pull down to refresh
1509 sats \ 18 replies \ @elvismercury 26 Nov \ on: The part of Bitcoin you *have* to trust bitcoin
This is the biggest thing missing from almost every discussion of btc, in my opinion -- what it means for it to succeed or fail, the various moves the state could make, what might happen as a result, and how we could tell, empirically, if it were happening.
My take is that most bitcoiners are operating under cartoonish assumptions about this, mainly from having never really thought critically about any of it and having instead incorporated the btc talking points as a matter of religion. The tell of this way of being are the grandstanding critiques of the existing systems, including prophecies about its ultimate fate, without actually understanding anything about it aside from what you've half-assedly absorbed from bitcoin podcasts.
A fun exercise is to tune in to media from the Hated Other and listen to how they make sense of the world. Feel the outrage rise up in you, all the but actuallys you swallow, or maybe don't swallow. And then realize that you're doing the same thing as they are. If you doubt that you're doing the same thing, ask some friends (or former friends) about what they think about your hot takes about their ideologies. Whether you're representing them fairly, in a way they'd endorse. Oops.
This behavior isn't unqique to bitcoiners, of course, although I used to expect better of them.
its time to get IN your submission for SNZ #Classifieds
I am making the zine early bc we have a holiday to celebrate back home
anyone? anyone? a space for your propaganda on a small bitcoin art zine?
1 2" block for 1k sats - purchase and deliver your message here
328 sats \ 16 replies \ @optimism 25 Nov \ parent \ on: This Is Not What Adoption Looks Luke bitcoin
At no point in time, unless you're in one of a few very specific communities (that are on the margins themselves), has Bitcoin been accepted as a norm. It has always been worked against from the moment it came on the normies' radar. From insane licensing requirements in NY, through the IRS taxing the hell out of any value retained (and only gained against the ever inflating fiat crap they print) to the hopefully now-ending era where middlemen and ponzinomics thrive through cronyism, has there not been anything encouraging or even enabling Bitcoin as an MoE. The only time it wasn't frowned upon was when there was no adoption at all and it was on no one's radar.
This doesn't mean that there's defeat, to the contrary. If politicians/bankers/scammers are looking to marginalize for-purpose Bitcoin-as-MoE and only promote it as some virtual asset you can buy but never sell because of the insane taxation, broker fees, and so on, then that's fine for them, but we're used to operating in the margins. Because that's where we started, and we've not grown out of that anyway. If normies just want to accept the ETFs and the Saylor scams, then that is their loss.
303 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 26 Nov \ parent \ on: The part of Bitcoin you *have* to trust bitcoin
There’s also an excluded middle issue. Even when your critics are stupid and misinformed, there still might be undiscovered problems with your own position.
I know I often take it as confirmation of my own correctness when I realize someone who’s disagreeing with me can’t actually back up their position, but strictly speaking that isn’t the implication.
I spent a good while living a life that looked something like "the worst." There's a lot to be said for it. And Moxie does a pretty great job presenting it, but perhaps too great a job: he glosses over the many times when the worst really let's you down.
Sure, having the best fork may not matter that much, but having the best knife is actually pretty great if you like to cook. Sleeping on couches is pretty sweet, but it is also a good thing to have the best mattress. Especially if you don't want to spend a lot of time sleep deprived.
The worst sometimes looks like making do and you discover that in some circumstances it takes quite a bit of time to make do.
I'm now a proponent of " The Good Enough" - which is a philosophy that works both ways. You need to have things that are good enough that they don't get in the way of the thing you want to be doing. And you want to be able to know when your stuff is good enough that you can stop thinking about it.
If you've ever lived in a very religious town where you're one of the few not showing up for worship, it's also very obvious. Or in general if you're a stranger in a smaller community. And you'll feel it too. I've been in those situations too. Can't speak to gender or sexuality discrimination much but I figure they're the same, especially if we're talking about the place you live.
I get what you mean though, but I'm asking questions because race is probably the most abused characteristic to explain social phenomena.
Also, I don't think that race differences is why US service workers are overtly nice to you. Comforting small-talk is a cultural thing, I'd assume that it is originated both by a shared principle (being excellent) and by the dependency on gratuity, but I can very well be wrong about that because I've never worked in the service industry in the US.
Opti received an offer to work as a principal consultant for one of the big 4, part time. Influence the system from the inside out? Could be worth exploring, especially since I'm getting tired of chasing getting paid for gig work.
This is partially correct, but it's not the whole picture. Lava's old custody model used DLCs as one component of a complex cross-chain (Solana) multi-transaction smart contract where, in theory, the user would always have a unilateral exit back to Bitcoin when the loan expires. In theory, the user should always be able to get their Bitcoin back in full by repaying the stablecoins on Solana. Vice versa: Lava should always be able to recover the loan capital plus any accrued interest even if the user is malicious.
The problem was, like Spark's protocol, there were many assumptions made to get to that goal. The oracle behaving, the Solana smart contract key staying secure, the closed-source software being authentic, etc. The on-chain protocol itself was as well-designed as it could be, but ultimately brittle and susceptible to subtle implementation bugs or misuse.
