Bitcoin Inception: what Nolan's movie can teach us about blockchain economics

[SaitoSando]

Most people believe that scaling a blockchain is a technical problem. This isn’t at all true — the problem is economic.

This can be hard to understand in a world where the dominant way of understanding blockchain comes from computer scientists who do not engage with the economics.

Saito's co-founder David Lancashire was invited to the Asia Blockchain Summit in Taipei last month to present how best to think about these problems. The challenge is getting people to shift their mental models, and so he made this video using the movie Inception as a way in, and which ultimately explains how to scale a blockchain without adding poisonous trade-offs.

Our ten-minute 'Bitcoin Inception' video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJGuxcEvats&feature=youtu.be

Would very much appreciate interested folk to take just ten minutes out of their day to watch, and offer any thoughts, questions or feedback on this thread.

Talking about actual economics is always a challenge in the blockchain space, but more and more people are aware there is a solution to scaling, and this is it.

So yeah, if you’ve got questions, suggestions or feedback on the video or the solution it offers please do get in touch — either directly here, or you can connect with our core team most days in the Saito Telegram or Discord groups, or hanging out on Saito in our Blockchain Arcade.

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Saito Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/BOSYOk_BR8HIqp-scldlEA

Saito Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/2KbHYrX

Saito Arcade: https://apps.saito.network/arcade

[trevelyan22]

Always find it interesting to watch people deal with fundamental critiques of POW and POS economics. Most of the time this sort of critique triggers a reflexive back-and-forth from ideologies, which basically boils down to "POS / POW is not arguably worse than POW / POS." Not a lot of focus on trying to identify the underlying problems, although that is the first step in fixing them.

http://saito.tech/saito-whitepaper.pdf

Saito whitepaper is here for those who haven't read it yet. Bitcoin is probably compatible with the transient chain part of the solution.

[odolvlobo]

Nice video. I agree with the point being made. Too much talk about Inception, though.

[richard@saito]

Sorry, I'm a bit confused - you can have _too much_ talk about Inception? 

[el kaka22]

I think it was a bit stretch if you ask me. I mean of course it makes sense and both examples and how they connect all looks credible but it looks like a bit fragile. I mean yeah we have forgot about the fact that bitcoin was suppose to be something we take over the financial fiat system and make a better future for ourselves and stop the greed of wealthy over the poor and stop the wealth gap and wage inequality where CEO makes 600x more than a worker.

However, that is something we have not actually have to remember or remind ourselves because we willfully moved to this new system since it was easier to actually make more fiat with bitcoin and live in the fiat world instead of make fiat world go away and replace it with crypto, that would have been a lot more difficult so we took a new path.

[BitHodler]

I mean yeah we have forgot about the fact that bitcoin was suppose to be something we take over the financial fiat system and make a better future for ourselves and stop the greed of wealthy over the poor and stop the wealth gap and wage inequality where CEO makes 600x more than a worker.

Bitcoin was presented as an alternative payment solution where you no longer need a centralized entity such as a bank for example. As far as I'm aware of, nothing (directly at least) was said about wealth inequality.

People have given the reason for Bitcoin to exist their own flavor by saying that it is invented to replace fiat, banks, governments, etc, but that's just not realistic, and deep down they know that too.

Bitcoin has turned into a store of value thingy with little to no respect to actual payments anymore. The market doesn't seem to care looking at how it keeps hitting higher highs so you fundamentally don't need anything else.

[Ningish]

Regarding the dawn, paraphrasing what Mr. Saito said to Dom Cobb: Bitcoin told Ethereum:
"we were young together".
Thanks for the insights that the video offers.
As in Inception, the deeper the level the slower the time and  the rise is always more difficult.
So, Will there be a concrete link between this concept and the economic reality in which we live?

[shield132]

I mean yeah we have forgot about the fact that bitcoin was suppose to be something we take over the financial fiat system and make a better future for ourselves and stop the greed of wealthy over the poor and stop the wealth gap and wage inequality where CEO makes 600x more than a worker.

Bitcoin was presented as an alternative payment solution where you no longer need a centralized entity such as a bank for example. As far as I'm aware of, nothing (directly at least) was said about wealth inequality.

People have given the reason for Bitcoin to exist their own flavor by saying that it is invented to replace fiat, banks, governments, etc, but that's just not realistic, and deep down they know that too.

Bitcoin has turned into a store of value thingy with little to no respect to actual payments anymore. The market doesn't seem to care looking at how it keeps hitting higher highs so you fundamentally don't need anything else.

I agree with you, bitcoin was really meant to replace banks and this decentralized shit system, give people a more freedom but as alway, bitcoin get under the hand of masses (I amn't against making bitcoin popular but it has it's pros and cons) and as every nice shit, this thing got also abused and turned from it's path. A lot of people look bitcoin as an investment option, hold coins and do nothing (money freeze kills economy to my mind) or use it for bad things.

[fullhdpixel]

bitcoin was really meant to replace banks and this decentralized shit system, give people a more freedom but as alway, bitcoin get under the hand of masses (I amn't against making bitcoin popular but it has it's pros and cons) and as every nice shit, this thing got also abused and turned from it's path. A lot of people look bitcoin as an investment option, hold coins and do nothing (money freeze kills economy to my mind) or use it for bad things.

Everything in life has its pros and cons, even your existence has its pros and cons, but there is a leader that is always out in position to control things and ensure that the con of it does not really bring out any negative impact on the society.

The only con I have seen in bitcoin is that it is a decentralized system which created a coin that is being used for anonymous transaction, and if that is the case, I believe that government has too many gurus at hand not to find solution to that even if it would take a whole lot of time. So if this world’s leader sees bitcoin as a threat to some extent, they ought to have just simply regulated it if this system can just be regulated, the advantage of it would really be much greater than the disadvantage of it.

[SaitoSando]

I think it was a bit stretch if you ask me. I mean of course it makes sense and both examples and how they connect all looks credible but it looks like a bit fragile.

Thanks for the feedback. Sorry to hear you thought the connection was a bit of a stretch. But appreciate you taking the time to check it out. Leaving aside the Inception stuff, what did you think about the content on crypto economics, and blockchain more specifically? The pop culture side of things is just a way in, really. But the big question is how do we scale blockchain? And that requires rethinking the fundamentals.