What i meant in my post wasn't that this was sanctioned by the Russian Government. What i meant is that random hacker groups have the capability to hack and cripple critical American infrastructure. Isn't that something that the supposedly strongest country on earth should be defending against, rather than bending over to?

I hope that this is not the case. There is already enough FUD against Bitcoin for a week now.

MK, Isn't it a bit wrong to suggest that investing entails that any other asset will have similar price drops?

Bitcoin is unique in that it tends to go through these phases of FUD and potentially huge drops. The most recent FUD is sponsored by Elon Musk and his band of followers who have bought into DOGE. Everytime this happens, the Bitcoin community of devs and creators end up proving that Bitcoin is indeed irreplaceable as the sound money for this whole crypto ecosystem. That is when people come rushing back in and these drops are reversed.

So, rather than just seeing this as a basic investment faults, newbies should be encouraged to research the history and fight the FUD.

Greeting Fellow Bitcoiners!!

Elon Musk is out rallying against Bitcoin proposing that:

1. There are other cryptocurrencies with less that 1% of Bitcoin's energy cost.
2. He is working with DOGE devs for "Potentially promising" results.

The Alt-coin bullrun has given everyone and their grandmas the right to propose their own version of Po(Something...something). The most recent that I heard about being Proof of History by ICP, which by the way jumped straight to top 10 with instant listing on all the exchanges. There obviously is PoS, DPoS and all the usual suspects.

All of these , and their communities, will claim that they have found the perfect solution with a "DAG" or a "Coordinator" or a "Neuron Network". A lot of times, these are just too bewildering to understand or contest.

I am opening this thread to propose everyone to read about all these solutions and propose the arguments for and against these wannabe cryptocurrencies. The FUD over Energy costs is not going to stop. It has to be reasoned out that what makes cryptocurrency unique is decentralization and true permissionless-ness. Zero potential for censorship. If these tenets are compromised then it is NOT a cryptocurrency but just another corporate solution to a problem that did not exist. Did we all need mineral water in plastic bottles? Were "superfoods" a major human requirement? Do Cigarettes and Colas take you to the top of the world? They don't. Just like that, these other "solutions" do not give you a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin.

Please share your thoughts and technical insights for and against the most common of these PoW competitors.

There haven't really been any great arguments in this thread about PoS vs PoW. The centralization argument of PoS about whales having all the stake is no different than mining farms and the miner manufacturers themselves having the highest stake.

A sufficiently well distributed coin like, say Ethereum, once it switches to PoS will not have this problem. One can say that the whales can always buy and gain larger stake. Still, what wrong could the whale do?

Attack the chain. Obviously they won't as it makes no economic sense.
Corner all the fees and reward. Don't the big miners do the same?

When it comes to running the hardware, these PoS coins do need certain nodes that can at least manage the basic work of allocating space, proposing transactions and having sufficient throughput for uploads and downloads. So it is not like they just have them staked with zero work. It needs to be staked on a hardware platform or a cloud node that needs to be updated constantly. (obviously, much of this can be off-loaded or automated).

So, theoretically, there is nothing that can go wrong with a PoS chain which has sufficiently wide distribution. Why just PoS though? In this bullrun, you will come across a lot of well researched solutions that others have been proposing. Right now, nobody from the PoW camp has sought to debunk these. The problem is that this sort of technical discussions have all but ceased. Nobody with sufficient insight and knowledge has the time to prove that why PoW is technically better than all of these other innovations. All you will hear is "those are vaporware".

I am trying to be the devil's advocate here. So, in a future where, say, Elon Musk declares that he has found the perfect cryptocurrency with <1% of bitcoin's transaction cost in terms of energy; two things will happen:

1. That coin will pump like crazy.
2. Bitcoin will dump.

This is where then the next battle of perceptions as well as wits will be fought. If the technical community can prove that the proposed solution will not work and why PoW is still superior, Bitcoin will continue to reign supreme. If the research community finds that alternate solutions can indeed work then PoW and by extension, Bitcoin, will have lost the battle for perception and market dominance. Unfortunately, the world will have found a new figurehead for crypto, like Elon, who would be laughing his way to the bank with an obvious enormous pre-stake in such a coin. This, by the way, seems to be his intention with all these recent ploys. He wants to financially secure his expenses for his inter-planetary ambitions. For him, becoming the Satoshi with a stash of 1 Million is probably just one of the potential ways he can do this.

