Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[savetherainforest]

I heard people talking about abortion 30 years ago.              


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSZoG8JVMss                 

[El duderino_]

[JayJuanGee]

Bitcoin will get to $250K “by late 2022 or early 2023" says Tim Draper.

Bullshit.

doubting thomas..  

I don't know if they were daydreaming. Of course, BTC can potentially go $250K or more in the future. That doesn't mean it will Boom in a few months. LOL.

Eventually, sure. And probably sooner than most would think. We're in the doldrums for at least another year though, I think. Healing is needed, bad memories need to fade, confidence needs to return.

Nothing is going to happen before the next halving which is scheduled for May-June 2024.
Do not have any false hopes like those Crypto guys on Twitter.

Bitcoin no doesn't work like that.

I don't know if they were daydreaming. Of course, BTC can potentially go $250K or more in the future. That doesn't mean it will Boom in a few months. LOL.

Eventually, sure. And probably sooner than most would think. We're in the doldrums for at least another year though, I think. Healing is needed, bad memories need to fade, confidence needs to return.

Nothing is going to happen before the next halving which is scheduled for May-June 2024.
Do not have any false hopes like those Crypto guys on Twitter.

Nah, I think we will stay around 20 000 to 30 000 ish, maybe with a shortlived drop to 17 000 to 15 000 until winter/christmas, and then a slow rise for the coming two years wit the obligatory skittish jumping around the halving. And then comes the next top of course.

Bitcoin no doesn't work like that, either.

I know Jbreher used to name drop Coinbase a lot, and probably just to get little digs in here and there.. not that jbreher is particularly mean.. but he was kind of against going along with certain things, including our use of Stamp as our thread price reference.

jbreher is a bigblocker.  No wonder he loves Coinbase!  Zing!

(Sort of joking.  I know he had a sick fetish for Bcash; remind me, what did he think of NYA?  He irrationally hated Segwit, so I guess that doesn’t really make sense.)

I am not sure how fruitful it is to remember who said what in terms of the blocksize limitation wars, even though surely from time to time it does come in handy to see those kinds of historical stances that various people/businesses took.

I am pretty sure that jbreher was a bcasher and then pretty much got stuck in the Bcash SV camp, and surely some of that makes little sense because who the fuck would consider that any forkening of Bcash that was promoted/funded by Wright/Ayers would have any semblance of legitimacy but jbreher frequently proclaimed that peeps could still support BcashSV without having to agree with the various claims of Wright et al.

I am pretty sure that jbreher was supporting all of the BIG blocker nonsense from the start - back to late 2015 when Gavin would spout out the various talking points about a need for a path forward and doing all the stuffs on layer one.. so there seems to have been a time in which segwit was proposed and so many of them thought that it was a decent compromise - even Gavin, but then the code was written in early 2016 and then went on testnet and seems that in about mid-2016 once the segwit code went into its ready to be merged stage then a bunch of the BIGblocker dweebs started to proclaim that segwit was not good any longer, and so that escalated into the time around the NYA in early 2017, no? (there was a HongKong agreement, too, right?  weren't they mad because the devs would not accept the hong kong agreement so therefore new coalition formed that resulted in the NYA?)..

Anyhow, yeah, I cannot remember jbreher deviating from any of those BIGblocker partyline talking points to any great extent including remaining a Bcash SV supporter but then kind of going on silent mode in the past year or so.. but yeah, he seemed to support the NYA as a great compromise.  If you recall, the vast majority of the strong vocal BIG blocker dweebs did not even care that much about the technical aspects of the big blocker nonsense whether the NYA or the resulting segwit2x, but instead they were largely trying to merely change BTC governance to make it easier to change bitcoin however the fuck might be desired in the future (a desire to demote devs and promote miners - but probably really trying to get then BIG money and exchanges to have more say than normies plebs) .. framing it as majority rule and other baloney stuff like that.

Edit:  Made some clarification edits to the last paragraphs/segment around the time of AlcoHoDL's below response.. whoops.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[JayJuanGee]

.... there is a theoretical possibility that there will be no new ATH, if things with the institutions turn out to be much worse than we think (like Greyscale going bankrupt), or the other extreme - to go way over 200K and compensate for the lack of a sharp top in the previous cycle. In my opinion, this can only happen with the appearance of significant news around the normal peak, as happened in 2017.

