Bitcoins/Litecoins/Virtual Currencies

Lightning Lord Rule said:

I meant the implication that all of this wouldn't even be getting off the ground with at least the tacit approval or secret backing of the most nefarious intel agencies extant. A la Fakebook originally being a DARPA project. That is likely tinfoil territory.


Sure, left to its own devices such things could be great, but I'm HIGHLY skeptical that there's not some way for govs to manipulate this system and it's not a giant trap for the entire world.

Keep in mind, the VAST majority of the world's monopolies (and the fortunes that go with them) are built upon gatekeeping information or resources, and those current gatekeepers will be loathe to give it up without a fight. That some of these gatekeepers are getting on board the crypto train is not to me encouraging, but the opposite. It has me searching for where/how these giants such as mastercard are trying to insert themselves in such a way as to keep their control.

I'm not saying it's impossible to avoid such a scenario, as the people working on this tech are nothing if not nimble. The powers allayed against them in favor of the current order are the giants of current order though with multiple trillions of dollars at stake, to say nothing of the fate of nations. I can't believe that they don't have lots of smart people who have had this very conversation we are having and thought of a way to exploit the situation to their advantage...

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Shit man, you won't find me disagreeing with any of this. It's not even controversial really. We have thousands of years of human history and hundreds of examples of the rich and powerful gatekeeping knowledge from the rest of society. It wasn't too long ago you could get executed for having a translated copy of the bible from Latin to English. Why? Because the Church was terrified of what would happen if any common citizen could pick up a bible and read it and draw their own conclusions.

Lightning Lord Rule said:

The other question to ask if this is all dependent on SHA-256, is what happens when quantum computers render all brute-forceable solutions irrelevant?

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I think we're pretty sure SHA-256 is quantum resistant, and hashing algorithms which aren't can be easily updated.

Mist said:

No, it's not.

Holy fuck you have no idea what you're talking about.

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Strong words from someone buying into Grayscale and thinking they're in crypto.

James said:

Yep, this is exactly what ENS implements, it gives you the token necessary to ID yourself for registration in the first place, and yes, you've taken it to the logical conclusion (which, imo, is the core purpose of crypto and especially not derail/tinfoil hat territory) that the new internet has a value layer that didn't exist in the previous version, things you wouldn't realize just sitting on your Bitcoin.

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ENS is doing shit that has been done elsewhere. (namecoin, namebase.io, Siacoin/skynet, Civic etc) It's not like they invented the idea of domains and identity on a blockchain. Granted they're probably the most adopted.

Bitcoin's layer 1 mainchain intentionally focuses on being sound money and a store of value instead of trying to be everything at once. Security is reason enough, but it's also generally not a good idea to have your primary monetary unit also be some form of commodity.

Bitcoin has two sidechains that can host NFTs and tokenize assets: Liquid and Rootstock. RSK has a full-on EVM. Liquid was created by bitcoin core devs, so they're obviously interested in the things Ethereum is doing; granted it has gained very little traction and may never. James knows this already but sidechains have a few advantages: increased security on the mainchain, easier upgrades, and twice the capacity before you consider increasing the sidechain's capacity with different parameters and tech. (block size, rollups or whatever. Rootstock is trying to implement zk rollups btw) The big problem with sidechains (aside from inferior security to the mainchain, but RSK is merge mined) is the hassle and cost of pegging in and out plus the resulting two balances. Anyway it's an intentional decision to compartmentalize/layerize.

Eth's 'move fast and break things' ethos and layer 1 focus has served them well thus far and they've attracted a lot of developer support but it's not like Bitcoin devs are piddling around. Substack just implemented lightning for payments btw. Lightning can also be used to prove identity, is well suited for 'Web3' monetization and acts like Tor to grant anonymity. (ETH's anonymity is rather poor)

Torrid said:

Eth's 'move fast and break things' ethos and layer 1 focus has served them well thus far and they've attracted a lot of developer support but it's not like Bitcoin devs are piddling around. Substack just implemented lightning for payments btw. Lightning can also be used to prove identity, is well suited for 'Web3' monetization and acts like Tor to grant anonymity. (ETH's anonymity is rather poor)

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Bitcoin has quietly positioned itself for micropayments via Lightning which is, I believe, how the "internet of money" is going to work. Rather than watching Ads to support a streamer or podcast, you'll stream them Sats while viewing. They say something you like? Boost the sat stream to give them feedback on that point. This can be done in increments that amount to less than a penny and completely cuts out the middlemen, improves the connection between audience and content creator, and they make more money too.

