What’s something that’s commonly believed about Bitcoin among bitcoiners - or everyone in general - that simply isn’t true?
I’ll go first: “High fees are bad for adoption”
No.
I’m very bullish on transaction fees growing over time
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That bitcoin has already won. I'd guess only 20% of the currency war has been waged so far. Bitcoin's incentives for securing itself, and for hodling, are incredible but there's still a lot of work to do.
complacency will kill us.
Let's for argument sake say that bitcoin has already won. If that were true we wouldn't know it based on the signals. That tells me people that think or say this are out of touch. The battle is just warming up. It may be true that bitcoin is to established to be stopped but I'd rather not take that for granted.
Yep. It's like Pascal's Wager for never declaring you're finished.
So refreshing to find a place where people will say this out loud.
Biggest misconception is that bitcoin hasn't already won, mostly espoused by high time preference people who equivocate "1% chance it takes >100 years with multi decade bear markets" with "existence of possibility that bitcoin has not already won".
It’d probably be more useful to define winning than slinging out bitcoin slurs like “high time preference,” but point taken.
I don't even think that is the issue. I think Bitcoin can win on its own, however humanity faces multiple existential threats that Bitcoin will not fix or cannot fix within the amount of time needed. We are actively pushing ourselves to extinction before Bitcoin can have any impact whatsoever.
I think the order unraveling is a separate issue.
I'm mostly saying we can't wipe our hands and put our feet up.
Yeah you are right about that. There is nothing that says Bitcoin has to be the winner and history consistently chooses inferior technology for the various reasons that it happens. I do think after Spot ETF products come online it becomes exponentially harder for Bitcoin to not win. My biggest concern is even if we have the ability to kick our feet up, we wouldn't be able to relax and enjoy it anyways.
I think for now Bitcoin is in a good spot and at least for me personally I can shift focus a little to those other problems. I think as long as we are able to objectively come back and make our observations about its health we can combat complacency while also not letting the anxiety of Bitcoin potentially slipping through the cracks eat us alive.
Bitcoin isn't something I ultimately want to obsess about. I just need it to continue doing its thing and will be happy to help push it along when it needs it.
those other problems being, being able to kick those feet up and enjoy it?
I'm with you, it does sound great and even, extremely worthwhile, even if somewhat aligned to the complacency side of this thread 😅
Part of the logic of "bitcoin has already won" relates to lindy and technology adoption curves, as well as the software development maxim "worse is better". Bitcoin is unquestionably the simplest, and this hugely weighs in its benefit because it's still here and still slowly moving towards small reconfigurations that close previous holes.
The unraveling of the order is also bullish for it because this unravelling isn't a new thing in history, happens basically like clockwork every 400 years. Last time there was the unraveling was the birth of paper money and banking, out of the tail end of the Crusades and the Magna Carta that went along with it.
As the order unraveled last time, we got the USA, also, and the modern liberal democratic state.
These are just trajectories that tend to be repeated and you don't have look far for the patterns in our own last 20 centuries happening over and over again.
That Bitcoin is enough. Like it will fix the sistem with it's incentives. People need to learn how to mentally, legally and lawfully live as a sovereign individual.
Yup, Bitcoin is just a major asset in getting us there.
I think it will fix the current incentive structure behind money today, but the new world that bitcoin ushers in will certainly come with its own host of problems.
Nothing will change if we obey the government or any authority, still pay taxes, use fiat, etc. We can scream boating accident all we want, are still slaves. Same goes for privacy, you can hide all you want, but who are you running from?
Many taxes (like sales tax) are ridiculous. Although, paying for land that receives police protection, road maintenance etc makes sense. Think we should distinguish types of tax too. The government is not what it should be, but it can fulfill a good role if done better.
That it's perfect. It's not. It is just substantially better than any other option.
we wouldn't need consensus if btc was perfect
Wrong, fool! It is mathematical perfect, and this is known by the laws of physics. Difficulty adjusted proof-of-work is the absolute zenith of efficiency. You are operating in metaphor fantasy land where magic things better than the supremum exist, but join the real world instead of trying to be a midwit intellectual with your "moderate" position.