Sure, it is theoretically possible that there will be no new ATH ever again, but you are surely talking about a pretty low-likely edge case, and even kind of presuming that BTC needs BIG players in order to achieve another ATH.

Bitcoin remains the most powerful for the smaller players or the structually disadvantaged folks, and surely some of the smaller players and structurally disadvantaged folks have a shitton of capital when amalgamated together..

Gresham's law will continue to gravitate value into BTC and surely the more sophisticated BIG players know that and they are front running retail and will continue to do so.  Sure there are going to continue to be weak as fuck BIG players who are able to come in with more coins and to dump more coins than the earlier smaller players, but I doubt that the fact that we merely have bigger players showing that they can frequently be weaker hands than the most feeble of the FOMO driven retail gamblers does not likely change the calculus too much in terms of the inevitability of bitcoin ongoing Gresham law superior money dynamics, even if they have all kinds of more sophisticated tools to manipulate and bet against bitcoin.. they still have abilities to get bit in the ass when playing with those tools with a bearer instrument asset like my lil precious, too.

gm folks!
the breakfast of a Bitcoin pleb 🍉🥗
stay healthy and hodl

Much better presentation than we tend to see from some folks in these here parts.. arriemoller... cough cough..

I am not confident that bitcoiner are fruitarians, though.

Are you sure that you did not get that image from some ESG-promoting page?  In other words, where's the beef?

I am starting to feel like a Wendy's promoter.. "Where's the beef?" reference.

[nanobtc]

jbreher and I have PM a few times. He owns some historic world-class music instruments. You have heard it on famous recordings.

[AlcoHoDL]

[...]

I am not sure how fruitful it is to remember who said what in terms of the blocksize limitation wars, even though surely from time to time it does come in handy to see those kinds of historical stances that various people/businesses took.

I am pretty sure that jbreher was a bcasher and then pretty much got stuck in the Bcash SV camp, and surely some of that makes little sense because who the fuck would consider that any forkening of Bcash that was promoted/funded by Wright/Ayers would have any semblance of legitimacy but jbreher frequently proclaimed that peeps could still support BcashSV without having to agree with the various claims of Wright et al.

I am pretty sure that jbreher was supporting all of the BIG blocker nonsense from the start - back to late 2015 when Gavin would spout out the various talking points about a need for a path forward and doing all the stuffs on layer one.. so there seems to have been a time in which segwit was proposed and so many of them thought that it was a decent compromise - even Gavin, but then the code was written in early 2016 and then went on testnet and seems that in about mid-2016 once the segwit code went into its ready to be merged stage then a bunch of the BIGblocker dweebs started to proclaim that segwit was not good any longer, and so that escalated into the time around the NYA in early 2017, no? (there was a HongKong agreement, too, right?  weren't they mad because the devs would not accept the hong kong agreement so therefore new coalition formed that resulted in the NYA?)..

Anyhow, yeah, I cannot remember jbreher deviating from any of those BIGblocker partyline talking points to any great extent including remaining a Bcash SV supporter but then kind of going on silent mode in the past year or so.. but yeah, he seemed to support the NYA as a great compromise.  If you recall, the vast majority of the strong vocal BIG blocker dweebs did not even care that much about the technical aspects of the big blocker nonsense whether the NYA or the resulting segwit2x, but instead they were largely trying to merely change BTC governance to make it easier to change bitcoin however the fuck might be desired in the future (a desire to demote devs and promote miners - but probably really trying to get then BIG money and exchanges to have more say than normies plebs) .. framing it as majority rule and other baloney stuff like that.

I believe/remember that jbreher had done some mathematical calculation that showed that, at the current (small block) transaction rate (transactions per second—tps) it would take several decades for the entire world population to own BTC on-chain. I think it was a simple division operation, dividing the world population by Bitcoin's transaction rate, to compute the time needed to get the entire world population on Bitcoin's blockchain.

