Bitcoin Forum

This might be an ill-informed question, but I came across this recently and was wondering how we feel about BTC upgrades/improvements?

It feels like BTC is now chasing fiat gains over building a global p2p economy, hoping that lightning network or some other L2 solves the scaling problems for non-custodial transactions.

https://blog.plan99.net/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7

LN solving scalability issues is directly correlated with Bitcoin as a P2P economy since it needs transactions to be affordable making it easier to transfer between peers with less anoying network clogs.

I agree that we need more decentralized products to boost the network, but we are far from chasing fiat gains, at least not at the protocol level.

This is true, bitcoin isn't focused on chasing fiat Gains, it already has a 1 Trillion markets cap, it already has the fiat. And I don't see bitcoin centraliced at all, the autority distribution has been a success, that mean no one can take desicions alone about the future of the coin or any change on the blockchain.

seem some ill informed people are using this topic to promote a completely different network that is trying to steal users, fame and integrity of bitcoin, whilst not actually having any of the security elements of bitcoin

LN is a completely different network. if you analyse it you will notice:
its does not have a blockchain.
nor is it fixed to only support and work with bitcoin
its payments are not even measured in sats but produce onion packets(payments) measured in msats which is a currency unit bitcoin does NOT understand
to use LN you are abandoning using bitcoin.
your payments are not settled(confirmed)
mining pools do not collect fees when doing LN Msat payments
the flaws of LN are a known risk to users funds
the flaws do not guarantee users will get settled amounts they are shown to be owed whilst in LN
the flaws allow funds to be stolen

if bitcoin was a debit account of real value, LN is the credit card of iou funds which can leave people in debt(loss)

LN is not the solution to scaling bitcoin because its actually an attempt to steal people away from using bitcoin. to scale bitcoin is meant to scale bitcoin to allow more transactions on bitcoin and allow more ability for people to use bitcoin.

dont be fooled into thinking LN is the better version of bitcoin. everyone knows how the fiat system failed the public due to the debt system mainly caused by credit cards.. so LN is repeating this error. dont get stuck in LN. instead ask core (centralised group of bitcoin) to do better for bitcoin by scaling bitcoin, not their sponsored subnetwork they wish to push people over to

That post was from 2016. Needless to say, that post was wrong. Bitcoin is still here and growing and thriving. It didn't fail. It is continuing its path to becoming the humanity's alternate currency.

And of course we are looking to L2 for scaling, that's the only way to scale a decentralized system.

He abandoned Bitcoin in 2016, sold all his Bitcoin and washed his hands off it, whose loss is that? As of 2016, he said Bitcoin was dead and there was no future for it, well 8 years later here it is, still changing lives and growing strong so he was obviously wrong.
He did raise some concerns like network fees and a few other things, but none of those things led to the fact that the "experiment" which is Bitcoin has failed.
It's true that Bitcoin was created to be a decentralised currency which should be a global means of payment, but things have hindered it aside from network fees. Also, most of the reasons he gave as to why a person won't want to use Bitcoin as a means of payment are false.     

Today you can send your coins with 3sat/vbyte (https://mempool.space/) and it will be confirmed probably a hour, why you need to looking for other option?

Yep, that was when Bitcoin worth less than $1K and most people are still doubting Bitcoin.

Even after Bitcoin made new ATH in 2017/2018, people are still doubting Bitcoin because they said Bitcoin will be Tulip 2.0.

But, after Bitcoin can made new ATH in 2021 and now Bitcoin again made new ATH in this year, there are no more Tulip 2.0/bubble FUD anymore, the market is already strong enough.

to scale visacard you dont offer american express

offering an alternative network is not even close to being similar to a "scaling solution" for a main network..
especially if that other alternative network is not as strong, secure, viable

LN has had 7 years and yet only encapsulates ~5000btc.
most of that is not a case of millions of users of 0.0005btc
its actually of centralised services reserve swapping their own value between each other

when there is active btc moving of hundreds of thousands of coins on the bitcoin network and has a 19m cap right now.
but LN only has 5000cap and the payment events seen between popular channels is not hundreds of thousands of coins
it shows LN is not even putting a 0.001% dent in the utility of bitcoin

The users might be chasing fiat gains but that’s not what motivates Bitcoin’s developers. It could be argued that this was the motivation for Mike Hearn, who worked in enterprise blockchain development after quitting Bitcoin. Like Hearn’s scaling proposals for Bitcoin, enterprise blockchain turned out to be a failure.

Hearn’s solution for scaling was to simply increase the blocksize, which wasn’t the most effective approach. It didn’t help that these big blockers embraced guys like Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre. The dysfunction and a lack of a competent scaling proposal is why that side failed to change Bitcoin.

Currently there are proposals for covenants and rollups, which won’t be a permanent fix, but they do offer considerable improvements in scalability. 

More recently, some major developer of LN has resigned as well due to unfixable nature of it, he told that some LN problems could be fixed only by changing Bitcoin protocol and he knows it won't happen so he resigned because he does not want to be a part of failure.

Today Bitcoin is beyond repair and people are using Monero for payments anyway.
It would be hard to convince them back, as Bitcoin fees are much higher, it's much slower and it has no privacy.

