwsh 3y ago
Seven TPS was a theoretical maximum, it normally ranges from three to six.

Nursie 3y ago

> if the US regulators want to change how a crypto is traded ... tough biscuits They can happily regulate on and off ramps, and enforce traceability etc for anything that touches the 'real' economy though, should they wish.

npoc 3y ago
Decentralised exchanges provide a solution, but if a country tries to stifle bitcoin like this, then the bitcoiners can just leave and live somewhere else, taking their wealth with them as 12 words in their head. History shows that societies with the hardest money win.
- amanaplanacanal 3y ago
  > History shows that societies with the hardest money win. I think I’d like that to be true, but I don’t see much evidence of it. Do you have some examples?
  - npoc 3y ago
    The simple fact that there's no societies left using shells, beads, Rai stones, etc. Only the hardest money survived - gold. However although gold is hard, it fair to say that it was beaten somewhat by soft fiat money, simply due to the overwhelmingly better other monetary qualities of fiat (e.g. portability and divisibility) especially in the digital age. Bitcoin is a hard money that takes the best monetary qualities of both fiat and gold, improves them, and combines them into a single asset with which neither fiat or gold (or shells or beads for that matter) can compete. It would have been more accurate for me to have said "societies with the _best_ money win"
    - qwytw 3y ago
      > Bitcoin is a hard money that takes the best monetary qualities of both fiat and gold Not it doesen't. Also bitcoin is not money (why do people keep claiming this?), it's a speculative asset.

beambot 3y ago

Doesn't the ETF completely bypass such rules? Now you aren't trading actual Bitcoin -- you're trading entitlements at the DTC, managed on their own settlement system and centralized databases. All you need to do is look into RegSHO to see all the ways that system can be gamed.

genge 3y ago
It doesn't bypass the rule. It just creates an alternative american market for it. You can still buy bitcoin following the rules of bitcoin if you chose so.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  Its a totally different market though if you aren't buying actual bitcoin. People can play around with derivatives all they want, there's nothing wrong with that. But to even call these a bitcoin ETF is disingenuous at best. All this is is a new fiat money with a "bitcoin" sticker slapped in the box.

injeolmi_love 3y ago

There’s a very small number of mining pools that control Bitcoin. All the USA has to do to force a hard fork is order them to run alternative mining software.

junofan 3y ago
Ethereum miners weren’t very successful at stopping the proof-of-stake transition. Why would Bitcoin miners be any different?
psychlops 3y ago
I guess they'd enjoy running their expensive hardware on a worthless fork while the rest of the planet used bitcoin.
- audleman 3y ago
  And of course, like when China banned mining, they would simply pick up shop and move to another country. One with fewer regulatory risks.

hanniabu 3y ago

> the hardest promises Bitcoin makes is that you can't change the rules mid-game Except that it can with an update