https://xcancel.com/Coinicarus/status/2022313683200749946#m
In other words lack of adoption, lack of real usage.
Sure there's steak n shake, a few gift card companies, a small number of merchants, you can "trade" Bitcoin (bad idea) on an exchange...
And our beloved Stacker News.
But Bitcoin needs to grow up.
All the signaling, all the forks, all the infighting (and there is SO MUCH) all the "filters" (or lack thereof) none of it really matters if people refuse to use their Bitcoin, refuse to spend it and pay fees.
Lightning in some way has been a double-edged sword - making daily payments cheap, fast, and instant wrecking anything the shitcoiners have on offer much less any other PoW blockchain. But Lightning transactions only "pay fees" when a channel is opened or closed... meaning a single channel can make THOUSANDS of daily payments without the need for an on-chain transaction.
It is scalable and too good.
Meanwhile the Core/Knots drama, absolutely tone-deaf to the real adoption issues facing Bitcoin (no Core V30 is NOT the reason fees are anemic) does nothing for education. Core/Knots does nothing for merchants, nothing for hodlers, nothing for Network Users it does fuck-all to get the world on a Bitcoin Standard.
Because the world does not care about this:
71 thousand transactions "in the waiting" of
paying one penny each.
When are we "the community" going to grow up and realize the world doesn't care about our problems?
Either we use Bitcoin, and encourage others to use it... or it eventually dies.
Worst case is eventually an "ambitious dev" (borrowing from Mike S) shows up proclaiming a needed change to the emission schedule (creating more than 21 million Bitcoin) in order to "save Bitcoin" and save the mining industry.
If you think the Core/Knots look is bad today... wait till that argument, that battle comes to pass it will make us wish we could back to the worst days of the Blocksize Wars.
And it will all have been so completely predictable.
The choice is ours.
Which version of Satoshi's Future do we want?
Anita spittin' straight facts
How this helps fill blocks with transactions?
Without Lightning Bitcoin isn't plausibly scalable. With Lightning it's too scalable... right now.
At least with Anita's usage there are Lightning channels opened/closed/spliced somewhere meaning some on-chain transactions that result.
If we don't transact we won't have any on-chain usage or fees and eventually we will be in big trouble.
Either we support the network through fees or inflation, we choose.
the butterfly effect eh...
@siggy47 needs to start his bitcoin only cruise so we have something expensive enough to make on-chain transactions.
You know, I have just discovered that there are specialized cruises for everything: weird British folk music, jazz, blues, astronomy, etc. Don't think I haven't spent some time thinking about it. I could see a week long bitcoin conference through Caribbean, Central America. The only thing I'm worried about is that there would be so much feuding and nastiness between stackers that people would get thrown overboard regularly.
There is likely some correlation between an interest in bitcoin and general social unruliness. It takes a certain dgaf attitude to look at the current system, say it sucks, and just walk another way.
Woah, astronomy cruise sounds dope
Survival of the fittest
Show the world how you use it. What it actually looks like.
Yet in your own post you dedicate a considerable part of it showering the drama queens with attention.
Take the lecturing tone down a notch, start living the way you think helps the cause, and then show it so those on the fence can gain confidence.
I have used Bitcoin in person via Lightning, non-custodially, in Netherlands, Switzerland, Czech Republic plus the United States.
I use it every chance I get basically. Otherwise I wouldn't believe it exists (I do now of course).
The constant infighting unnecessarily harms Bitcoin's adoption.
I have self-custody, I educate on Bitcoin when people ask politely when they are curious... I have a small miner at home and have tried out Lightning using different wallets in different countries successfully.
There is nothing more I can do. There just aren't "enough" of us Stackers.
#838975
I don't think complaining over the infighting helps adoption in any way, either.
Both sides are acting like idiots. From what I saw last time I looked, not only like idiots but hysterical ones to boot. Whenever I gave them any attention, they already won. And I lost some brain cells in the process.
That's very commendable and I find that a much better read.
I'm just at a loss trying to understand what you expect complaining about empty blocks will actually achieve. Shame others into spending?