And who would want to store their wealth on a transparent blockchain for the whole world to see ? after all, Swiss accounts were popular back in the days mainly because they offered privacy.

Monero is the Swiss account of today and it works TODAY. I am using it daily for small purchases and it's great  8)

LN doesn’t solve scalability issues any better than any other shitcoin. Someday people will find out the hard way that there is on chain Bitcoin and then there is everything else. With a little luck, maybe the folks that support this fundamentally flawed L2 will not live long enough to see its destruction and the pain it causes.

Exactly, due to LN developers have stopped seeking solutions on L1 to make it more scalable, right now even if LN was working the L1 congestion wouldn't allow it to function as it should.
Bitcoin would be way more scalable if developers focused on L1 instead of promising LN will fix scalability and privacy issues.

For proper L2, the L1 needs to be scalable to some degree as well. Bitcoin lacks foundation for proper solution.
On top of that we have ordinal spam and devs are still arguing if they should fix the exploitable behavior of datacarriersize limit:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/29187 (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/29187)

Some of them are not even devs but still put a fight against fixing this issue, what a joke.

Talking about people leaving Bitcoin isn't a new thing, might be a new topic but it isn't a new event as they always come back years later with confessions of their regret and all that.

Again, I see people leave when it is a bear season or there is a dip, I can call them paper hands for their attitudes expose them. Let those who believe in the technology continue standing strong and not get distracted by who leaves or stays.

Yes but the real p2p of bitcoin which propelled Satoshi Nakamoto to create and launched bitcoin is somehow sideline underground which was mainly to purchase goods and services digitally to strengthen the world economy and made make things more cheap. But everything is now focusing on investment aspect only. And I believed the policies and of the government is also affect the mass use of bitcoin in the commercial aspect. And I think as it is now. Bitcoin is a commercial commodity or a commercial asset for people to buy and sell. But the main purpose was to use bitcoin to buy things but the opposite is the cause right now, whereby fiat is used to buy bitcoin. And I think that is why Op is asking if bitcoin is for fiat gain.

People leaving bitcoin is a people division and they are many factors that can lead to that. And anyone who has tested bitcoin and see the good part of it, will not leave it forever but they will still come back again.

This isn't first of its kind, First they said Bitcoin is fake money, some said Bitcoin is a scam and it a pozi scheme, yet Bitcoin is still in existence and proving them wrong, some of them that casted Bitcoin in the past has come back to embrace it, Bitcoin has come to stay and doesn't need Mike Hearn to thrive. Bitcoin is decentralized and aren't affected by what a single entity thinks about Bitcoin.

How do you mean Bitcoin is chasing Fiat gains? Bitcoin is not doing the chasing but Investors who wants to see their investment grow are the ones who are comparing the value of Bitcoin to fiat to know how far they gave gained or lost in there Bitcoin investment. I actually have nothing against that, everyone is entitled to what they choose to do in this space.
I think this doesn't affect the other quality of Bitcoin. It still serve as an anonymous financial system that gives freedom to enthusiasts.

When the BTC protocol doesn't change to enable tx's for the masses people will create things like Lightning Network.

I don't see this as a bad thing. Ideally BTC can evolve, but I don't see evidence that it's willing to do that. Obviously it will take time, but I'm afraid it's currently not governed in a healthy way.

Concerning Lightning, it seems like it was a good idea, but technically complex so most people end up using custodial solutions or products like Phoenix, which is centralized infrastructure.

Is there light at the end of this tunnel?

Loads of these high net worth, high bitcoin stash guys fell off the wagon & turned to shitcoins or trying to change bitcoin to match what they want. I think a lot of those guys have big egos & are used to getting their own way, they aren’t used to not being able to be an ultimate decision maker in life. Look at the likes of Roger Ver, same thing with him. This is why decentralisation is one of the best features with bitcoin because it doesn’t matter how much money you have, there are no heroes.

I’ll have to quote this so some users might get some education of it.
LN might be a fast network but, it isn’t the Bitcoin network still to be talked about as though it were. Bitcoin network might be much slower but, you really wouldn’t expect a perfect or almost perfect network for a project in its beta phase as I like to see it.
It’s continued to improve over the years with an increased population and adoption.

It’s no lie that people seek it for fiat gains as a purpose to holding in recent times but, with the problem of finding merchants that are ready to accept Bitcoin for commodities still largely a thing, you wouldn’t blame people anymore than that.

I would argue that the problem is more of bitcoin holders not wanting to spend their bitcoins or use it as a payment method for goods and services. The fear of missing out is the main reason why people are not willing to spend their bitcoins. No one wants to be the next Laszlo Hanyecz. I believe that if there was a high demand from customers to pay for goods & services, merchants would make a provision for them to do so.

As I understand it BTC doesn't have the bandwidth required to use it as money (TPS). Therefore, something else is needed to make this possible?

Either by upgrading BTC or building something "like" lightning network?

Is it a proper critique of lightning network that it's not simple enough for most people to use it as money in a non-custodial way?

Well, he is only one person. No single individual can topple the existence of btc market. They can come and go but it doesn't mean, the world of btc will stop just because they announce their exit in this market.