Something like this:

World population size: 8 billion (approx.)
Bitcoin transaction rate: 7 tps (best-case value, approx.)

Total time for the entire world to become BTC owners: 8,000,000,000 / 7 = 1,142,857,143 seconds = 13,228 days = 36 years!

Note that the above result allocates only one (1) on-chain Bitcoin transaction per person, when in practice more than one transaction would be needed to make use of the owned BTC, thus increasing the above time estimate to the order of hundreds of years.

So, according to the above result, jbreher reasoned that Bitcoin's block size, and subsequent transaction rate, is simply not enough to cater for the future needs of the entire world population in a practical sense. I think this result was (still is?) his primary motivation for supporting big blocks.

Perhaps jbreher can chime in and confirm or correct the above.

My opinion on this matter, is that Bitcoin is not a static entity and is open to changes, as and when they are needed. When the time comes for changes relating to the block size (or any other modifications or improvements to the code), they will be adopted in a structured, orderly manner, based on rigorous and thorough testing, and via a worldwide consensus mechanism. The problem with BCH (a.k.a. Bcash) and BSV is that they are governed by arrogant, selfish, toxic individuals that effectively attempted to take control of Bitcoin for their own, insidious, malevolent motives. To that, the community has clearly objected, as reflected by the subsequent failure of these attempts, and indicated by the current value of these forked coins, as compared to BTC.

When the time comes, and the need arises, the Bitcoin ecosystem will be adapted and improved as necessary, and in different ways (via on- and off-chain solutions). That is how I see it. I see the BCH/BSV forks as malevolent actions aiming to take control of the code base. And they have failed miserably.

Edit: Updated JayJuanGee's quoted text to its latest, edited version.

[laredo7mm]

For me the most secure exchange is kraken. The best in terms of fees is Coinbase - for withdrawal it is almost 0 fee. The worst exchange without any doubt is Bitstamp. The fee is enourmous 0.005BTC. And each week they send me new emails asking insane things, to prove the origin of my bitcoins and fiat, by sending bank and credit card statements, pool statistics, and many other things. I stopped using this hilarious exchange several months ago.

I think FTX is better than Kraken in terms of fees. I have used it several times without any KYC and I haven't faced any issue there. Though the limits are very small for non-KYC users the service is good enough to continue using them. I also have a KYC verified account in Kraken but didn't use them too much actually. I started using another exchange bybit.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[Torque]

Coinbase is one of the worst of evil exchanges.  

edit: TRIGGER WARNING

yup i hate coinbase because of their history and actions.

but guess which exchange i tell starting btc noobs who arent very computer literate and even less cyber security conscious? yup. coinbase. for the simple reason that they are legit from a usa law point of view.  it offers yubikey security.
accounts can be transferred to surviving spouse or executor if the account holder dies.
 

ok thats it, haters may now proceed to list the myriad ways They Suck. fine by me as i might be some that im not aware of yet and ive been with them since 2013.

now if a btc noob is slightly better informed i tell them gemnini.

please dont forget here in the usa (land of the free) we have limited choice in a lot of things.

full disclosure: coinbase is a backup exchange for me.

Millions of people globally "hate Coinbase" and yet still use them every single day, week, month, and year.

Myself included.

So tf what?

Just because that death_diaper troll comes in here spouting his nonsense, and loves to condescendingly drone on and on telling bitcoin WO vets "how it is, bro", doesn't mean anyone needs to listen to his drivel.  

[Torque]

OT

Start the clock. "GM didn't kill herself" in 3...2...1...

[death_wish]

Everyone here will love Blockstream,

Not everyone.

Disclosures:  I have no connection to Blockstream.  I do appreciate some of the stuff they’ve done, I respect some of the current or former Blockstream principals, and I think they were smeared very badly by ridiculous FUD in the Fork Wars.  For that last reason, I tend to be defensive of them.

their Blockstream Satellite project which is essentially altruism (not only B2C, but made to help poor people in poor countries use Bitcoin!),

A hype project that has helped nobody and makes no sense.

