Banks will lead to the destruction of banks.  Sooner or later they'll make a mistake so big that no government can bail them out.  

Think about it.  Banksters are effectively above the law.  There isn't a line they won't try to cross.  They aren't afraid to push their luck because they know the system is built in their favour, which only makes them more reckless.  They're greedy, arrogant sacks of human excrement with a gambling addiction.  They spend literally all day making bets on a global $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market which is practically the equivalent of 'Monopoly Money' at this stage.  It's a recipe for disaster.  And that's when they aren't laundering money for drug cartels, rigging markets, organising fraudulent mergers and whatever other criminal activity they're currently getting away with.

Cryptocurrency doesn't need to do anything, other than merely be around to pick up the pieces of whatever is left when the banks inevitably take that one step too far and fuck the world beyond fixing.

We've made it clear to any new and impressionable users that BTC and BCH are separate things and users always need to make sure they know what they're getting.  Which is more than bitcoin.com achieved until loads of people started complaining and forced them to completely redesign their website to make that clearer.

For the record, I'm not "hating on" Ver.  I think he's welcome to pursue his vision, provided he's not misleading inexperienced users along the way and leaving them out of pocket because they didn't get what they thought they were getting.  The various Bitcoin Cash dev teams are free to develop however they like.  

However, no one here is sitting idly by while someone who claims they aren't holding funds on the BTC chain tries to rename it to "Bitcoin Core" without consent from the users.  Not happening.

Banks are effectively legally endorsed and accredited criminals.  If the average person did even a tiny fraction of what banks do, they'd spend the rest of their lives locked up.  Banks know they can get away with most things because they form the foundations of our entire economy.  Seldom do they face suitable penalties for their numerous transgressions.  Lloyds are still under investigation for the HBOS fraud coverup, HSBC escaped with a deferred prosecution agreement after money laundering for drug cartels, Barclays paid some fines and only 3 were convicted for the LIBOR rigging scandal, they're all criminal scum and they keep getting away with it.

We have every right to be bitter.

Maybe, but no one really uses that anymore.  Zimbabwe now primarily use USD and also accept a few other national currencies.  Although the government are reportedly considering relaunching the ZWD.  The Venezuelan Bolivar is probably a better (and more current) example.

However, for most other places in the world, we aren't really there yet.  Plus, I tend to think the usage of µBTC / microbits is more likely to be adopted than raw satoshis, as most places are accustomed to having two decimal places.

Instead of 301500 satoshi, for example, 3015.00 µBTC looks more like a "normal" price in many Western nations.  But if that's ~$25.00 USD, it's still going to be a big change for people to adapt to.  You're probably right to assume that several other fiat currencies are going to crumble, though, so the smaller denominations will likely become more popular over time.

Calling it a "coin" or a "cryptocurrency" is really giving it more credit than it deserves.  This isn't going to be something you can trade on exchanges.  There won't be any wallet software you can install to hold your own private keys and be in full control of your money.  Facebook and the banks will be in total control of everything.  This is just Facebook integrating banking payments into Messenger.  Fiat money with a bit of blockchain hidden away behind the scenes where no one can look at it.  It's not an actual cryptocurrency in the way we see them.

Until someone gets their account frozen.  Then they might start caring.

The thing to remember is that companies are only interested in blockchain as a cost-saving exercise.  They don't care about the benefits to their users.  Once users realise they can get some real benefits by using a proper cryptocurrency, they won't look back.  Hype and momentum are temporary.  Substance is what counts in the long run.

Fascinating read.  Seems there's even more nuance and intrigue than most people realise.  The takeaway is that if general purpose hardware can do it, custom hardware can do it faster.  So adding more complexity or a larger number of randomly drawn algorithms isn't going to help:


So, in effect, we should take the opposite approach and lower the bar, not raise it.  If ASICs are inevitable, they should be as widely available as possible.  Make it easier for a greater number of manufacturers to create ASICs, not harder. 

That's the argument most Libertarians take when it comes to firearms, isn't it?  Everyone should have one so that no one can take advantage?  It's not an argument I agree with when it comes to guns, but I think it fits nicely here.

But it's not an exaggeration when the fiat prices really are that volatile.  Obscuring the peaks and dips with a logarithmic chart doesn't change the fact that there were some huge swings in prices.  I'm sure both scales have their uses, but I wouldn't say the primary use of logarithmic is to obfuscate events as they happened and claim that the price is more stable than it appears.