Do take note, the ban in crypto of one of the top economies in the world, China, didn't collapse the btc market. What more of a single individual who can't manipulate this market because he doesn't have the amount to create a wave in this market? So yes, let people leave on this market and for sure, a lot more are going in.

You know, dude, I'm just now clarifying what LN (Lightning Network) can do that you say. Actually,  even before I really wanted to use it and try it, to be honest, because of what I read and said that it's cheaper, it is said that the fee using LN is also a solution when there is congestion in the bitcoin network.

But since you said this, it seems that I have lost interest in using this LN because it turns out that it only alienates the holders of Bitcoin without realizing that it is missing from the very concept of Bitcoin and how it really works. Thanks for this information.

Bitcoin is money already. Unfortunately, however, it may not be the everyday money that people imagine. It could be a money for final settlement though. If it can't be used to buy a cup of coffee, a sachet of toothpaste, a packet of salt, or a piece of banana at the convenience store next door, then it can only be a limited form of money. It is money nonetheless.

We've been advised to keep our coins in cold wallets but it is also widely acceptable to keep small amounts in hot custodial wallets for small transactions every once in a while. This same approach could be employed in the use of on-chain and off-chain networks in payments.

The Lightning Network I'm afraid isn't only not simple for the common folks, it might be flawed also.

its only cheaper if you abandon bitcoin.. and perform enough payments on another system to counter the overall costs of multiple payments would have cost if you didnt use the other system

by this i mean its not cheaper if you just one day want to use LN just once or twice whilst bitcoin is congested.. because to even get to use LN you have to lock funds up and plan spending habits ahead of time to lock enough to then use LN for long enough that the lock-in and unlock costs(bitcoin fee's) are countered by the overall costs of the other systems payments made inbetween

LN's purpose is not a solution of just making bitcoin fees cheaper. it doesnt work like that. its about stop using bitcoin to use something else which pretends to offer cheaper fee's but only if you use the other system enough without returning to bitcoin.

the foolish thing of those promoting LN in times of bitcoin congestion is that to get into LN during a bitcoin congestion is to pay that high fee during congestion to lock funds. meaning you then have to be stuck in LN and HOPE the recipient you want to pay also uses LN to send to. and repeatedly send to over time to cumilatively then become cheaper.

I think Bitcoin is still missing the "Acceptable" property of money. Mostly due to slow TPS and volatility. LN's complexity forced most TX's to go custodial so while it works... kinda missed it's intended use-case no?

Yeah. I remember when good 'ol Mike Hearn used to spread FUD about Bitcoin that it was a "failed experiment". It's now 2024 and Bitcoin is bigger and stronger than ever. Market prices are a lot higher than they were a few years ago. Mike missed out the opportunity to cash out big time.

What really "failed" is Bitcoin's Lightning Network. The L2 scaling solution has been unable to attract the masses into it. Besides being full of bugs (experimental), the network has a slight learning curve. This means newbies will have a hard time trying to understand how the LN works. It's somewhat complicated to use.

What good does near-instant and cheap transactions have if the network itself is centralized and difficult to use? What really works is on-chain scaling. To avoid centralization issues, developers should raise the block size at a slow and steady pace. Anyways, that's my point of view. I wonder if someday Mike Hearn will change its mind about Bitcoin? I could only imagine...

mpoletiek asks about the upgrades/"improvements".... but abiky mentions the market prices(chasing fiat gains)

the blockchain continues and there is a market. but when a developer talks about the development of bitcoin having issues (centralised dev group acting like a monarchy, where they have softened the verification rules and other things which have allowed 4x bloat whilst not really 4x the transaction count), should show that bitcoin has not developed effectively in the last 7+ years

Mike Hearn was always slightly "out of kilter" in terms of their views about how Bitcoin should work.  Some of it didn't really fit with the underlying ethos.  I'd take anything said in that blog with a healthy amount of skepticism.  It's their vision that failed (and rightly so).

And it's simple-minded speculators who are chasing fiat gains.  Just because they're loud and numerous, doesn't mean they're representive of the community as a whole.


//EDIT:  Although, in credit to Mike Hearn, at least he had the decency to give up and leave when everyone made it clear that his ideas were terrible and he was never going to get the awful things he wanted to implement.  Unlike franky1, whose ideas are even more repellent and is even less likely to be supported by anyone, but he still hangs around like a foetid shit smear, raving like a lunatic.

doomad doesnt want people to be bitcoiners(nor does his grasshopper apprentices blackhatcoiner and windfury) yet he does believe in the monarchy central control of certain core devs being the only "representatives of bitcoin" who should control what bitcoin does, as long as its in the direction of getting people to abandon bitcoin to pursue other networks

I think this is the issue... How hard is it for the core devs to come together and agree on a BIP that defines the purpose of bitcoin.

Bitcoin is either digital gold or it's here to replace fiat. The narrative seems to bounce between the two and while I think it's solved digital gold, the people who wanted to replace fiat are left wanting. Meanwhile the culture seems to have literally forced them out to go build their own solutions.

