4 years ago exchanges had good volume. but now there are so many exchanges. there has been a dilution of TRUE volume. the majority of the fluffed up volume is day traders using altcoins/stablecoins to arbitrage.

there is not really a big jump in adoption but just a change in the scales of day traders. which with less coin on exchanges. makes it easier to get prices moving

now flop back to your love of the "compatibility" trick. that changes were implemented without people needing to update their code as they would just bypass true validation and verification of segwit transactions and just accept them.
(thus devs deem it ok for the home user community to not be required to do full validation as they are not important)

wake up and care about bitcoin and the network/protocol. stop trying to defend a dev team when they are allowed by people like you to change things without a true moral consensus upgrade procedure

aparthied/segregation analogy:
you would have been great as a bus driver in america's 1950's saying its ok to separate blacks from whites and pretend you are still providing a community service as blacks can still be on the bus.

yet you are ignorant about the whole community should include the blacks ability to vote.
pretending its ok to ignore a large portion of the communities vote because you want to pretend they dont lose anything in the fake vote..

sorry but the ability to change network rules without getting the majority to accept iit under the ruse of 'backward compatibility, validation bypass' makes user nodes less important

do you really think that this statement
'usernodes independently validate every signature matches the inputs to ensure a transaction is valid'
compares to
'usernodes simply accept segwit transactions, because the previous peer sent the block, meaning they validated it'

saying a change to a network is ok because those that oppose the change dont count. those that remain after the change have to trust other peers.. makes the network less secure


the whole 'power of network changes' is not home user node based. but instead pool and merchant.
atleast do some research and stop just caring about defending a few devs and start caring about the network

1. people that try to say that a certain coinage should burn, should burn their own first.
2. prices are temporary, they move up and down. any price crash is just a discount day for people to get a good deal. so see the positives of such.
3. the real threat is code changes to bitcoin that ruin peoples utility of bitcoin. such as making legacy transactions 4x the cost of segwits gateway to LN transactions

1. segwit was not consensus. it was aparthied to fake consensus.. as your point three points out. to remain on the network after a consensus people need to update. segwit was implemented by throwing users off BEFORE the consensus number was reached.
a true consensus would only change its settings AFTER the majority of nodes decided they wanted the new settings.

2. segwits august aparthied campaign was more impactful than many other things that happened in the past. but again a TRUE consensus would only activate only in the event of a consensus..... thus impact is only 5%
segwit activated below 95% of usernode compliance, this just goes to show as my last post stated that core devs have bypassed the old priority that nodes would provide.

3. again not forcing.. of majority dont upgrade. it doesnt activate.. end of story. the confusion is the 2016 segwit bip was more consensus compliant. but only achieved 45%. thus no activation.. but the 2017 segwit bip allowed pushing nodes and pools off th network unless they complied to segwit..

this 2017 version was not true consensus. but pople still dont realise or even understand what consensus really is, nor how it should be achieved properly, which is wher people are not realising that the usernodes importance in the network has been deminished.

even core devs(paid by barry silbert) will admit that segwit activated only due to pools and merchants and it didnt need random hobby users nodes to do anything(backward compatibility)

.. that said. i can understand softworks used to just introduce new address formats. like the 2018 adding bc1q addresses. but when it comes to bigger settings like block sizes and how transactions should fit into a block. that kind of important thing should require proper and moral obiding consensus

pre-empt core fanboys hatred of consensus by saying "bitcoin is not democratic"..
those that want to rebutt. try to learn consensus. and if you still love the idea of consensus bypass.. learn the word tyranny, trojan horse risks and also centralisation

if only Doomad could wipe away the purple glaze in his eyes to finally see the negatives of the core team. he would then understand the negatives of "able to implement new features via softfork", which means that the normal nodes provide a LESS impactful part of the network then they did in the past.

pre-empt Doomads insults
pre-empt Doomads spinning core devs into gods speach
pre-empt Doomads ignorance of negatives
pre-empt Doomads just spin the reply into some chat about another network and its devs/ spokesmen
doomad. dont reply with your usual flip flops. if you cant understand the negatives and dont understand that its just pools and merchant nodes that become the deciding factor, then atleast do some research on your best buddy group of the bscartel (core and NYA agrement list)


anyways.. segwit 2 years on and no improvement to transaction counts or fee's. seems the "solution" for the 2015 highlighted issues, still exist, and will do until core devs really started to give a crap about bitcoin again, instead of their investors

i would disagree with this statement. a TXID would b a payment ID as an address CAN BE RE-USED to receive multiple payments

the problem here is trying to translate bitcoin buzzwords and technology into analogies that the previous generations would understand, such as comparing it to fiat payment methods, is never going to be exact comparisons.

