July 2023 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Ex-Vitol Trader Can't Suppress Emails In Bribery Case
by Gunnar Larson 10 Jul '23

10 Jul '23

Ex-Vitol Trader Can't Suppress Emails In Bribery Case By Ivan Moreno A former Vitol Group oil trader accused of funneling bribes to officials of state-backed Petroecuador to secure a $300 million fuel contract has lost his bid to suppress tens of thousands of emails seized by the federal government after a Brooklyn federal judge concluded investigators acted reasonably in executing the search warrant. Order attached https://www.law360.com/newyork/articles/1697248?nl_pk=00e0f28d-575b-4889-8d…

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NYC Mayor's Supporters Ran Straw Donor Scam, DA Says
by Gunnar Larson 10 Jul '23

10 Jul '23

NYC Mayor's Supporters Ran Straw Donor Scam, DA Says By Rachel Scharf Six people, including construction company managers and an accountant, were charged in Manhattan state court Friday with using straw donors to inflate public funding of Mayor Eric Adams' 2021 campaign in the hopes of obtaining city contracts once Adams took office. Indictment attached https://www.law360.com/newyork/articles/1697062?nl_pk=00e0f28d-575b-4889-8d…

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Reed Smith Hires Ex-SFO Bribery Chief Patrick Rappo
by Gunnar Larson 10 Jul '23

10 Jul '23

Reed Smith Hires Ex-SFO Bribery Chief Patrick Rappo By Richard Crump Reed Smith LLP said on Monday it has hired Patrick Rappo, a former joint head of the Serious Fraud Office's bribery and corruption team, as a partner in its global regulatory investigation and enforcement practice in London. Read full article » https://www.law360.co.uk/financial-services-uk/articles/1697240?nl_pk=4fb41…

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Credit Union Can't Stop Ex-Director's Whistleblowing Claim
by Gunnar Larson 10 Jul '23

10 Jul '23

Credit Union Can't Stop Ex-Director's Whistleblowing Claim By William Janes A tribunal has rejected a bid by a Scottish credit union to toss out a claim by a former director that it sacked him after he went to the financial watchdog to blow the whistle on alleged rule-breaking and mismanagement by its board. Read full article » https://www.law360.co.uk/financial-services-uk/articles/1696479?nl_pk=4fb41…

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[spam][crazy][spam] imaginary code resembling trained dissociation
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 09 Jul '23

09 Jul '23

sometimes when i’m trying really hard to use part of my brain i write little smidges of code similar to my brain issue. it’s honestly nice to just use my faculties in any way at all at those times. this often looks like two object classes with method names that talk about or simplistically roleplay one attacking or stopping the other. i was thinking recently of q viewpoint around that near learning and skill, and the idea that systems that adapt or pursue goals have “sweet spots” of adaptation. i could see myself as avoiding these areas of effective behavior and learning, instead engaging the ineffective ones. other parts too …. i don’t remember well … anyway i experience these things for years, and one of the things going on is my brain is always modeling optimal skill improvement by focusing on the areas that avoid this most strongly.

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[spam][crazy][anxiety][spam] imaginary proofs regarding annihilation of all life in universe was imaginary halting
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 09 Jul '23

09 Jul '23

this idea of protecting the universe from anihhilation by a human-constructed paperclip factory (i.e. runaway borg) by using the speed of light boundary to show the danger in advance has a serious problem if you can predict general universal patterns about the universe, i think you can maybe send information faster than light by assuming some of it is already there

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My new article - Georgia hasn't, and can't, certify crucial vote software update
by Douglas Lucas 09 Jul '23

09 Jul '23

Howdy Cypherpunks, Today BradBlog.com, run for two decades and counting by journalist Brad Friedman -- host of the AM/FM radio show the BradCast, syndicated across the U.S. -- published my new investigative article titled: _Exclusive: Georgia Secretary of State Has Failed to Certify Urgent, CISA-Recommended Voting Software Update_ and subtitled ... _Critics charge state laws block him from doing so, even if he wanted to..._ Here's the hyperlink direct to my article: https://bradblog.com/?p=14711 and my newly pinned tweet for it: https://twitter.com/DouglasLucas/status/1676695595774509057 I included a sentence just for grarpamp: "Following the breach, the intruders uploaded Dominion's 5.5-A software suite to a secret site on the Internet, allowing access to selected individuals and organizations who, themselves, may have further disseminated the swiped software." More precisely, it was a password-protected site; the intruders were partisan, and 'allowing access to selected' should have been 'restricting access to only selected individuals' ... more Leak Keeper behavior. Summary: In short, Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has not contracted with a certification agent (typically a VSTL or voting system test laboratory) to get a state-level examination done for Dominion Democracy Suite 5.17. Other evidence similarly shows Raffensperger isn't moving, and cannot move, on the 5.17 software version. According to Univ Michigan computer science professor J. Alex Halderman -- whose report on the matter was unsealed by a federal judge last month -- 5.17 purportedly addresses the flaws he uncovered in version 5.5-A. That older 5.5-A version is presumably what we'd find in place if we wheeled out the voting computers presently locked away in Georgia warehouses and closets and booted them up. It's the same defective version currently slated for use on Election Day 2024, since Raffensperger says he won't update till at least 2025. With how long these issues have been raised, Raffensperger is taking longer to patch than the U.S.'s whole official involvement in World War II. Given the Coffee County breach (see my previous article, also posted to this list by me) and Halderman's report, the vulnerabilities and code of 5.5-A are probably widespread by now, putting a November 2024 bullseye on the swing state's back unless Raffensperger's office switches to, say, hand-marked paper ballots tabulated by scanners checked through mandatory, robust Prof. Philip Stark-style risk-limiting audits. Some points of interest to the Cypherpunks email list in my article: A lying State Secretary spokesperson who's a higher-up at an opaque department; proprietary software (no way to really know if 5.17 actually does mend 5.5-A to any impressive degree), physical breaches leading to exact copies being uploaded to secret sites for restricted audiences seeking partisan and/or pecuniary gain (Coffee County); and many voters who typically only care about earning their I Voted stickers on Election Day -- with gale-force screeching about patriotism for a few days -- yet who ignore electoral mechanics the 36-plus other months of each presidential cycle, because, it is said, thinking too hard, caring too much, is uncool, especially when there's so much good TV lately and we work so we deserve to just be happy... Thanks, and curious for any meaningful feedback, Douglas

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Cryptocurrency: People Bitching About Transaction Fees
by grarpamp 08 Jul '23