Proof: https://heaviside.substack.com/p/bitcoin-is-the-energy-minimal-system
Bro you really need to get a girlfriend, or boyfriend or whatever suits you and makes you happy. Bashing on people doesn't move anything or anyone forward, specially you.
Do I seem to you like a man who seeks to be pacified?
You think the issuance schedule is perfect? I don't but it's good enough.
Nope, it is unknowable what a "perfect" schedule would mean.
What is clear however is that every form of issuance sucks. The only good distribution you get is the one that arises out of capitalism, which requires repeated iterations, quite possibly a century or more may be needed until there is a rather sound distribution as I wrote about here: https://heaviside.substack.com/p/210-years-of-darkness-on-bitcoin
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inb4, your only other comment... is linking to something you wrote 🤣🤣🤣🤡🤡🤡 http://nostr.build/i/af0b45b75f2c34ab3d37a4f013def8e1bd9811263f1ca45b1cbaf61ee789f80d.png
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No, I'm just not retarded, but have a nice and meaningless life devoid of curiosity, consoooomer
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I'll admit it was unnecessary and counterproductive to phrase things aggressively/arrogantly in my original response. ...I suppose the fiat world simply has me on edge more often than not, and it is a habit that I find I do need to work to keep in check around customers, colleagues, and employees.
That bitcoin is about NGU and one day you can cash out for fiat (price fanaticism)
another, is the use of custodied / KYC holdings (on binance, coinbase, kraken etc) is a safe thing to do
identities of users and their balances are constantly being made public
see mtgox, celsius, many others, most recently huobi had a near miss:
https://www.nobsbitcoin.com/huobi-data-breach-leaked-kyc-data/
hopefully no bitcoiners here are still holding their coins on an exchange...
That it fixes everything. Human interactions have been corrupted and influenced - usually via means of force - since the earliest hominids. Sound money doesn’t remove the problem; it just evens the playing field.
Biggest misconception is the tri-functional theory of money and adoption sequence. There are actually 4 functions of money and all your models are destroyed in this newsletter post. https://heaviside.substack.com/p/the-forgotten-fourth-function-of
Misconception by non-Bitcoiners: it's anonymous so only criminals use it.
Misconception by Bitcoiners: it should only be used for peer-to-peer payments, forever, no exceptions, no discussion, 'cause Satoshi said so. (He did write that in 2008, but we can build and do more.)
that normie misconception is one of my favorites: it suggests the complete antithesis of what a decentralized ledger is
and yes, I agree, bitcoin is much much more than a payment system
I think there are a lot of misconceptions about cryptography.
Beginning with people who think "cryptography" was some kind of shitcoin, people who don't get the difference between preimage resistance, second preimage resistance and collision resistance, people who misunderstand or feel "threatened" when scientists talk about research in DH/CDH/DDH/prime factoization/merkle-damgard etc.
You must try Lightning network....
Self custody isn’t getting easier, that’s why we need qualified custodians
I'll go second: "High fees will takeover current lever (costs) of the network security - from block subsidy"
I'm seeing a lot of support for Bitcoin ETFs in the community, but I see no material difference between an ETF and holding funds on an exchange (which is correctly recognised as a big no-no).
"Bitcoin is a ponzi"
"You have to wait like half an hour to pay your coffee"
In reality you would pay with lightning, and it takes seconds, the same as paying with a bank card.
About Bitcoin being the best option of everything, it's the best decentralized blockchain but not for a wide margin.
what do you mean for a wide margin?
There are other good decentralized blockchains.
Which ones? and what are they better for?
Monero.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/032/691/Oof_Stones_Banner.jpg
shitcoiners misconception
Why? If it come from maxim not worth the conversation.
first name one good decentralized blockchain that's not Bitcoin, i'll wait
Already said above best decentralized blockchain I consider Bitcoin other good one is Monero.
It's not decentralized