5 sats \ 0 replies \ @netstatic 17 May \ parent \ on: What's a Scam that's so normalized that people don't even realize it's a scam?? bitcoin
Actually, from a technical perspective I do enjoy trying to figure it out. From a user perspective, I'd like for there to be no money at all and wish I could get anything I want delivered instantly. Obviously this can't be realized because the real world has costs, so I have to pick and choose what I want based on what I can access and afford.
Just like every decision in my everyday life, Bitcoin has made tradeoffs. It isn't the fastest way to purchase most products (lightning network aside), but it is the fastest way to do so in a decentralized manner that is near impossible to reverse given enough confirmations. That is a metric important to me.
Any digital currency can have a "better blockchains in certain aspects" when compared to Bitcoin. Someone can make the argument that Dogecoin is better because it's built with a funnier theme in mind. Someone else can say Ethereum is better because it allows smart contracts. "Better" only has meaning for a given metric. And in all the metrics I find important, Bitcoin still beats everything else.
Someone woke up firey today 😂
Something doesn't have to provide 0 value for it to be a scam. For example, you can sell me on the idea of an umbrella being extra unique and charge double price for it. Once I realize it's a regular umbrella I'm calling it a scam, even though it provides protection from the rain. Why? Because I'm not getting adequate value for the cost charged to me. Taxes in a lot of ways are like this. There are a lot of middle men.
Proof of work is like starting a live stream, writing some viewer comments on a basketball, and trying to make full-court shots backwards. You keep trying until the ball gets in and once you make it, you number the ball and repeat the process with a new ball. Let's say everyone who got their comment on a ball sends some money to an escrow you can only spend after 100 balls are made after it.
Now if someone else comes into the stream while you're trying to get ball 64 in and does the same process of writing the comments and shooting backwards, then they can start stealing escrowed funds. For example, if they started from ball 63 and got ball 64 in, they would be entitled to the escrows for both balls (63 and 64). In that case the original person could focus on ball 65 and get a new escrow, or he can try his luck at overtaking the second person from ball 63 again.
In this example the balls are blocks, the comments are transactions, the miners are players, and the escrow is the combined fees and subsidy. Shooting balls is the equivalent of mining with sha256 and the winning block hash (with preimage) is like the video of the ball going in (the thing produced that shows you did the work).
I didn't add a difficulty adjustment in my analogy, but let's say when the commenters see too many balls get in the hoop too quickly, the commenters stop giving money until the basket is moved even farther from the players.
Wasabi and Samourai are no longer viable options for many. Consider adding JoinMarket to your guide.
Docker compose is an implementation detail. His service offers hosting. Think Heroku, except more specialized because the only thing he's hosting is phoenixd.
I don't think they ever got the volcanic miners up and running. They were still working out the construction of the renewable energy park in Metapán back in December.
It wouldn't make sense for them to not open lightning channels to other entities outside El Salvador. If El Salvador will never spend their Bitcoin, they might as well not have it.
A Fedimint would be a good idea within the country but I hope the people will be able to easily and directly swap their ecash for ecash in other federations and/or make outbound lightning payments. El Salvador could take fees for swaps and lightning sends while still working hard to offer a place for those who would like to be financially sovereign individuals.
15 sats \ 1 reply \ @netstatic 26 Apr \ parent \ on: Something about Bitcoin that scares me security
Yes, for big payments at least. It makes sense for there to be a larger wallet for savings and a smaller wallet for payments. The larger wallet can be secured with a 2-of-2 that turns it into a 1-of-1 after some agreed to amount of time. This would allow the company to protect against key theft while still allowing the owner of the funds to move their stack if the company goes MIA.
The whole spiel before that explains the uncharted territory, i.e. the activity generated by the rune protocol and the OTC institutional buys for ETFs. As @lopp noted on X/Twitter:
"Bitcoin is on a record 100 block streak of transaction fees exceeding the block subsidy."
The value of Bitcoin is subjective and no one can truly predict what will happen. The halving is an objective consensus change by Bitcoin Core nodes to reduce the block reward granted in each block by half.
The idea is that for miners to pay the electricity costs needed to maintain their hashrate, this would require an increase in the fee for every transaction or an increase in the value of Bitcoin. Alternatively the hashrate could drop until the miners reach an equilibrium with the fee environment and fiat cost (or whatever their energy prices are denominated in) of their Bitcoin.
The outcome of this halving cycle is usually delayed but some factors may delay it more, like the new token protocol released on Bitcoin that has spiked feerates to unexpected highs. Other never-before-seen factors will probably speed up the cycle, like the large OTC buys from miners that silently dwindle consumer supply. Basically we’re in uncharted territory but most Bitcoiners see the fiat price increasing after all of this.
Are they getting squeezed with their short position on MS?
Probably. Here's an excerpt from the pdf:
As of the original publication date of this document, investors should assume that the Authors are short shares of MSTR and stand to potentially realize gains in the event that the market valuation of the company’s common equity is lower than prior to the original publication date.
the defendants allowed KuCoin to operate in the shadows of the financial markets and be used as a haven for illicit money laundering, with KuCoin receiving over $5 billion and sending over $4 billion of suspicious and criminal funds.
"suspicious and criminal funds" sounds very ambiguous. Almost like the DoJ doesn't need evidence to back up their accusations anymore. This is yet another (probably baseless) swing at the cryptocurrency industry that's bound to fail.
It probably hurts to be so entrenched in the system, like these government employees are, and see their US dollar lose more value than even some of these shitcoins.
I don’t know if this alteration warrants being big enough to be a BitVM 2. It seems like the excitement is more on the bridges and sidechain ideas on BitVM
If you don't have a utxo you have NO say in bitcoin consensus rules.
Fixed: If you don’t run a node as an economic participant you have NO say in consensus