I hear a rich person in rich country talking.  Marie Antoinette never said “let them eat cake”—that is a propaganda smear-attack against her.  But I hear you implying, “let them eat cake”.

Have you ever lived in a situation where downloading the entire Bitcoin blockchain from the Internet, and keeping up with blocks, would be cost-prohibitive in terms of bandwidth?  It is not a rare situation.  Not a corner case.  I think that the worldwide majority of people are probably in that situation.

Satellite TV dishes are ubiquitous.  Surprising and disturbing, but true.  They can be repurposed for this, with a few parts that fit into a poverty-level budget.  Now, at least, you can have the BYOB security of consensus-validating the blockchain yourself.  To make transactions, use your mobile data connection that has kbps speed, and costs money you can’t afford billed by the kilobyte.  Although it is not ideal from a decentralization viewpoint, it gets your foot in the door.

Still makes no sense?

Not going to say where I live, but I know what it’s like to be poor; and I myself have done “Be Your Own Bank” stuff when I was practically bankrupt, using cast-off trash hardware that would make most people’s jaws drop.  I always take it a little bit personally when I see people (worst of all, Silicon Valley devs) behave as if everyone in the world has current-gen many-core CPUs, unlimited gigabytes of RAM, terabytes of fast SSDs, and vast amounts of inexpensive, low-latency Internet bandwidth.

Blockstream’s advertised primary use case for Satellite makes excellent sense.

well—where does Blockstream make their money?  I don’t know their internal structure or their financials (none of my business!), but I plausibly guess that their bread and butter is Liquid, and their Lightning infrastructure projects, and their hosted mining—all B2B, and/or for very wealthy customers.

VC capital. None of their stuff makes money AFAIK (I believe they do some mining but that's not their core business). More people should be asking questions like this.

Not wanting to dig too deeply into others’ private business, just wondering aloud and wildly speculating:  What if their primary business strategy is HODL?  They probably have a large amount of BTC.  “Altruism” projects are thus self-interested, insofar as anything that helps to grow the Bitcoin ecosystem increases the value of BTC.

I emphasize that the following is speculation.  I have no real information about how Blockstream makes money, or how much they make, or whether or not they make any money at all.  Just thinking aloud.

What do you do if you have a large amount of BTC and high technical competence, and you want to build your BTC’s long-term fundamental value?

• Fund Bitcoin Core development—in effect.  A few posts ago, I observed that in principle (regardless of any questions about the implementation), the Zcash “dev tax” is not altogether a bad idea.  Developers need to be paid somehow.
  
  Some (not all) people who opine in WO are only luser-level Bitcoiners.  They have no idea how Bitcoin happens.  They behave as if Bitcoin just falls out of the sky—a freebie.
  
  Bitcoin has long had a problem with paying people who pour their lives into maintaining and improving Bitcoin where it most counts:  Bitcoin Core.  I have had many behind-the-scenes discussions about this.  Some Bitcoin investors are very thoughtful; I once had a BTC whale ask my advice on how best to fund Core development, as a concrete “where should I send money?” question.  (My reply was that I was not the right person to ask—sorry to disappoint.)  Some Bitcoin businesses and exchanges are also good about funding Core development.  They know the foundation on which their profits must rely.  I will not spend the time digging around for this post, but I have seen somewhere at various times some good analyses of which businesses and which exchanges contribute the most—whether with funding grants, or by having employees on their payrolls who are effectually paid to work on Core.  DYOR.
  
  Now, consider this:  Some of the current or former most-active Core contributors are current or former Blockstream employees.
  
  That is not cause for a Blockstream conspiracy theory.  It is cause for recognizing that if you want top-flight coders to work full-time on a free, open-source project, they need to be paid somehow.
  
  (P.S., aside:  cAPSLOCK, Bitcoin has no “dev tax”.  So, how much have you donated to support Bitcoin Core development?)
• Pay for other “public goods” infrastructure projects like Blockstream Satellite.  Many people will laugh at you.  DGAF.  Do it anyway.  Bitcoin has no government raising taxes to pay for “public goods” infrastructure.  In practice, Blockstream is thereby doing what libertarians and ancaps preach:  A private company is apparently wasting money on unprofitable public goods, out of long-term rational self-interest.  Blockstream Satellite helps to make Bitcoin ubiquitous.
• Liquid, Lightning, etc.  Same principle in action.  Build infrastructure that otherwise won’t get built.