Even if it does happen, if people are imagining this like it's going to be something they can daytrade on an exchange, be prepared for disappointment.  I think the idea they were going with is that they want users to be able to send money to each other through Messenger.  Chances are, you'll only be able to withdraw directly to a verified bank account.  There won't be any "trading" in the way crypto users are expecting.  There won't be external wallet software.  You won't have any private keys.  Whatever their currency ends up being called, I don't think we're the target audience of these "facebucks", assuming they even do it at all.

Not just them, but all the BRICS nations are hedging against USD and have effectively launched a rival to the World Bank, emphasising trade in local currencies.  There was also talk of having their own BRICS cryptocurrency, but I'm not sure if any steps have been taken to implement the idea yet.

Well I have some good news for you, no one does!  The name belongs to the largest body of users.  You're going to find it difficult to convince them it doesn't.

Look at what happened with the Ethereum hardfork that everyone has almost forgotten about now.  ETH and ETC.  ETC argued profusely that their vision was closer to the intended original version.  But when someone says "Ethereum", you know they mean "ETH" because that's what most users call it.  If you want ETC you need to say "Ethereum Classic".  As such, I'll repeat again, the economic majority will continue to prove they can claim the Bitcoin brand because it will continue to be known as Bitcoin.  That's just how it's going to be.  No butchering the meaning of "decentralisation" will change that.

You still get decentralisation.  Each version of Ethereum gets to exist and have Ethereum in their name.  Users have total freedom of choice over which one they want to use.  But ETC have to settle for the fact that they need to clarify they're "Classic", and not compatible with what most people mean by "Ethereum".  Why is that so bad to you?  Just accept the reality of it and move on with your life.

I'm going to cross-paste my last post in another thread for context, to demonstrate my neutral stance on hardforks and to illustrate where I suspect our paths diverge.  Have a read.  

Am I right to assume we agree up until that last paragraph?


Because it sounds like that's what you're advocating.  BCH are the smaller group, yet you seem supportive of the notion that they have the right to rename "Bitcoin" to "Bitcoin Core", despite the wishes of the majority, whilst simultaneously stating that BCH is Bitcoin?  And you wonder why we aren't willing to just go along with that like it's somehow okay?  Are you even hearing yourself?

Chances are, not everyone sees it the way I do, but this is my take on it:

I despise the current usage of that phrase "hostile takeover".  It's abhorrent and I'll explain why.  (//EDIT:  in a much longer post than I had planned, it seems)

It's likely that because Core have done such a successful job of maintaining Bitcoin, the majority of users are willing to go along with whatever Core think is best.  However, that doesn't mean a hardfork is impossible without Core's blessing, just that it's highly improbable.  I'm still not at all comfortable with people describing fork proposals as "hostile takeovers", as I believe it sets a dangerous precedent and strongly implies that one development team is in total control and/or ownership of Bitcoin.  It's not like we're forced to do what any particular dev team think is best.  The dev team don't own the chain.  We choose to run their code if we like what they're doing.  

Consider that using an emergency exit in a fire, for example, wouldn't be called a "hostile departure".  That's the way in which we should think of proposed hardforks.  Not as someone trying to "seize control", but as a way of users having an escape route from anyone who did somehow manage to seize control and act against the wishes of the users.

Because otherwise (and this is the crux of the argument), the moment you suggest that someone is trying to take over, you're consequently also suggesting that Bitcoin has a centralised authority, that this authority is in control of Bitcoin and some rival authority is trying to wrest that control from them.  I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like any Bitcoin I've ever been a part of.  So that argument makes no sense to me.  It's an affront to freedom to say that no one can code another client and allow the users to decide for themselves.  You literally can't have a hostile takeover if it is the users who have simply opted to run a different client with different consensus rules.  Creating clients with different consensus rules isn't a takeover, hostile or otherwise.  Because they only have influence if the users support them.

If enough users disagree with the direction being proposed, they should always have the option to bail out of it and go their own way.  Perhaps there's only an infinitesimally small chance that Core would ever make a decision that the majority of users didn't agree with, but if the chance is there, however miniscule, we shouldn't preclude the possibility of a hardfork without that dev team on board.

So coming back to 2x and my previous post, if a vast majority of users had wanted it, even if Core didn't, the users would have had the freedom to leave.  It wouldn't be a hostile takeover because it's the users making that decision to change.  It just so happens, the users didn't decide to make that change.

Conversely, after a split has occurred, the lesser of the two chains is undisputedly the altcoin.  If the altcoin then tries to claim the mantle of Bitcoin, despite having insufficient support, you can call that an attempted hostile takeover to your heart's content.  You won't hear any complaints from me there.  Because that's a smaller group of users deliberately trying to take something from a larger group of users against their wishes.  

