So, we find out that centralized exchanges are necessary too.
Eeehhh.... kinda. For now, and only if you're a frequent trader (my guess is that at least half of CEX users don't actually need to use CEXs). Technology improves over time. DEX will get better and will have fewer trade-offs as things develop. I hope to see a time where centralised exchanges are consigned to the history books, where they belong. They're antiquated, vulnerable and on borrowed time. It's not going to be simple in my opinion, and I believe many users will be put off by the trade-offs they need to accept in a "decentralized-only" world because they have to take absolute responsibility if they indeed choose to participate. We're seeing it in the Ethereum community's "DeFi movement". Their DEXs are being hacked, being scammed, with the bad actors running off with the "bounty", and with the users given no hope for compensation. Technology improves, but does the security assurances improve side by side with it? That's a question open for debate. |
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To tell you the truth, I personally am more skeptical that this ETF will give as much to Bitcoin as it did to gold. Gold is hard to buy, hard to sell, each transaction carries the risk of fraud (fake gold), requires a physical transfer to the mint/store and has a huge spread. Gold ETF solved all these problems and made it possible for you to buy physical gold in 2 clicks from home. The same cannot be said for bitcoin, because bitcoin is like gold with build in ETF. It's easy to buy, easy to sell, divisible to cents. And it's not like the ETF will open doors to big institutions either. Microstrategy didn't need an ETF to buy nearly 1% of all bitcoins.
I respect your opinion and you have a point, but I can't entirely agree. Bitcoin is a blackhole for fiat currencies. If the Cabal behind the Central Banks print more, Bitcoin will absorb more and add to its market value. It's currently right there happening in front of us, and the ETFs will make the trajectory to six digits steeper and faster. Plus wait for QE when there's more liquidity available in the system. It might be "Oh My God It's Christmas" during March of 2025. |
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To all those who read my opinions in different topics, you know that I'm cynical towards BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF because of the vague wording used about hard forks in their registration statement. I want to get that out first before making the "shower thought" for the topic. From an investment perspective, OK, I'm curious if anyone knows, when was the first modern ETF for Gold issued? Wikipedia says it was during 2003. Zoom out Gold's chart to the maximum and look starting at 2003. Merely my two sats, but believe it will be the same for Bitcoin. It will have one of its greatest price trajectory we have ever seen during the next real bull cycle. Perhaps the same as 2015 - 2017, perhaps more? I know franky1 doesn't believe it, we have debated about it before. Although he made a good point, he didn't consider the Cabal's long term, and possibly unlimited, printing of fiat.  On the road to $500,000. |
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Why would someone buy this?
People who see your NFT will know that you're hodling a lot of Bitcoins. Why would I want to put a digital target on my back saying I own or have owned at least 1000 bitcoin recently? Would you want to walk down a street holding a sign saying you are rich or have a lot of gold in your house? Many bitcoiners want to remain anonymous and not draw unnecessary attention to themselves. They also wouldn't care about hyped digital waste known as NFTs that could maybe have one or two useful application with the rest being garbage. I am sorry, but I don't think many would be interested in this. Why do people buy designer clothes? Why do they wear million-dollar watches? That also puts a literal target on your back, you just have to make sure your security is on point. Yes many bitcoiners love being anonymous. But also we are people, we like to announce to the world what we are proud of. We like to announce to the world that we believe in Bitcoin, and also the fact that we have made it big at the same time. It's a different culture with Bitcoiners compared to your community of people who wear designer clothes. Bitcoiners are more interested in tools that make people more ungovernable, although I believe none would admit it to avoid Big Brother's eyes probing over them. Haha. Plus your idea is probably good for younger Bitcoin HODLers who want to flex their wealth, but such a project could also be a government honeypot. It's not good for OPSEC. |
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My perspective
Just as the future is uncertain and no one can predict the future, The government may seem aggressive today on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency adoption, and tomorrow change their stand due to high pressure and demands from their citizens to use a technology like Bitcoin in the coming years.