If they wanted to, it would've been easy for Lava to rug-pull everyone, which is exactly the same as any other closed-source bitcoin wallet, because of remote code updates, naive users, etc. Lava's CEO Shehzan and I have spoken about this subject quite a bit, and while I'm more optimistic about self-custody than he is, we mostly see eye to eye.
There was no practical path to fixing all of these issues definitively. All the while, if even the smallest bug were to sneak through, if they were hit by a phishing attack, or an NPM supply chain attack, etc, it would lead to a catastrophic hack or lost user funds. This never happened, but it was a factor on their minds.
Knowing this, and also having opportunities to build a better product by doing so... Lava rebuilt everything and moved to an institutional custody model. But unlike most custodians, every user's deposits are kept isolated until they are withdrawn. You can audit on-chain to confirm your collateral isn't being rehypothecated and gambled away SBF-style. You can find more info about their new system here.
Having audited both the old and the new code bases, I would be far more confident using the new platform rather than the old DLC-based on-chain protocol.
Source: I work part time for Lava as a security contractor.
hahaha They tried with LDK and failed... now they go on trying a new bullshit.
This is how the Marcus family is corrupting all major BTC/LN devs.
Bluewallet is dead anyways, now they just want to revive it with this crap.
All Ark / Spark providers will end up in a KYC shit.
@remindme in 2 years
Good morning stackers!
Apologies again for not getting back to people, it's been a very hectic couple days.
My wife just had our baby. So as you can imagine, it's a bit of a whirlwind.
But here's some music for y'all to enjoy.
This is probably my favorite chapter of Cryptoeconomics.
Bitcoin is based on this hope that we can resist the state, but there's no reason this has to be true.
Hope, or effort. The nice thing about consensus is that if there is consensus to resist, then there shall be resistance. This is why it's dangerous if Coinbase doesn't rug, and if Saylor doesn't eventually get rekt, and we all end up depending on these central actors that will sing like a bird and comply, and ultimately why we decentralize and why the best central entity is a dead one.
232 sats \ 3 replies \ @SpaceHodler 26 Nov \ parent \ on: The part of Bitcoin you *have* to trust bitcoin
My take is that most bitcoiners are operating under cartoonish assumptions about this, mainly from having never really thought critically about any of it and having instead incorporated the btc talking points as a matter of religion.
This is partly due to how many disciplines Bitcoin touches, and no one can be an expert in all of those.
Some bitcoiners will read Saif's books, which focus on the monetary side and talk about Austrian economics, and they'll conclude Bitcoin is the perfect form of money, with all the benefits of gold and none of its drawbacks, while skimming through the technical aspects and ignoring issues like the security budget, miner centralization, the risk of contentious forks, quantum threat etc.
Most of Saif's readers won't read Micah Warren for example, and most math heads are probably not that interested in reading Mises, and even less so in anything to do with politics or sociology.
Bitcoin is too complex for most bitcoiners to understand, and there is reflexivity in it, e.g. the differences in people's understanding can affect its future.
Also, Bitcoin adoption relies on proselytizers and orange-pillers, who understandably tend to idealize, simplify, reduce nuance to catchy phrases etc. to reach and inspire the masses.
But as Bitcoiners it’s our duty to be exceptionally paranoid.
The duty is opt-in. Only you can assign yourself that duty. No one else.
In the extreme, I think it would be doable to argue that we don't even care if the output you produced is in fact spendable (though it would be nice because everyone tracks it.) The only things we care about is that you're not counterfeiting your input amounts, and that miners aren't rewarding themselves more than the agreed upon block subsidy + fees. Everything else we really care only about when we are receiving a transaction.
Freedom of Speech and the contest of ideas.
It may be the last strategic advantage we still have versus China...lets use it while we still can.
Democracy, such as it is- not that there's much of it left.
Good health, good weather. Never guaranteed but today have both.
The wild Turkeys that walk across our land here and which I hope to harvest some of this autumn if I can catch them!
There are maybe 100 or more. Sometimes they move in groups of up to 30.
They have just had chicks and so they would be best to harvest in about 6 months just before winter here in the southern hemisphere.
Some good reminders here. I suspect that SN as a group of bitcoiners is probably least likely to be holding ETF shares and believing in 4D chess, yet complacency does slip up on us if we aren't careful.
There is something a little crazy about the people who really want to use bitcoin as money. I'm glad for that crazy, and I think the frustration I sense in your post here is that a lot of bitcoin culture feels like it's getting a little too normal, forgetting its craziness. We've undertaken this enterprise of resisting the state with no promise of success. But it feels like a lot of people are clutching false promises because they're afraid BItcoin will fail.
Thanks for reminding me that I need to go find somewhere to spend a few sats today.
Bitcoin subculture is as significant as its moneyness.
Did Hip-hop, punk, heavy metal 'Trojan horse' popular music culture? Or did they just get subsumed, shackled, as it were?
Did the Beat Generation 'Trojan horse' popular media? Or did they all drink themselves to death or otherwise sell out?
I guess your answer to these questions are indicative of where you think Bitcoin subculture is headed.
Cronyism might be par for the course if we accept it as money, while, at the same time being uncceptable to the subversive ethos that brought it to be.