Hate to be a glass-half-full but how many of those are people outside El Salvador downloading the app to have a look?

I think you're conflating a couple of issues here. Unfortunately, the Bitcoin Core that Satoshi put forth was very monolithic and would have benefited greatly from a more modular design. The wallet, for example, should have been a separate module. Likewise, though less obviously so, the networking should have been separated. While the gossip network is not a bad way to implement the networking for Bitcoin in a decentralized manner, it is by no means the only way that a node could receive transactions and blocks and many other more efficient and context specific schemes could be implemented. Exhibit 1, Blue Matt's Fibre relay network which allows miners to ensure they receive blocks in the timeliest manner and Exhibit 2, the --connect option on the core software which ensures that a node receives its data from another specific node rather than the gossip network. Additionally, it could be imagined that nodes might run in a similar way to the gnutella network with ultrapeers and leaf nodes. There are also reasons why your phone call analogy is not such a good one either. Nodes aren't shouting at each other all the time but check if transactions have already been received. There are also some schemes to cut the amount of block data that needs to be transmitted (since most nodes should already have most transactions in a block in their mempool already). I'm not sure if Core is working on that but BU has something working.

So the scaling really isn't about the networking and, correct, it isn't really about the blockchain size since disk space is cheap and there is pruning and other schemes that could ameliorate that issue for most users. It more becomes about the UTXO set. Though the urgency of that as an issue could be a matter of discussion.

Yes, LN has been undergoing ever-increasing rounds of complexity as it seeks to provide what Bitcoin does on-chain off-chain. There are all sorts of caveats, gotchas and pitfalls and the need to settle on-chain introduces some interesting limitations as discussed by Peter Rizun and the scope creep has been quite large also (LN was originally envisioned for micro-transactions). Unfortunately, the censorship initiated by Theymos also removed a lot of the warning voices regarding potential issues with LN from the community and a largely sanitized presentation has prevailed. Hisslyness's post of his experiences is not too unexpected really.

I'm not going to make the obvious argument here because it's not helpful in context. It would be nice if LN could succeed but it seems to be very much an example of second system syndrome.

I don't seem to recall things that way but different things get magnified from different perspectives, I guess. He did seem to be offering olive branches after the dust had settled but there was a general air of distrust.

Ah, Vegas. Where women go to spend the money their late husbands spent their lives building.

I'd rather have several. Not because Bitcoin isn't best but if Bitcoin has a monopoly, it makes it a target for capture. Decentralized technologies need to be like smoke. When they try to close their fist around them, they're gone.

You see people like Bernie Madoff and you think "how could someone get away with that for so long?" then you see CSW wandering around, free as a bird and, well, you still wonder but I guess you see that Madoff wasn't a special exception.

I think you missed the point. CSW is using whacked methods to represent himself as Satoshi when there would be far simpler methods to do so if he actually were. This in itself is a huge red flag (of many) that he is up to fuckery.

CSW is using whatever buggery he can to get his name associated with Satoshi. Unfortunately, in the actual Satoshi's absence, there are a few places where this can have actual legal repercussions. He's likely also trying to take advantage of antipathy towards people on the BTC side of things that many from BCH and BSV* view as having acted unfairly. This all regardless of the fact that the real Satoshi could prove himself with almost no effort.

In other words, just the usual jibber-jabber.

*Personally I consider the whole of the BSV project as disingenuous and acknowledge that many here view BCH disfavorably.

BU has nothing to do with Garzik. It was originally a fork of Core with configurable parameters that would allow it to follow a chain with larger blocks. After the fork which created BCH (caused by Amaury Sachet's fork of Core), they also created a fork that would follow that chain and after a while, discontinued the BTC fork.

Garzik was responsible for the SegWit2X effort/debacle of which I will say no more as I don't feel like getting ranty.

There are some that think that this is CSW's motive behind BSV based on various things that he has said. I don't really see it happening with BTC but it's not impossible. There's also the possibility of quantum computing meaning that private keys will no longer secure and BTC will have to be moved to a more secure scheme or be swept by those with the capability.

Make sure to check the ratings on those. They're often not that impressive. Not that I'm recommending bank boxes either.

Trust the science!

Guess they ran out of funny money. Better run the printers again.

It's where the whole "it's just a few bad apples" falls apart.

Quite a reductive statement. Though I expected no better.

Now say "roads".

Like there's a choice.

But why would France care so much? Does this adversely affect their military standing on the world stage?


Oh, money, grift, corruption and pork.

Of course.

Back when we did the CB vote, I promised to return a bunch of the merits. I kinda miscalculated and ran out but an attempt was made.