It's going to be laughable if the U.S. government actually bends to the pressure because if they understood the true nature of the technology, they would be thinking that they should have shut the network down while it was still small and still very possible to stop. They would have made a greater effort of finding Satoshi if they knew Bitcoin would be as unstoppable as it is today. But the people doesn't have to demand anything from the government to be allowed to use Bitcoin. It's permissionless, and it's censorship-resistant.
If BlackRock CEO criticized Bitcoin in the past and later turns to embrace what he kicked against, the government may do so because the government is run by friends of these individuals or people who own these companies, and they may have influence When it comes to government matters.
BlackRock will influence the government if WE should be allowed to use Bitcoin, and how to use it? Don't trust BlackRock. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5456494.msg62452869#msg62452869https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5456494.msg62417885#msg62417885
El Salvador is a leading example of government in the front run of Bitcoins adoption and when more countries' governments follow suit in the race, other ones will not want to be left behind, they too will join the queue.
Let's have a general discussion, what is your standpoint?
Bukele wanted to go against the IMF, and what's the best tool to use? It wasn't merely a choice. It was necessary. |
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In the context of "not overselling" to onboard people, it's also very important to tell people Bitcoin's limitations and how ownership of Bitcoins require total responsibility from the person himself/herself. Lose your keys, then you lose your Bitcoins. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
People should be ready to take responsibility to own their first coins because if they can't, they shouldn't own Bitcoin OR they should probably start wih a very small amount.
The first education should be on how to secure their wallet's private keys. Because beginners can buy a lot of Bitcoin with their savings and even become big investors but still lack the security knowledge that must be done. Many can buy it, but few can keep it safe. Maybe buying small amounts first like you said would be a good experiment, because while learning how to invest in Bitcoin properly and safely. That's expected. The actual point of my post was for the newbie's willingness to be personally responsible for absolute control of his/her own wealth. Because if a newbie is repelled by the fact that he/she could really lose his/her whole savings if he/she HODLed them in Bitcoin, then that person probably shouldn't own Bitcoin yet. |
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 https://twitter.com/CryptoKingKeyur/status/1677914373614891008/photo/1In a recent news, financial records of Robert F Kennedy Jr shows that he is a bitcoin holder, and reported to have own between $100k and $250k worth. And that's why recently you will hear him to be a bitcoin supporter and attacking Biden and his cohorts for being anti-bitcoin or anti-crypto. Which brings up the question, "Did he become a Bitcoin supporter because he understood the technology and how it could weaken political strongholds, OR, did he simply become a supporter because he's holding Bitcoin"? I want to believe he is one of us, but him being a politician with an agenda, it's hard not to be a cynic. I would probably believe Robert Kennedy if he was deeply tied financially with Bitcoin like Chad Saylor. Haha. |
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Bump. This is the schedule of the Federal Reserve's monthly CPI reading until the end of the year.  This month's reading will be an important one because the Federal Reserve "paused" rate hikes last month, and because of that pause, some analysts are projecting that there's a higher probability that inflation might start to go up again. The "reinflation" narrative. Moreover, unemployment numbers are still very low, which means that demand is still high, which also means that inflation might not go down to the Federal Reserve's target of 2%. I believe they might make the most undesirable decision = higher and longer rate hikes. Perhaps going back to +50 BPS by September. |
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My point is :
-Your CEX is hacked : risk for your funds + risk for your personal data
-Your non-KYC service is hacked : risk for your funds
A CEX is more risky from my point of view
And about Bisq, apart if the user downloads a fake software of Bisq, I don't really see what could go wrong ? its way of functioning is very protective of user funds
When a centralized exchange is hacked, they compensate their users instantly or gradually. When a decentralized exchange is hacked, who will compensate you as a user? Nobody because it is decentralized and I am talking about really decentralized exchanges, not what are called as DEX with public founder teams. Like if Bisq is hacked because that software is exploited, who will compensate you? There are pros and cons for both centralized and decentralized exchanges, and it's for the user to decide if he or she is willing to accept the trade-offs of each. But if some users don't want to accept the cons of using a decentralized exchange, it shouldn't suggest that development for them should be discouraged. There should be at least one that exists, like there should be at least one censorship-resistant cryptocurrency existing. It doesn't need to be a better alternative than its centralized counterparts, just a dependably working one and robust. |
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If you look at the pic in the tweet. It pretty much states how ChatGPT is going to help. CHAT-LN as it's called will be specialized in Bitcoin and LN development.
