We are competing against stablecoins as much as we are competing with normal fiat currencies.Should we waste our time and effort as bitcoiners to promote and write software for stablecoins and make them better?They will exist, fine, but what should we have to do with that?
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347 sats \ 7 replies \ @om OP 30 Dec 2022
My answer: yes but not on L1. Taro is an abomination because in case of a fork Tether or Circle would have power to decide the winner (as it arguably is already the case with Ethereum).
There's Liquid exactly for playing with toys like that, anything bigger is an overkill for inherently centralized stablecoins. For example, BUSD doesn't deserve a chain more secure and decentralized than BSC because they will probably die on the same day anyway.
I think USDT-denominated LN over Liquid would be nice. Do we want to leave USDT LN to the Raiden guys?
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10 sats \ 6 replies \ @timechain 31 Dec 2022
This is a great point about a stablecoin issuer "backing" a fork. A possible way around it is using contracts to stablize sats. HRF actually has a bounty out for this.
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11 sats \ 1 reply \ @om OP 31 Dec 2022
I have written my concerns about this in another comment, I'll paste it here:
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @timechain 31 Dec 2022
I'm not sure if that was the reason for the switch, as much as ETH's volitility;
https://www-coindesk-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/03/17/makerdao-adds-usdc-as-defi-collateral-following-black-thursday-chaos/?amp_gsa=1&_js_v=a9&outputType=amp&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16725056470090&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.coindesk.com%2Ftech%2F2020%2F03%2F17%2Fmakerdao-adds-usdc-as-defi-collateral-following-black-thursday-chaos%2F
(Article explains that DAI, which, at the time was only using ETH and BAT, chose to add a third asset, USDC following "black Thursday" (March 12, 2020), where the price of eth dropped 30% in one day.)
But yeah, Circle can kill DAI, so "defi" using DAI has the same problems of defi using usdc, which wasn't the case once. Add to that the controversial choice to custody the USDC with Coinbase (a few days before the founder was found dead) and you have a centrally held asset that can be seized by both its custodian and the issuer of one of its main collaterals, not to mention the fact that both Coinbase and Circle operate primarily in the US. There are a few trusted third parties that ALL must 'give the green light' for a DAI transaction to work.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @chairman_pretense 31 Dec 2022
Is this how Kollider create their “synthetic stable” balances. Could they claim the bounty?
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @NorthKoreanHostage 31 Dec 2022
You idiots! There's no such thing as stable.
So any and all efforts to try to create such a mythical beast will always fail without exception.
Just hold self custody BTC on chain.
Imagine when everybody figures this out. There's only 21 million BTC for 8 billion people.
Stop getting distracted.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @timechain 31 Dec 2022
I'm not sure how you would read that reply as a pro-stable reply, the entire point is how many third parties could stop it.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @NorthKoreanHostage 31 Dec 2022
I was just piling onto your point.
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151 sats \ 15 replies \ @TheBTCManual 31 Dec 2022
I think I first had Eth envy with stablecoin, seeing their growth and the liquidity it provided shitcoin projects and how it resonates with people selling them token claims on dollars they can never claim kind of made sense to me at the time.
You hear stories of how people want to get out of their failing currency and use stablecoins and how it become a secondary Eurodollar market and these issuers are creating demand for treasuries in the process.
But as I thought about it and the fact that im not in a dollarised country, I thought what is the point? I have bitcoin to save in as my hedge and I earn in my local currency and my liabilities are in it, no one accepts stablecoins here for anything I need to live so seriously what is the point?
I dont want to save in dollars, losing money less slow isn't appealing, I want something that preserves my purchasing power long-term and is not tied to the will of a government
I think we should leave the stablecoins to the shitcoiners and let them rek themselves. Stablecoins cant be decentralised so let it be that, an on-ramp for exchanges to improve their accounting, the fact that people use it for other things doesn't mean you need to pivot bitcoin in that direction
I think all this stablecoin offerings are a distraction and infantilising to people, like oh you shouldn't get bitcoin, you're too stupid to use it, use this thing you kind of understand instead
Nah count me out, and give me sats
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22 sats \ 12 replies \ @om OP 31 Dec 2022
OG Bitcoiners (see @DarthCoin and @bitcoiner_since_2013 above) are filthy rich by now so they don't quite get why people don't want to preserve their purchasing power long-term.