Of course you are right. LN and Bitcoin are two entirely different things and they should not be confused to be the same thing or "upgrades" of the same thing. But LN is built on top of Bitcoin and can therefore be considered part of the Bitcoin ecosystem- with a useful function (reduce fees and transaction times). And as it is part of the Bitcoin ecosystem, it should be considered and respected as such. Otherwise we risk souring the further development of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Still on this aspect, there is no controversies here because both the bitcoin network and the LN are serving the same purpose on helping the users to have a better experience and i don't think each one can have a better application than each other from what they are serving already now, the two will remain relevant as ever because they continue in serving their same purpose.

The good thing about Bitcoin is that it can be continously improved thanks to its open source nature. It will always be an "experiment". I wouldn't call it a "failed experiment" like Mike Hearn did, especially when the coin is relatively new to the world. 15 years is nothing compared to the number of years both Gold and the Fiat money system has been around with us. I'd say Bitcoin is on a good path to replace banks in the future. Or at least, become a solid alternative. The LN still has its issues, but that doesn't mean its the end of the world. If developers put their efforts into it, the LN could become a "force to reckon with". On-chain scaling coupled with off-chain scaling will help Bitcoin reach the masses.

If you're still not happy about the way BTC is developing, you can always choose among the zillions of altcoins listed on the market. They're faster and cheaper than BTC (although often unreliable). It's good to see Bitcoin "chugging along" as usual without Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen. If it survived that, it can survive anything. :D

This is actually a great topic. I don’t know any of the current btc devs but I’d love to hear what the most advanced cryptographers here have to say about them.

I am with you on the other part of this. I don’t currently give a fuck about Ordinals and crap like that. I want to see a faster p2p payment network, like you mention.

The other thing I want to see is Satoshis proposed 2 party escrow system. I know this isn’t an easy task (something Gmaxwell has discussed with me specifically, and I’ve heard Szabo go into some detail about it, so I know it’s nothing easy to accomplish.. but if I could program at an elite level, man I’d be working day and night to create that.

Swiss accounts can be used to buy anything without any specialized infra though. How are you currently buying stuff with Monero? (Let's assume that the vendor doesn't directly accept it).


Lightning Network is something different but Bitcoin itself is actually fine the way it is currently. I feel like we can already use it for payments without issue - as long as someone like Rodarmor doesn't invent another money-grab to increase network fees with.

I think the thread shows how people feel about upgrading Bitcoin. These are very sensitive issues, on which people have strong opinions. It's impressive that we managed to do Segwit, even, as that also met significant resistance and prompted the emergence of Bitcoin clones with other modifications. Things like the Lightning Network are perceived very strongly by different people. Some believe that Bitcoin is impractical without such solutions, while others think that such projects betray Bitcoin's original vision and pose serious risks to decentralization.
But it's been 8 years since Hearn's post, and Bitcoin is still up and running, still thriving, and the on-chain fees are very acceptable most of the time.

Are we ignoring the fact that fees can go up at any time?

Doesn't this signal that the protocol isn't as resilient as we need it to be for a global p2p economy?

That's what makes it resilient.  Only shitcoins promise to have cheap fees at all times and they invariably collapse the moment they encounter a hint of congestion and suddenly fail to deliver on that promise.  Dynamic fees are a necessity.  You might not like it, but it's how it has to be.

bitcoin fee's dont need to 'bump' up so high so fast but certain devs put code in to ensure fee's go up in unnecessary increments by default, its all done to make bitcoin annoying to promote how people should avoid bitcoin and instead choose another network

nothing has been done in the last 7 years to make bitcoin (a true tx byte count) leaner
nothing has been done in the last 7 years to make fee's min defaults depreciate, even when bitcoins market price has appreciated by x factor

the whole game is to push normal everyday people out of bitcoin and leave bitcoin just for the elites. much like how fiat made wire transfer a headache to push normal people into using credit cards
(LN is not settled payments but instead IOU's, same as credit cards(especially when using inbound balance channels))

there are ways that bitcoin can become leaner tx size on average, which means more tx per block. and ontop of that by then utilising the full 4mb space that is now deemed network safe, using it for full access tx data and not just the(1:3) witness part(3) segregated from the tx data(1). even more transactions could have been allowed compared to 7 years ago.. meaning there would be less congestion, and more transactions to allow each individual to pay less.. but instead they wanted to have tx's that could be 4mb PER tx of useless junk data and ontop of that have 'bump' defaults that push fee's up quickly when it gets congested by junk.

All I see about the developer Mike Hearn statements is just about someone who have lost confidence in the process, if Satoshi lost confidence in Bitcoin I believe it wouldn't have come this far. Everyone is free to their own decisions but instead of us resigning to fate why don't we make research of how to solve a problem that we feel weak about. Literally, there is no way Bitcoin wouldn't experience some challenges of which I also do think about what Mike Hearn said about the blockchain being full but does it mean there cannot be a possible solution to expanding the capacity of the blockchain to be able to accommodate the records of every transactions? Hopefully there will always be a way out. About high transactions fees and the ability to cancel transactions i think if not for congestion in mempool, transactions can be confirmed almost immediately. And the high congestion is also the reason for high fees so definitely with time everything will be fixed.