AFAIK, Liquid is the only existing viable solution if Exchange A wants to settle a big block of BTC with Exchange B—without FUDding the market with whalewatcher idiots on Twitter posting the txid, using it to predict either moon or dump.  Liquid’s privacy sucks—it is not a privacy chain; but at least, it uses CT to avoid leaking the amounts being transferred.  No, Liquid is not really decentralized; centralized exchanges, et al. are not exactly known for being idealistic purists about decentralization.

(Or, um...  Use centralized-idiocy-WBTC on Ethereum, and run it through Tornado.Cash!  Seriously.  Better:  Use wrapped BTC tokens on Solana, which has negligible fees—and which will soon have zero-knowledge privacy for tokens.)

I don’t know if or how Blockstream earns any significant revenue directly from Liquid.  I am simply observing that it is useful.  Useful to big businesses.  Seems not-stupid of them?

IMO, their Lightning infrastructure stuff is more of a “hype” issue.  I would need asbestos underwear to explain my opinion in rational, constructive terms here.  Don’t get me wrong—I think that Lightning is good technology, and I am glad that Blockstream pours money into supporting it.  (Developers need to be paid somehow.)  I simply have no illusions that Lightning will take over the world Any Day Now(TM).  Moreover, I recognize in principle the plain fact that anything on L2 has limitations and trade-offs.

Some things should be done on a Lightning-style L2.  But it is not a panacea for scaling ailments.  No magic bullet.  The always-online hot-wallet requirement itself kills many use cases—and it results in practice in many users relying on totally centralized Lightning “wallets”.  How is that different than shitcoins that use hype about “decentralization” as a veneer to hide centralization?  The channel liquidity requirements are even worse—ironically, all of the chatter from Lightning-fans about Lightning as “Bitcoin’s POS” tend to illustrate my worst criticism of Lightning.  POS economics are inherently corrupt!

Many of the centralized-“wallet” problems can be fixed, in the long term.  Blockstream helps with that, by paying developers who work on relevant projects that >99% of people don’t even know exist.  The channel liquidity requirements are fundamental to how Lightning works, so cannot be fixed.  All in all, I think that Lightning will be one important tool for scaling Bitcoin use in mass-adoption—an important tool, but only one tool.

I am guessing that Blockstream’s activities with Lightning probably make them some money in the short term.  Their support for Lightning definitely adds value to BTC in the long term.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

@JohalMiles
The year is 2030:

'Anon, why didn't you pickup some Bitcoin when it entered the oversold pink box on MVRV Z?'

'Because it was definitely going much lower.'
$BTC

https://twitter.com/johalmiles/status/1541075950665748481?s=21

[empowering]

OT

Start the clock. "GM didn't kill herself" in 3...2...1...

Jizzmotorway 2 da Max, well.



.... I wish her....well.


lols


ps, did you know this bitch be not just a pilot, but also a submarine captain ? (I am assuming also a yacht master too)


(obvs Lil St James had a submarine port..... and so did another nearby island..... whaddya think that was all about anon ?)


pps, Jeffery just took over operations from (Jizzmotorways daddy in their honeypot operation) Robert, courtesy of "our friends" at ...(cannot be spoken)


Cannot make this shit up really ...Reality is indeed waaaaaaay beyond fiction, and often.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[empowering]

Hmm a risky approach there empowering. Your lack of fear will be disturbing. Courage being contagious and all, they may extinguish the fire that is you before it spreads

#throwback


*FireStillBurnsBright

[empowering]

If a person was going to operate on the dark net, it would make sense to
a) never brag or talk about anything to do with it , ever , in RL, or on the internets, even using a pseudonym
b) never use any RL indentifiers ever
c) use cash bought throw away notebooks, cycle for new every x weeks
d) use TOR but also through a fresh temporary OS live install from a USB , i.e TAILs or live linux distro - close down after every use
e) never use their own internet connection or one tied to you in anyway (even better super dark satellite phone in a moving car on motorway)
f) have a distributed distribution network (the weakest point and really to pull off needs organised connections)
g) create brand names but cycle their darksite operations (better yet use openbazzar etc in future)
h) be paranoid and reclusive
i) not get involved unless they have super discipline

Congratulations, that constitutes probable cause. All your communications are now being closely followed. Jurisdiction is irrelevant. The recordings of all your phone, cell phone and internet useage during the past five years will be analyzed for possible illegal activity. You should assume that encryption provided by your VPN is backdoored.

