I agree with some of that, most importantly that ZK-proofs are awesome. I also disagree with some of that, most importantly with FIVE ninja turtles on the picture.
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Could you enlighten me about the integration of zero-knowledge proofs into Bitcoin? Do you think it’s an innovative move or plain unnecessary?
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986 sats \ 1 reply \ @om 29 Dec 2023
Bitcoin has all sorts of lightweight clients that have to trust their parent nodes. This trust can be removed with zk-proofs. See one such project: #256267 I hope to see more of that, for example watchtowers that can prove to you that your lightning channel is not being closed or SPV wallets that can prove to you that you haven't received a payment.
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Thank you for your insight. I love learning something new
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Still reading, but this quote is revealing:
Decentralization: minimize the dependence of an application on any one single actor. In particular, an application should continue working even if its core developers disappear forever.
It shows how he thinks about decentralisation being about the ability of a project to continue once it's developers retire, and not as resistance to state-level attacks. Gets to the heart of why there's such a significant divide between earnest Bitcoin and Ethereum people.
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I haven't read it, but the latter is a prerequisite for the former.
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A podcast with an Eth maxi and a Bitcoin maxi would be so good.
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These are never good TBH.
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Do you have a link? I haven't run across this.
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With Justin Drake?
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He’s sold the top twice with the Etherium foundation and laughed about it. Running an unregistered security, I think he ends up in prison.
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He always had strong SBF vibes. Bullshit on top of bullshit covered with pipe dream ideals. I actually respect bunch of people in ETH land but Vitalik is not one of them.
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Good old Vitalik... my 2 favorite descriptions:
  • Vitalik, closeted bitcoin maxi.
  • Vitalik, what a smart person should look like according to a dumb person.
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Imagine thinking etherium was ever cypherpunk lol
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TL;DR
ETH CEO - Looks for a new narrative, to attract more exit liquidity.
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Ethereum is a scam
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Off topic post. Plz downzap
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Territory** And you didn't read the deacription then.
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Top of the territory. "Territory Details"
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Posting about cryptocurrencies is fine here. As long as it's really about them and not mainly about aspects around them.
See this comment from me:
In ~crypto, I have the problem that people seem to think it's about everything around cryptocurrencies. It can also be about cryptocurrencies (since they have "crypto" in their name) but I want to establish that territory to mainly be about cryptography. So if you have something to say regarding the cryptography part of cryptocurrencies, you're welcome.
But I don't consider this to be the territory where to post about other aspects of these coins (like "crypto ETFs"; where "crypto" is used the most or "crypto politics").
And this post is at least focusing on Ethereum and not on trading Ethereum or something. And it also includes some interesting crypto:
In the last couple of years, with the rise of decentralized social media (Lens, Farcaster, etc), we have an opportunity to revisit some of these tools. In addition, we also have another very powerful new tool to add to the trifecta: zero knowledge proofs. These technologies are most widely adopted as ways of improving Ethereum's scalability, as ZK rollups, but they are also very useful for privacy. In particular, the programmability of zero knowlege proofs means that we can get past the false binary of "anonymous but risky" vs "KYC'd therefore safe", and get privacy and many kinds of authentication and verification at the same time.
But I agree. It's not an easy or clear distinction. This post however was indeed interesting. Unlike other posts about which are more like "crypto news".
I guess I need to update the territory description to at least try to make this more clear.
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Why wasn't the territory just named Cryptography then ?
Seems to me that calling it crypto but with the description you have given just adds to the (unhelpful) conflation of 'cryptocurrencices' (dumb name) and cryptography.
I get the idea of 'trying to take a name back' but I don't think crypto was ever used much as an abbreviation for cryptography much anyway. (Although maybe I'm wrong and it was in some circles ?) I feel the use of the word mostly sprang into existence with the arrival of shitcoining 'crypto bros'.
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Why wasn't the territory just named Cryptography then ?
See posts linked in the territory description
Although maybe I'm wrong and it was in some circles?
This
Updated the description. Let me know what you think:
was running out of characters, lol
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Cypherpunks don't work with the state to help erode digital privacy.
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Bitcoin is the gold standard of crypto and to be the golden standard you cannot use it as payments method, it would be like carrying gold around and cutting off a tiny piece of it every time you make a purchase. I for one wont be doing that but feel free to pay me in Bitcoin, or in gold ;) Who's with me on this?
VB chief triggerer of bitcoiner :)?