Apologies, Lord Francis, we weren't aware you had decreed it had to be thus.   

I'm guessing if you had gotten the outcome you wanted, you wouldn't give the slightest toss who disagreed.  Worthless hypocrite.  You're clearly incapable of respecting consensus, yet you have the audacity to wade defiantly into this topic expecting people to care what your opinions are?  I suppose the balls must compensate for the total lack of brains.

Call me cynical, but I thought DCG had been involved in mining for a while now.  It's likely a portion of their hashrate has always been powered by renewable resources.  So, imagine, instead of announcing (I don't know the exact proportions, so hypothetical figures here) "30% of our mining is powered by renewable sources", what they do instead is partner with someone to form a new pool, separate that 30% of their hashpower and then say "Look, this pool is 100% renewable" and just not draw attention to the other 70% that you're still running under an existing pool.  Then the partner company can do the same and still keep using their non-green hashrate as well.

How do we know this isn't just a marketing stunt?

Perhaps it's not only unique to crypto.  It's probably a bad habit people have picked up from the media in general.  It's as though no one has the attention span or patience to even see subtlety or nuance nowadays.  Everything either has to be best or worst case scenario.

Stop pretending every brainfart of an idea you have is Bitcoin.  It never will be.  It must grieve you tremendously to know that many people all around the world will continue their efforts working to build upon something you utterly despise, when it's unlikely a single person will ever code any of your precious ideas.  LN will keep growing as you and your fractured mind are forever to be stuck in 2017, living your sad fairytales over and over until they become the only thing you can comprehend, despite not being real.  This is literally the rest of your life now.  Lost in a dream world of your own creation.  You don't know how to move on.  Have fun with that. 

Who can buy my coins if I'm not choosing to sell them right now?  No one.  So no, central bankers can't buy all the coins right now.  Understand how property works.

I see you're getting a bit desperate in your attempts to justify being on the wrong side of history.  We almost feel bad for you.  Almost.

True.  It's likely that as soon as anyone tries to portray the situation as black and white, someone else points out a differing view.  It's also possible that many of those who are posting these viral memes may purely see Bitcoin through the lens of a speculator.  They may not be the ones:
and possibly have no appreciation for the innate qualities of open source, permissionless, transparent, etc.  It might just be a fondness for "green candles".  But perhaps there's no comeback to their social carpet bombing either, even if they are missing some of the nuance.

Lots of people sell stuff on social media.  There are probably thousands of buy/sell/swap groups on Facebook alone.  Then you've got ebay and all the apps people can get on their phones.  At the moment, all those people are choosing to sell items in exchange for their national currency.  Instead, they could choose to accept payments in BTC.  Why do people always assume you need to buy BTC with fiat?  Goods and services are equally viable mediums of exchange.

I mean... the way it's worded certainly makes it sound compelling.  But, the more I think about it, the more I'm certain that the use of memes isn't a deliberate attempt to add a layer of obfuscation to keep the fuddy-duddies at bay.  It's just an observation of a generational gap.  This is merely the manner in which some younger people opt to share ideas.  It's not tactical.  They could be communicating in Latin and it wouldn't change the fact that most of the traditionalists still wouldn't "get it".

That wording does seem to be laying it on a little thick, heh.  Bitcoin is a tool.  It's how you use it that determines its effect.  If you use it the right way, it does confer some benefits regarding privacy and security.  However, it doesn't grant total immunity from a determined attacker, whether it be a criminal or a totalitarian state.  If the authorities decide to lock you in a cell with no access to the outside world and keep you there for the rest of your life, your bitcoin holdings probably won't bring you a great deal of comfort.

Is it likely they have to get a regulatory sign-off every time they add a new asset?  Or, providing they can show "appropriate" backing, do they now have carte blanche to add any crapcoin they want at any time?

If it's the former, I also have to wonder what the regulators were thinking when they gave the thumbs up to such barely-established tokens.  Maybe I'm just not keeping up with the latest trends, but I've never heard of any of those newly added projects.

I already know.  I watched it happen in real time.  Right in front of my eyes.  We're all hoping that one day you learn, though.  Once the 80% lock-in threshold was achieved, the writing was on the wall and there wasn't much point resisting it anymore.  I know you're desperate for it to be a conspiracy and you're going to insist for the rest of forever that it was a conspiracy.  But it wasn't.  Even if nodes and miners were disappearing (and I'm still not convinced they were in the kinds of volume you're attempting to convince us they were), you still wouldn't be able to prove that they hadn't left voluntarily to join the BCH fork on 1st Aug 2017.  After all, why would anyone stick around on a network where they disagree with the ideology when they could just build upon that other blockchain instead?  (obviously you can't answer that one, because sadly you're still here on this chain for reasons I can't fathom)

Consider some actual evidence.  If you'd care to look up the historic BTC hashrate for May, June and July 2017, you'll see that the hashrate continued to climb throughout those three months.  No sudden large drops during July when BIP 91 locked in, so miners clearly weren't being forced off in droves as you so ridiculously claim.  It was only once the BCH fork launched on 1st August 2017 that there was a noticeable plummet in the hashrate.  Please present evidence to the contrary, assuming you have any.  Prove that miners were being forced off.  You can't.