We should understand that Bitcoin is still in the developing process so certain challenges are expected but should we lost focus and allow the efforts of it's creator Satoshi nakamoto to go in vain? I stand with Bitcoin till eternity, if it fails, I fail with it

That is not going to be possible Sir, Bitcoin scalability can never rely on LN rather it will be better with COREDAO or Satoshi Core which requires Bitcoin miners to delegate the BTC hash power to the network for the betterment of the both L1 network of which may even solve the trilima problem in crypto currency in future and another way is to introduce a L2 network and run off chain transactions on L2 before bringing it to BTC L1 network which LN can not handle. See reference below

https://coredao.org/explore/blog/59

Wait... so when demand for blockspace goes up, fees go up is a part of the design. I get that.

But so high that it can't scale to support a global p2p economy?

with his departure it does not affect the development of bitcoin, because bitcoin never relies on several individuals in its development, so when these people leave the bitcoin scope, it has no effect whatsoever. and moreover what they develop is actually not that significant an impact on bitcoin, for example like the lightning network, it still has several problems which make it still not a solution to the scalability of bitcoin.

BTC is still a great option for p2p payments and tx's, especially for cross-border payments and sending money to people on the other side of the world, with just their BTC address. It is true that fees can go high, like it happened when ordinals and runes tx's were filling up the BTC blocks, but things like that can only be temporary. The thing is, we cannot change the way the network is designed, if there is a demand for block space, tx fee is going to go up and miners will prioritize tx's that pay the higher fee.

I feel bad for Mike Hearn because he sold his Bitcoin holding at cheap rates but there's no space for weak hands in Bitcoin Hodlers club and he's not an OG anymore. Although as a developer he should not lose hope but his poor observation skills made him sell his Bitcoin holdings and that was his own poor decision. I believe he'll regret for his decision for long term.

It was temporary because it couldn't continue. The demand couldn't handle the cost.

So how does this scale again?

Fees are only there to help protect the BTC blockchain against transaction spamming. They will increase according to network activity. If the attacker keeps pushing transactions on the Blockchain, fees will rise until they become too expensive for such attacker to continue. People like you and me would need to wait until fees decline to get back in the game. You can always set a low fee when making a transaction. The only downside is that you will have to wait longer for it to go through. It can take from a few hours to a few days.

If you're still in a hurry, you could try switching to an altcoin with lower network congestion. Or you can open a channel on the Lightning Network while on-chain fees are low to take advantage of its benefits. When on-chain fees rise, you won't be affected because you'll have BTC "parked" in the LN. Fees will stay dirt-cheap, while transactions will confirm almost instantly. A pity that Mike Hearn missed out all of the fun. Bitcoin is doing well without him. I wonder who will leave the development team next? Will it be Luke Dash Jr. (a staunch Ordinals critic)? Only time will tell. :)

So the only route for bitcoin to become the global p2p network is lightning?

when you realise lightning is a completely different network you then realise that your statement makes no sense
EG
the future of cars is to only ride bikes

there will be subnetworks for small niche utility, but..
when you realise lightning is buggy with issues even LN devs wont/cant fix*, you realise that for small niche subnetwork utility, LN wont be it.. devs will have to start again using a different network model for subnetwork niche utility

(*the more popular LN gets the more issues it will have with liquidity)

So when/how does BTC become a global currency?

Are we saying that was never the goal? Are we saying that it was all a part of the plan to only be a store of value and that people will always use something else for daily transactions at scale?

What's the difference between lightning and wrapped bitcoin tokens on eth? They both promise 1btc for your 1 wrapped btc or 1 lightning btc. LN is like a stable coin but it is backed by BTC instead of USDT. WBTC is the same thing. They operate on different networks but that's essentially what they do.

Tbh I'd rather use a well established alt like ltc or doge when btc is slow and expensive. It worked for me till now.

Man when I first read the title, I assumed someone replied to an almost decade old topic. I was around when he left in 2016 and it was all over the news. At the time, many people also followed in his foot steps and just quit crypto all together.

In hindsight he left at the worst time. I have a feeling it had something to do with the dead activity of 2015 where bitcoin pretty much went nowhere. It brings back nostalgia just hearing his name Mike Hearn. Pretty sure most of the people replying in this topic have no idea that he left 8 years ago.

Bitcoin is definitely thriving in terms of price, i.e. as a speculative financial instrument, and who knows, maybe it will become some sort of alternative reserve currency, but it's hard to deny that we departed from the original idea of it being a currency that people would actually use as money (aka a peer-to-peer electronic cash system).
I've come across this meme sometime ago and I think there's a lot of truth to it:

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/08/28/96ZWW.jpeg

This was especially evident when everyone was cheering for the spot ETFs approval, which did pump the price up but could turn out harmful to Bitcoin long term.

Mike Hearn has contributions for Bitcoin and he deserves with a solid position in Bitcoin history.

There is an archive page with 17 messages of Mike Hearn's questions and discussions directly with Bitcoin founder, Satoshi Nakamoto.
https://plan99.net/~mike/satoshi-emails/thread1.html
https://www.bitcoin.com/satoshi-archive/emails/mike-hearn/
Mike Hearn forwarded Satoshi emails to Charles Hoskinson Help me Archive Satoshi's Emails (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=191508.0)

So...

Am I just wading through religious zeal or is there a valid argument for how BTC is supposed to become a global currency used in everyday transactions globally in a self-custodial way?

Bitcoin will not reach that adoption level in future, never.