It will have nothing to do with sending LN transactions or performing BTC transactions. It will mainly be used for scripting, troubleshooting, providing examples of working code etc.
No, I believe it does. Read the whole thread, https://twitter.com/roasbeef/status/1677031256134152192I will not pretend that I understood all that, but it's obviously saying that developers could connect AI to Lightning and allow pricing for APIs and have the AI make transactions, receive and hold Bitcoins. Quote from the link,
to fill this gap, we've also created a series of "tools" using the
@OpenAI
function call API and
@LangChainAI
that enables the agents to directly hold, manage, and spend BTC (on chain and via LN!)
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The replies in the topic are both positive and negative. For those who replied negatively, listen, it's probably just a prototype showing that it could be done. Because why not, right? If they could run it more efficient enough to actually make some profit, they could be starting a new kind of small scale business for used oil disposal. It's very amazing that Bitcoin could fill in gaps and incentivize people to make some facets of the real world more efficient. Don't shut your minds from ideas. If it's actually feasible to do as a profitable business is a different debate. Perhaps philipma1957 could give us his personal opinion. |
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Well, thinking that way, Bitcoin is everything other than decentralized p2p payment method that doesn't depend on 3rd parties. Actually, you depend on 3rd parties, including miners and node runners.
It all starts with one full node, just like how Satoshi started to bootstrap the network. Each node is a peer, and in itself both a server and a client. The network needs multiple peers to be an actual network, but saying a single full node depends on other full nodes in your context, is wrong. Each node independently validates.
If nodes don't broadcast and if miners don't include your transaction in the next block, you won't be able to finalize transaction. You also depend on Core developers, internet service providers, on electricity and so on.
That's true, but the genius of Satoshi's creation is in its incentive structure. If a miner won't include your transaction in the next block, another miner will and take the fees. It would have been better for that miner to maximize its own profit than giving opportunities to the other miners. My whole point in my post was to briefly explain to NotATether that using DEX for exchanging crypto is not actually a centralized way and if we think that technically it's a centralized way, then we can consider absolutely everything about bitcoin to be centralized. That was just my point, that's all. 👍
Btw guys, have you thought about what would be Bitcoin's price if centralized exchanges didn't exist? Or how massively adopt it would be? I am not a CEX fan but it has its pros and cons that we can't deny.
Bitcoin's price discovery would be more inefficient caused by lower liquidity, which would therefore make the market more volatile. Adoption would also be slower because it would be harder for everyone to buy their first Bitcoins. It's another reason why ransomware hackers and the dark markets still use Bitcoin instead of the more privacy-enhanced cryptocurrencies because Bitcoin is easier to find and purchase. |
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Video included in the tweet. I believe philipma1957 will like it. The mining set up not just helps secure the network and profits in Bitcoin, it also helps restaurants dispose of their waste. It's another illustration of how the incentive structure within Bitcoin fills gaps in the real world and make it better. The same example as the "ransomware market" that I keep on repeating like a broken record. Haha. Lol. Its running on vegetable oil or is it just cooled by vegetable oil? Both seem like bad ideas to be honest.  I heard that you can even mix in vegetable oil with diesel or run modern diesel cars (with a few tweaks) on pure vegetable oil and for the short term, everything will be fine, performance-wise. But in the mid term or long term it will absolutely gunk up and destroy the car's engine. The same must be true for electricity generation for Bitcoin mining. At some point in the very near future the vegetable oil will gunk up everything and the motor will stop working. Why not just use old motor oil or something? Hell, you could even melt down and distill plastic into use-able fuel which won't gunk up the motor (much). It's not without its own solutions though. Modified fuel systemsMost diesel car engines are suitable for the use of straight vegetable oil (SVO), also commonly called pure plant oil (PPO), with certain modifications. Principally, the viscosity and surface tension of the SVO/PPO must be reduced by preheating it, typically by using waste heat from the engine or electricity; otherwise, poor atomization, incomplete combustion, and carbonization may result. One common solution is to add a heat exchanger and an additional fuel tank for the petrodiesel or biodiesel blend and to switch between this additional tank and the main tank of SVO/PPO. The engine is started on diesel, switched over to vegetable oil as soon as it is warmed up, and switched back to diesel shortly before being switched off to ensure that no vegetable oil remains in the engine or fuel lines when it is started from cold again. In colder climates it is often necessary to heat the vegetable oil fuel lines and tank as it can become very viscous and even solidify. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_oil_fuel Human ingenuity. But I do like the idea of using waste to fuel Bitcoin mining. Another good idea would be to ferment alcohol from scraps or methane gas from cow dung.  I think philipma1957 posted something about starting a small scale mining farm that uses methane as an energy source besides his solar mining enterprise. |
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It's really important not to oversell Bitcoin because that can cause a lot of negative reactions from people and associations with scams, Ponzi schemes that people promote because they really need others to join.