Bitcoin is already disrupting the payment space

Tmac said:

This should’ve happened 5 years ago w Venmo payments.

Instead of paywalls NBC Business and the like need to accept micro transactions. Want to read below the fold? Pay $0.25.

This shit makes way more sense than subs.

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This needs to happen ASAP. The current system is fucked.

Tmac said:

This should’ve happened 5 years ago w Venmo payments.

Instead of paywalls NBC Business and the like need to accept micro transactions. Want to read below the fold? Pay $0.25.

This shit makes way more sense than subs.

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Agreed, now we have the tech to make it happen. Lightning is seeing exponential growth

As such more platforms will start to adopt

We're still super early on this adoption curve but its looking very strong right now.

Anyone try the "crypto cash back" cards? I'm looking at a 3%/2%/1% back offer from Venmo. You get the cash back in the crypto of your choice (basically ETH or BTC) and it comes with zero transaction fees. I wouldn't ordinarily buy my crypto on Venmo, but 3% cash back in ETH or BTC for doing nothing seems like a pretty good deal. I have the Amazon cash back card now and I get a couple hundred-ish a month back in rewards. Thinking of giving that up for the Venmo deal.

Arden said:

Anyone try the "crypto cash back" cards? I'm looking at a 3%/2%/1% back offer from Venmo. You get the cash back in the crypto of your choice (basically ETH or BTC) and it comes with zero transaction fees. I wouldn't ordinarily buy my crypto on Venmo, but 3% cash back in ETH or BTC for doing nothing seems like a pretty good deal. I have the Amazon cash back card now and I get a couple hundred-ish a month back in rewards. Thinking of giving that up for the Venmo deal.

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I use Blockfi's BTC back card now. Was pretty early on the waiting list so among the first to grab it. So far so good. Its nice getting "cash back" in a form of points that will appreciate in value rather than depreciate in the way that airline miles will for example. Also provides additional APR on stablecoin holdings with the platform.


DM me and ill give you a referral code

Fold is also quite popular but I was looking for a line of credit with BTC back and fold is a Debit card.

Consider that sometimes decentralization offers HIGHER throughput than centralized systems. Torrents showcase this: if you're downloading from many users simultaneously, you can often get stuff faster than from a singular corporate source. Sia's decentralized storage download speeds are quite fast because of this. Lightning offers far more throughput than any centralized payments system could achieve.

Also a big reason why wrapped bitcoin has more BTC in it than lightning has is simply because the most popular lightning implementations put temporary caps in place as a safeguard as BTC folks are very risk averse. Since it's used for smaller payments anyway, it's not a big deal. Lightning nodes aren't as profitable as DeFi options either because then it would be cost prohibitive to use as a payments rail, which defeats the primary purpose. But I don't think you need a high TVL to facilitate a high TX rate anyway, so TVL is kind of a meaningless metric for it.

nm, someone beat me to it

These people may be on to something. I guess I don't need Homeowner's insurance anymore.

After all it doesn't matter if my house burns down tomorrow and I have no way of replacing it. I have the deed!

Khane said:

After all it doesn't matter if my house burns down tomorrow and I have no way of replacing it. I have the deed!

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Well the deed in this case would contain valuable metadata that you can monetize in various services, and is a financial asset you can lend, borrow, sell, and insure. So possibly it gives you a way of replacing the house, depending on how it's all structured - which may come down to which protocols you're using to mint and maintain your ERC-721 property deed, or not who knows it isn't built yet.

Pegging an NFT to off-chain values is a lot harder than for cryptocurrencies, but I'm sure there are a lot of people working on it.