But the answer is simple: most people just don't have any purchasing power to preserve. If your savings will only last you a few months then you can't meaningfully think long-term.
Already pivoted. Galoy has introduced stablesats to their wallet because people want it. Previously Galoy had to offer insurance against Bitcoin going down in USD terms in order to get any traction in the Beach. Which effectively means that what people actually adopted was a makeshift stablecoin rather than Bitcoin.
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30 sats \ 4 replies \ @DarthCoin 31 Dec 2022
Sorry I am not in Bitcoin to be "filthy rich". I really don't care how much worth in shitcoin fiat my BTC.
I am in this Bitcoinlandia for one and only one thing: FUCK THE BANKS AND GOVS.
Who is in this game for other reasons, will get REKT.
If you acquire BTC just for short term, just as another paypal, is totally wrong.
Use Bitcoin as tool to liberate yourself from the fiat slavery.
FIAT DELENDA EST.
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20 sats \ 2 replies \ @om OP 31 Dec 2022
Yes but do you care how much worth your BTCs are in terms of food and other stuff you can buy with it? Because people from the slums of El Salvador and anywhere else care about that very much.
If you tell somebody whose net worth is only about 4 months of living to go all BTC at $64 and then BTC drops to $16, that poor guy now has only 1 month of living (make adjustments for $/food inflation if you want to). But he liberated himself from the fiat slavery, yay! Would he thank you for the advice though?
Adopting Bitcoin = absorbing the volatility risk. That's just how it is and isn't going to change anytime soon. You have the luxury of reaching for goals high on the Maslow pyramid (such as FUCK THE BANKS AND GOVS) because you have lower levels of the pyramid already covered, that is, you're not going hungry anytime soon, in other words, you can absorb the volatility risk. But many people can't. Stablecoins are for them.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 31 Dec 2022
You see? You are always going back to fiat thinking... You always convert all things in USD shitcoin.
https://www.pricedinbitcoin21.com/
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheBTCManual 31 Dec 2022
Lol dude wants to claim his into bitcoin but look how desperately he tries to hold fiat irrationality and defends it, still way to plugged in
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @gandlaf21 1 Jan 2023
well said
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @NorthKoreanHostage 31 Dec 2022
That scam is called wrapped Bitcoin.
"Hey give us your BTC for a handful of shit they will definitely break just as soon as we get a Producer's moment."
A Producer's moment is like from the Mel Brooks film The Producers. At a certain point these scams become profitable to intentionally tank. This is when the devs do a rug pull because it's more profitable to fail than to succeed.
Every stablecoin will experience this. Insuring against it is absolutely a loss waiting to happen. So these scams will absolutely keep wrecking people every time Bitcoin corrects in price from the halving cycle. So every 4 years.
When each stablecoin breaks, the devs just walk away with all YOUR COLLATERAL. And what is that collateral? Your BTC.
JUST HOLD BTC ON CHAIN IN SELF CUSTODY
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @bitcoiner_since_2013 31 Dec 2022
I think you misunderstood what I said. People want stablecoins for the same reasons they want fiat, which makes sense, a USDC is just USD with extra steps.
They don't care if its on ethereum, tron, paypal or liquid, they just want that dollar.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @om OP 31 Dec 2022
OK, I indeed misunderstood.
- I think people actually care that it's somewhere out of reach of their gov, even if it's within the reach of the US gov
- I think stablecoin adoption is much better than nothing because the gov can obstruct the value on the road from a bank account to the Bitcoin chain but once the value is on some chain the gov can't really stop it from making its way to Bitcoin. In the case of Liquid, it takes just one atomic swap from USDT to L-BTC.
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @TheBTCManual 31 Dec 2022
Galoy is tiny and insignificant to the greater bitcoin market, you think a few people settling dollar promises backed by a custody provider and bitcoin is really some shining example of a pivot?