I enjoy a more positive approach where I can see how others actually spend their sats, like in your linked post. Which challenges they have, and how they get around them.
That type of content is useful for my own playbook. Some of my challenges may rhyme with yours.
Having said all that, others may react positively to lamentations, kicking them into action. I'm only having a hard time seeing it actually work out that way.
I reserve the right to having been proven wrong.
The infighting harms adoption. The "bitcoin community" has no idea has poorly it reflects on us... or how counterproductive it is to 99% of the public.
It is having an impact in the real world. We would have 10x the users, 10x the education if the first point of contact with people was Lightning. Instead it's obscure technical arguments that (in my screenshots) aren't really effecting what's getting into blocks anyway.
Lightning is the real deal.
We need to address reality. Bitcoin today has all the tools it needs to scale to 50x maybe 100x more people... we should see vastly more people using it and there is a reason blocks are empty.
If Bitcoin had a CEO he would be working overtime to get the ship in order and make sure the user understands the product. We are currently failing not because of price but because of empty blocks. "Price" follows demand.
I could talk about that for hours... the difficulty is there's nowhere to... X doesn't discuss spending Lightning much. R/bitcoin is all price talk. Nostr is... i'm not sure what mostly sandwhich pictures it is so disorganized.
Where does that leave?
Bitcoin is a 17-year old skipping school smoking pot currently. Either we give ourselves "tough love" or the world will do that for us.
They should get the fuck over themselves. Every spend (generally speaking) makes Bitcoin stronger.
It's ok. The price tells me people have a lot of value stored on chain and if and when the threat is real, they will put that money to work dealing with the threat.
Rapidly declining value, you forgot
I wish Bitcoin will be so expensive in terms of fiat, that nobody can buy it anymore.
Instead they will have to EARN IT.
I also wish that Bitcoin price will go to $1 so all these fiat maxis will go away.
The value in fiat is totally meaningless.
The fiat value may be meaningless...
But the actual usage of Bitcoin is not. We need more goods, services and business models priced in BTC.
Stacker News is amazing but it is one website on the entire internet based on the use of Sats... and a really small community. The few hundred of us alone cannot carry the fledgling Lightning-economy forever.
SN is not about "pricing" in sats. Is just a forum moderated by sats. That's all.
Don't limit your view only to SN and nostr. Bitcoin is far way more used outside than you can imagine.
I live only using bitcoin from 2018, no more fiat and bank accounts.
I didn't need to onboard everybody around me or an entire town.
With just few merchants was enough. Now... I have 2 of them begging me to order anything from them (even that they do not sell it usually in their shops) with sats. And I get also a good discount.
I don't need to "price in sats" the products. I just need to EARN in sats. Then all the rest is adjusted.
Another important part that very few get it: spend less than you earn, in a certain period of time. Spend wisely your sats.
Bitcoin is not about mass adoption. Is about survival. And will survive only the brave and knowledgeable.
Pay attention to my words...
So no, the biggest threat to Bitcoin are NOT the empty blocks, but human stupidity.
This is the way. 1BTC in 2017 is still 1BTC today. There is no gain.
It is not, idiot. If bitcoin doesn't have any market value, it can't do the things we envision for it
Spaces Protocol fixes this. Normies will eat it up because it makes Bitcoin a whole lot easier to use.
What is... spaces protocol?
One thing we're going to need to embrace before "making it" is wallet-level support for matching all bitcoin spending with fiat to btc trades. This allows you to spend from a fiat source, use bitcoin in the transaction but to replace any used bitcoin to maintain a consistent bitcoin balance so that there's no capital gain of long term holdings happening except when intended.
This is what I do when I spend bitcoin. Folks can argue if tax laws actually allow this, but I'm going with the idea that it's reasonable that no capital gain takes place if net change in bitcoin is 0 or slight gain. (for me, always a slight gain, I award myself with spending by netting more bitcoin on my cover).
Tax law aside, it gives me the peace of mind that no spend is a 10,000 bitcoin pizza moment.
It's a very big hassle to do this right now and I only can sustain it out of principle. This needs to be a wallet supported feature.