Now, there are 642,420 transactions last 24 hours (https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/) that shows Bitcoin is used for daily transactions, globally. Difference is there are always opposite people in a same society or a planet, there are people who will use Bitcoin for transactions and there are people who don't use it.

You can imagine it like there are people who read paper books but others read e-books, same examples with cash and digital bank transfers or through e-wallets.

Did not Bitcoin already a global currency?  It can be used as payment for purchases in different countries.  I believe network congestion and global adoption are related but different at the same time.


Technology is improving so is the Bitcoin scalability if the developer really is seeking out a true solution for the problem.  Remember there is no permanent in this world but change, scalability for Bitcoin is just a script away.  If developer find out and created a script that will make Bitcoin scale, then it can refute the statement of never reaching the adoption level because of what it is today.  Remember before the e-wallets and international bank transfers, it was a tangible coins and papers which is very impossible to transact international transfer without peddlers physically moving in every part of the world.  How many decades or century it takes for tangible things to become digital?  Bitcoin is still in early years of development compared to the existing financial system so we can expect a lot more development in the future if developers keep on searching and researching improvements for Bitcoin specifically the scalability feature.

I don't recall seeing anyone in the last few years who would be deluded enough to believe BTC will replace fiat entirely and become the global currency. Many bitcoiners would not even see that as a desired outcome.
The best I could hope for is for Bitcoin to become a widely and actively used currency that exists as an alternative to fiat currencies, in parallel to them. I'm not cheering for a state-mandated use of Bitcoin.

But as for the usage of Bitcoin for everyday transactions - the biggest problem, aside from network congestion and associated high fees, is that only a very few people earn income in bitcoins. And nobody will be buying btc for fiat just to spend it on goods.

bitcoin already is/was a global currency, it has no geo-location coded boundaries.. however due to the dev politics that is inspiring the DUMB mindset that bitcoin should have less transactions(due to bloat) and more fee's per transaction.(done purely to promote other networks) bitcoin has become out-priced to be useful for some 3rd world countries to transact
.. within bitcoin code there is no protocol that uses geo-location information grabbing to prevent people around the world from using it, however the economic games played by devs to incite the games of fee wars has economically deterred certain countries from desiring bitcoin


when the onion packets of LN payments get transmitted via the channel routers, when deducting fee's and other stuff. the data of value/amounts are measured in msats(unknown unit to bitcoin) which are pegged to sats at a certain rate. this rate can change..
channels can also say they are locking a funding amount to then create false 'commitments'(IOU's) but then use the same UTXO on another channel thus allowing double spending or not allowing the recipient(inbound balance user) from ever actually getting the amount they are supposedly promised.. so there are many flaws in LN where it can allow alot of fake payments and not guaranteeing settled funds, etc etc

wrapped coins are a whole landscape different again, they are even further not truly attached to the supposed mainnet they peg to
...when using wrapped or inbound balance msats, just remember #not-your-key-not-your-coin. be cautious, be aware, be careful and try to avoid getting stuck with the junk whilst someone else holds the true key to control the utxo

With Bitcoin being marketed as "digital Gold", we can never expect it to replace Fiat. Can we? Most people nowadays only invest in BTC with the hopes of becoming rich quick. It's seen as an investment tool rather than a currency. Besides, BTC's limited transaction capacity prevents it from being used as such. True digital cash needs to be scalable enough to handle high network load on a daily basis. It needs to serve the needs of people all around the world.

Bitcoin is decentralized, but it lacks convenience. On the other hand, "shitcoins" are convenient but they lack decentralization. Then there's the issue of governments putting "obstacles" to help prevent people from using BTC on top of Fiat. With this in mind, Bitcoin will always remain an alternative currency (instead of a direct replacement of Fiat). Perhaps, that's the reason why Mike Hearn left Bitcoin?

It's not easy like you thought but I agree there is room for technical developments but so far, with what we have seen, Layer 2, side chains are solutions temporarily now.

For on chain solutions, we still have future ahead but it's not too easy for developers to find solutions technically.

If you are keen on temporary solutions, see some solutions and discussions in

• Sidechain Observer - Bitcoin L2 Projects & current state of development (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5496743.0)

I quote my post. Security, Scalability, Speed are in a pyramid and if you scale one thing up, one or two others will be affected down.

I don't think sidechains and L2s are temporary solutions. Especially with the core development team's reluctance to increase on-chain transaction capacity. Raising the block size (now block weight) is out of the picture. You can see why devs wants us to move to the flawed Lightning Network. I guess that's one of the few reasons why Mike Hearn left the project. Perhaps, we'll see him join forked chains such as Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin SV. Only time will tell. There were even rumors that Gavin Andressen was going to contribute to BCH's development.

All of the "greats" are completely disappointed with the path Bitcoin has taken lately. It's now even worse with the institutionalization of BTC. "Wall Street" has all of the cards to manipulate Bitcoin to its own benefit. Instead of going against the existing financial system (something Satoshi meant to avoid in the first place), Bitcoin has "bowed down" to it. The future is unpredictable, so I'd hope for the best.

To be deluded means to be misled but I think it's not misleading when someone believes or say that Bitcoin will replace fiat or even become a global currency, though I guess that is because I also believe on it but for those who are like you who don't, you will say that there is no way. Oh well, we will only see if who among us is correct in the future.