Its not, if they cut the feature tomorrow no one would notice, and they're doing it in a country where bitcoin and dollars are the native currency.
What demand for that would there be in other countries, if I can't take my faux dollars to the store? Liquidity is what these people want, bitcoin offers that, because every country in the world has someone willing to trade bitcoin for their native currency and vice versa
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @om OP 31 Dec 2022
Are you sure that the other countries where native currency is not USD would have no demands for USD stablecoins whatsoever? Is this what we actually see?
https://bitcoindynamic.com/news/tether-is-taking-over-from-bitcoin-in-argentina/
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @TheBTCManual 31 Dec 2022
Yes I am, you're picking pockets of use and pretending that is the norm. I live in South Africa and ive been to many African countries and despite how bad the fiat currencies are, you still have to pay taxes in them, you still need to transact in them to purchase goods, services and utilities.
No one is using USD or stablecoins to do that, most people don't even know stablecoins exist while getting your hands on USD physical currency isn't all that easy.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @om OP 31 Dec 2022
Why have you switched to comparing local fiat to USD stablecoins? Obviously local fiat wins in adoption! It wins against Bitcoin too.
We were rather comparing Bitcoin vs USD stablecoins. And Bitcoin Beach might be a pocket, but Argentina is too big to be called a pocket. Here, Lebanon is another example bigger than a pocket:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/05/-in-bankrupt-lebanon-locals-mine-bitcoin-and-buy-groceries-with-tether.html
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @NorthKoreanHostage 31 Dec 2022
Stablecoins should be outlawed.
How are they not already? Companies can't just make their own monies. This is already illegal.
Why isn't this being enforced? Because of the lie that shitcoiners have repeated trillions of times: that the shit they make is in any way like Bitcoin. They can be shut down. Bitcoin can't.
All Shitcoins should absolutely be shut down by law enforcement with the same ferociousness as they do bank robbery.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @om OP 31 Dec 2022
Indeed, Facebook's Libra/Diem was strongly prohibited by the gov, and it's a perfectly good question why Circle and Tether had better luck than Facebook.
I believe that the US gov hated Libra's peg to a basked of currencies and disliked Diem's peg to national currencies. US gov wants people around the world to use coins pegged to USD. This way the international demand for USD absorbs some of the money mass that comes out of the printer while providing some goods in services to US for free... I mean, in exchange for the newly printed dollars.
The gov might not be able to shut down Bitcoin but it's more than able to beat you up. Be careful what you wish for.
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105 sats \ 0 replies \ @bitcoiner_since_2013 31 Dec 2022
no need to differentiate, stablecoins are fiat currencies. just because they use different payment rails doesn't change much.
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32 sats \ 1 reply \ @DarthCoin 30 Dec 2022
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @dergigi 1 Jan 2023
🎯💯
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21 sats \ 8 replies \ @ama 30 Dec 2022
They'll exist, of course, and people will use them, because many people can't cope with a lot of volatility on their day to day currency (need to pay providers on a schedule, for example), but never backed up by a fiat currency or by any company, government, etc.
The right way to do it, IMO, is by backing them with Bitcoin, like Money on Chain is doing with [Dollar on Chain[(https://moneyonchain.com/doc-bitcoin-backed-stablecoin/) (DoC) backed by the RSK side chain, and giving the possibility to counterparts to take on the volatility people using DoC need to avoid (BTCx).
I think it would be even better if they were issued on RGB instead, if/when it permits it, because as a second/third layer it's closer to BTC than a side chain, but still, MoC is a great project.
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21 sats \ 7 replies \ @om OP 30 Dec 2022
The problem with Bitcoin-backed stablecoins is that Ethereans already tried Ether-backed stablecoins and failed, and the problem is not specific to Ether.
At some point the demand for the stablecoin exceeds the supply of BTC/ETH that people are willing to provide as backing, and at that point you have to either find some other backing or depeg. DAI chose the former and is now about 50% backed with USDC. But if Circle can destroy your stablecoin with a press of a button, wouldn't it make more sense to just use USDC directly?
I've tried to talk some sense into the Kollider/stablesats guys but they wouldn't listen.