One thing is quite clear though, he is out with full force to attack Bitcoin and has all the sheep behind him. As Bitcoiners, we need to debunk these arguments much more strongly.

I don't know what to think of myself when i feel so fucking envious listening The Pharmacist quote about all the youtubers and influencers getting rich from shilling crypto. Then i feel a sense of relief when someone points out that they probably aren't so rich. LOL. I could really use some perspective here from those of you who haven't "made" it, the way apparently every Alt-coin trader and crypto influencer seems to be making it.

I mean, here we were trying to think that how things will be in the long run and how saving little amounts of Bitcoin over a long time would probably set us for life. Along come the people throwing in 1 BNB on SHIB INU and surpass your net worth when CZ lists it, LOL. I mean, good for them, but this surely isn't a good experience.

Personally, the bullrun didn't made much of a difference to me. I definitely have more than i had earlier but no moonshots. Just a lot of hard work trying to wrap my head around concepts and becoming part of some fruitful communities, hoping that they would amount to something more than just meme nonsense.

Chronolgy:

1. Tweet with Tesla screenshot: The tweet said "Tesla & Bitcoin". Not "This is what I think about Bitcoin". This was probably more a PR exercise forced upon by board and keeping Tesla's health and importance in mind. Tesla revenue and Tesla's value is of the utmost importance for funds to keep flowing for his inter-planetary ambitions.

2. Response about what I actually think of PoW: After the pushback from BTC community, he clarifies that he is not against Bitcoin but points out the need for "renewables".

3. Talk about working with DOGE devs: He talked about working with DOGE devs on efficiency. DOGECOIN is merge mined with Litecoin and uses the Scrypt algorithm. Things get a little murky here as what can Elon be working on? This is where the Core Devs should probably be telling him about everything being essentially a fork of Bitcoin and invite him to work on this.

I think all of Elon's actions stem from his focus on the funding for his inter-planetary ambitions. There are multiple reasons he may want to have a huge stake in some future crypto and have some holdings similar to what BTC early whales have. (Maybe even something like Satoshi's stash). This could probably be his way of securing that funding. He did buy Bitcoin for this. HE may have realized the inability of having the same kind of insane returns on BTC. Thus, he probably wants to increase value of that future crypto which he can still continue to have a massive early part in. Bitcoin isn't that crypto, hence all this drama.

So from the perspective of someone who has been through possibly three of these epochs, would you say that the Anti-bitcoiners were ever so strong or had access to so much influence and wealth compared to the Bitcoiners of the day??

For example, as i pointed in the earlier reply, there are now hundreds of legitimate projects built on Ethereum that are regularly seeing billions of dollars in TVL and millions in daily volume. Compound, AAVE, MKR, Uniswap are just a few of them. They have big communities and sincere developers trying to bring DeFi to life. The thing is that most of those devs aren't concerned about the underlying "money" as long as it keeps coming onto their platforms. They are also not big fans of high transaction fees on PoW chains. This is why a lot of them find it beneficial to rally behind these other custodial solutions.

Apart from these, there are the obvious shadow players who just want to get rich at the expense of everyone else. Take for example, Ripple. People in that group will do everything in their power to discredit PoW and by extension, Bitcoin.

I feel like this is a threat unlike anything that Bitcoin has faced earlier and to top it off, the community is more distracted than ever. That is why, initiatives like this documentary are a must and the whole community should support them.

Wasn't this an American company whose capability for fuel distribution was disrupted by a Russian hacker group. Who is to say that they cannot hold ransom or even cripple some of these services in the western countries at the times of, say, a war?? This is almost similar to the Stuxnet attack by American agencies to cripple the Iranian Uranium enrichment program.

Looks like the Americans paid up the ransom. How isn't this a negotiation with terrorists?

But yeah, nobody will question that angle. What they will be interested in is that the ransom was paid in cryptocurrencies and that Bitcoin consumes energy. Such a shit-show. These people are literally bringing these western corporations down to their knees with cyber-warfare and all that the mainstream media and govt will take away from it is that cryptocurrency enabled this.