If there's a community that doesn't have the Internet connection, I think working on providing that connections and helping to learn the basics of using the Internet. Such people don't need to learn about Bitcoin unless they're really interested because first things first.
As for knowledge not being a waste, even if a person doesn't have enough money to invest into Bitcoin, I agree with the op on that.
In the context of "not overselling" to onboard people, it's also very important to tell people Bitcoin's limitations and how ownership of Bitcoins require total responsibility from the person himself/herself. Lose your keys, then you lose your Bitcoins. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ People should be ready to take responsibility to own their first coins because if they can't, they shouldn't own Bitcoin OR they should probably start wih a very small amount. |
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Only if you're not in your right mind would you trade diamonds for copper lol.
That's true, but if a person has the skills and the capital to trade for copper, then return with more diamonds, why not make the trade? If Bitcoin is to be money, use it as money. HODL it, trade it, spend it, lose it, earn it. Personally, I neither have the skills nor the willingness to take any risk. But to those who do it and do it successfully, I tip my hat. That's the problem. As I said in the previous article, I also do not prohibit if someone really wants that but in other conditions of course in this case we must be aware of our capacity and if you are not able to do that then do not have high expectations, especially doing crazy things like exchanging bitcoin and switching to altcoins in the hope of higher returns after that you can buy bitcoin again with a larger amount of money. 👍 But if a newbie asks for advice like those people in the Trading subforum, just tell them the truth that 90% of "traders" lose their money to the 10% of traders who "participate" in the market. I keep on repeating, how can plebs like us profit consistently from well-capitalized traders with their armies of bots? We simply can't! Furthermore, time for a shower thought. We know the macro-economics and the geo-political side of things remain to be in a bad situation. What if during 2024, the recession arrives causing everything to crash just like 2020 when the pandemic happened.  Possible? |
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Video included in the tweet. I believe philipma1957 will like it. The mining set up not just helps secure the network and profits in Bitcoin, it also helps restaurants dispose of their waste. It's another illustration of how the incentive structure within Bitcoin fills gaps in the real world and make it better. The same example as the "ransomware market" that I keep on repeating like a broken record. Haha. |
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Well, thinking that way, Bitcoin is everything other than decentralized p2p payment method that doesn't depend on 3rd parties. Actually, you depend on 3rd parties, including miners and node runners.
It all starts with one full node, just like how Satoshi started to bootstrap the network. Each node is a peer, and in itself both a server and a client. The network needs multiple peers to be an actual network, but saying a single full node depends on other full nodes in your context, is wrong. Each node independently validates.
If nodes don't broadcast and if miners don't include your transaction in the next block, you won't be able to finalize transaction. You also depend on Core developers, internet service providers, on electricity and so on.