Maybe if you will say in the past, then that is more believable because Bitcoin that time is still not known and it gained a lot of negative impressions. Your best hope right there is fortunately happening already in Bitcoin. Even though there are also people who buy and only HODL their BTC, BTC is still a currency, so you, saying that the coin is widely and actively used as a currency can still be the same as that. There's also people who literally use their BTC like a currency.

Even though there are known challenges in regards to this, they may not care at all because BTC still had some advantages. Even though a state-mandated use of BTC sounds cool, I think it can also be annoying especially to those poorer areas and then to those less techy individuals. If the state mandate the use of BTC, all workers will now also be paid by BTC of course.

Weaker systems are subverted more quickly.  The actions taken ensure that the base protocol remains strong.  Idealists can be disappointed if they like, but it doesn't change the fact that sensible people came to a sensible conclusion.  Institutional investors would have gotten involved regardless of how scaling was handled, so try not to conflate separate issues.

There can be, but the numbers will be very low due to the lack of opportunities to use Bitcoin as a currency. It doesn't make for someone to keep only Bitcoin on their mobile phone and roam around when they know they can't do everything with it since not every place accepts Bitcoin around the world unless you are in a special city or country where Bitcoin is legally accepted such as El Salvador.

I wouldn't say it's something that can't happen because that would be wrong, and I know it's happening in some places around the globe, but for it to become the norm, for every single Bitcoin holder in any part of the world to be able to use their Bitcoin to buy a coffee or go grocery shopping or pay for gas with their Bitcoin, it will still take some time.

Bitcoin still has a long way to go, we might have global adoption but we are not done yet.

What do I care about people leaving Bitcoin including someone named Mike Hearn even though I found out from a google search that Mike Hearn is a former Bitcoin developer.
He left Bitcoin probably because his thinking has changed due to something that is not certain what the main reason is.
Why do I say what do I care, because Bitcoin will continue to run as time goes by.

Then regarding your feeling that Bitcoin is now chasing fiat profits. I am silent because I have never felt that way at all even though I cannot use Bitcoin like fiat to pay for goods and services.

I don't see the path that is so disappointing, there is also no institutionalization of BTC. BTC is free for everyone and it is censorship resistant, so institutional investors were always going to find interest in BTC, and there is nobody who can stop them from buying. Institutional investors can only manipulate the price of BTC, if anything, but they do not have any control of the BTC network, so it is not a problem for the network in my honest opinion.

That's fair question, however, Bitcoin remains focused on a vision of a global peer-to-peer economy, and into such upgrades lie the keys to solving its scaling issues. The Lightning Network provides for speedy and cheap transactions by processing them off-chain. Hence, congestion on the main blockchain is reduced. This approach is crucial in the maintenance of the non-custodial, decentralized nature of Bitcoin, while finding a suitable way to deal with faster transactions in great need. Improving at an unprecedented rate with over 16,000 nodes, Bitcoin is upgrading without sacrificing one speck of its old ideals.

Bitcoin developers have many things in their consideration and to-do lists, not only scalability. Scalability means nothing if scaling up means less secured blockchain. So far, we have Bitcoin as a biggest and most secured blockchain to use, that's good and altcoin blockchains can not compare to Bitcoin blockchain in security.

6 confirmations on Bitcoin blockchain in security equal to hundreds to thousands of confirmations on altcoin blockchains.
https://howmanyconfs.com/

There are more solutions, not only Bitcoin Lightning Network.

Sidechain Observer - Bitcoin L2 Projects & current state of development (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5496743.0)

And blockchain, mempool congestions come from non-true Bitcoin users like Ordinals, Runes users who even don't have enough knowledge and idea about Bitcoin mempools and transaction fees as well as don't care about safety of their own capitals. If they buy bitcoin and hold it, they get profit but by purchasing Ordinals, Runes tokens, they lost money.

I wish more people could see things this way.  There's far too many myopic armchair pundits who can't conceive that it's a multi-faceted series of considerations and compromises.  Easy gains are rare and few seem to recognise it.

There needs to be a balance between security and scalability. Focusing only on security, would hinder adoption of Bitcoin worldwide. Especially when fees will rise all the way to the moon. You'll get security by paying an ultra-high transaction fee. This favors the wealthy, while the poor is forced to look for other options.

Again, L2 networks like the Lightning Network and Stacks are NOT the solution. They're just a short-term fix. Raising the block size a bit will help keep up with daily demand, without sacrificing too much security/reliability/decentralization. I'd say raising the block size to 8mb would be perfectly safe. It all lies in the hands of developers and the community. Here's hoping Mike Hearn makes a comeback soon. The project needs as much "quality" developers as possible to remain resilient. The community already lost Mike Hearn and Gavin Andressen. Will Luke Dashjr be next? I hope not.

Altcoin developers break this important balance between Security and Scalability. They aim at Scalability and make it better, block size bigger, and even make it worse and terrible with super fast transaction speed; but they ignore another important factor Security.

They also make things more terrible by developing Cross-chain bridges that together with super fast block time and transaction speed, cause to horrible consequences from any hack. Then if hacks happen with massive costs, they tried to do something more terrible like Rollback blockchains.

