Bitcoin is like Wesley Snipes?  There's definitely a joke about not paying taxes in there somewhere.   

It's sometimes difficult to come up with simple ways to explain Bitcoin to the masses, so I wouldn't say your efforts here are silly at all.  If I manage to think of anything to add, I'll edit it in here later.

Provided you draw a clear line between individual businesses implementing their own KYC procedures and nothing whatsoever being implemented at the protocol level, then that's fine.

Businesses have laws they have to adhere to.  Even if those laws are a direct cause of identity theft, by mandating that companies store a vast trove of customers' personally identifiable and financially sensitive information for hackers to then steal.  Yay for dumb laws!

Would you care to name this supposed third party? 



Which is a positive, rather than a negative.  Just wait for Atomic Swaps to kick in and then see what you're missing out on if you use a coin that isn't Lightning-enabled.  This is all stuff that's going to come later, though.



Now that's a sensible critique.  While it is technically "out", it's mostly the advanced technical users testing the waters right now.  We're still very early in the adoption curve.  There's a loooong way to go before any of this is user-friendly enough for the average member of the public.

And now, let's explain why ETFs are just more of what Bitcoin was built to replace.  

In case anyone hadn't noticed, the global economy is in turmoil because all the banks and other big institutional investors are constantly gambling on derivatives and other such financial instruments.  These instruments largely consist of repackaged debt obligations and IOUs.  Then, when they inevitably get their bets wrong, the public has to bail the banks out, the pension pots get raided until there's hardly anything left, the stock market eventually crashes and the traders start throwing themselves out of windows again.  Rinse, repeat.  That's literally how it works.  The global economy in a nutshell.  But whatever happens, it's ultimately ordinary people who don't realise any of this is happening who end up being the ones who foot the bill.  Yet, despite how ridiculous it all is, no one who's actively involved in this game seems to want to change it.  It's a terrible system.  It's so insane that you couldn't make this shit up.  It's a farce.

So someone created Bitcoin.  A pure system, with no debt.  And it's great.  No one can take money they haven't actually got to gamble with on bad debts.  But, instead of embracing this superior model, institutional investors wanted more infinite debt to gamble with, so they eagerly await the launch of Bitcoin ETFs IOUs where they can continue to speculate from the sidelines in the worthless casino they seemingly can't find the exit from.  Apparently that's too "complicated" for them.  

They aren't going to be holding any actual bitcoins, they're just going to be playing with the IOUs.  That's their loss.    

It's important to draw a distinction between an "economic expert" and a "Bitcoin expert".  Your subject and the first line of your post appear to conflate the two.  The media will always portray them as one and the same, but the reality is completely different.  Any "expert" who is trying to analyse Bitcoin using fiat models probably isn't much of an expert.  Bitcoin was created because fiat has serious problems.  It's a whole different ballgame.  Most of their rules don't apply here because we tore up the rulebook and made a new one.  So everything the experts think they know is wrong.  

And even if they did manage to garner a vague understanding of how Bitcoin worked three or four years ago, that doesn't mean they understand it now.  The situation constantly evolves.  A growing userbase, new features, radical proposals, ideas and innovations in the pipeline - no one knows for sure what the outcome of all this will be.  That's what makes it so interesting.  So if those of us who live and breathe this stuff can't accurately predict the price, these random so-called experts being interviewed by the mainstream media have no hope.

If you see news articles with economists talking crap about Bitcoin, take it with a pinch of salt.  They're not as all-knowing as they like to think.

Plus, anyone who did somehow know what the price is going to be would naturally keep their mouths shut and quietly make a fortune.  They wouldn't blab to anyone who cares to listen.  So it probably is an attempt at manipulation, as you alluded to in the OP.

For me, long term price speculation (despite the fact it's all anyone seems to care about for the most part), is actually the least interesting aspect of all this.  It's just guesswork and opinion.  The technology and societal impacts are far more enthralling.  