Yes,  no shit? and to think I had not thought about that, nor that I assume my communications are already monitored along with everyone elses.

And what will they achieve? absolutely sweet fuck all.... they will waste their time and resources and at the end of it have an idea that I like to eat, sleep, shit, work, talk on forums, fuck, drink and occasionally on special occasions get high... tbh they could just ask... it would be less hassle.

If they want to send a special access team over, the key is under the mat.

#throwback

[JayJuanGee]

OT

Start the clock. "GM didn't kill herself" in 3...2...1...

Jizzmotorway 2 da Max, well.



.... I wish her....well.


lols


ps, did you know this bitch be not just a pilot, but also a submarine captain ? (I am assuming also a yacht master too)


(obvs Lil St James had a submarine port..... and so did another nearby island..... whaddya think that was all about anon ?)


pps, Jeffery just took over operations from (Jizzmotorways daddy in their honeypot operation) Robert, courtesy of "our friends" at ...(cannot be spoken)


Cannot make this shit up really ...Reality is indeed waaaaaaay beyond fiction, and often.

I have no problem with what you are saying.. or that you have an opinion that accused people are not very good people based on what you believe to be the facts (but convicted and executed?) prior to a trial.. and so in that regard it seems a wee bit different to be presenting damning information about all dee bad things that peeps did on the interwebs versus allowing a public trial..   You do not really wish her well, do you?  You don't wish that she is actually able to defend herself in a public trial, right?

Perhaps there might be concerns about what might come out if an actual public trial were to take place?

[death_wish]

jbreher and I have PM a few times. He owns some historic world-class music instruments. You have heard it on famous recordings.

Just some grudges here.  More about the FUD on Segwit’s security than anything else.  Although I do not regret any of my opinions about jbreher, I regret having brought it up now if it’s irritating some decent folks here.  I was just tossing Jay a zinger, not discussing a current-events issue on which I would pull no punches with my opinions.

I am not sure how fruitful it is to remember who said what in terms of the blocksize limitation wars, even though surely from time to time it does come in handy to see those kinds of historical stances that various people/businesses took.

Hahah, Jay.  Funny to see you uie-pooie feeling that I am too merciless and unforgiving towards the biiiiiiiig blocker.

I believe/remember that jbreher had done some mathematical calculation that showed that, at the current (small block) transaction rate (transactions per second—tps) it would take several decades for the entire world population to own BTC on-chain. I think it was a simple division operation, dividing the world population by Bitcoin's transaction rate, to compute the time needed to get the entire world population on Bitcoin's blockchain.

I want to defend the ability of anyone who is sufficiently motivated to run a BYOB node.  I deeply appreciate how Core has kept it possible to run a node on minimal hardware—for example, by keeping the blocksize reasonable; and see how zealously I defend Blockstream Satellite!  However, I don’t think that the world’s entire population will ever even own BTC on mainnet—much less transact on mainnet.  I don’t think it is realistic.

My vision of this has various parts; in some part, it is more or less not dissimilar to Hal’s:

Actually there is a very good reason for Bitcoin-backed banks to exist, issuing their own digital cash currency, redeemable for bitcoins. Bitcoin itself cannot scale to have every single financial transaction in the world be broadcast to everyone and included in the block chain. There needs to be a secondary level of payment systems which is lighter weight and more efficient. Likewise, the time needed for Bitcoin transactions to finalize will be impractical for medium to large value purchases.

