Well put! You’ve also exemplified why I love bitcoin and this community (and stacker.news), the ability to discuss weighty issues without the toxicity of the bird app when someone wants to discuss the finer points of a new economic paradigm.

I agree we figure it out. I think there will always be multiple currencies. I can’t see a way around bitcoin NOT being the place to park wealth, it’s absolutely perfect in that aspect. I just have a stinging concern about how my neighbor can increase his net worth by ending me (making my bitcoin forever inaccessible).

I don’t think it’s that difficult to predict, it’s a step backwards historically. Kingdoms only had their treasuries to build with. With an empty treasury they either ceased to exist, stopped building, defiled currency to look like they were refilling the treasury, or refilled the treasury via taxes or war. Castles and cathedrals took centuries to build so they could pay as they went. Loans as investments allowed people to escape servitude of feudal lords. Now you can have a whole house or business… today without waiting…and use it to earn and pay it back and make more. Deflationary assets have a place, but if it is the ONLY thing then you will see the current hodlers just become the elite until someone decides they have had enough and revolts. Consider the quickest way for a bitcoin country to overtake another bitcoin country: war. Kill private key holders. Destroy their bitcoin. Complete destruction of another nation so your stack becomes even more valuable. You take fighting for resources to a whole new level.

Self-host Whoogle or Searx on a free Oracle Cloud machine. Here’s an example of Whoogle https://www.whoogle.click/

I would offer this to the original poster:

These feelings will overwhelm you if left to ruminate. The world has always been difficult. People once died from the flu or diarrhea. No one ever realizes how good they have it. You largely do not fear a local clan taking your wives and daughters anymore. Find good men, older and wiser, and fellowship with them. Maybe a fraternal organization or community group. They will show you where true happiness is. To be a good father and husband. To bless the world with good children and future leaders. You will learn to not seek happiness in labor, but you will labor to bring happiness to your family. The ant does not quit making hills because someone stepped on it. He toils to make another because he is an ant and his work is needed. Your type of work does not define you, but how you work does.

Welcome, friend.

Isn't it beautiful?

Thank you! I've come across chaincase before and was immediately interested to say the least. I would like to see this at work in the wild. This is next level.

Thank you! I've certainly used BOS for batch opens, but never quite figured out the external wallet procedures. If there was a video or step-by-step doing it from Sparrow post-mix it would be fit for the gods!

This is powerful. Thank you. I'll need to practice a bit. I'm humbled thinking of the implications... buying channels p2p...

Depending on your answers it would inform your storage. The method I think is most safe for people with this much is to do the following:

-Build an air gapped pc. Encrypt it. On this pc will be very accurate descriptions of how to solve your multi-signature wallet scheme. Let’s use 3 of 5 keys as an example using 5 coldcard devices. Also, all your passwords for online banking, insurance policy locations, and anything else your family should know- is on this encrypted computer. The keys are not.

-Make 5 keys using the coldcards but add a passphrase (25th word) on each only you know. Store bitcoin split across however many addresses on that multisig wallet as you wish.

-Make 5 metal backups. Put stickers on backup and coldcard identifying which belongs to which. Now buy 2-5 more coldcards and metal backups and do the same but they are dummies. (You can keep them all in a safe or distribute dummies and 2 real ones to trusted associates that don’t know each other). Only instructions in the pc would let someone figure out which keys worked.

-Go to an estate attorney and have a will drafted. In the will you will put an attachment to be read upon your death with the password to unencrypt your pc and the passphrase for your coldcards. Leave will with attorney, put another copy in safe deposit box or a lock box. Make sure people know your attorney has your will. At your death they will be able to figure everything out.

The most secure OS to date. Everything on it is another virtual mission practically sandboxes from everything else. Open a browser in one VM, a text editor in another and you have to do quite a bit to cut and paste to the other. Hacker gains control of browser but can’t access any other part of machine. If any portion is compromised you just close it and spin up another. Requires significant time to get spun up on using it but then you are a pro after reading all their materials.

Rankin Bass produced some fascinating content. Their The Hobbit was very different as I recall and they had a Pinocchio TV show that used to play syndicated for years during off hours. Blast from the past, thank you! Definitely saw The Last Unicorn in theaters.

👀

Amazing, thank you for the share! That’s a game changer.

Brilliant! I think there is a wallet that does something like that. Trades private keys instead of going on chain. I haven’t spent enough time looking into it. https://mercurywallet.com/

Much of the year I charged 0/0 for non-corporate peers. Their force closes caused by their arbitrage spam programs caused me to charge a 100-200 ppm to offset. Keeping fees low and closing idle channels had exponential results. Many operators refuse to close a channel and reopen to rebalance on chain and would rather have 5 mil sats sit on one side for 6 months than pay 223 sats to reload and re-earn. I can close and re-open channels several times an hour to keep my peers sats moving for them. Unfortunately, many nodes exist merely to exist and have never spent a sat on LN. once you make a purchase and pay some bills and see how pathfinding works beyond a circular rebalance you become invested in developing a peer set that can support your personal economy. Some very good peers here. The interesting thing about Loopers is you can peer with them and since they have so many peers pushing sats to Loop you can easily get payments out because they charge so little to go the opposite direction from Loop.

I like this train of thought. Good point. My concern was the distant future when a 1 btc channel held the equivalent of a small country GDP. How would an average citizen open a 1000 sat channel in a mempool filled with the transactions of nations.

Yes, it certainly works today. I’m a daily user and enjoy the experience. My concern is that we stop here when I think if we look forward 100 years it becomes unworkable. If I’m making 1mil sats/year (and it declines yearly due to deflation) opening a channel with the 300,000 sats I’ve saved at an on chain cost of my life savings would be untenable. I don’t think we can sit on LN and call it a day. Maybe L3/L4 technology gets there but I appreciate the public discourse without the public hanging of someone saying “This has issues long term.” SN seems to be a better place for that then Twitter. Your self-sovereignty concern I also share. How does a company pay employees and do accounting and tax work without demanding zpubs? It’s difficult to find a job now if you are unbanked and can’t do direct deposit. Do we have to make bips that make privacy features a requirement or do we do a public push to prevent government from creeping into my transactions? I think one is easier than the other.

It’s not so bad. You’ll love the Underworld! The ones that question, that challenge things…they usually arrive on their feet. The rest…on their knees.

Are the sats on your side? If so, close and redeploy the sats. If everything is on their side, it is possible they are a mobile node and only come online to make a payment and then go offline again…so leave it alone. However, it’s possible they are a pleb whose node has bricked and they can’t get their funds, so force close and then funds are eventually returned to them on-chain. Best to see if they have contact info on 1ml or Amboss and reach out. Otherwise you must feel out the situation. To be sure, sats on LN do not like to be idle so I always default to freeing them.

The number of bitcoin is increasing right now with block rewards, but eventually the destruction of bitcoin will roll numbers the other direction. Satoshi's wallet, deaths, dust, sends to incorrect addresses...21 million gets reduced significantly. Distribute what's left to the entire population of Earth. Now have them all open LN channels. In 2015 Credit Suisse calculated the value of everything at $250 trillion. That's $2.5 million per satoshi not calculating lost satoshis and assuming Bitcoin has become the world currency. Only the wealthy can afford to open a channel and they will charge you to use it because it's a free market and they need to make back the on-chain fees then make a profit. You either need more layers than LN, or you need adoption to never go hyper and instead reach an affordable middle ground. Sure they can compete, but why would they if there are only a few players that run the market and you must use them? I think you're 10-15 year prediction may be spot on...but I try to look at this in 100-500 years and see if our model breaks.