I never said this.
Here:
that somehow Bitcoins success is guaranteed even if we all just sit on our holdings while having no regard to its utility.
This is incredible you are blatantly quoting me out of context, I was actually criticizing your view on transnational utility. Also I will put it in better context by including the next sentence of this quote:
that somehow Bitcoins success is guaranteed even if we all just sit on our holdings while having no regard to its utility. This in my opinion is not correct.
I disagree, I even personally have ideological reasons for why I prefer using cryptocurrency over traditional payment and monetary systems. If I can no longer do this on the Bitcoin blockchain I will simply move to another blockchain that does allow me to do this. Which relates to my point about competition as well.
I don't care if you disagree "for personal reasons". It is still absolutely true. Bitcoin has an absolutely poor value proposition from a consumer standpoint. If you propose the opposite then you are simply not being honest.
I am being honest, I use it for many things, furthermore that does not even matter. If I believe in Bitcoin for these ideological reasons then other people can as well.
I disagree, I prefer Bitcoin. If I could use it for everything I would.
You are part of an microscopic minority. 99% of the world's population will side with me on this
Most of the worlds population does not even know what Bitcoin is and they most certainly would not understand the pros and cons of increasing the blocksize, so I do not see how the majority of the worlds population siding with you is even relevant. Popular believe should never be a measure for a personal understanding of truth.
I am not advocating for pushing dangerous changes to Bitcoin, I actually think that we should not increase the blocksize beyond conservative projected estimates of the technical limitations for running a full node, mainly bandwidth actually. A guideline could be that most people should be able to run a full node from their homes if they live in the developed world. So please do not mischaracterize my views as dangerous unless you do think that what I have just described is actually dangerous.
You have dangerous views because you attempt to politicize everything and are absolutely ignorant of some critical technical details.
This is ad hominem.
It is not a case of either or, Bitcoin can have notable transnational utility and have a sound monetary theory while remaining decentralized and censorship resistant. These properties are not mutually exclusive, they are actually synergistic. It is a false dichotomy to think that we must choose. Increasing the utility of Bitcoin allows it to be a better store of value. Being a better store of value in turn also allows Bitcoin to function more effectively as payment system. Bitcoin can be many things simultaneously and be different things to different people at the same time, we should not try and restrict Bitcoin.
You're fighting a strawman here. You didn't address my point that Bitcoin as a store-of-value has been the driver of economic growth so far and this is absolutely undisputable.
I am not arguing a straw man here, because you are creating a false dichotomy between currency, store of value and monetary freedom, when Bitcoin can be all of these things simultaneously. I have addressed your point, Bitcoin as a store of wealth has been a driver for the economic growth of Bitcoin, however so has its use as a currency. Even people with "ideological" motivations have been drivers for the economic growth of Bitcoin along with many other factors.
It will take more time for Bitcoin to be more commonly be accepted as a means of exchange, for some people there are certain psychological barriers to overcome considering some of the anarchistic aspects of Bitcoin, currency without centralized authority. For me Bitcoin is much more then currency, it is trust without centralized authority which can be applied to many applications, including currency. For me the political benefits of using Bitcoin as a currency, as well as a store of value, would have profound effects on global economics and political power. Money is power, Bitcoin changes the fundamental nature of power. The benifits of this are not as easily measured because the true cost of the current financial system is borne through externalities like quantitative easing, regulatory capture, inefficiencies, corruption ect.
The currency and means-of-exchange utility will come in due time, but not before Bitcoin has asserted itself as a dominant economic store of wealth. By that I mean that before we can truly enjoy the promises of Bitcoin as a transnational currency we need to increase its market cap by several orders of magnitude.
It seems like increasing the market cap seems to be the most important thing for you, I disagree. You are again setting up a false choice these things are not mutually exclusive they are synergistic.
It seems like you are implying that a conservative blocksize increase would compromise monetary freedom when that is not the case. Again you are setting up a false dichotomy, a false choice. Increasing the block size does not compromise monetary freedom.
Yes, blocksize increase under mostly all of the current propositions paraded by their proponents would absolutely lead to the slow death of Bitcoin as a tool for monetary freedom.
You keep saying this but you have not backed it up with any evidence or reasoning whatsoever. Why and how does increasing the blocksize lead to the death of monetary freedom?
I am not making the generalization of what a user is
Yes you are. You argue that without increase in the transaction throughput (block size) Bitcoin cannot attract more users. This is wrong. You pretend that those looking for cheap alternatives will turn to another cryptocurrency and that this is a danger for Bitcoin. This is wrong.
I am not saying that Bitcoin cannot attract more users without increasing the blocksize. However I do think that allowing transactions to become unreliable and the fee to become prohibitively expensive would deter some people from using Bitcoin and using an alternative cryptocurrency instead, myself included, especially if this is because of an arbitrary restriction and not because of the technical limitations at the time.
I think that we should account for many different users of Bitcoin not just the "bankers, lawyers, accountants, government officials" whom you however are saying who the users should be which is a much worse generalization to make, furthermore I would consider that "prohibitive" for most people, myself included.
You are misrepresenting what I said. My comment was that the only alternatives for some people or generally capital worldwide to escape capital control is to pay astronomical fees to "bankers, lawyers, accountants, government officials". In contrast, a 20$ transaction fee to transact on the Bitcoin blockchain is negligible, especially when referring to transactions worth millions of dollars.
You are correct I did misunderstand what you said there, However I would still consider transactions worth millions of dollars to be to prohibitive of a use case, especially since we can do both of these things without sacrificing decentralization and financial freedom, it would actually be the best way to preserve these principles.
If the fee market determines that this the price for transacting on the Bitcoin network based on the technical limitations of the time then it would be justified and I would use an altcoin instead.
Your altcoin will be worthless and will likely have no liquidity. You will therefore use an alternative that seeks to leverage the network effect and value of Bitcoin: LN, voting pools, off-chain.
They will gain more liquidity when transactions on the Bitcoin network become unreliable and prohibitively expensive. I do not believe that this would happen though since the blocksize will most likely be increased before this happens, whether it be with or without Core.
However that would not be the case if we left the limit at one megabyte since that does not presently represent the median of our current technical limitations, since it is just an arbitrary limit after all.
Every limit in Bitcoin is arbitrary, this argument is absolutely worthless. You also ignore that the resources to run a full node are already pushing the limits of some typical household computer and internet connection. Again you show you technical ineptitude by suggesting we use "the median". What we need to target is lower bound. This is a security-critical system whose main property needs to be resiliency, not efficiency. Therefore we plan and design for worst case scenarios
This argument is not worthless and not every limit in Bitcoin is arbitrary, Difficulty is based on hashing power and the supply curve of Bitcoin is based on gold. I can agree with you that the target can be lower bound if you consider the lower bound to be that the majority of people in the developed world should be able to run a full node from their home. However even if I accept your lower bound target it would still follow that one megabyte would not reflect that today and certainly would not into the future, since it is after all an arbitrary restriction.
Gold was used as a currency for millennia and it has been a good store of value for most of its history simultaneously, these concepts are not incompatible and historically has been how human society has operated for the vast majority of recorded history.
Gold was scarcely used as a currency by the common man. They were typically too poor and would use silver or copper.
You are most definitely wrong in your understanding of history in this regard, precious metals including silver and gold have been used as the dominant currency for the majority of recorded history. Both being commodities that have been used as currencies. Here are just some examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florinhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilderhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_coinage#Sigloshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidus_%28coin%29https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stater