Also of potential interest for people wondering about future developments is PSBT, or 'Offline' Bitcoin transactions.  I thought it strange that, so far, only an Ethereum website has picked up on this being merged.  But then I suppose it's one of those things that might take a while to come to fruition.  Used up all your data?  That's fine.  Are you somewhere remote and there's no signal or wifi access?  No problem.  Want to spend coins you've got safely locked away in cold storage?  Simple.  I'm sure there's a whole bunch of other use-cases as well.

Best of all, it'll be another nail in the coffin for the uneducated detractors who still believe "no internet = no Bitcoin".

If a faster block time had a positive impact on decentralisation, we would have done it years ago.  Kindly stop talking out of your posterior.  You have refuted nothing.  
 


That, or it's just a sensible argument, maybe?  

If lots of people think it's a good idea, then naturally a conversation will flow and things will fall into place without much effort involved.  Instead, what we have here is you talking at us and we frankly don't care what you're saying because it sounds terrible.  We had more years than I care to remember with the entire forum arguing about block size/block time/alternating blocks/paired blocks/whatever other ideas people had and we're pretty much tired of hearing it now.  People just aren't receptive to this kind of stuff anymore.  We've moved on.  You should too.



That's just it, though.  You think your ideas are "right and true", but we've heard people suggesting shortening the block time dozens of times before and we still think it falls under the category of "maybe later if we absolutely have to".  If it seems like we're being short with you, it's because we've had enough of those kind of ideas now.  They're not original, they're not innovative and, most of all, they won't achieve scaling on the kind of levels we need.

That isn't how it works, I'm afraid, so that may not be the best advice.  Developers don't have any special powers to make this problem go away.  There's a small chance they might have some technical insights that would give other avenues to try, but I think we've been pretty thorough here.  Exchanges are different, because they (one would hope, anyway) would already know how to do all the stuff we've been suggesting so far.  

As a loose analogy, if you put a Playstation game into an X-Box, no amount of pestering the devs is going to give you any success there.  All they can do is tell you to take it out of there and put it in the Playstation where it belongs.  They're just not compatible.  An exchange is like sending all the games you own to someone else, so they can easily move things around as required, but you have to hope no one runs off with your games (which happens far too often).  

If you have your own wallet, the responsibility sadly falls on your shoulders.  You generally have to figure stuff out for yourself.  I suspect there would be people out there offering recovery services, but they almost certainly charge for it.  And again, like exchanges, you have to trust them not to run off with your property.

I'm still trying to understand what the practical implications of the differences are, since it's all quite technical.  Apparently, BLS could combine every signature in a block into a single signature, which would save space and allow for more transactions.  A 2-of-3 multisig is more efficient in BLS, as key aggregation works without needing to generate a merkle tree of public keys.  Stuff like that.  But the impression I get is that if BLS sigs take longer to verify, it's likely too high a price to pay for such bonuses, which may prove less important than just having Schnorr's raw efficiency and speed.

It's one of those either/or deals, so we can only pick one.

For crypto as a whole, it's perfectly true the vast majority of ICOs and crapcoins out there are indeed terrible investments that do lure in more than a few gullible bagholders who are going to lose their money.  So in a way, I can't deny they have a small point.  Anyone who gets involved in crypto needs to be astute and somewhat circumspect when it comes to where and (equally importantly) when they invest.  But I think the overall tone of the article leads to a deeper problem.

Firstly, "Millennials", in the context of this article at least, now seems to be a catch-all word that, let's be honest, basically implies "people who eat laundry detergent pods".  And perhaps people like that should probably avoid... well... any serious financial decisions, cryptocurrency or otherwise.  But I'd like to think that such generalisations aren't representative of the future of humanity and that there might still be a few young people out there with a brain in their heads.  There's a distinct tendency for this word, millennial, to be used in a condescending manner.  And we now have to consider what the goal is in doing that.  Call me cynical, but to me, it sounds like an attempt to coerce conformity.  "Don't look at this subversive stuff, just keep being a good, ignorant little wage-slave.  Let us take care of the money.  You should trust us because you're just a millennial".  That doesn't sit well with me.