Your interpretation of the data leaves much to be desired.  If it's so blatantly obvious that we're lying, please explain how it is that you're the only person who has arrived at this conclusion?  Where are all the people who believe your fantastical version of events?

//EDIT:  I'm weary of rehashing this over and over.  I'll continue any discussions about consensus in general, but I'm not wasting further time and effort on explaining SegWit activation.  It's history now and it's not going to change.

//DOUBLE-EDIT:
a) It certainly didn't occur before lock-in.
b) I'm still not convinced it happened at all.
c) Even if it did happen, Okay, Mr Almighty God-lord, ruler-of-all, whatever you say goes.  We'll just completely forget that freedom is a thing we're allowed to have.  

I think much of it will come down to individual preference.  People tend to lean towards saying there's a "right" or "wrong" way to handle microtransactions, but I suspect, whether it be off-chain methods, custodial services, altcoins or indeed something else entirely, it's likely everyone will have their choice catered to.  One way or another, people will find a way to do what they want.  That's part of the beauty of crypto.

That's not how I recall history unfolding, unless your use of the word "enforced" was simply chosen in error.  "Pressured", perhaps, but "enforced", no.  The threat of a UASF was looming, but miners chose to "lock in" BIP 91 in July 2017.  

---

Uh-oh, even though they've had nearly four years to wrap their addled brain around the concept, some people are still unable to discern the difference between "bit 1" (signalling for BIP 141) and "bit 4" (signalling for BIP 91).  You can obsess over the percentage of bit 1 signalling for the rest of forever (and being the utter sadcase you are, I'm sure you will), but that's not the salient percentage in this conversation.



You're still conflating two separate issues.  What you're talking about began on 3rd August 2017.  AFTER BIP 91 LOCKED IN.  I don't know if your issue is literacy or just basic comprehension, but this has been explained to you before.  Several times.  Please take your Trump-esque "alternative facts" elsewhere, you dumpster-fire of a personality.

Pretty tenuous link to Bitcoin, to be honest.  Just because someone owns an amount of bitcoin, doesn't mean we need to care when they change their job title.  Try to give less focus to shallow "celebrity" status.  This shouldn't even be considered news.

It's difficult to quantify.  HODLer and part-time FUD-buster, I guess.  Not sure how else to describe my "role".  Supporter?  Ideological proselytiser?  My contributions here probably lean more towards philosophical than technical, but I can verbally kerb-stomp some trolls in my spare time, so hopefully that's helpful in some small way.  I suppose Bitcoiner is the closest match in the list.

It's probably not worth the effort providing justification for your choices to the resident LN Troll-in-Chief there.  They won't accept it anyway, it contradicts the voices in their head who tell them what to do.  He's a headcase. 
There are some who just despise the fact that people are free to use LN if they choose to, so they feel the need to seize every opportunity to attack it.  Nothing will placate them.  

It certainly looks as though you're doing things properly.  You simply happened to be the most economical route available on this occasion.  It's possible, if they've been sending lots of payments recently, that some of the other channels they've used previously are now unbalanced and don't have sufficient capacity to route anything else at the moment.
 
Keep doing what you're doing.  Your very existence proves franky1's false narratives wrong.  You don't have to be one of the "big players" to contribute.  Individuals are just as important to the overall utility and usability of the network.

I'd be a hypocrite if I tried to poke fun at the OP, since I also happen to think satoshi died in 2011.  I'm pretty confident it wasn't Steve Jobs, though.

Either way, it's better to respect satoshi's privacy, whoever they may have been.  Consider keeping your speculations private and not publicising them.

It almost sounds as though you're asking us for advice on how you can make yourself happy?

No one here is in a position to tell you how you should live your life.  What might make a contented lifestyle for any of us, could well have the opposite effect and make you miserable.  That's the problem when asking strangers on the internet for advice.  We don't know you or what your passions are.  It's something everyone has to figure out for themselves.  Decide what brings you joy and pursue it, basically.  Easier said than done, I know.  But that's all there is to it.     

That remains to be seen.  Assuming they do opt to incorporate blockchain tech into their infrastructure, it's the way in which they implement it that will determine what level of security it offers.  It's not a case of just saying "blockchain is more secure", throwing it into the mix and expecting it to work.  Different blockchains have vastly differing standards of security.  If they're not careful, the banks might even manage to build something less secure than what they currently have.

If it's true (and I'm not convinced it is), then the environment talk is just a smokescreen.  The real motivation would obviously be petty national interests.  But I'd sooner jump to the conclusion that it's just more clickbait nonsense from desperate cryptomedia outfits trying to stay relevant.  They have to latch on to every last rumour simply in order to have something fresh to publish.  Failing that, they resort to republishing old stories with a fresh spin (which could well be what's happening again here).