Not so toxic rant, but this ETF stuff made me realize something \ stacker news ~bitcoin

Not so toxic rant, but this ETF stuff made me realize something

3865 sats \ 30 comments \ @ToxicSaraTV 17 Dec 2023 bitcoin

I kind of knew this for a long time but honestly, I think only a small fraction of the world will ever actually hold keys to their bitcoin. As unfortunate as that is, at some point we will definitely have to accept the possibility. And as much as I hope that as we continue to grow and scale, software such as fedimints will be able to empower local communities, I have a sad feeling the world is going to devolve into more of a panam style situation where the top class (who own bitcoin in this scenario) live in paradise city states with all the technology and convenience and then you'll have the lower class no coiners living in mud huts and being pissed on.

I have no idea, honestly, but there are a couple things I know for certain:

The vast majority of the population will never own the keys to a UTXO
The LN while amazing, cannot scale indefinitely in a noncustodial fashion due to on chain costs. Those who will enjoy LN will be the ones who get in when the channels make economic sense to open.
The governments and current oligarchical entities are going to try to do everything possible to keep as few people from holding the keys to UTXOs as possible. Especially after they realize the true threat of Bitcoin. I do not think there will be a 6102 or whatever, but I do think that they will try their best to limit the amount of people that can hold keys. This is why there is a sort of reverse incentive to get next-block tx fees as high as humanly possible. There is a non-zero chance this whole ordinal thing is a test psyop.

Bitcoin truly is a lifeboat and the Titanic is sinking faster than we all expect. Stacking sats at sat/cent parity will be extremely annoying for newcoiners at that time as they will not be able to economically hold their UTXOs.

To be absolutely clear, I do not think this is a flaw in Bitcoin. I think this is a challenge that needs to be solved in a non-lazy cypherpunk way. Custodians are not going to be the appropriate solution.

Also, fuck drivechains.

view all related items

314 sats \ 3 replies \ @tomlaies 17 Dec 2023

The governments and current oligarchical entities are going to try to do everything possible to keep as few people from holding the keys to UTXOs as possible.

I doubt that will happen.

It's a nice pessimistic doomer story.

But that's not how economics work. When there is a market demand (people want to own keys) and there is a supply it creates an arbitrage situation. Despite it not being possible anymore for a cartel to monopolize supply, even if there was someone will give in and exploit the arbitrage situation. No cartel/oligarch likes seeing their competitors make arbitrage profits. As soon as a second one gives in there is competition and a race to the bottom in margins.

Capitalism is the natural state of economics. When there is demand and there is supply, the two will be matched. It's inevitable.

This is all hypothetical tho, it's too late for a cartel to ever monopolize supply on Bitcoin UTXOs anyway now.

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @ToxicSaraTV OP 17 Dec 2023

Read the next part of what I said. It will be passive, not active. No 6102 or anything like that but things like psyoping on chain fees passively does this.

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @tomlaies 17 Dec 2023

I read it.

I agree there will be fractional reserve paper money denominated in Sats. I agree these products will have advertisements for them. I disagree there will be advertisements against owning own keys. Because that's simply not possible as a realistic goal to enforce.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @ToxicSaraTV OP 17 Dec 2023

I agree. They won't even mention keys. It's a passive low-key (no pun intended) thing.

56 sats \ 4 replies \ @Zepasta 17 Dec 2023

deleted by author

60 sats \ 1 reply \ @orthwyrm 17 Dec 2023

Almost certainly BRC-20 mints and inscriptions.

50 sats \ 0 replies \ @Zepasta 17 Dec 2023

deleted by author

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @itsrealfake 17 Dec 2023

Is this a sarcastic post, or you genuinely didn't know those were ordinal mints?

1 sat \ 0 replies \ @Zepasta 17 Dec 2023

deleted by author

46 sats \ 4 replies \ @Zepasta 17 Dec 2023

deleted by author

46 sats \ 2 replies \ @deletedd 17 Dec 2023

deleted by author

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Zepasta 17 Dec 2023

deleted by author

37 sats \ 0 replies \ @deletedd 17 Dec 2023

deleted by author

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DcaSignals 17 Dec 2023

If we go into a Bitcoin standard and the value becomes extremely high, even if fees go back to 1sat/vB, if the value of each indidual sat is enormous,

If 1 Sat - 1 USD is that $120 million per bitcoin?

62 sats \ 0 replies \ @piecover 17 Dec 2023

I apreciate you posting this but one thing I disagree with is the panam style situation, this is already the case in the current world we live in today the haves 1% and the have-Nots 99%. Bitcoin is intended to fix that by removing the money printer from the hands of a few to no one being able to print.

92 sats \ 2 replies \ @Line2Wire 17 Dec 2023

Hard-disagree. The technical boundary to hold keys and run a node was made elegantly low, and it's only been made more accessible over the years. It's a technical feat and is how Bitcoin has become and continues to be the most decentralised network on the planet - It was a happy accident, and yet, all the necessary/favourable conditions were met to make it so.