That's true, but the genius of Satoshi's creation is in its incentive structure. If a miner won't include your transaction in the next block, another miner will and take the fees. It would have been better for that miner to maximize its own profit than giving opportunities to the other miners. |
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Woah thats crazy that they are actually thinking about doing that. I don't even get why they made the 32 ETH thing in the first place. Lots of other PoS coins don't have a minimum size to stake at all, or if they do it's a lot less than that amount of money. Ethereum seems to be the most complicated and centralized version of PoS out there. If they changed it to 2048 ETH lol literally you'd probably only have a few dozen stakers. Centralized ones like liquid staking pools and exchanges, plus the ETH founders and initial investors, and anyone who was lucky enough to buy a bunch of ETH before 2017 and hold onto it. Basically the ETH network would be validated by a few very wealthy people plus centralized services. It's going to encourage staking pools, like how Bitcoin mining evolved from solo-mining to the implementation of mining pools because competition between miners is too high and the activity itself has become more specialzed. Perhaps the Ethereum developers are trying to mimic the evolution of Bitcoin mining by increasing the minimum amount to stake?
It's funny when people who don't know what they are talking about try to say that Bitcoin should move to PoS like Ethereum lol. I actually saw some rant online a week or two ago where someone was arguing that Bitcoin is bad because even though Bitcoiners say they will eventually move to PoS they won't really do it. All I could think was who in the heck was this guy talking to who said Bitcoin would move to PoS lol, no Bitcoiners talk about switching away from PoW, he must have been talking to some people who were pranking him haha. Only the people who don't know the value of Bitcoin would say such a thing.
Relax and be patient. If they stay long enough they too shall understand how everything in the network sticks together, and that POW is in the center of it all. |
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Today the world heard: "The U.S. does not support Taiwan's independence and has no intention of engaging in conflict with China."
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said this during a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing.
This is me smiling at Taiwan when they thought they had gotten a strong ally in the US. I can't imagine them (US) going to something close to war with China because deep down they need these guys to survive and Xi Jingping knows it. Imagine the lame excuse being given for their reason to renege; refusing to support any unilateral changes to the status quo. I mean, this is just plain cowardly behavior because you supply arms to them yet avoid any official diplomatic contact. My opinion is that neither China nor the United States needs a new global conflict. But this does not mean that the U.S. has "bent over" to China. I have confidence that although Taiwan has become somewhat of a hostage to the current, complicated, international situation, but... The terms of Taiwan's "return" will be exclusively according to China's rules. My opinion is that there will be an agreement on sufficiently broad autonomy for Taiwan. I have written more than once that in my opinion it will be a "showcase peace treaty" with the Chinese CCP presenting it as "China's great victory over Western hegemony", but there will be "nuances" that will not be publicly talked about. This includes China's concessions not to support Russia as an international terrorist. The world is already tired of cataclysms - KOVID, the light version of the third world war, etc. Again, let me remind you that China needs Taiwan as a working leading manufacturer of microelectronics, and any forceful solution to this "issue" will lead to the total destruction of Taiwan's unique economic sector. If you ask me, I believe it will be China who will start bending over. China's economy is currently in a worse than expected state after the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. Some economists/analysts mistakenly projected that the Chinese people will start spending most of their savings in goods and services after lockdowns, BUT they were obviously very wrong. They later found out that Chinese consumers are not like American consumers because Asians have more tendencies to save than the people living in the United States. I already posted about the possble recession coming in the U.S. and Europe because of QT, which will hurt China more because the U.S. and its allies are the biggest importers of Chinese goods. |
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--Snip--
Everything you just posted are simply lies. Sorry frankandbeans, but two Bitcoin Core developers won't give you negative trust ratings for no reason. Plebs and newbies will have to look into them and decide. If you trick them once, shame on you, if you trick them twice, shame on them. But I'm confident they will learn, either the easy way or the hard way.
But in terms of the actual topic, which is monetary sovereignty and control over your own funds, both on-chain and off-chain have options that allow you to be your own bank. LN has options if you want to sacrifice sovereignty for convenience, just like on-chain does. I'd always encourage people to explore the options where they retain full control of their funds, but with the disclaimer that personal responsibility is vitally important. Make sure you know what you're doing before you commence with self-custody. That's for both on-chain or off-chain, but particularly off-chain as there's a steeper learning curve and more to actively manage.
👍 |
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