What they should be doing is to work with all those cryptographers, cypherpunks and the Bitcoin community in general, the likes of whom had maintained American sovereignty and strength when it came to hacking, white or black. This is what happens when you black label those talented young people who don't want to be strait-jacketed into narrow definitions of freedom and legality. Its such a shame to be honest.

The only thing you should know is to choose BTC chain when you withdraw your BTC from Binance wallet to your personal wallet.

The other options that Binance shows are not actual "chain" transfers. The BTC they have from you is actual on-chain BTC. When you withdraw them to one of their "chains", like the BSC or BEP2, they will credit a "pegged" version on their private chain. This means they essentially control your On-chain Bitcoin and give away their "promise" of redeeming that value of Bitcoin on their private chain or back.

Binance's popularity and its penetration of the non-regulated sector has ensured that this has become their biggest strength as they are able to giveaway more and more of these pegged versions to people looking to diversify their small BTC holdings into those yield farms with irresistible short term returns.

I am in the camp that would say that the propaganda war never stopped but it has definitely gained a lot of Anti-Bitcoin backers in this bullrun. Seeing how everyone's and their grandma's Alt-coins are mooning, the Alt-coiners see this as an opportunity into a future where anybody can pre-mine shit and launch a company calling it "fair distribution".

They have warmed up to the possibility that PoW can be replaced as the Store of Value for Trillions of dollars of wealth as well as institutional adoption. This is actually about making a pariah out of PoW, not so much as to replace Bitcoin; but to ensure that people like the Garlignhouse's can print money for themselves whenever they want. This is uniting all the dogs against the king.

So yeah, the propaganda war is heating up and this documentary idea is a good one. I'll go donate.

I'll take the liberty of judging from your name that you are from India.

For mining Bitcoin, you need special machines called ASIC miners. They are manufactured by a few companies like Bitmain, Cannan, Innosilicon etc. Unfortunately, due to the ambiguous legality for cryptocurrencies in India, you will find it very difficult to get them through customs. Getting your hands on miners can also be possible through resellers on the forum or you can check someone like @kaboomracks on telegram.

Another option is to mine Alt-coins using GPUs and then convert your earnings into Bitcoin.

Mining doesn't need a lot of knowledge to get started. Most of it is available online. What you need is a large initial investment, access to cheap electricity and securing sufficient GPUs/ ASICs in the backdrop of a bureaucratic, non crypto friendly body like Indian customs.

Guys this is Elon Musk we are talking about. He is a smart man. In the past, he has mentioned a lot of times that he personally thinks that Bitcoin is quite clever.

This tweet was also a screenshot of an official company statement. It may just be that he is distancing Tesla from Bitcoin to avoid the negative PR about environmental concerns. Most of these concerns are actually fueled by promoters of centralized PoS coins which want to project themselves as the replacement in the current bull run. If a PoS coin or something being run on datacenter nodes can reliably and impartially keep trillions in value safe and locked, then of course we don't need BTC. The truth is that Bitcoin's PoW gives that underlying confidence and security.

If institutional investors and mainstream companies are ready to put value in something which is non-PoW, then that future will also be tested. If and when things actually come to this, we can only speculate what the outcome would be.

As far as his love for DOGEcoin is concerned, he probably just loves that he is single-handedly being able to wipe out debts for millenials who somehow stumbled upon DOGE and invested in it. If you are young and have made good profits on DOGE, just clear your debts and free yourself. Don't keep holding onto it. The biggest wallets and whales can dump at any moment and you'll be left regretting about all those unrealized gains.

The main concern is aptly summarized in the article itself

So it is basically about all those "founders" of alternate coins, their supporters, US-based influencers etc. who have made millions in the bullrun by promoting Alt-coins. People are now making ludicrous amounts in meme-coins and the IRS is worried that it won't get the taxes.

To be frank though, what right does the US govt have on the gains of an individual who has found a way to gamble on these memecoins, put in a few thousand dollars and turn out to be the lucky sons of bitches for whom that amount goes from 10X-100X. Its not like this keeps happening in crypto. Only during the Alt-season, such things happen.

The cryptocurrencies have nothing to do with the government. An individual chooses to invest their own money at their own risk. What "right" does the IRS have to tax those gains?? Its not like they are providing the underlying infrastructure as in the case of taxes on corporate profits.

