Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

[doublepost=1460571677][/doublepost]@adamstgbit

we already see a live representation of a centralized LN hub in action: 21co.

all they're doing is routing internal micropayments btwn their own users who've been locked in by the raspi 21 co computer they've bought to mine. i'm sure 21co will eventually establish LN channels with other large pmt processors like CB, Bitpay, & Blockstream.

way to go core dev. forget Sound Money and decentralized p2p networks to help ordinary users worldwide cheaply and quickly.

all we need for that to happen is a blocksize increase or BU.

 

[cypherdoc]

the more and more i think about LN, the more i think it goes the way of SC's. like Liquid. a centralized hub of interconnected for-profit institutions that attempt to destroy p2p tx's.

the reason i think it happened to SC's via Liquid and will happen to LN via centralized hubs (same thing) is that there isn't any demand from ordinary Bitcoiners for these kinda shenanigans that mess with the Sound Money aspects of p2p money that Satoshi originally designed. we are the evidence of that. as a result, these proposed systems break down in theory and devolve into centralized entities, like Liquid, 21co, and most likely LN hubs. there's just to much money to be made in Sound Money. why? b/c of all the reasons articulated in this thread going back to it's origins in Aug 2011. if only 5% of the Forex daily trade volume comes to buy into the BTC unit, that puts us into the $300K/BTC range. @Melbustus did the calculation once. maybe he can refresh our memories. that's not even counting if it takes over the gold and silver market. and what about Bitcoin siphoning value away from stocks, bonds, junk, etc.

i put this article up before but you need to make sure you read it. i totally disagree with the central bankser's "Conjectures" but the mere fact that he's talking about this potential scenario of a Bitcoin Standard means it has a chance to become reality. this is a play i'm willing to hodl for. this is the asymmetric bet that us early adopters bought into. b/c i think it has more than just a trivial chance of happening. the article is also good b/c it demonstrates how gold used to flow btwn countries based on the interest rate of a particular country and the frictions involved. the reason Bitcoin is different and would be better than a gold standard is b/c it doesn't have these frictions. it's instantaneous. the only question is do we as a global society want such a thing as perfect money like Bitcoin has the potential to become? of course, it depends on who you ask. you'd get a "no" from the likes of Blockstream (deep down b/c they've been paid off in $76M fiat) and certainly a "no" from central bankers, commerical bankers, and other current financial elite. the question is, do the masses have the say and the power to make it happen for the good of ordinary ppl worldwide?

http://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/swp2016-14.pdf

 

[Justus Ranvier]

there's just to much money to be made in Sound Money.

There is an enormous amount of money to be made in sound money, but most of it isn't going to be made by the industries which manipulate fiat money and associated constructs.

The benefit from sound money comes from not requiring those industries any more.

For the people in those industries, sound money is a catastrophe they have to stave off by any means necessary.

 

[Bagatell]

"For the people in those industries, sound money is a catastrophe they have to stave off by any means necessary."

They already lost that battle - the battle now is stop anyone using it.

 

[Zarathustra]

There is an enormous amount of money to be made in sound money, but most of it isn't going to be made by the industries which manipulate fiat money and associated constructs.

The benefit from sound money comes from not requiring those industries any more.

Why not? An economy is always and has always been credit/debt based.
The more credit you get, the more money (Gold / Gold2.0) you will be able to mine.

 

[AdrianX]

I think the Lightning Network could be useful if everyone wanted to buy coffee and stuff off blockchain. But it's looking like a complicated way to discourage people from spending bitcoin on coffee.

 

[adamstgbit]

LN its not useful for individuals making 1 time payments
its usefull for bitpay accepting 1000's of poeple wanting to do 1 time payments to bitpay using there coinbase wallet.

bitpay and coinbase can make full use of LN. alice and bob can't.

in what world does alice want to send bob 100's of separate small payments?

 

[solex]

And this explains in one simple chart why the Bitcoin miners are totally screwed in a Lightning Network where BS-Core are are forcing users off-chain due to full blocks.

The example of a 0.01 BTC tx from Alice's account at Coinbase to Alpaca's account at BitPay only brings potential fee revenue to LN hub providers (which are owned by Bitcoin companies or whales).