I've heard there is some wallet support for Tether on the Liquid side chain being swapped on bitcoin payment transactions but there needs to be alternatives.
Ideal version of this would work with some kind of native bitcoin layer and involve a diversity of fiat denominated stablecoins one could choose to liquidate and balance to mitigate the risk of holding those.
I've been using an ETH layer 2+Metamask+hardware wallet and it has been a major hassle with the hardware wallet support timing out a bunch and requiring a browser close/open. The trades result in custodial BTC and semi-custodial tBTC which I liquidate eventually... A project like tBTC should get some of our support for distributing the custody (threshhold signatures etc). Would be better to work with something where the bitcoin was more native and easy to shift.
Direct merchant support is very important. A store of value is useless if there's no direct way to realize stored value down the line. It's not enough to have hope of adoption down the line, some folks don't want bitcoin unless they know there are spending exits from the start, otherwise bitcoin feels like a trap.
There are people who are not going to sign up for exchange accounts, bitcoin credit cards, visit gift card merchant pages or want to do peer to peer trades (at high spreads). They need bitcoin to be something that they take to the merchant and spend like cash. It's okay if the merchant uses a payment processor as long as that stays out of the way and doesn't add friction to the transaction.
This is not most people, but it's the people for whom bitcoin's censorship resistance and pseudonymity could have utility. A minority of people who get utility out of bitcoin are the base upon which speculation can be built. It's okay to HODL, but that belief has to rest upon the idea that there will be some people in the future exercising the utility.
All this said, the journeys to better wallet support (with automatic stable coin cover) and better merchant support are incremental ones. Keep blazing the path as best you can. There's no point in spending on things that don't meet your utility needs.
Staying humble and just stacking sats may or may not suffice to bring on the future. Eventually all the strong hand stackers could take the price to the moon and this will generate merchant interest, but there's a risk of not enough miner subsidy to secure the network against attack if this takes too long.
Agree 100%
Agree 100%... this is more or less what Cashapp/square is trying to accomplish.
Agree 100%
That is my belief as well. Bitcoin needs usage, and it needs more great sites like Stacker News to provide the day-to-day utility. That's why I wrote this post and that's why I think we're all here.
At least in the US, payments will always be a problem until there is a de minimis cap gains tax exemption.
Stand up for something in your life. Bitcoin is a worthy cause. Imagine future text books: "The people of the 2020's won our financial freedom from fiat-banking by transacting in Bitcoin, and being very careful to fill out IRS Forms 1099-crypto, 1099-X; and because of their honesty, Bitcoin became our non-inflationary currency!"
1BTC=1BTC, same in 2014, same today - there are NO gains here... If you buy into the state sponsored tax-fear campaign, you spend 10k sats today, and simply purchase 10k sats today to replenish. The fiat cost-basis becomes a wash. The state attack on Bitcoin is drowning you in IMPOSSIBLE paperwork.
Why are we, as "Bitcoiners" so hell-bent on being honest with unaccountable multi-millionaire pedophiles?
Hey I'm with you. I think it's just an honest take though that this is going to be an obstacle to large scale payment adoption in the US. Most people are going to be practical and not ideological about BTC.
You're correct! And it's up to us to communicate and LIVE by example the benefits of money without rulers. If we ourselves bend to rules outside the protocol, what's the f*cking point - just give up now and sell your stack. It is up to ALL of us to sew the seeds of monetary revolution. More and more people will see the freedoms we have seized and enjoy, and the word spreads exponentially. We also need to be very honest about how absolutely disgusting our leaders (captors) are.
All this I'm going to tell you how you should use Bitcoin is hilarious
The infighting used to worry me until I realised that with no leader, it's this
Commenters like this saying this is that etc
Thr infighting is a feature not a bug, long may it continue
All these devs suffering from main character syndrome 🤣🤣🤣🤣 we need to implement this that the other
Carry on
You are the result of Satoshi making Bitcoin decentralized and if we have to listen to a bunch of Karen's on twitter declaring the next iteration
Fine by me
The discord and infighting takes a toll on adoption, that's all I'm saying.