Bitcoin backed banks will solve these problems. They can work like banks did before nationalization of currency. Different banks can have different policies, some more aggressive, some more conservative. Some would be fractional reserve while others may be 100% Bitcoin backed. Interest rates may vary. Cash from some banks may trade at a discount to that from others.

George Selgin has worked out the theory of competitive free banking in detail, and he argues that such a system would be stable, inflation resistant and self-regulating.

I believe this will be the ultimate fate of Bitcoin, to be the "high-powered money" that serves as a reserve currency for banks that issue their own digital cash. Most Bitcoin transactions will occur between banks, to settle net transfers. Bitcoin transactions by private individuals will be as rare as... well, as Bitcoin based purchases are today.

Aside—I have a theory about this, which I should probably post in its own thread sometime...  Let’s just say that if we have free, permissionless banking, and all manner of permissionless finance, then we can expect some failures.  And the failures need to fail.  They need to fail catastrophically.  They need to die painfully, with unrecoverable financial losses.  SBF bailing them out only creates moral hazard, thus incentivizing bigger and worse failures in the future.

My opinion on this matter, is that Bitcoin is not a static entity and is open to changes, as and when they are needed.

I 1000% supported Segwit, which many Bcashers (and worse, later, BSVers) considered an unacceptable change.  Now, I am advocating for my longtime dream of zero-knowledge proof privacy in Bitcoin; some people here probably consider that scandalous, despite the fact that the technology was originally invented for Bitcoin.

I definitely do not see Bitcoin as a static entity.  I do see it as conservative, reliable sound money, which needs to change slowly and carefully—most of all, to avoid network hardforks unless there is some terrifically overwhelming reason to hardfork (e.g., a potential Quantum Computing Apocalypse).

When the time comes for changes relating to the block size (or any other modifications or improvements to the code), they will be adopted in a structured, orderly manner, based on rigorous and thorough testing, and via a worldwide consensus mechanism. The problem with BCH (a.k.a. Bcash) and BSV is that they are governed by arrogant, selfish, toxic individuals that effectively attempted to take control of Bitcoin for their own, insidious, malevolent motives. To that, the community has clearly objected, as reflected by the subsequent failure of these attempts, and indicated by the current value of these forked coins, as compared to BTC.

Agreed.  And to me, the worst part was how they lied.  Worst of all are the liars.

The campaign of lying delayed Segwit activation for a very long time.  It did lasting long-term damage to Bitcoin, by delaying Segwit activation:  Where would we be today, if Segwit had activated earlier?

For instance, Bcash promoters promulgated a malicious fantasy that miners could steal Segwit coins.  Scammers created this lie, and they wove it in plausible-seeming terms that would require considerable technical understanding to untangle.  They duped many people, some of whom were acting in good faith.  Not naming names, but I think that at least one reputable, currently-active WO regular briefly fell for it at a time when Segwit was not yet active, so we couldn’t yet see what would happen.

I myself took the allegation seriously enough to devote time and effort to improving my Bitcoin technical knowledge:  I strove to attain higher expertise, so that I could competently evaluate it.  I spent many, many hours studying this specific issue—fairly and objectively considering all arguments.

When I finally reached the point of a decision, it was the point at which I watched a ridiculous sham fall apart before my eyes; and with Segwit now running on mainnet for almost five years, empirical evidence has proved my evaluation absolutely correct.  I was particularly peeved that for whatever (un)reason, some people continued to push this nonsense even when there were already billions of dollars worth of BTC in Segwit UTXOs, safe and sound.

Relevant to my attitude about a certain picnic-bear.

Observation on human nature:  Those who start as fence-sitters, and choose one side or the other through conscious effort, are likely to become much more forceful in their opinions than those who take a shallow “our team” approach.  I didn’t support Core and Segwit because of “our team”.  I don’t support BTC today because of “our team”.  I seek the truth, and I support whatever I evaluate as the best.

There was a time when, in private, I gave Bcasher arguments such a fair reading that many people here would accuse me of betraying “our team”.  I don’t care.  If they had been right, then I would have supported them; but rather, I found that they were dead wrong.  I evaluated the matter thoroughly before I opined in public, so I never made a fool of myself.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation