This is quite true. I think another relevant factor here is speed. The world nowadays seems to move so much faster than it did even a few years ago. It is partly 24-hour new culture, and partly everyone competing for attention on the internet, with everyone desperate to be first to report the latest developments. Each 'fact' is a headline only for a brief moment, before it is rapidly submerged by the next. If we combine this with the rise of social media and its facilitation of alternative methods of information dissemination, informal and unverified, without the responsibilities traditionally incumbent on print media and TV channels, then we reach a situation where people are bombarded with facts and 'facts', interlaced with misinformation, denuded of context, or just outright lies.
This is entirely intentional. People are inundated with conflicting 'truths', and these truths aren't open to careful analysis to determine what is accurate and what is not, because the sheer pace of news means that there is limited opportunity to evaluate what is truly happening before the next story is upon us. And once people become intellectually cast adrift like this, it becomes easier to erode their beliefs and to manipulate their behaviours. We can take Trump as a prime example here - lies after lies, each outrage quickly replaced by the next. It is the pace with which this all gets refreshed that prevents any in-depth study, and the pervasive climate of uncertainty that underpins it all provides a frictionless surface upon which all of this 'old' news can just slide away and be forgotten...

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/adam-curtiss-essential-counterhistories
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b183c

We do need to remember that processing power of quantum computers can increase much more rapidly than we are accustomed to with classical computers.
With each extra bit, a classical computer has more possibilities, but can still only process one at a time. The difference with a quantum computer is the quantum superposition of states - all possible options can be tried simultaneously - so each time you add an extra qubit, the processing power doubles. 1 qubit - 2 states, 2 qubits 4 states, 3qubit 8 states and so on, effectively 2^n classical processors running in parallel.
But having said this I do agree that a QC that is a threat to bitcoin is likely some time away - it's just that the problems are more to do with phenomena such as decoherence, error rates and a near-absolute-zero temperature constraint, rather than, as we might think, the number of qubits. It's more single problems to be overcome than it is scaling up the processing power. Tremendously challenging problems, yes, but a different sort of problem to what we're used to thinking of in terms of computer advancement.

I don't think this is an issue. The algorithm already exists. Whilst a classical computer would take an unimaginably huge 2^128 operations to derive a bitcoin private key, with a QC running Shor this becomes a much more manageable 128^3.

Yes. This does lead into the huge question of "lost" coins...

Yes. If some consensus can be achieved on implementing a quantum-resistant system for bitcoin, the crucial point here is that in order to be safe against quantum attack, all coins will need to be moved to new, quantum-safe addresses. So what happens to coins that can't be moved because wallet-access has been lost, or the owners are deceased and the keys lost? What happens to Satoshi's bitcoins? The two options are a) leave the coins that aren't moved, and let them get stolen by a QC, or b) after some given grace period, burn any coins that haven't been moved to prevent any subsequent theft.

Obviously both solutions here are problematic and would be highly contentious, and go right to the core of what bitcoin, from an ideological perspective, is.

This has been discussed a lot over the years, and as far as I'm aware it remains an impasse. Meanwhile development of quantum computers continues apace...

Quite true. Asymmetric cryptography is hugely vulnerable to a QC running Shor's algorithm, but symmetric cryptography remains relatively unscathed under the best QC attack (Grover).

I think that ETH is the next ETH! The progression to 2.0 and PoS will be an important shift and is likely to increase demand as a lot of the supply is locked up for staking, quite apart from the improvements in scalability and decentralisation. Smart contracts remain one of the strongest use cases for crypto, and ETH is by far the biggest and best smart contract platform. 2.0 will simply work to increase that advantage.

Yes. They do look quite similar, but they are definitely different people!

It means nothing. Crypto prices at the moment are heavily influenced by what is happening in the wider world. We saw that huge drop once the CV19 took hold, then a bit of a recovery... and since then crypto prices have fluctuated depending on economic results and predictions, and government actions such as the huge stimulus packages.
Maybe $10k is still a bit of a psychological barrier, but really I think the most important factor is that world economies are in chaos, and we can't realistically expect bitcoin to be immune to that.

Bitcoin is the original, BCH is a shitcoin whose entire purpose for existence is money-grabbing on the back of the bitcoin name. BCH has zero purpose other than this.
It matters because people might be fooled into thinking that BCH (or any other bitcoin fork) is actually worth buying. Just stick with the original - there is a reason that bitcoin marketcap dwarfs everything else.

Marketcap should really just be treated as an approximation. It can be a useful guide as to how important a project is, but be wary of relying on it too much, it is a simplification and never tells the full story.

I wouldn't be surprised. ETH is actually quite low against BTC relative to the ATH. Back in mid-2017, ETH price was around 0.14 BTC. Now it is around 0.025... about a fifth of what it was a few years ago.
ETH was probably overpriced in 2017 at the height of ICO-fever, but fell hard during the long bear market that started in 2018. Perhaps harder than was justified. I think that ETH is probably underpriced against BTC right now, and as market confidence returns and ETH progresses to its new PoS system, we could quite reasonably anticipate ETH marketcap rising, and getting closer to that of BTC.

I'm not Finnish or Russian, but Muistatko Monrepos'n is a great song of loss, very evocative.

I think that 2.0 and the move to PoS will cause a substantial increase in ETH price. We all know that it's coming - but the fact that it has been delayed before, and that we still don't know precisely when it is coming, combine to suggest that PoS is not yet fully priced-in. I would anticipate rises once the move gets a more definite date.