That could be why they added the caveat "As part of implementation the Government will consult on the detail of this measure".  They still need to work out the specifics, including things like the example you gave.  I'm pretty sure they'd have penalties for companies deliberately trying to flout the legislation in such a way.  I guess we'll have to wait and see if they manage to catch all the potential workarounds.

Err... you don't get much more formal than a budget:


Source:  https://www.budget.gov.au/2018-19/content/bp2/download/bp2_combined.pdf

That's the government's own website.  Straight from the horse's mouth.

---

//EDIT:  Also, slightly off-topic, that same document says:


So it seems they aren't oblivious to the potential benefits.

Seems to be.  Gizmodo and Guardian are reporting it too.

It'll be interesting to see at what rate the limit gets more strict over time.  How long before it's set to $5000?  $2000?  It's clearly the prevailing mindset.  The "war on cash" is escalating.

I'm less concerned in the effect it has on the "price" of Bitcoin than I am with the adoption rate.  I want to see how willing people generally are to submit to increasing surveillance by the banks as cash is gradually deprecated and what number would rather take a step towards the ethos of crypto. 

You've heard of these things called banknotes, right?  Is your name attached to each transaction you make with those?  Is something preventing people from secretly making illegal transactions with a stack of cash?  How would that ever be allowed to become a global norm?  I assure you, the world already knows how to cope with anonymous money.  We've had it for some time.

However, Bitcoin isn't anonymous.  Bitcoin is pseudonymous, tied to addresses and recorded publicly for all to see.  Considerably less anonymous than cash is.  



Bingo.  Anyone who doesn't understand it naturally assumes it'll be easy to make something "better".  But the fact is, they always have a poor notion of what "better" actually looks like.  No doubt they'll make a walled-garden-currency, try to pass it off as a cryptocurrency with some flashy marketing and some benighted fools might think that's great for a while, but eventually it'll go wrong because all centralised systems are prone to corruption.  I'm looking forward to the spectacle.  All the while, real crypto will be getting stronger.  

We know they're wasting their time, they just haven't caught on yet.

Evidently not.  The option to hardfork to a larger blocksize was freely available, but not enough people chose to go with it.  The majority decided that a softfork to an opt-in 4MB blockweight with SegWit and Lightning was a more sensible option.  Plus, it's arguable that one hardfork to increase the size wouldn't be enough and future hardforks would likely be required.  



People often describe it as "second tier", but in the big picture, I tend to think of it more as "inter-tier".  It will effectively weave any future tiers together and allow you to move your funds between them.

The only way to create a "simpler" global cryptocurrency is to sacrifice all the favourable qualities that make Bitcoin useful.  Bitcoin isn't complicated for the sake of it.  It's complicated because it solves the Byzantine Generals' Problem, because it's neutral and self-governing, because it works without any one person or company in control.  I've always been fond of this particular quote to summarise what that means:


If you want to make it simple, it means you're willing to discard all of that and more.  You can't cut corners and expect the result to be of equal quality and value.  But then I wouldn't expect any of Trump's advisors to be intelligent enough to realise this.  Just because Cohn can't understand how Bitcoin works, it doesn't mean people aren't going to use Bitcoin.  Few people in the world truly understand the inner workings of automated clearing houses, for example, but it doesn't prevent the average person from utilising those on a daily basis, likely blissfully unaware of their existence.

Peoples' ignorance does not detract from the beauty of Bitcoin.  It just means they'll be late to the party while they're wasting their time trying to come up with something simpler (but worse).

So we're changing the definition of decentralisation to mean that completely incompatible networks get to decide what other chains call themselves?  And everyone's cool with that?  Awesome.  

Get a clue.

You've got your decentralisation because you already can say BTC or BCH, but we are not calling the BTC chain "Bitcoin Core" just because you think it should be called that.  You are completely broken in the head if you think otherwise.  You keep calling it that if you want.  The economic majority will continue to prove they can claim the Bitcoin brand because it will continue to be known as Bitcoin.  Make whatever impotent and irrelevant arguments you want.  It's not changing.

You are pissing into the wind.

At one stage those might have briefly been the figures, but BIP91 had over 95% of miners supporting it.  Plus, as always, it's not just about the miners, but also about the economic majority.  Please tell me how you think BCH has an economic claim to that supposed 65% you keep referring to.   I could do with a good laugh.