As for the interviewee, obviously they think their generation knows best, despite the fact they're clearly the ones who fucked the global economy in the first place.  We absolutely shouldn't trust them with the money.  If there's a generation that deserves some condescension, it's undoubtedly his.  If the younger generations are so disillusioned and disenfranchised with the traditional economy, perhaps Ken Griffin and his ilk only have themselves to blame.  It should be painfully evident to any current wage slave that fiat doesn't hold a bright future for them.  I'd love for some wealthy idiots to throw their vast fortunes at me so I could take it to the casino to gamble with while keeping a slice of the pie for myself, but apparently you have to be a hedge fund manager for that to happen in the real world.  

One might even argue, "There’s no need for hedge fund managers.  They’re a middleman in search of a handout".  So it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Griffin's words stem from a source of recognising the threat to his business model.  Consider that once the general populace becomes accustomed to "being your own bank", they might then feel more comfortable with "being their own fund manager" as well.  Wealth management is just another industry crypto has the potential to disrupt, but it all depends how this up and coming generation responds.  If personal responsibility becomes the new norm, it's undoubtedly going to impact Mr Griffin's future revenues.

My stance is that everyone with some nous should take a serious look at crypto, particularly the younger generation.  The future is in their hands, so they need to choose the right path.

It's not about loyalty to any developer, it's about recognising the fact that the users on this network have made their decision.  You and franky1 need to start some sort of special club for people who are wholly incapable of avoiding conflation between what developers do and what users and miners do.  Devs aren't in charge, they just make whatever they want to make.  It's the people who freely choose to run the code who you appear to have an issue with.  People had the choice.  This is what they chose.

If you want total emphasis towards on-chain scaling, there are blockchains out there where you will find like-minded users who share the same ideals.  But you need to understand this is not one of those blockchains.  Users and miners already made that call.  Whine about it all you like, this is how it is until consensus says otherwise.  Take it or leave it, those are the options.  We can always come back to the idea of blockweight adjustments in future if there's a necessity for it, but it's not happening now.



I eagerly await your "Bitcoin" with a different block time, different algorithm, no pools and everyone magically agreeing with all your changes.  

'Til then, cool story, bro.

It depends on the article.  I've definitely read a few that place a greater emphasis on the privacy benefits (the CoinDesk one seemed more balanced, for example).  Things like this will always lean towards any bias or preference held by whoever wrote it, so I can only assume the author of this particular article doesn't value their privacy more than their views on scaling.  But, in practice, both are incrementally improved.

And they probably only chose that headline because clickbait.  Can't honestly expect any better these days.  It's all about the page impressions and ad revenue.  Not ideal, but hardly shocking either.

In your inconsequential, biased and grossly misinformed opinion. 

I'll consider taking your view more seriously in the highly unlikely event you ever manage to say something accurate about Lightning.  Until then, I don't care what a manipulative troll thinks. 

The code clearly can't be that bad if it's supporting the chain that deals with far greater volume than any of the forks that split away from the economic majority. 

I thought you were of the opinion that Bitcoin was already ruined because of numerous other reasons.  You don't like the ASICs, you don't like mining pools, you don't like Lightning.  Is there any part of Bitcoin you do like?  Just about all the changes you would implement if it were up to you simply aren't compatible with the software everyone else on the network is running.  It doesn't look like you're going to find what you desire here.  At some point you might stop to consider why you're actually following this chain if it's such a lost cause in your lofty opinion.



Indeed.  While Dryja and Poon are often credited as the inventors of Lightning, it seems Satoshi had some remarkably similar ideas.  Maybe we were always destined to get an off-chain option in some form or another.  I wonder if the development timeframe would have been similar if Satoshi had stuck around.  Or would we have possibly got Lightning (or a close approximation of it) a little sooner?  Or perhaps it would have been an idea Satoshi stuck on the back-burner and never got around to implementing?  Pity we'll never know.



I get that Hearn isn't the most beloved figure in the community, but I don't see what there would be to gain in fabricating that email, if that's what you're suggesting.  I do concede that just because Satoshi talked about it, that doesn't mean it was something they definitely wanted to implement, though.

