• ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    My friend tried to convince me to get into bitcoin early and I didn’t bother, I thought it was just a fad, like my mom “investing” in Beanie Babies.

    He spent all his on drugs before the price took off though. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    • Saledovil@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      The problem with statements like “If you invested in Bitcoin back in 2009 you’d be rich now” is that you’d have to be clairvoyant to actually know that back then. And if you’re clairvoyant, the lottery offers a better return on investment than bitcoin.

      • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        In fact saying stuff like this is literally like seeing the winning lottery numbers on the telly and thinking, if only I played those numbers two days ago.

      • LibreHans@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Hm wat? It’s obvious that something useful and scarce will always go up against money a central bank can create out of thin air.

          • LibreHans@lemmy.world
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            16 hours ago

            You mean bitcoin is not useful to you, it is very useful to lots of people. How is its scarcity debatable?

            • Saledovil@sh.itjust.works
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              12 hours ago

              Not useful to law abiding citizens, exactly. There’s plenty of people who are not law abiding citizens.

              The scarcity is debatable because of forks. When a coin forks, then people need to settle which of the forks is the legitimate coin, and which one is the fork. There are several institutions and people who have influence over this discussion: Miners (They decide which fork to mine on), Exchanges (They decide who gets the old name and ticker symbol), platform landlords (they have significant ability to steer discourse), media (see previous). If enough of those came together, and decided that there should be 21 trillion bitcoin instead of 21 million, then there will soon be 21 trillion bitcoin.

              While my example is far fetched, crypto currencies being forked to subvert their rules has already happened. For example, the ethereum/ethereum classic fork. The Ethereum blockchain got forked to roll back the hack of the DAO. Nothing the Hackers did violated Ethereum’s protocol, meaning that technically, they did nothing wrong. An example of a political decision which is harmful to the long term utility of the crypto currency would be the Bitcoin/Bitcoin cash fork. Bitcoin has a block size limit, which leads to a transaction limit of 7 transactions per second. This limit absolutely ruins Bitcoin’s potential utility, because even relatively small economies would be utterly choked with a 7 transaction limit. Still, miners profit from a tight transaction limit, and other institutions aren’t bothered by it, so they decided that the fork with the transaction limit was the legitimate one.

              In conclusion, the 21 million bitcoin limit will remain as long as it is useful to the influential figures in the bitcoin ecosystem. See above for a rough listing of who those people are.

              • LibreHans@lemmy.world
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                7 hours ago

                Not useful to law abiding citizens, exactly.

                Are the senators and state legislators who advocate for bitcoin strategic reserves all criminals? You don’t know what you’re talking about.

                The scarcity is debatable because of forks.

                A fork will never be considered bitcoin by my bitcoin node, and nobody who runs a bitcoin node is incentivized to increase the limit on bitcoin as it would only devalue their bitcoin. Again, you don’t seem to understand even basic concepts about bitcoin.

                which leads to a transaction limit of 7 transactions per second

                Oh my, you’re stuck in a narrative from 2017. Again, you don’t know anything about bitcoin or the lightning network.

                • Saledovil@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 hours ago

                  Are the senators and state legislators who advocate for bitcoin strategic reserves all criminals? You don’t know what you’re talking about.

                  They’re trying to dump their bags on the US government. Is it illegal? Sadly no. Should it be? Yes.

                  A fork will never be considered bitcoin by my bitcoin node,

                  Your opinion won’t matter. You don’t own an exchange, you aren’t a major bitcoin miner, and you’re not a platform landlord or newspaper editor.

                  and nobody who runs a bitcoin node is incentivized to increase the limit on bitcoin as it would only devalue their bitcoin. Again, you don’t seem to understand even basic concepts about bitcoin.

                  The people I mentioned above don’t want Bitcoin, they want actual money. If devaluing Bitcoin will let them get more money, they’ll do it in a heartbeat.

                  Oh my, you’re stuck in a narrative from 2017. Again, you don’t know anything about bitcoin or the lightning network.

                  To make an analogy for the lightning network, imagine each time you made a credit card payment, you have a to roll a die, and only if it comes up as a six, your payment goes through.

                  • LibreHans@lemmy.world
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                    2 hours ago

                    They’re trying to dump their bags on the US government. Is it illegal? Sadly no. Should it be? Yes.

                    If they are dumping their bags now, which SHOULD make them criminals, what were they when they bought those bags? You make zero sense.

                    Your opinion won’t matter. You don’t own an exchange, you aren’t a major bitcoin miner, and you’re not a platform landlord or newspaper editor.

                    Again you show zero understanding or knowledge of bitcoin. Node runners showed miners who is in control in 2017, and they will happily do so again.

                    To make an analogy for the lightning network, imagine each time you made a credit card payment, you have a to roll a die, and only if it comes up as a six, your payment goes through.

                    That’s cute, previously you pretended that only onchain exists, and now you’re a lightning expert, an expert who is unable to run a well connected node. Okay.