I see it this way - I think at some point every household will own a node, just like they own a wifi router. That's the bitcoin standard. And accessibility will only improve and open more over time.

LN may not be the true end-game. It's an experiment, the first to reach such adoption yes, but an experiment nonetheless that hadn't been battle-tested the way it is being now.

Ark, Liquid, etc for all the positives and negatives all deserve their chance to offer something, and I could see them all side-by-side with a bridge between them to minimise reliance on on-chain TX.

I don't think drive-chains in their current form/concept are the way to go either.

Lastly, I don't think it's so much about people not owning their keys, as much as it is about people not interfacing with L1 - Massive difference, and both concepts can co-exist.

1 sat \ 1 reply \ @Coinosphere 18 Dec 2023

I think at some point every household will own a node, just like they own a wifi router. That's the bitcoin standard.

That's a beautiful vision. You must still think of the masses as fine, upstanding, intelligent people on average.

I'm sorry, I haven't met anyone like that in a while. IMHO, the masses are basically socialist consumers who demand everything spoon-fed to them and complain about it being too hard anyway. And I'm being nice there in that description.

Even if forced onto the bitcoin standard they'll demand custodial solutions. Like, 90+% of the planet.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Line2Wire 18 Dec 2023

I believe in re-education. I believe that if people go through enough (rather, I've seen this myself), they'll regain the want and remember the need for holding their own wealth - And technology for the first time makes that a viable approach, even if the UX requires refining. The world is in a perfect state to catalyst exactly that kind of mentality shift.

That being said, most of all, I want choice. I want to be able to hold my own keys, and I want you to be able to hold your own keys even if you believe you shouldn't - That'll then be your choice to make, but not mine or anyone else's.

65 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwearyDoctor 17 Dec 2023

didn't satoshi even say that? Or Hal Finney? That the long term prospect is that the main chain would underwrite the infrastructure, but wouldn't be the (daily use) infrastructure. Maybe he/she/it was a time traveler after all.

26 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 17 Dec 2023

Wow a moment of clarity

136 sats \ 0 replies \ @garyKrause_ 17 Dec 2023

Agree but only in the short term.

Don't underestimate the by-product of reclaimed time. Genius will have time to shine and those with the proclivity will make advances in cryptography and other disciplines that will make it even easier to self custody. Shared UTXO tech will be created and adopted. Zoom out on the development timeline of bitcoin. We had some core key management solutions from the start but the incentive to iterate on key pair management/UI/UX has been historically low.

Bitcoin is assymetric cryptography's killer app and has birthed a technical revolution that cannot be stopped.

Death to time thieves.

42 sats \ 0 replies \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 17 Dec 2023

Only a small proportion of people hold their keys YET. With time the technology will become WAY easier to self custody and many more will see the way. I got rug pulled by Gemini Earn / Genesis and will tell anyone I speak to that they should self custody to cold storage like I do now!

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @brave 18 Dec 2023

Can't ETF be done in a non-custodial way?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinosphere 18 Dec 2023

Effectively: No.

We could make some non-custodial smart contract that acts like an ETF just fine, but no one bothers to because we all know in advance how regulators will treat it.

And if the SEC doesn't approve it then it won't be touched by any fund managers at all. No real money could possibly be moved into it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @JustinGoldberg 18 Dec 2023

I wonder this too. Some kind of multisig. Capital will naturally flow to locales where there is the highest freedom for the user, not necessarily where the shadowy "yield" or dividends are.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @DcaSignals 17 Dec 2023

Tier 1 Slave: CBDC Tier 2 Slave: USDT Tier 3 Pleb: Custodial Lightning Tier 4 Freeman: UTXO

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @JustinGoldberg 17 Dec 2023

What we need are genius interface designers who understand the complexity of security, and interfaces that explain that complexity, and gently nudge the user towards self-custody and self-hosting when they are scratching their heads. And to education people on self-custody. We are getting there slowly but surely.

People, not products.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @TheBTCManual 18 Dec 2023

With all the ETF talk, I wonder when the first one rugs, not as in runs away with the money but thinks they can manage their own custody or uses a custody provider that fucks up those keys and automatically ETF is unbacked in seconds.

To me an ETF is no more or less vulnerable than having an exchange account and everyone knows how we feel abut that setup

An ETF and its custody model can be changed, it could be turned into a federated eCash mint or done as a federated side-chain if you need more bells and whistles like KYC and whitelisting and all that nonsense, but I wouldn't hold my breathe

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Entrep 18 Dec 2023

If you can research when you get into Bitcoin via ETF, you will go out of your way to hold your UTXOs

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @029aaa117e 18 Dec 2023 freebie

I really want to see more discussion on this proposal https://github.com/LNP-BP/layer1