A side chain is L2. As far as I get it, RGB is kind of a sidechain anyway except it wants you to say "single use sigil signers" instead of "block validators".
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15 sats \ 2 replies \ @ama 30 Dec 2022
Well, let's see how the experiment MoC is already making with DoC and BTCx... Perhaps the fact that the reward to BTCx holders increases when the demand for DoC does, that could balance out nicely, and perhaps that approach has a chance to work.
Well, as I understand, a side chain always requires its own token and a peg-in/peg-out mechanism, whereas a layer 2 doesn't. That's the reason why I said (believe) that a layer 2, like LN, or a layer 2/3, like RGB, are "closer" to BTC, but I may be wrong.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @om OP 31 Dec 2022
Well, let's see, but I don't expect increased rewards to do much. Bitcoiners are usually not that much into DeFi stuff (see also the self-destruction of renBTC).
OK I see what you mean now. This is a giant mess as Liquid calls itself an L2 (example: buildonl2.com) but the drivechain guy refuses to even say that Liquid is a sidechain. I underestimated RGB it seems.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @ama 31 Dec 2022
I don't think we were discussing bitcoiners here, but stable coins and the rest of the people needs for them. Bitcoiners aren't much into DeFi, of course, but some other people as they might need a stable value for their day to day transactions, they might also be interested into being a counterpart for them and to stack some sats while doing that.
renBTC is a joke running on top of a PoS (that stands for piece of shit, doesn't it?) bigger joke, and it shouldn't be a surprise that it destroys itself or that SBF and friends (or any other) do it at some point. :-)
I wouldn't call Liquid a level 2. I don't know much about it, because from the little I've seen and hear, I haven't really liked much of it and I haven't made any effort to further understand it.
RGB, on the other hand, is a true level 2 (on top of BTC) and 3 (on top of LN), and has nothing to do with side chains, thus not requiring any native token other than BTC and sats, although it can provide the issue of other tokens, as part of its functionality. RGB is a complex system, and I still have a lot to learn about it, but I really think it's worth the effort, unlike Liquid (of course I might be wrong about Liquid).
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10 sats \ 3 replies \ @jp 31 Dec 2022
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10 sats \ 2 replies \ @ama 31 Dec 2022
Probably, but who'd use it right away? A digital version of the USD or the EUR backed by Bitcoin would be much easier to understand and faster to adopt for many people, I guess, as a first step into going full BTC later.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @jp 31 Dec 2022
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @ama 31 Dec 2022
Yes, probably, but as I said, a majority of people would understand much easier and would be more prepared to adopt something called Dollar-on-Chain, or something similar with a familiarity with a currency they already know, rather than something called stablesats. Of course most users won't probably care about how something is achieved and focus on the results, therefore I think they'll be more likely to go for a stable synthetic dollar (or euro) rather than a estable BTC part.
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11 sats \ 2 replies \ @1fatmess 30 Dec 2022
Yes indeed. IDGAF about stablecoins on BTC at all BUT if we assume CBDCs are inevitable (or that USDC becomes the de facto digital Dollar, for example), the govt is likely to make it as hard as possible (if not impossible) to buy BTC with CBDC. P2P access only will make BTC adoption v challenging. Therefore, should we pre-empt it by having USD on BTC rails today, while we can?
I don’t have answers. I just ask questions.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Kaffi 31 Dec 2022
yeah but the onboarding to create a taro compatible lightning wallet would be much harder than just using a CBDC wallet and probably wont be accepted anywhere.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @om OP 31 Dec 2022
But imagine Fedimint with stablecoins. I believe the onboarding would actually be much easier as there's no KYC involved.
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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Kaffi 31 Dec 2022
While I agree that as Fiat is devalued it makes stable coins less relevant it doesn't change the fact we live in the real world and real people need stable coins (mainly USD)
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @gandlaf21 1 Jan 2023
The first commandment of Bitcoin-Jesus: You shall not shitcoin
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @thebtctoto 1 Jan 2023
I love what is possible when someone is building without monetization on their mind. Disregards all the noise, docused on true disruption, this is the way. Keep it up loving Nostr so far.
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