Username: amishmanish
Post Count: 1863
BTC Address (must be SegWit): bc1q4u8fvk7pn2z9uxlzrn0w0qw62gvpstw8d4fmxs

I use bitcoin through bitrefill to buy up balances on some of the e-commerce websites that I regularly use for groceries, clothes etc. The premium on bitrefill prices though has gone up quite a lot in recent times.

I have also just converted a little to BTC on the Rootstock, (RBTC) to use it on a recent DeFi platform. It isn't offering much compared to those on Ethereum but hopefully this will pick up some pace in the times to come.

Last use for BTC is of course savings. I put a little amount regularly into an untouched stash. It is basically the fiat alternate saving mechanism which I hope will continue to beat inflation and normal returns, in the long run.

What?? No. Crypto can be manipulated but that doesn't mean that it needs "some kind of govt control". If someone puts in money based on Elon's tweets, its their problem not the government's.

Bitcoin fork..What fork??

I don't understand how you are linking the Ethereum forks to SEC etc.?? Elon's tweet are possibly just a pre-emptive action about potential questions they may face for accepting bitcoin for Tesla. Or someone just gave him shit advice regarding the optics of an EV company accepting Bitcoin. All this talk about other cryptocurrencies that use "less" power is just theory. Try running an actual sound money system on a Proof-of-(insert some shit here) model. As soon as the stakes begin to get high, you start seeing cartels and all sort of centralized corruption.

So Bitcoin isn't going anywhere. As far as the portfolio is concerned, well that depends on how much someone has diversified into shitcoins. The risk vs reward will always be there in this senseless market.

Exactly. What they like about currency being on blockchain is the ability to trace and track every single transaction. The record of earnings, expenditure, classification of expenditure, profits and taxes will be a simple API call on their central database if the idea of CBDCs is actually implemented.

I am personally not excited about CBDC, nor would any self-respecting Bitcoiner ever be. Though I doubt that CBDCs will be able to replace individual's options for keeping cash or using cash. This brings the point that whether we should be necessarily concerned about the tracking of income and expenses of individuals. They can very well do that with the online banking systems of today itself. CBDCs seem little more than a fad to me advocated by bankers who feel like they should present an alternative to cryptocurrencies, especially considering how popular they seemingly are with the small retail investors.

I mean for all the talk about CBDC, i see zero utility for even the central bank itself. What possible ulterior benefit could they have, unless they are made mandatory and people are legally bound to use only CBDCs and nothing else.

Chillout man. Dips like these get gobbled up routinely in the world of Bitcoin. For those who are concerned about the prices of shitcoins going up and Bitcoin going down, you really do not understand cryptocurrencies.

Without Bitcoin, you will have none of this. No "investments" and no overnight crypto gurus telling you that you can 100x your money and earn easily. If you believed them, it is out of your own greed. Bitcoin has always been volatile. Musk is just a relatively new phenomena but as soon as the retail/ tiktok noobs get shaken out of the market, he will stop having so much influence.

Unless he actually tries to understand and contribute positively. If he continues trolling, the community will begin to treat him so. It is already visible on Twitter.

Why all the panic on this tweet fellas?

This is what Bitcoin is made for. Bitcoin's PoW has energy costs. Everything else that has value has an energy cost. Tesla being a EV company, it probably wasn't a prudent thing to associate with Bitcoin because of the optics. This may even have been a board decision.

Look how Musk didn't say anything "personalized" about this like he does about things he actually cares about. It is just a screenshot of some official document. That is pretty much unlike Musk. I think he is basically doing the sensible businessman thing (prompted/ forced by his board considering that a lot of future financing for his Mars plans may depend on Tesla's success).

This is just Elon playing safe considering that too much is at stake. I don't think it is anything to panic about for Bitcoiners. Even if some do, this will be the perfect buying opportunity. As far as all this talk about cryptocurrencies using <1% energy are concerned, let us wait and see what happens when people start transacting billions of dollars in value on them. Till then, its all just unproven theory.

Glad you arrived at the answer.

This depends though on whether your electricity allotment has an upper bound. If you have the wherewithals to procure and setup S19 rigs, can't you choose to forego some part of the perks or maybe donate an equivalent amount to some ex-airmen NGO.

Regards