Literally their first post and hopefully their last:

User: michotxo12 BANNED

Copy:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4433000.msg42343316#msg42343316


Original:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4433000.msg39643993#msg39643993

Except that no fork, to my knowledge, has implemented it in that way.  If it was algorithmically adjusted in the code, like the halving process is, you wouldn't need to hardfork every time you change the size of the blocks.  Every single fork out there in the market right now has a "magic number" (some of them just happen to be larger integers) and will need to fork again in future to change the cap on the size of blocks that are permitted.  It's effectively an endless necessity for hardforks.  That fits the criteria of "needless complexity" in my book.  The code for it might look simple, but the logistics are far more complex.  You have to get everyone to agree where the cap should be at any given moment in time.  As soon as people don't agree, your coin fractures into two and there's suddenly yet another fork for people to argue about which one is closer to Satoshi's vision.

In comparison, BTC is implementing things that should alleviate demand on the blockchain.  If Lightning can handle some of the load and other improvements can make transaction sizes smaller, this delays the need for any hardforks.  So far, that approach appears to be working.  I certainly hope that when the time does eventually come for a hardfork, we seriously consider an algorithmic method that would help negate the need for any future hardforks.  But, chances are, we're still a long way off having that discussion.

Lightning is more decentralised because you're giving users greater choice and self-determination by having the option of transacting off-chain if they choose to (or even atomic-swapping to another blockchain when that becomes more commonplace), rather than forcing all traffic down the same road with no other options and placing all of the resource burdens on the full nodes.  The market will decide how Lightning is going to grow and evolve, purely based on how people use it.  Unlike choosing a blocksize every time you start to approach full capacity, there's no central planning involved in how much or how little people choose to use Lightning.  

Ultimately, it's going to be a natural evolution based on the daily choices each user makes, rather than an evolution led by a group of developers picking an arbitrary number from thin-air and then seeing which developers people follow and which ones fracture into ever smaller groups, all solely fixated on their fixed integers.   

But fair enough if you think that's all too complex or it doesn't appeal to your preferences.  That's why the other forks exist.  Everyone gets to follow the route they think will work out best.

In the unlikely event I were to start my own business, BTCPay Server is almost certainly the route I'd go.  Better decentralisation, fewer middlemen and potential cost saving benefits as the icing on the cake.  

I think if more people only realised this was an option available to them, the payment processors would have to start considering the long-term sustainability of their business model.  Pretty much the only benefit they have left is the instant conversion to fiat.  And if fiat does become less desirable over time as the global economy worsens, they'll have no advantage remaining.

Yes, because I'm sure people like Duterte and Pacquiao have absolutely nothing better to do with their time than to correspond with you regarding your doomsday scenarios about Bitcoin.  Just like I've got The Queen and Tyson Fury on speed dial and converse with them frequently about Minecraft.    

But if we play along and pretend this isn't all a figment of your imagination, how do you last more than five minutes without telling them the sky is falling and the world is going to end?  



You're hated because you derail just about every thread you've ever posted in.  You commandeer every single topic to talk at us about whichever one of your crackpot theories at the time is making you genuinely believe that you're the only one smart enough to save us mere mortals from ourselves.  And then absolutely nothing happens, so you move on to the next apocalypse that only you and your ego can supposedly prevent.  It's literally all you do.  Blather, rinse, repeat.

How is it beneficial to derail and cross-talk over multiple unrelated threads that contain useful info?  That kind of behaviour is the exact opposite of useful.  If he has to post a load of FUD nonsense about Theftcoin, start a new thread specifically for it and keep all the drivel neatly contained in one place.  I'm sure it would cause tremendous pain to his ego to have a potentially smaller audience reading his tirades, but not everyone appreciates his profound tendency to completely hijack threads.

He has clearly demonstrated the ability to maintain numerous accounts where he chooses not to exhibit this kind of extreme behaviour straight away, so (unless he is a bona fide schizophrenic) it stands to reason he's being this much of an ass deliberately.

//EDIT:  Changed my mind, my reply to this belongs here, as do any other posts regarding this matter.  His posts were deleted to get this thread back to the original topic, not to have a discussion about him or forum moderation policy.  This thread is about PoW and the chances or possibilities of centralisation.  That's what needs to be discussed in here.