Why are major Bitcoin miners successful today? Because they are the people who can build SHA256 ASICs, deploy warehouses full of them, obtain cheap rents, tech workers and electricity. That is their business niche and they excel at it. Today.

What usually happens to companies who are forced to compete outside their specialized area of proven expertise? Answer: fail completely or languish as marginal players.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin:

The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.

or here: miners are keeping the block limit low until most potential future fee revenue is available to non-mining entities.

 

[AdrianX]

LN its not useful for individuals making 1 time payments
its usefull for bitpay accepting 1000's of poeple wanting to do 1 time payments to bitpay using there coinbase wallet.

bitpay and coinbase can make full use of LN. alice and bob can't.

in what world does alice want to send bob 100's of separate small payments?

Yes Bitcoin's biggest drawing card is be your own bank. its moving away from that vision.

 

[cypherdoc]

this is a great point. no_more_cold_wallets advocated by core dev:

 

[AdrianX]

@cypherdoc I just took a peek at that thread, it's so sad. Bitcoin is shifting from be your own bank to bitcoins is like having a web based checking account hosted by a network of trusted LN hubs linked by payment channels - and it's being celebrated.

my imagination drifts to a some fantasy of a dystopian future where everyone is a salary slave and TPTB ok which payment channels you're allowed to access. Fiat as corrupt as it is seems more viable.

 

[albin]

That thread is like the epitome of what censorship produces: zero content vapid sycophantic cheerleading for the party line. There's no way they're going to be able to contain the blowback in the comments.

Somehow /r/btc "censors" by voting, yet on /r/btc whether you agree with the individual posts or not, you see people producing their own analysis and putting it out there, right or wrong.

 

[cypherdoc]

centralization is really how it's going to work:

Dryja used the Uber example to make this point:

“Customer opens a channel with Coinbase and then Coinbase has a channel open with Uber, and so when they want to pay Uber, they just say, ‘Hey, Coinbase. Please forward this to Uber.’ One channel is enough to pay everyone, really.”

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoins-are-not-tied-up-on-the-lightning-network-say-creators-poon-and-dryja-1460559591

 

[Bagatell]

@cypherdoc A P2P2P currency?

 

[cypherdoc]

https://bitcoincore.slack.com/archives/general/p1460603895025163

Bloq has both SegWit and LN running in test lab and we hack on it internally — we know exactly what state it’s in.
Stuff you see in media is 1/2 the story — all cheerleading, no caveats or realistic assessments.

 

[freetrader]

Can someone help me understand this hypothetical scenario :

"is it possible to vote for segwit SF and classic at the same time?"

"ie. lets say there will be 10% classic blocks mined, but still 95% segwit softfork goes through, just because pools set the support for everyone"

Are we talking about pool mining software modified to vote SegWit and mine BIP109 blocks at the same time?

 

[Christoph Bergmann]

LN its not useful for individuals making 1 time payments
its usefull for bitpay accepting 1000's of poeple wanting to do 1 time payments to bitpay using there coinbase wallet.

bitpay and coinbase can make full use of LN. alice and bob can't.

in what world does alice want to send bob 100's of separate small payments?

This makes me love coinbase and blockchain.info even more for their engagement for classic. They could profit massively from Core's scaling vision, but instead they fight for the vision they think is better for the network. They may be wrong or right - but that they don't take the chance to become a central super-entity deserves much respect.

Edit: while, on the other side, core devs are openly supporting blockstreams agenda in core development in building the protocoll-fundamentals for sidechains.

 

[Zarathustra]

Performance of Gold vs. Credit:

 

[freetrader]

This made me smile (yes, ignoring the fact that it's a tumblr page)

http://classicprogrammerpaintings.tumblr.com/

Wish someone would do something similar for the Bitcoin holy wars

 

[Domrada]

Performance of Gold vs. Credit:

This is very telling. Somewhere around the time the federal reserve came into existence, Debt flatlined and became no better than gold in the long term. And since you can hold gold with no counterparty risk and no credit risk, it's the clear choice.