No, I don't think that ETC is undervalued (relative to ETH).
In the near future, ETH is moving to PoS, whilst ETC will remain PoW. I believe that this is a vital move for ETH and will lead to huge improvements, and that ETC will left behind as ETH price increases significantly. I think the ETH/ETC gap will only grow larger. The only thing that might help ETC is if there is a sudden influx of miners leaving from ETH once it moves to PoS.

Privacy coins are certainly useful and serve a purpose. My main concern is that as crypto moves inevitably into the mainstream, and causes prices to increase due to the increased demand, we will encounter more and more legislation. Privacy coins may be the big losers here as governments look to demand a degree of transparency. Privacy coins can't comply with KYC/AML, and are much more likely to fall foul of regulators and other official bodies.

I would still argue that if the consensus is that a certain number of coins are irretrievably lost, then this would already be factored into the price - a reduction in supply increases relative demand.
And current price is only attainable for the first order in the book, it's not like everyone could immediately sell their bitcoins and get current market rate.

I would imagine that the situation between China and India will escalate over the coming years. Whilst in the short-term this will probably die down as the emphasis is firmly on de-escalation, as we look to the longer-term we must consider pressures due to climate change, and how pivotal the Himalayan watershed is to all of this.

China and India are the two most populous countries in the world. All of SE Asia is very heavily populated. Climate change coupled with population growth will lead to increased demand for water, and the Himalayas are the source of the major rivers in the region. Ever wondered why China is so obsessed with control of the relatively obscure region of Tibet? Water. Whoever controls the sources of all these rivers has tremendous power.

Today, the conflict is mostly about posturing and land-grabbing and militarily-strategic locations. In the scheme of things, quite low-key stuff.
In the future that we're heading into, control of the Himalayan region will be all about water, and the survival and well-being of billions of people. And it won't be just China and India; all of the other nations in the area will have a vital interest here.

It means that COVID-19 is a serious virus. The body is a single system, COVID-19 can affect multiple elements of this system.
You can die from it, you can contract it and be devoid of symptoms, you can contract it and have only temporary symptoms, you can contract it and sustain permanent damage.

It doesn't mean that it 'will', rather that it 'can'. Presumably as severity of symptoms increases, so does the potential for permanent damage. We (and the scientific community) are obviously still learning about this virus. Its long-term effects and the incidence of these may not be known for some time yet.

This is the crux of it.
Marketcap = (current trading price of coin) * (total number of coins).

The 'price' is a simplification, a single measure that takes no account of the depth of the order book or the spread of bids/asks; it takes no account of the number of coins that anyone could actually sell at that price. Kind of analogous to the 'present' being just a word to denote the separation of 'the past' and 'the future'.

Similarly the 'total number of coins' is a simplification that takes no account of any coins that might be permanently lost. And it shouldn't need to, because knowledge of the proportion of lost coins should factor into the price. You might imagine that if there is some sudden news that the number of 'lost' bitcoins is vastly higher than previously estimated, this would reduce available supply, and lead to a price increase.

Marketcap is a useful approximation, but no more than that. It shouldn't be considered a perfect barometer of the overall worth of a project.

Credit cards are great if used responsibly. If you get a 0% card with a long term, it is the perfect and cheapest way to resolve any temporary cashflow problems. They also provide insurance for certain purchases (e.g. foreign travel), which you don't get with say a normal debit card. Credit cards can have huge benefits. The problems only start if a) you have a bad credit record and can't get a good card, or b) you use a credit card as "free money", and are irresponsible and fail to pay the card off...

This is quite true. Statues are complicated as well, in that they provide that direct link between the past and the present. Jefferson owing slaves in the time in which he lived is one thing. We might argue that were Jefferson alive today he would be highly unlikely to be in favour of slavery. What about a statue of Jefferson that is still standing today, as an object suitable for pride and veneration? Is a statue of Jefferson a monument to his achievements, or to the totality of his existence?

Let's assume for simplicity that Jefferson's only achievement was the Declaration of Independence, and that the only other thing we know about him is that he was a slave owner. The creation of a statue of the man would then be a celebration of the author of the Declaration - it would not be a celebration of him as a slave owner, there were plenty of slave owners, he was nothing special or statue-worthy in that regard. Then let's assume we erect a second statue, not depicting the human, but rather the Declaration itself. Presumably that second statue can stand for all time, or at least until we find the Declaration offensive. The difference is that the statue of the man has the potential to be construed as celebrating the man rather than his achievements. If it is a statue of the man alone, then should it to be removed because of his links to slavery, which we now find offensive? What about if the statue was of him holding the Declaration? Does that specification of context work to remove objections?

Tearing down statues of men who became rich and famous solely on the back of the slave trade is one thing, and is eminently justifiable; the issue of statues of figures such as Jefferson becomes clouded with nuance. Is his ownership of slaves incidental or is it sufficiently important to outweigh his achievements? What about the Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves? What about establishing a nation and freeing it from the yoke of British tyranny? What about treatment of indigenous Americans?

Bitcoin has the potential to fulfill more than one use case. What we are talking about here is both bitcoin as a store-of-value and bitcoin as a day-to-day currency. These use cases can overlap, but this isn't necessarily always the case.

For BTC to be a day-to-day currency it would have to lose the volatility and be much more stable in dollar price. But whilst a stable price might meet the criteria of a store-of-value, this use-case is more often associated with price increases - which would not make it very suitable as a day-to-day currency.

We are still relatively early in the journey towards mainstream adoption, and BTC's ultimate use-case remains, for the time being, fluid. You will see people talking about it as a store-of-value, and in the next breath as a day-to-day currency. It could be either, but is I think unlikely to be both.

All monsters are, in a sense, broken. The label can be profoundly damaging from a psychological perspective. I was attempting to capture that in my art.


Either that or I didn't read the instructions properly.