People see things in different ways and have different interests but with me, altcoin blockchains are terrible in Security. I don't care about security of their blockchains but I must care about security and safety of my fund.

The added complexity of altcoins, allows for greater vulnerabilities in the long run. Why do you think Satoshi limited Bitcoin's scripting language? Because he wanted it to be simple enough to be used for sending/receiving payments. Adding smart contract features, and other "bells and whistles", will make Bitcoin more complex and prone to hacking. Security is obtained when everything is kept simple.

A good thing the Lightning Network is a separate solution from the main Bitcoin blockchain. Else, it would've made BTC vulnerable already. Even on-chain Ordinals inscriptions are seen as an attack vector by malicious actors. They can keep spamming the chain with such inscriptions, rendering the network useless and utterly-expensive.

Mike Hearn did a lot of meaningful work on the Bitcoin project. But he won't be missed. Especially when Bitcoin has shown to be resilient from time to time. The community will continue to maintain it as usual. May BTC thrive well enough to replace Fiat in the future. At least, that's the dream. :)

Smart contract with Taproot protocol actually caused a lot of problems for Bitcoin users since early 2023. Developers who want quick rich flow tried to use Smart contract through Taproot and abused Bitcoin blockchain for hyping their projects and scam tokens, useless Inscriptions.

These things are scam but look promising and potential for getting profit in newbies' sortsighted vision. Furthermore, it brings more security holes that can be exploited too.

The latter is not an L2 solution in general. It's just another token, which probably uses the term "L2" to get more hype; token founders need to be more creative nowadays.

You've got it backwards. Layer 2 solutions are long-term. Short-term would be arbitrarily tinkering with the block size, just as many altcoins have done over the years. And that's true, because it's infeasible to have every person on-chain, creating multiple transactions every day, at the scale of hundreds of millions of people, while simultaneously being practically able to verify the ledger.

Reading the article from medium which was published around 2016 this dude actually said a lot and with all this he said about promoting bitcoin and not just promotion but also been a developer the part he said bitcoin is an experiment and the potential of it failing is what i think will be determined by the individuals because having been thinking that what if the whales determine to sell what they have it will be a huge blow on the face of bitcoin and it is going to affect the market and before the market might be able to recover from such market it is going to take a lot of time because out of fear some people might even sell so the statement that mike made about invest what you can afford is true but when you stick to such statement out of fear that what will happen to bitcoin might also restrict your investment growth.

and the decision he made about him selling off his bitcoin could be made by anyone their might be other personal reason because i don't see why the possibility of bitcoin falling will make me sell my bitcoin that is why i don't believe that this will be the only reason his quitting. and is opinion is right to him and  i don't also know why he thinks that bitcoin is fighting to be better than other financial system and bitcoin don't needs that the only issue i see is the issue of centralization and that is what mike seems to like that bitcoin be control of a centralized body than individuals, and the decentralized system is what is actually making bitcoin different nothing else, he still quited and people are still investing so what he did his not new.

bitcoin will never be the "one world currency" (dystopian myth) you portray bitcoin needs to become in your dumb scenario about scaling

bitcoin does not NEED a fee war to support miners to produce a difficult hash for blockchain security right now. so dont drum roll that myth either pretending fee's need to rise right now

the actual long term solution is not eventually high fee per tx.. nor does it require a massive single jump to "hundreds of millions of transactions".. nor does it require migrating everyone away from bitcoin to some middleman managed subnetwork

however a SCALING (periodic growth) of transaction count increase will be needed whereby the more transactions occurring onchain means each individual is nor forced to pay absurd amounts

subnetworks have a place for small niche sub services of certain facilities and functions but subnetworks should not be the primer network everyone is forced to use.

bitcoin does need to scale as long term solution. and befor you cry about your myths, its called scaling not leaping. so dont reply with your rhetoric about leaping to huge blocks or needing huge fee's with restricted tx counts(purely to support migrating to other networks)

P.S
i do laugh when its blackhatcoiner mindset that thinks 1 bitcoin transaction could and should increase to $50+(emphasis ONE TX) but then cries that a $50 hard drive that can store decades of transactions(hundreds of millions) is something too expensive

Mike Hearn lol, I thought we stopped hearing about him after his rage quit during the block size wars in 2016-2017. He’s not relevant in our industry any more, nobody cares what he says or does.

His last post was in 2015 but he was last active in Bitcointalk 1 year ago.

His account (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2700).
His website: https://plan99.net/~mike/index.html
His blog site: https://blog.plan99.net/

He is part of Bitcoin history, it's can not deny.
Bitcoin Core contributor challenges (https://blog.lopp.net/bitcoin-core-contributor-challenges/)

Mike Hearn is one of the early Bitcoin developers, right? People won't forget the contributions he made to the project while he was working on it. Same goes for Gavin Andresen. I bet Mike Hearn will join Bitcoin-based forks that are focused on bigger block sizes. I'm talking about Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV. I doubt such projects will gain the spotlight with Mike Hearn on-board. But you never know. Especially when crypto land behaves in many strange and bizarre ways.

Whatever happens in the long run, you can rest assured Bitcoin won't be going anywhere. It's "too big to fail". Wishing the best of luck to Mr. Hearn in all of his future endeavors.