EG saying a private key is like a password that should never be told to others, is acceptable. but then explaining that the password uses special maths to create an account identifier(username/address) starts getting techy. then trying to explain the account identifier/addresses abilities, starts to veer far away from comparisons to things like online banking/paypal.

i think the best method of explaining bitcoin is not to try being so accurate or exact with a single explanation. but to have several layers of explanation. starting from a rough comparison to online fiat banking for newbies. and then the newbies can proceed to the next level where things become more exact with each level

bitcoin is not a commodity. as a commodity is a raw material used to create other products
EG wheat=bread/cereals, cocoa=chocolate. bitcoin will never appear on a commodities market

however bitcoin is an asset currency. which is better than forex currency.

however even in forex currencies there are many traders that play the exchange rates for profit.

even now many people are discussing the price of the british pound and speculating the new price after brexit.
and so you will always have people discussing the price and hoping for price changes, whether it be an asset or forex

the equipment is not the issue. its the electricity price. if you cannot get access to facilities that offer sub 5cent electric, there is no point competing. your only best chance in higher cost area's is to altcoin farm and then convert to bitcoin. but the volatility of the exchange rates of altcoins then become a major consideration and alot of altcoin hopping (changing networks often) become essential

ok so LN* is not bitcoin, by your own methodology

*which is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NETWORK. has no hashpower and its unit of measure is 12 decimal instead of 8, and is named msat instead of satoshi or bitcoin

this as a solution to VPN's... um, it wont work

firstly the OP doesnt realise that he is not the only user of a particular IP address. othr more nefarious people use vpn's to DDoS websites. so before even getting to a log-in page. a website will review an IP and if it appears as a VPN/proxy that usually is linked to DDoSing, then the website wil block the IP even before the user gets to see a log-in page.

so with that said, how is a user to log-in/sign a message if they are IP banned

drugs are illegal in india.. people still do drugs in india
alcohol is illegal in many states of india... people still drink alcohol in india
public nudity is illegal in india... people still get naked in india

short summary
bitcoin will be used in india. just no one will admit to it if it becomes illegal to even hold bitcoin as a individual

speaking of how windfury NOW only believes a transaction is final when it has a settlement assurance(confirm).. how does that sit with windfury's love of LN which doesnt settle at the 'payment stage'
if windfury trusts a LN payment then he must realise its the same as a unconfirmed tx

p.s gotta love how windfury still hasnt read code or fully understood the technologies of crypto, but then tries to not appear to be naive by using abstract words like 'settlement assurance' instead of just saying 'confirm'

by the way bitcoin(BTC) is just as fast as bch.. which i dont think windfury grasped the concept of. all altcoins are the same speed.... (concept being: accepting unconfirmed tx's)

as for his argument about which network is bitcoin.. spinning it into an already discussed comparison. is like saying which country owns 'dollar'

its far less hassle and strain to just explain to people there are many bitcoins/dollars, but the main one is btc/usd
trying to fight that only core should own the brand goes against all principles of what bitcoin was invented for

pepsi has greater utility??
seriously... hang on a second i just need to laugh

do you even know where the pepsi liquid ends up just 6 hours after consumption....... in a toilet bowl
do you even know where the pepsi plastic bottle ends up just minutes after consumption....... in a trash can

nxt time you flush your toilet ask yourself, is the toilet a ledger that keeps the contents allowing it to be exchanged between people.

i really do understand your infuriation about not being able to mine as its costs are way above your abilities. but please dont try taking your personal circumstance to try make bitcoin become just as crappy and underlying valueless as altcoins

again. imagine if gold could be attained from anyones back garden using only a spoon and a coffee filter. the price of gold would not be $1k+ but instead less than a dollar. as no one would buy it for more than a dollar if they can get it virtually free themselves.
same goes for PoS. it has no cost. its only "value" is the speculation of utility

1. bitcoin has no inflation rate. its deflationary
2. PoS is not a cost. you lock coin up. get new coin cos of it. and then get to tak the original locked coin back later.
3. PoS is already failing the 'decentralised' debate as people are already syndicating/pooling their stakes into large lumps to share out rewards
4. and before you get started on any other proof of method that could be decentralised. sooner or later groups will find a way to game the system by multiplying the resources needed to gain the upper hand
5. bitcoin still uses less electric than pepsi does for all its refrigerators, so take your energy waste debate over to pepsi

must you forget a few things
1. bank transactions are only part of the overal flow of fiat. think about it.
people that use applepay(users own phone uses battery) which communicates to
applepays datacentre(uses electric) which then communicates its transaction to
visa/mastercards datacentre(uses electric) which then.. yep then communicates to
banks

2. a bitcoin transaction can contain many outputs (many destination/payments)

1. making bitcoin go to PoS is like making gold become available in everyons backyard as long as they have a spoon and a coffee filter.
imagine if gold could be mined for free.. the value of gold would drop. dont you realise yet the reason bitcoin/gold is so highly priced is because its expensive to attain.

2. mining farms do not even consume electric from the same 'consumer market' as residents. infact power grids make excess electric to cover occasional power demand spikes. and its this excess that usually goes to waste and unpaid, which mining farms do contracts for.
if you didnt realise power grids have multiple markets. residential, industrial and others. so please understand the bitcoin mining does not even touch the residential market.

3. i think all those crying about bitcoin mining costs are those lonely hobbyists that have just 1 or 2 asics and are not 'getting rich' purely because they have to pay thir parents/landlords electric bill. i think its these hobbyists that should find their own efficiencies rather than blaming the entire bitcoin mining community.
yes i get it, hobbyists want PoS so that they can 'get rich' without any costs.. we all understand it. but sorry bitcoin aint free


the fact that mist asic miners make profit if they are smart enough to be efficient. means they made returns on initial investment by using what you describe as the eventual bitcoin paperweight.. and then
yep and then.. they sell the bitcoin paperweight for less than its purchase price to the altcoin community o they can use it as altcoin miners. thus getting even more return on original investment

powr consumption is easy to estimate

75exahash

antminer s17pro = 56terra 2.5kw
antminer s9 = 14terra 1.4kw

75,000,000terrahash / 56=1,339,286 s17pro asics online
75,000,000terrahash / 14=5,357,143 s9 asics online

1.3m s17 * 2.5=3,375,000kwh
3.3gwh *24*365=29565000000kwh/year
29.565twh/year

5.3m s9 * 1.4=7,500,000kwh
7.5ghw *24*365=65,700,000,000kwh/year
65.7twh/year

so between the most efficient current range and what is deemed the least efficient the electric use is between 29.5-65.7
but here is the snag..
the asics have not been hashing away at a constant 75exahash network rate for the last 365 days. so infact the electric usage would be lower as the hashrate has been lower before todays stats


seems university of cambridge wants to stick with the least efficient asics and using the highest hashrate as a constant
when they say it compares to switzerland

however the most efficient asics have been out for months hashrates have ben lower so ill stick to a tw/y of ~30 rather than ~60

asic manufacturers are already solving the environment issue. imagine if we were using gpu's.
imagine it.. how many GPU's, motherboards and power supplies would be needed to attain 56terrahash(1 asic)

now imagine 80exahash(80,000,000thash) of gpu hashing is alot of GPU's and electric in comparison to asics.

the whole point of an asic is to be an asic. to concentrate all processing on one single task efficiently. the asic farmers also lase factory space in area's where they have cheap renewable electric. because asic farmers want cost efficiency.

the electric debate has ben myth busted ages ago. electric is not a debate that needs to keep returning because the problem thats been presented has already been solved

agreed
there are more PC's in banking skyscrappers, bank branches and data centres
more ATM's and merchant card readers

but the plastic credit card itself, isnt a stat thats gonna win the debate in favour of bitcoin

i wouldnt start going down the road of XXXm slithers of plastic. as the materials used in creating an asic actually outpace credit card plastic

did you know the power cord(to wall socket) alone has more plastic than 5 credit cards
the styrofoam/bubble wrap that the delivery box contains also has more plastic than credit cards
and i havnt even started on the insides of an asic


the main debate about bitcoins environmental wastage is myth busted because most asic farms are set up in area's that have cheap renewable electric generation, meaning low coal/oil/gas electric generation linked to bitcoin

however visa/mastercard's datacentres, wall streets skyscrapers and all those individual bank branches use far more electric