It will result in real users getting rugged a shitcoin... when bip-110 forks off the mainnet with small-minority hashrate come August.
We leave ourselves vulnerable... to ambitious opportunists trying to steer the pirate ship.
Satoshi said we may have "very large volume" or "no volume"... and if we have no volume in 3-5 years we're in trouble.
As a community we need to convince our fellow "Bitcoiners" that unit of exchange is the ONLY priority. Transacting on Bitcoin, whether that be on-chain, or Lightning, or Fedi, Ark, etc. is exactly what brings transactions into the base-layer. People who enjoy using Bitcoin are more likely to graduate into on-chain and multi-sig transactions. Generating fees, and building grass-roots interest overall in Bitcoin. Transacting in Bitcoin also drives that magical NGU. Wonder why this cycle's top was so pathetic? In 2014 and 2017 we were transacting with Bitcoin! Institutions and ETFs have proven useless in improving Bitcoin's value. These speculative bastards are only interested in Bitcoin for fiat alpha.
Those of us who are "diamond-hands" holders, and never spend their Bitcoin are the problem. These tourists are also only here for NGU-tech, and only care about Bitcoin for that fiat price. They never seek out, and reward, hardworking Bitcoin friendly merchants who are taking a risk to trade in the best money.
FAR too many "Bitcoiners" become absolutely paralyzed in perceived taxable-events. First, stop being so honest with unaccountable pedophiles, and despots. Secondly, for those of you paralyzed in fear of government, and who can't ignore their mystical tax-beast: simply spend and replace. Stop splitting pennies on First-in-First Out, cost-basis bullshit. This IS the state-attack on Bitcoin, trapping us in fear and impossible paperwork. If you spend $100 of BTC/Lightning today, purchase $100 of BTC today. This is a break even scenario - BOTH transactions took place at relatively the same "price". This is honest enough.
Stand up for something in your life, pussies. We only have ONE shot to separate money and state. At least once a month - find a wonderful Bitcoin merchant, show them some love with Bitcoin.
100% agree
Completely agree. People don't have to "spend their stack" but they should spend a little bit if nothing else but to understand the technology they are saving in. Stacker News, Nostr, small goods and services... a little bit goes a LONG way.
Calculating capital gains on micropayments across the internet... is impossible. 10 sats is what 1/2 a cent? Hopefully we build better business models and incentives 1/2 cent at a time
Okay doomers.
Just being realistic. We need some tough love
I’m certainly guilty of pretty much only using L1 for managing lightning channels.
That's... what it's designed for really. L1 to open/close/manage Lightning channels and on-chain only for channel management + unusually large transactions.
Without this reality Bitcoin doesn't scale. With it we have mostly empty blocks right now and that's something we can work on
Yeah, who would have guessed no volume but still a not-yet dead coin?
No she's not dead yet.
I have to try my Lightning transactions 4-5 times (if they're bigger) to make them go through...
I had to learn Linux to get a secure enough computing environment...
I had to learn self-custody and risk management to appreciate on-chain...
And I had to learn on-chain privacy from scratch. I had to do the work myself.
But at the end of the day, Bitcoin Lightning especially is amazing so when I see empty blocks I just don't understand why.
AI agents are Bitcoin/lightning's killer app, they will come
I agree.
It is still very difficult to use Bitcoin in everyday life.
LN needs to be used or it will not get stronger.
Yet here we are on Stacker news and some folks can't be fucked to attach both sending and receiving wallets.
WTF!
I point this out and get screeched at relentlessly with absolute venom and abuse.
But those Stackers who cannot be fucked attaching wallet have not provided any credible reasons why they do not attach wallets.
Its pretty easy now to attach a wallet and use LN for every transaction here on SNs.
That puts transaction fees and volume into the LN.
That trickles up into L1 as channels are opened.
But can some loud mouthed Bitcoin Maxis who claim to be 'living on The Bitcoin Standard' here be bothered?
eg @DarthCoin
No, they would prefer to remain massive fucking hypocrits and keep defaulting to CC shitcoins 'because they always work'.
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