08 Jul '23

Even though it is known that cryptocurrency networks don't necessarily have to charge fees to be viable and secure, they just started out that way and no one's bothered contemplating doing anything different since then. Bitches are right that adoption will get priced out by transaction fees. Do crypto enthusiasts really not see the ridiculousness of transaction fees? (self.Buttcoin) submitted 3 days ago by Far_Breakfast_5808 In some cases, the transaction fees are much higher than the actual amount they're planning to spend to buy something. And even the ones that are not, they are still a ridiculously high amount, like a large percentage of the planned purchase. By contrast with traditional finance, transaction fees are much smaller and reasonable. Do crypto enthusiasts really not see high transaction fees as a problem, not just for adoption but as a thing? [–]dyzo-blueIt's basically herpes... 143 points144 points145 points 3 days ago* (92 children) I think one of the fundamental issues that Butters misunderstanding comes from is that their whole lives technology has just kept getting better and cheaper. Even if you are only 30, you remember the old cellphones before smartphones — you might even remember pagers and phone booths. You remember low res CRT screens as found on the original candy-colored iMacs. You remember the move from portable CD players to iPods to streaming. You've noticed how shitty the quality is on early YouTube videos compared to today — everyone's cameras are much better now. You've been witness to all this shit improving, and you never had to lift a finger to make it happen. You just sat back and enjoyed the natural evolution of tech. So, it wasn't crazy to assume Buttcoin would similarly evolve over time, becoming faster and cheaper and easier to adopt. Over the years, the smarter Butters noticed that the tech wasn't evolving, and got off the orange bus. But most, I assume, still think high fees and slow TPS are just temporary growing pains until the tech finally matures. They can't explain why or how it will get better, but like all technologies, they assume someone else will figure it out for them — and then they will get rich! This magical thinking is reinforced by CZ et al, every time they preach to their followers: KEEP BUILDING permalink embed save report give award reply [–]consultingloveWho has time for empathy? 62 points63 points64 points 3 days ago (30 children) You underestimate how stupid buttcoiners are. It’s been over a decade of being a useless tech; at this point they literally try to justify “not evolving” as…good for Bitcoin. Verbatim quote from someone who replied to me: BTC not changing is a feature of the protocol. I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand. Think about it- if you have a constantly upgraded protocol, not only do you now have a way larger attack surface, but most importantly- the social agreement of what that protocol is does NOT FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Far_Breakfast_5808[S] 32 points33 points34 points 3 days ago (29 children) They also somehow think that transactions being non-reversible is a good thing. Imagine if banks did the same thing, they'd be regulated out of business and there would be so many angry customers complaining about charges they did not make and the like not being able to be reversed. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]MagicBez 31 points32 points33 points 3 days ago (0 children) I recently had someone tell me that they opposed the ability for credit cards to chargeback which really threw me off until it became clear that the reason they thought this is because BTC couldn't do it and therefore if must be better that way. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]kkchangisinPonzi Schemer 14 points15 points16 points 3 days ago (0 children) Don't forget the whole concept of private keys/be your own bank... I like to ask - "How many password resets/account lock outs do you think Bank of America deals with every day?" - with 68 million customers I bet it's at least in the six figure range, down to people having to go down to a branch because their situation has gotten so hopeless. Imagine what would happen if BoA just said "Sorry you forgot your password, all of your money is gone forever". permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]FardoBaggins 22 points23 points24 points 3 days ago (26 children) transactions being non-reversible this is the sad part about scam victims. they think their purchase can be reversed or something. once the scammer gets the crypto it's adios retirement money. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Far_Breakfast_5808[S] 14 points15 points16 points 3 days ago (1 child) I'm talking about crypto enthusiasts/proponents saying that non-reversibility/non-refundability is somehow a good thing. I have no idea why, especially assuming good faith and that the people involved aren't scammers. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]FardoBaggins 6 points7 points8 points 3 days ago (0 children) yes, they think it's a feature. for scammers who prey on people who don't know any better, it's really an upgrade. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill comment score below threshold-24 points-23 points-22 points 3 days ago (23 children) Maybe people will learn to not be retarded and not send their retirement money to strangers permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Shiriru00 19 points20 points21 points 3 days ago (0 children) Well, some people are especially vulnerable, especially among the elderly. Many people have some form of dementia and unless it is recognized by law, they still retain their ability to do financial transactions even if they make no sense for them. It's tough when you see one of your parents doing that, even though you can't prevent it. Some particularly despicable scammers even go through the listings of people who recently died in hospitals to call the widows, when they know they are the most vulnerable. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]atomic_cattleprod 14 points15 points16 points 3 days ago (0 children) LOL. People have been hoping this for literally decades. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]skycake10 5 points6 points7 points 3 days ago (16 children) People will not, which is why crypto will never reach mainstream use permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill comment score below threshold-8 points-7 points-6 points 3 days ago (15 children) then they can continue to use centralized services on top of a decentralized network if they want. But at least the option to self custody exists for the rest of us permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]skycake10 6 points7 points8 points 3 days ago (6 children) Centralized services on top of decentralized networks will never become popular because it doesn't make any sense and is less efficient than fully centralized. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill -5 points-4 points-3 points 3 days ago (5 children) It’s more efficient, as there is less backend to manage and services will be interoperable permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]skycake10 9 points10 points11 points 3 days ago (4 children) A blockchain system that's efficient enough to handle what you're describing won't be meaningfully recognizable as blockchain after all the necessary compromises. It just fundamentally does not work. It might be more efficient for the service running on top of the decentralized network, but in the end it all has to be paid by the end user somehow. permalink embed save parent report give award reply continue this thread [–]FardoBaggins 5 points6 points7 points 3 days ago (4 children) your self custody crypto toy hobbies are enabling and upgrading scammers' tools who prey on vulnerable demographics, as well as consuming resources so you can make a number on a screen change. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill -2 points-1 points0 points 3 days ago (3 children) People will find ways to scam, you’re acting as scams didn’t exist before bitcoin. At least bitcoin fixes the biggest scam of them all: The fiat monetary system permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]FardoBaggins 7 points8 points9 points 3 days ago (2 children) I didn't say scams didn't exist, i said it's an upgrade for scammers (not to mention illicit trade). fiat monetary system yes, the whole world is being scammed by this 🙄 permalink embed save parent report give award reply continue this thread [–]mistahspecs 0 points1 point2 points 2 days ago (2 children) You should not be commenting on people's intelligence lmao permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill -1 points0 points1 point 2 days ago* (1 child) I’m not commenting on anyone’s intelligence. Majority of people will be using custodial services on top of decentralized systems in 10 years time. The people that want to self custody will do that. Meanwhile retards like you will have fun staying poor. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]mistahspecs 0 points1 point2 points 2 days ago (0 children) Okay buddy haha Nobody who is successful and confident in their decisions talks like you do 🤙🤙 permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]BirthdayCookie 3 points4 points5 points 3 days ago (1 child) Of course when you eventually Fuck up and get scammed it won't be because you're "retarded." It'll be their fault because you're a special case and only then should rules actually apply. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill 0 points1 point2 points 2 days ago (0 children) not really, i’ve also been scammed in the past and it was me being retarded. You learn from it and you are more careful from then on. Such is life. But the levels of retardation needed to lose your entire retirement on a scam are quite high. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]FardoBaggins 2 points3 points4 points 3 days ago (0 children) it's a fool me once situation. and they capitalize on it. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Coppermoore 2 points3 points4 points 3 days ago (0 children) Nah, I want my and my grandma's money money safe, ubiquitous and idiot-proof. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]sailor_sega_saturn 23 points24 points25 points 3 days ago (11 children) They assume someone else will figure it out and that they'll all be millionaires despite not having any ownership in anything. What happens if someone makes it fast and awesome and says "Sorry kiddos, different protocol, you gotta buy your tokens fresh"? Most butters don't even consider this. Those that do come up with bizarre rationale for a first movers principle. As if it's mathematically impossible for any non-bitcoin cryptocurrency to usurp bitcoin. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]89HopperPonzi Schemer 16 points17 points18 points 3 days ago (0 children) Those that do come up with bizarre rationale for a first movers principle. As if it's mathematically impossible for any non-bitcoin cryptocurrency to usurp bitcoin. What are you talking about? The original is always the best, don't make me drive my Benz Patent-Motorwagen to the airport to get in Wright Flyer II (let's be honest, the first one was not great) and shoot you with my hand culverin! permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]NotSoButFarOtherwise 1 point2 points3 points 2 days ago (0 children) What happens if someone makes it fast and awesome and says "Sorry kiddos, different protocol, you gotta buy your tokens fresh I mean, the whole shitcoin circus thing should have been a red flag about this. If it's really about Bitcoin as a technology, anyone else can make a duplicate or knockoff. The reason the knockoffs never get as big is that the whole thing isn't about technology, it's about rent-seeking. And rent-seeking is bad in general, but especially bad for something that people are actually supposed to use. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Admirable-Rip-5892Ponzi Schemer comment score below threshold-13 points-12 points-11 points 3 days ago (8 children) With lightning it's basically build on top of BTC so no fresh tokens. BTC for long term storing, BTC lightning for normal transactions. Close to no transaction fees with lightning (about 0,0002 USD) permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]belavv 5 points6 points7 points 3 days ago (6 children) How long will it take for everyone in the world to open a channel so that we can all use the lightning network? permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Admirable-Rip-5892Ponzi Schemer -5 points-4 points-3 points 3 days ago (5 children) Nice thank you very much for your adequate response. I'm open to a discussion with proper manners. Here is my answer. Not the whole world will open an channel at the same time. Instead I believe if BTC rises in popularity exchanges will continue to adopt the lightning network. In this case the exchange can serve literally thousands of customers while only opening one channel. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]belavv 4 points5 points6 points 3 days ago (2 children) So if the exchange is the one serving customers then those customers aren't really using real bitcoin. They are just exchanging numbers in the exchanges database. What then is the point of bitcoin and/or the lightning network? permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Admirable-Rip-5892Ponzi Schemer -1 points0 points1 point 2 days ago (1 child) The lightning network is not a database of the exchange just because the exchange opened the channel. Some exchanges are already using the lightning network to withdraw your BTC lightning. So you have full custody the moment you withdraw your Bitcoin. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Admirable-Rip-5892Ponzi Schemer 0 points1 point2 points 2 days ago (0 children) For me the point is self custody so I leave nothing on exchanges. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]stainedtopcat 1 point2 points3 points 2 days ago (1 child) I think the popularity has come and gone permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Admirable-Rip-5892Ponzi Schemer -1 points0 points1 point 2 days ago (0 children) I agree! Popularity has always come and gone. Like when popularity and ergo price crashed from 32$ to 0.01$ from 1000$ to 200 from 20 000$ to 3200$ From 68 000$ to 16 000$ and now currently 30 000$ permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]ivanoski-007I excepted the free NFT. 9 points10 points11 points 3 days ago (1 child) 12+ years later and it still hasn't matured permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Admirable-Rip-5892Ponzi Schemer -1 points0 points1 point 2 days ago (0 children) Ehm sure it's just...checks notes... Blackrock the biggest financial institution adopting Bitcoin. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]m_ninepoints 20 points21 points22 points 3 days ago (2 children) They make this same mistake with VR devices during the metaverse craze. "These headsets will get portable soon!" Err no, having worked with VR hardware a bit before (albeit more from the software side), optics don't work like that. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]james_pic 11 points12 points13 points 3 days ago (1 child) Not sure I follow. VR hardware has improved phenomenally in the last 10 years, including the optics (pancake optics in the latest generation of headsets). The VR hardware we've got today would be impossible to make with 2009 technology, whereas the bitcoin we've got today is 2009 technology. The real problem with the metaverse craze is that nobody wants it. To the extent that the metaverse is a good idea, it's already been done (VR Chat, Rec Room, Fortnite, World of Warcraft, Second Life), and the stuff that hasn't been done hasn't been done for good reason. Having a single shared metaverse sounds like a good idea, and in movies it's a cool plot device when the plucky band of rebels are jumping between worlds to flee the metaverse stormtroopers. But in reality, if you're constantly jumping between worlds it's because you're bored, and enabling this is a massively complex undertaking that you'd only be doing to cater for people who were bored. WoW and Second Life have both been going for about 2 decades, and in that time nobody had seriously proposed merging these two worlds into a shared metaverse. Aside from anything else, https://xkcd.com/1320/. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]m_ninepoints 8 points9 points10 points 3 days ago (0 children) There have been plenty of improvements, yes, and I'm completely on board with all the reasons why the metaverse is a hilarious farce. What I'm referring to is simply how the optical path length, light indices of refraction, and other physical limits still put a hard cap on how much we can realistically shrink components. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Voice_in_the_ether 5 points6 points7 points 3 days ago (0 children) Very much yes. A couple of additional observations: It seems like the majority of cyrptobros have always had technology available their entire lives - they literally cannot comprehend what it means not to have 24/7 connectivity, or not being able to access always-available computing power a la 'The Cloud'. This is most apparent in the "get $CRYPTO to be ready for the inevitable downfall of modern society" arguments. To your point about relying on 'someone else to make it work': This is evident in the abysmal quality of code we've seen thrown together, and the lack of fault-tolerance in the fundamental functions (e.g., overly-complicated and error-prone processes end-users need to follow just to perform basic functions). And this doesn't even begin to address the more foundational System Engineering and Economic issues. So much for being "I'm in it for the Tech" ... Overall, I view what's happened/happening with $CRYPTO a being similar to what happens with any radically new, "disruptive", technology: A few people time things just right, and manage to make a ton of money Some more people are able to make some level of profit A lot of people jump on the bandwagon, and don't do so well. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]midascomplex 13 points14 points15 points 3 days ago (6 children) This is an extremely good insight. Why do you think Crypto technology isn’t improving despite the incentives? permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]dyzo-blueIt's basically herpes... 39 points40 points41 points 3 days ago* (1 child) I mean, there have been improvements. Ethereum was an improvement to Bitcoin, and Ethereum POS is an improvement to Ethereum POW. Heretical as it may be to admit in these circles, Satoshi Dundee's BitcoinSV is a clear improvement to the OG Bitcoin. But, fundamentally, a blockchain database is always going to be magnitudes slower and more expensive than a centralized database. So the question from day one has been: what do you get for those extra costs? And the answer, largely, is nothing. There are almost no things you can do better on a blockchain database than on a centralized database, and yet the blockchain version will always be slower and more expensive. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Admirable-Rip-5892Ponzi Schemer comment score below threshold-7 points-6 points-5 points 3 days ago (0 children) Compare closely pow and pos eth. In one you get complete decentralized money with functioning consensus algorithm. In POS eth not even the founder (vitalik butterin) stakes Most his coins because it's basically a hot wallet and not quite safe. So you got a cryptocurrency relying on staking that doesn't even convince the founder but yeah cool you can call it an improvement. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]nacholicious🍑🪙 34 points35 points36 points 3 days ago (0 children) Because the incentives are wrong. Anyone who wants fast, safe and convenient payments are using traditional payment rails, so the bar for becoming a crypto user is that lack of fast, safe or convenient payments isn't important enough to stop using crypto. The node operators themselves also have wrong incentives, because their incentives are to maintain decentralized infrastructure for profit. Decentralized infrastructure is expensive and slow as fuck at scale, so they can justify both outrageous transaction fees as well as poor performance. Essentially, wishing for decentralized transactions that can compete with existing payment rails is like wishing for a donkey fast enough to use on the autobahn. Even the best case scenario would involve crimes against nature and technology. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]quesoandcats 24 points25 points26 points 3 days ago (0 children) What incentives? Crypto is a solution in search of a problem. It doesn’t actually do anything that can’t be done cheaper, faster, and more reliably by already existing tech. Cryptocurrency tech hasn’t evolved for the same reason that Segways never caught on, there’s no reason for it to exist permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]james_pic 6 points7 points8 points 3 days ago* (0 children) It is improving, it's just that nobody wants the improvements. Almost every problem with bitcoin has a possible solution, and for any given solution there's even an altcoin out there that implements it. And that altcoin is somewhere outside the top 100 (and falling) on CoinMarketCap, behind a few dozen dog themed meme coins and obvious pyramid schemes, because there's nobody in the crypto space who's interested using it to solve problems. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]powercow 4 points5 points6 points 3 days ago (0 children) well the transaction fees used to be pretty much nothing. and it wasnt slow as crap. and if you wanted to scan the entire blockchain on your own computer it didnt take more than a day its even more scammy and rug pully than when it all started. Im not sure these are improvements over the old days. the fact we know who actually are running the exchanges and online wallets was an improvement, ill give ya that. but not exactly ground breaking. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]posadzkaPonzi Schemer comment score below threshold-13 points-12 points-11 points 3 days ago (10 children) But most, I assume, still think high fees and slow TPS are just temporary growing pains until the tech finally matures. They can't explain why or how it will get better, but like all technologies, they assume someone else will figure it out for them When you were using Nokia 3310, did you know why or how it will get better? Did you see smartphones with touch-screens at the end of the road? Do you see how will smartphone look like in ten years? permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Far_Breakfast_5808[S] 12 points13 points14 points 3 days ago (4 children) Smartphones were just a natural evolution of phones as time went on. PDAs were already a thing for a while and it was really just a matter of time before PDAs and phones merged. Some people act as if smartphones didn't exist before the iPhone, but in fact they did. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]-Blue_Bull- 2 points3 points4 points 3 days ago (0 children) ALthough I'm not an Apple fan, I have to admit whole heartedly that the Iphone changed the world and ushered in the smart phone age. Of course, there were phones with big screens before the iphone, but the iphones keyboardless design is what changed the world. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]avdgrinten 1 point2 points3 points 3 days ago (1 child) That's underselling the impact of smart phones by quite a bit. Yes, everybody expected phones to get better over time. But we expected that phones would improve in their core functionality, i.e., making calls / managing contacts / SMS. Almost nobody expected that phones would become the primary device to consume the web (for many people) and/or that they'd replace a bunch of other devices almost entirely. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Times_New_Viking -1 points0 points1 point 3 days ago (0 children) I remember thinking Apple's iphone was going to bomb. They get broken or bent and greasy fingerprint smeared screens?! Who wants that? Then someone I knew got one and demoed it in the office with that stupid fucking beer pour app and from the way everyone ooh'd and aah'd I knew we were all fucked from then on. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]posadzkaPonzi Schemer comment score below threshold-16 points-15 points-14 points 3 days ago (0 children) So everybody knew how mobile phones will look like in ten years to the future. I assume the same is today? We know how mobile communication will look in 2033? :D permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]james_pic 3 points4 points5 points 3 days ago (3 children) No, and that's kinda the point. Engineers who worked with phones would likely have had an inkling, but for most of us we probably wouldn't have had much of a clue beyond "next year's model will probably be better", because that's how most things work in this era. And if you're not an engineer familiar with cryptocurrencies, you might assume the same would be true of bitcoin, because it's true of so much else. And your assumption would be wrong, because bitcoin can't get better without becoming something other than bitcoin. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]posadzkaPonzi Schemer comment score below threshold-6 points-5 points-4 points 3 days ago (2 children) And if you're not an engineer familiar with cryptocurrencies, you might assume the same would be true of bitcoin, because it's true of so much else. And your assumption would be wrong, because bitcoin can't get better without becoming something other than bitcoin. I am not an engineer and I do not know if bitcoin or smartphone can be improved. I assume you are a programmer and you are sure that bitcoin can't get better? permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]james_pic 4 points5 points6 points 3 days ago (0 children) I am a software developer, and I've done some blockchain work. But weirdly, the biggest thing that prevents bitcoin getting any better is really a cultural thing that manifests itself technically: the insistence that the only changes to bitcoin that are legitimate (and changes have happened - SegWit and Taproot happened this way) are soft forks. Soft forks are a source of all kinds of comedy GODL, since they mean any change is inevitably accompanied by drama. A successful soft fork is effectively a 51% attack that introduces a new form of transaction censorship, so it's always a dick swinging move, and one that brings drama whether it succeeds or fails. But they're also extremely limited in the improvements they can bring. They can't increase block size, they can't change issuance schedule, they can't change the cryptographic primitives used, they can't change the consensus mechanism, they can't introduce sharding, they can't introduce chain pruning. Basically, they can't fix any of its problems. Hard forks can change these things, but the community has decided (as we saw with Bitcoin Cash) that hard forks Aren't Bitcoin™. I find it hilarious that despite the whole "code is law, you can't argue with maths" mantra that coiners like to put out, they decide which is the real bitcoin the same way we decide who should be president: by bickering like children. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Deadpoint 1 point2 points3 points 3 days ago (0 children) Not the person you replied to, but I am a programmer who's studied the technical aspects of bitcoin. There are essentially two categories of problems with cryptocurrencies. The first category are inherent to the logical structure of the blockchain. Blockchain is always going to be orders of magnitude slower, more expensive, and less secure than a centralized solution. I can go into why that is if you want, but we can logically prove why that is the case. In theory someone could invent a completely new system that handles decentralized transactions efficiently, but that isn't improvement that's inventing something completely new, and that wouldn't solve the other category of blockchain problems... A lot of issues with blockchain are inherent to any system that is hard to regulate by design. Namely, a lot of regulations exist for very good reasons. A hypothetical efficient blockchain replacement would still be rife with fraud and abuse. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]bbbbbbbbbblah 2 points3 points4 points 3 days ago (0 children) I never had a 3310, because Nokia was already making smartphones with real apps, colour screens, internet connectivity and all the rest of it. e.g. in 2001 Nokia were making both the 3310 and this glorious beast and this lovely thing permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill comment score below threshold-19 points-18 points-17 points 3 days ago (24 children) I can send bitcoin for for a fraction of a cent using the lightning network with instant settlement. Mastercard/visa charge the business owners 2-3%. exactly how is this not an improvement? The bitcoin transaction is cheaper. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]atomic_cattleprod 26 points27 points28 points 3 days ago (12 children) That's not a Bitcoin transaction until it happens on-chain. Until the node closes and the transaction settled on-chain. it is, at best, a fancy IOU. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill comment score below threshold-18 points-17 points-16 points 3 days ago (11 children) Just like receiving a payment in your bank, because you entire bank balance is an IOU, or were you under the impression you were the owner of the funds in your bank?… Yes lightning transactions is an IOU that can be redeemed for on-chain bitcoin, but it is trustless. So no need to trust the bank to actually give you your money. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]sv_ds 15 points16 points17 points 3 days ago (3 children) So you just traded your decentralized coins to an IOU of a company, which makes your whole crypto currency totally worthless. Good job dude. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Expensive-Tap420LN shill -2 points-1 points0 points 3 days ago (2 children) it’s not an IOU of a company. It’s an IOU for onchain bitcoin run on another open source decentralized network (the lightning network) I run my own node and manage my own channels, nobody is in control over my bitcoin except for me. Seriously if you don’t understand anything about it perhaps stopt responding, you’re making a fool of yourself. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]sv_ds 12 points13 points14 points 3 days ago (1 child) Lol you even run your own node, thats great, thats gonna be really easy for the layman to do, great for adoption! Meanwhile you are getting an IOU from a company, and you are essentially using a less secure and much more easily overtaken chain to do your transactions, so what you did is just downgraded from decentralization and security to get a minimal amount of scalability that is still a fraction of the scalability of global fiat networks. Good job dude. 🤡 permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]atomic_cattleprod 17 points18 points19 points 3 days ago (6 children) LOL. Jesus Fuck this "trustless" shit from deluded lightning network morons never gets old. Thanks for the laugh dude. Keep on HODLing. Or whatever. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill comment score below threshold-9 points-8 points-7 points 3 days ago (5 children) It’s okay to admit you are too mentally challenged to come up with a actual response. Take your meds and try again in an hour. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]skycake10 8 points9 points10 points 3 days ago (4 children) The entire point of crypto is that you have full control with your private key! LN tries (and fails) to fix the transaction throughput issue by completely breaking that entire principle. That's how everything with crypto works. There are (dumb) ideological principles that make it work badly in practice, and every improvement to its functionality breaks one or several of the ideological principles that defines the point of crypto. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill -1 points0 points1 point 3 days ago (3 children) I do have full control with no private key. As nobody but me can send lightning transactions from my node, i control the keys. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]skycake10 7 points8 points9 points 3 days ago (2 children) When someone sends you Bitcoin over the Lightning Network, until you take the transaction to Layer 1 you don't control that Bitcoin. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill 0 points1 point2 points 3 days ago (1 child) I do, since it’s on my side of the channel. Seriously, if you don’t understand how the protocol works, why are you even debating about it. permalink embed save parent report give award reply continue this thread [–]FiniteStep 13 points14 points15 points 3 days ago (1 child) Lightning doesn't scale either. If everyone in the world opened and closed 1 connection each month, the bitcoin network cannot keep up with 7tx/sec permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill comment score below threshold-6 points-5 points-4 points 3 days ago (0 children) There’s already solutions in development for that. There are channel factories that can tie multiple channel opens into 1 onchain transaction, and there’s this other protocol (forgot the name) that takes all of that to another layer so realistically you wouldn’t need to touch L1 that much. So that would mean 1 onchain transaction could open/close dozens of channels permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]dyzo-blueIt's basically herpes... 9 points10 points11 points 3 days ago* (8 children) Oh. Then how much do you have to pay to convert that bitcoin into actual currency that can be spent to purchase real things or pay your rent or pay your taxes? And how do you insure that the conversion price doesn't radically fluctuate between the time you are paid Buttcoins and the time you convert it into actual usable currency? Also, who is maintaining this conversion from Buttcoin into real dollars, and how do you insure that they will always have adequate liquidity to make the conversion happen? permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Expensive-Tap420LN shill -2 points-1 points0 points 3 days ago (7 children) We’re talking about a scenario where bitcoin would be widely accepted and non of these things you mention would matter there. you’d already have bitcoin and you would not have to deal with the conversion. Or you could just look at how it works in el salvador, where you can choose to use either bitcoin or USD. And services that auto convert BTC/USD also exist outside of el salvador (Strike), and the fees are lower than the 2-3% As for fluctuation, my euros also fluctuate to the dollar, I don’t notice it on a day to day basis as much. Many smaller local currencies in poorer countries are actually more volatile than the dollar is. But yes, you may have some volatility, but on the flip side you are actually dealing with a hard asset you can save in, instead of fiat which is just created at will by central banks and is guaranteed to lose purchasing power over time. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]dyzo-blueIt's basically herpes... 13 points14 points15 points 3 days ago* (6 children) We’re talking about a scenario where bitcoin would be widely accepted and non of these things you mention would matter there. Who is talking about this fictional world that will never exist? Certainly not me. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Expensive-Tap420LN shill -2 points-1 points0 points 3 days ago (5 children) You’re aware the world today is not set in stone right? If i told you 100 years ago that in a couple of decades people would be using worthless pieces of paper to save money in and pay for goods, and they cannot even redeem those pieces of paper for gold they would call you crazy. Yet here we are. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]dyzo-blueIt's basically herpes... 12 points13 points14 points 3 days ago* (4 children) YES! You are perfectly embodying my point. Thank you! Butters are so dumb that they think because some other technologies have improved overtime, that necessarily means that their dumb-shit blockchain tech will necessarily improve over time. These people are too dumb to realize that history is full of techs that have failed. Techs that started out, and then went no where, because like Creepto, they were just inherently piss poor ideas. If I told you 50 years ago that people would pay thousands of dollars for beanie babies in 1998, but almost nothing for them 5 years later, something something... crazy. Yet here we are. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill -2 points-1 points0 points 3 days ago (3 children) I think the fact that our money since 1971 is based on literally nothing and can be created out of thin air by goverments with the press of the button is more worrysome than some people speculating on beany babies. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]tu_tu_tu 9 points10 points11 points 3 days ago* (1 child) money since 1971 is based on literally nothing You're saying like it's something bad. I don't want my income to depend on some speculative shit. And especially I don't want a deficit of money. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Expensive-Tap420LN shill -1 points0 points1 point 3 days ago* (0 children) It is something bad. The increasing wealth gap is almost entirely caused by this monetary policy. Money has been almost free for 15 years leading to the high levels of inflation we’ve seen. It allows governments to steal from the poor, as effectively that’s what happens when they print money. there’s nothing backing fiat governments can just keep spending as much as they want. Where they previously would need to issue war bonds to go to war they would need public support to make it happen, now they just print the money and do it anyway. Current moneys system is utterly fucked. So yes, it is a bad thing. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]nottobetakenesrslyA bit of a pillock 6 points7 points8 points 3 days ago* (0 children) our money since 1971 is based on literally nothing No. created out of thin air by goverments Also no. Anytime I see 1971/Nixon Shock brought up, I know the level of analysis has been shallow. Most dollars in the world are created (and destroyed) by the commercial banking system... Not governments. >From The International Monetary System'. Forty Years After Bretton Woods - Proceedings of a Conference Held in May 1984 Sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston In spite of the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, the United States was not really on a gold standard. The essence of the gold standard is that the money supply must be limited by the gold reserve. The last time that the Federal Reserve tightened monetary policy because the gold reserve ratio fell close to the legal minimum was in March 1933. Since then, whenever the gold reserve neared the legal minimum, the required reserve ratio was reduced and finally eliminated entirely. A country that loses more than half of its gold reserve, as the United States did in 1958-71, without reducing the money supply is not on the gold standard. What happened in August 1971 was the abandonment of the anomaly of dollar convertibility into gold when the United States was not on a gold standard. Just want to emphasize this. 1971 was a late political acknowledgement (a leftover anomaly/artifact to be cleaned up). The US was not on a gold standard (and arguably wasn't even before 1933). ...and now onto global monetary expansion without central bank involvement. The pressures causing some currencies persistently to strengthen, and others to weaken, in response to their differences in economic performance, were exacerbated by the unusual dependence on the dollar. For from the early sixties onward there was virtually no control over the worldwide supply and use of dollars. The "dollar shortage" of the fifties was becoming the "dollar glut" of the sixties. The "eurodollar" or "shadow banking" system arose by the 1950s. It's really just a wholesale global banking market. By the 60s, banks in the US were increasingly borrowing from offshore vs. obtaining "funding" from the Fed. Offshore funding allowed banks to bypass restrictions (like reserve requirements). It appeared impossible for the United States to maintain effective control over the supply of dollars at home and abroad simply by following the old rules of the gold standard game--i.e., by maintaining a surplus in its external current accounts. Can also be said of Fed Funds, reserve levels/QE and QT. The urgent needs for capital expansion around the world attracted the expertise of rapidly developing multinational companies, many of them based in the United States, and all of them drawing on additional dollars to finance their desired growth. Capital outflows from the United States, spurred by direct investment from within and substantial borrowings from without, began to flood the world with an apparent excess of dollar liquidity-despite the absorption of liquidity that might have been expected from the large current account surplus of the United States. Central banks abroad found themselves with what became an "overhang" of dollars in their foreign exchange reserves. There are numerous examples of Fed chairs lamenting their inability to even measure the money supply. Other countries realized long before that private sector generated USD funding had taken off. An "Overhang" in exchange reserves is a mild way to put it. One improvisation after another was attempted in order to preserve or restore confidence in the credibility of the dollar as a reliable standard of value and medium of exchange capable of assuring stability in the payments relations throughout an expanding world. A ""gold pool" among leading central banks, initiation of a "ring of swaps" between the dollar and a dozen or more other currencies, creation of U.S. dollar obligations denominated in foreign currencies, the introduction of an Interest Equalization Tax and other measures to deter capital outflows--all these were part of an effort to sustain the dollar while also building a network of closer joint involvement with other countries in maintaining currency arrangements that could serve the best interests of all. But this combination of improvisations could not cope with, and indeed may have contributed to, the enormous expansion in markets for U.S. dollars offshore, and the new networks of interbank relations that made possible the creation of additional supplies of dollars outside the United States and beyond the control of the Federal Reserve. Why do central banks hold gold? Originally, to "back" notes, but later just to appear to still be in charge of their denominations. The issuance of dollars left government control long ago. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]StolenApe 32 points33 points34 points 3 days ago (13 children) The bit I find weird is that the bros would say paying a brokerage fee to buy shares is a scam, but then proceed to spend more than that moving tokens from one wallet to another permalink embed save report give award reply [–]XinlessVice 14 points15 points16 points 3 days ago (2 children) ALOT of brokerages don't even charge that anymore, or at least ones for everyday people. I'm sure that won't be a issue for long. Transaction fess are ridiculous though. I still have some crypto mainly due too the fact the transaction fee is too high too cash out for my bank permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]DonkeyOfWallStreet 4 points5 points6 points 3 days ago (0 children) There's always a middle man fee. You have to pay your bank, visa/MasterCard and everybody in the chain a fee for moving your money. But when you buy a share you own a piece of a corporate entity. An entity hell bent on increasing profits and margins. Run by 10's of thousands of people, sometimes in every corner of the planet. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Opcn 1 point2 points3 points 3 days ago (0 children) Yeah, it's no longer a line item but they find ways to turn a profit out of it, and in the end since you're either the only one paying or the only other one getting paid it is invariably at your expense in some subtle way. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Admirable-Rip-5892Ponzi Schemer -3 points-2 points-1 points 3 days ago (9 children) It's possible to move millions in BTC with fees less then 1 $. Can you do the same with shares? permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]StolenApe 5 points6 points7 points 3 days ago (8 children) This comment just demonstrates a complete lack of understanding. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Admirable-Rip-5892Ponzi Schemer -2 points-1 points0 points 3 days ago (7 children) Because it's weird to compare brokerage fees with transaction fees. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]StolenApe 3 points4 points5 points 3 days ago (6 children) Work out whether your bullshit is a currency or an asset and get back to me permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Admirable-Rip-5892Ponzi Schemer -1 points0 points1 point 2 days ago (5 children) You want to classify it in old definitions. For me it's a currency because transfers are quite fast (10 min or instant in lightning). Problem is it doesn't fit the old definition of a currency and it's unlikely that it's gonna be changed. So for regulators it's just an Asset. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]StolenApe 1 point2 points3 points 2 days ago (4 children) Obviously you have no clue what you’re talking about. Go away and come back to me when you know what you’re dealing with and when you understand you’re actually in a sub full of people that know crypto very well and most likely better than you. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Admirable-Rip-5892Ponzi Schemer -1 points0 points1 point 2 days ago (3 children) Prove me wrong instead of complaining. I've been in crypto since 2015 and started using it as a currency on the darknet. Later as a store of value. I'm always open to learn from other people so Go on. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]StolenApe 1 point2 points3 points 2 days ago (2 children) See, you don’t even understand that I’m just calling you an idiot. Why would I listen to anyone about anything when they’re too stupid to understand they’re being called stupid permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]Admirable-Rip-5892Ponzi Schemer 0 points1 point2 points 2 days ago (1 child) Because people have called me stupid before when BTC was at 500$... and I just didn't care. I don't live in a world where you prove your point by calling other people stupid. Instead I would love to hear some real arguments. permalink embed save parent report give award reply continue this thread [–]R7F 33 points34 points35 points 3 days ago (0 children) Of course not. They see it as an investment vehicle and get rich quick scheme not a viable currency. permalink embed save report give award reply [–]Quirky-Amoeba-4141 23 points24 points25 points 3 days ago (4 children) No, because no one actually uses crypto to buy anything. They use credit cards and cash like everyone else. permalink embed save report give award reply [–]BloomEPU 5 points6 points7 points 3 days ago (0 children) hey, that's a lie. People use crypto to buy drugs and hitmen. And then you don't really worry about gas fees. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]-Blue_Bull- -3 points-2 points-1 points 3 days ago (2 children) Most crypto exchanges offer VISA debit cards that can be used anywhere just like a normal credit card. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]niddLerzK 5 points6 points7 points 3 days ago (1 child) I don't really count that as spending crypto, because you're actually "selling" crypto for USD or EUR automatically to pay via card, they just do it like that and it seems like you're spending crypto, while you're just selling. Which is a problem due to taxes as well, because you're essentially selling crypto, which if you need to pay taxes, you'd have to. Correct me if I'm wrong. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]-Blue_Bull- 0 points1 point2 points 2 days ago (0 children) You have to pay tax. With crypto, there's software that takes all of the transactions and calculates all of the tax liabilities for you ready for your end of year return. I'm not sure how it works in other countries but in the UK, there are specific crypto accountants that are used to dealing with large volumes of transactions. If you use crypto, you need an accountant. If you are just someone that invests in crypto, it's tax free until you sell. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Short_Syllabub_303 15 points16 points17 points 3 days ago (6 children) Its illogical, but if the person that buys 1 bitcoin truly thinks their $30k of bitcoin paying a $2k fee (no idea what the numbers are) will turn into $600k, $2k fee is pocket change permalink embed save report give award reply [–]Hefty-Interview4460 8 points9 points10 points 3 days ago (1 child) I dont think it s 2k USD it s more if a butter want to spend 5$ he has to pay a 1$ fee each time and wait 10 minutes. But for very large amount a 1$ fee is reasonable. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]propagandhi45 8 points9 points10 points 3 days ago (0 children) Ive moved crypto once and it the gas fee was around 65$USD permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]direktor4etowarning, I am a moron -4 points-3 points-2 points 3 days ago (3 children) LOL the fee for moving 100K USD right now would be 15 dollars. If you gonna be hating on something, at least dont be clueless about it. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Short_Syllabub_303 5 points6 points7 points 3 days ago (2 children) Got it, so to move small amounts, like actually transacting with it as it’s intended purpose makes no sense because of fees. But if you’re buying large amounts to hold until the next greater fool comes it’s still economical. Cool cool cool understand now permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]direktor4etowarning, I am a moron -5 points-4 points-3 points 3 days ago (1 child) No. You transact using lightning, layer 2 solution. Less secure, very fast and high bandwidth. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Short_Syllabub_303 4 points5 points6 points 3 days ago (0 children) Heard that is not scalable due to the need for 1 transaction to open 1 channel and 7 transactions per second still is a bottleneck, thoughts on that? permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]fucknozzle 5 points6 points7 points 3 days ago (0 children) I'd imagine it's a big part of the non-existent adoption numbers. Oh, I can pay with Bitcoin? Sounds like fun. [2.5 hours later they have set it up] So, I just order this $30 gadget. click Goto payment, yup, OK click [$40 fees added on] What? Oh fuck that. close page permalink embed save report give award reply [–]AnyPortInAHurricane 7 points8 points9 points 3 days ago (0 children) crypto in its current form is a joke. and the jokes on you , not me permalink embed save report give award reply [–]d3arleader 4 points5 points6 points 3 days ago (0 children) But it’s permissionless and trustless! I still see this touted like it’s something to be proud of. permalink embed save report give award reply [–]otherwisemilk 3 points4 points5 points 3 days ago (0 children) Any coin that requires the user to pay a fee to run and secure the network will encourage rent seeking and centralization. If the fees are too low, then they risk insecurity. Bitcoin is doomed to fail. permalink embed save report give award reply [+]sisoje_bre 2 points3 points4 points 3 days ago (0 children) Centralization to the rescue, we will just give it some fancy name like "Lightning Network" permalink embed save report give award reply [–]XinlessVice 3 points4 points5 points 3 days ago (0 children) This and taxes for crypto is what will kill it for the everyday person. That's if it ever had any use. The block chain is literally the only semi useful thing in crypto. Everything else just needs too go permalink embed save report give award reply [–]sv_ds 1 point2 points3 points 3 days ago (0 children) I just love when butters argue with the efficiency and speed of the blockchain. Literally the things that are bad by design. When they do that they already lost the argument. permalink embed save report give award reply [–]mikeydavison 1 point2 points3 points 3 days ago (0 children) Freedom has a price permalink embed save report give award reply [–]Sleepy6882 1 point2 points3 points 3 days ago (0 children) I remember wanting to cash out on some shitcoins when it was pumping. Bought 200 worth and they pumped to 1k but all the fees to actually cash out would have put me at a lose. permalink embed save report give award reply [+]slade991 1 point2 points3 points 3 days ago (0 children) It depend which crypto. Litecoin and monero for example are some of the most widely used and have close to 0$ in fees. permalink embed save report give award reply [+]officialM3DL3Ywarning, I am a moron -1 points0 points1 point 3 days ago* (0 children) I moved 5 figures at a $1 cost on the most secure network on earth using an undebaseable commodity. I didnt need anyones permission. I think that's pretty cheap. The cost of simply holding wealth in cash right now for me is 12% PA. permalink embed save report give award reply [–]Siccors -4 points-3 points-2 points 3 days ago (0 children) In the US (but plenty of other countries too as well, EU has at least some limits), I would not call the CC transaction fees reasonable. The reason you have all those cashback cards is because the transaction fees are idiotic. permalink embed save report give award reply [–]hashman2warning, I am a moron -2 points-1 points0 points 3 days ago (0 children) Median transaction fees today in USD equivalent, from bitinfocharts.com: BTC $0.77 BCH $0.001 ETH $4.38 LTC $0.007 DOGE $0.001 XMR $0.05 See also cryptofees.info permalink embed save report give award reply [+]madbirdribdamwarning, I am a moron comment score below threshold-16 points-15 points-14 points 3 days ago (2 children) That’s why I stick to monero with its $0.003 fees permalink embed save report give award reply [–]FlightOfThePigs 4 points5 points6 points 3 days ago (1 child) All jokes aside, some of these shitcoins have far more utility than Bitcoin. Bitcoin just has the largest and most delusional cult following. If people really cared about utility and fundamentals Bitcoin certainly wouldn't be the most favored chuckee-cheese token permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]madbirdribdamwarning, I am a moron -5 points-4 points-3 points 3 days ago (0 children) Warning, I am a moron. It is amazing how this sub seems to have soo much in common with bitcoin sub, lmao) Hated on both for shilling the common sense. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [+]PatchworkFlames comment score below threshold-16 points-15 points-14 points 3 days ago (8 children) Transaction fees are fixed, meaning instead of being shared, say, 2% on a purchase with credit cards or 6% with sales tax, you get charged a straight $20. This makes it much cheaper to use Crypto when buying a car or a house then a credit card. I don't know why anyone would want to use bitcoin or a credit card to buy a house; I'm not a crypto bro. permalink embed save report give award reply [–]abatoirials 16 points17 points18 points 3 days ago (2 children) Transaction fees are fixed The problem is there's percentage when you want to convert said BTC to fiat This makes it much cheaper to use Crypto when buying a car or a house then a credit card. this make this opinion completely untrue permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]ArchangelToast 8 points9 points10 points 3 days ago (1 child) You can tell this person had never bought a house. INB4 ad hominem attack comes. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]FinndBors 12 points13 points14 points 3 days ago (0 children) The transaction costs in buying a house is the taxes, finance fees, insurance, inspection and indirect payment of marketing of the property (realtor fees). Crypto doesn’t do anything to solve this. The actual movement of fiat in a house purchase isn’t the costly bit. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]harpswtf 14 points15 points16 points 3 days ago (2 children) They’re fixed in that it’s irrelevant how much you’re transferring, but they’re not fixed in that they vary wildly depending on the current traffic, which you have to check before you start your transaction. If you ask for too low of a rate, your transaction will just hang until there’s very little traffic. Essentially this means you have to do some research before you do any transaction, to check the current rates expected for it to clear in a reasonable amount of time. Oh and don’t fuck up your long decimal places on the amount or you might end up paying magnitudes more than you meant to. And don’t accidentally swap the amount to move and the transaction fee, essentially burning the entire transaction, as has been seen many times before. Sorry no refunds. It’s the future of banking though permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]ArchangelToast 5 points6 points7 points 3 days ago (1 child) Imagine if VISA network did the same and charged you more for faster transaction speeds lmao permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]harpswtf 9 points10 points11 points 3 days ago (0 children) People think choosing a tip is annoying, imagine having to choose your transaction fee at the checkout, based on a graph of expected times vs current fee rates. And then you hold up the line for 45 minutes because you tried to choose the middle tier fee instead of the top fee for speed. Also people don’t seem to realize how these affect withdrawals from exchanges, btw. Most exchanges charge a flat but large withdrawal fee, but if the actual on chain transaction fee is too high, they’ll often just leave your withdrawal pending for days until the network slows down. Of course customer support will lie about why it’s taking so long while you wait. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]Sycraft-fu 2 points3 points4 points 3 days ago (0 children) They are also fixed for wire transfers, which is what you do if you want to move serious amounts of money, like if you are buying a house. How much it costs depends on your bank, $30 in my case. That is the way, only way really, that you are moving house-level of money electronically. No title agency is accepting crypto for a house. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]sv_ds 2 points3 points4 points 3 days ago (0 children) You do know that in the rest of the world transaction fees have a limit for wire transfers. permalink embed save parent report give award reply [–]-Blue_Bull- -5 points-4 points-3 points 3 days ago (0 children) High fees are obviously bad. But some fees are ok, remember that these fees are going to real people and that's a good thing. In that tradfi world, all fees go to the bank. permalink embed save report give award reply [–]nuclearmeltdown2015 -2 points-1 points0 points 2 days ago (0 children) Transaction fees are pretty reasonable for me. I think crypto like bitcoin specifically serves as a pretty good way to store value independent of a 3rd party being able to interfere and prevent you from accessing or moving that money around. The freedom that comes from knowing your government or bank won't suddenly go rogue and freeze everything you own including your credit cards so money suddenly doesn't work for you anymore is worth a few dollars in more fees. People who think that the financial system and government is so secure might be saying this from the perspective of living in a country like the USA where the government is probably one of the most stable and established but for the other 90% of people on the planet who doesn't have the luxury of assuming they have such security with their money and want to be sure the value they earned using their own blood and labor doesn't get arbitrarily snatched by someone who did nothing to earn a cent of it. If you're talking about using bitcoin to replace transactions like a coffee at Starbucks, I don't think it will ever happen and people who expect it to are truly naive. Someday, we will probably have 3rd parties which build wrappers around the technology and try to serve as proxies to speed up the time by moving to a type of credit system, but we already see today what a shit storm that is with stuff like tether and terraluna. Once you add in the wrappers, you end up full circle and rebuilding the same wild west banking environment that was stomped out during the post-great depression period because those groups tried to do the same thing by being a proxy for gold i.e. the USD was the first attempt at bitcoin and thus many of the issues that arose are also going to arise here because they were based on human behavior and psychology which has not changed very much in 100 years because evolution do be slow like that sometimes. What I am getting at is that I think bitcoin is doing great and the technology is improving in areas that matter such as security fail safes, stability, credibility, and organizational structure that naturally undermines bad actors' ability to exploit. Speed and cost is the last thing people care about right now. Do you think the USD was established in 10 years? Or any currency? No they are long, ugly, bloody wars because they're wrestling power from people who have no desire to give it up and who will use thugs and guns to prevent anyone from walking away regardless of who is right. How about just having the freedom to walk away and not be a slave to your country where you need their permission to leave and permission to enter another? Where your country threatens hellfire if any other government tries to protect a citizen that is being abused? Why should individuals be able to hold that much power over other individuals? If you think this is fine, then that makes sense why your biggest complaint is about speed and Transaction cost because you're happy living as a dog chasing a ball in a park even though there are no dogs , it is a human throwing a ball to another human who really believes their born role in life is to be another person's dog so this is happiness. permalink embed save report give award reply [–]Accomplished-Way3411 -2 points-1 points0 points 2 days ago (0 children) Hey there! As a fellow crypto enthusiast, I totally get where you're coming from. Transaction fees can sometimes feel like they're doing a moonwalk on our hard-earned profits! But fear not, there's hope on the horizon!When it comes to transaction fees, it's important to consider a few factors. permalink embed save report give award reply [+]Dettol-tasting-menu -2 points-1 points0 points 2 days ago (0 children) I can send you $200, $20, $2, $0.20, or $0.02 over the lightning network for a fraction of a cent. I’ve been STREAMING money much like streaming video on YouTube. Wake up Buttcoiners, time to pull your head out of the sand. Things are moving faster than you realised. People have been zapping bitcoins for zero fee peer to peer on Damus, so much so that Apple has to put a halt to it because it bypasses its in-app purchase policy. And you guys on this sub still make fun of things you have clearly no clue about. permalink embed save report give award reply [+]Normal-Knowledge4857 comment score below threshold-8 points-7 points-6 points 3 days ago (0 children) Bitcoin lightning network is basically free and near instantaneous. Moving Bitcoin on the base layer can be a bit more expensive (maybe $3-5) but so is moving physical gold around. permalink embed save report give award reply [+]Mong0saurusPonzi Schemer -3 points-2 points-1 points 3 days ago (0 children) I'm paying the equivalent of a few cents for my transactions, both faster and cheaper than any bank I've used. So no, I don't really see the ridiculousness. permalink embed save report give award reply [+]AlexIsOnFire11 -3 points-2 points-1 points 3 days ago (0 children) Below are fees paid to place 3 sports bets on chain. Not ridiculously high, not a large percentage by any means. Fees fluctuate depending on what coin/chain you're using, but in day to day use these fees are insignificant. 0.000029455735167656 Ether (8 cents) 0.000037953052853869 Ether (7 cents) 0.000031817964810825 Ether (6 cents) permalink embed save report give award reply [–]Mental_Platform_5680 0 points1 point2 points 3 days ago (0 children) Buttcoiners are simply being ignorant while they hope for exit liquidity the best they could do is like 3x or 4x their money and if enough losers get caught up in the hype maybe 5-10x. permalink embed save report give award reply [–]theskepticalheretic 0 points1 point2 points 3 days ago (0 children) No, they think they are akin to bank fees. permalink embed save report give award reply [–]Heyitsguy1 0 points1 point2 points 1 day ago (0 children) Bitcoin is like today's mainframe. Fees are low today because everything happens in a batch process at the end of day and what we see is an abstraction (bank ui or visa/MasterCard) Bitcoin layer 1 transactions can be batched in the same way to avoid fees we see layer 2 solutions like lightning come out to help. I guess the idea is one day we won't be interacting with the base layer(analogous to bank mainframes) where fees are heavy but will have layer solutions that will batch and we will be abstracted away from it. permalink embed save report give award reply

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Cryptocurrency: The BTC Lightning Nodeless Scam - Dumb Saylor Maxi's and Dorsey Donkey's
by grarpamp 08 Jul '23

08 Jul '23

Sorry kids, you can't wrap shit around a turd and claim you invented gold. Bitcoin-BTC-Lightning is the worthless turd that fools and charlatans are trying to turn into gold. It simply doesn't can't and won't work. Nodeless is a GovCorp custodial intermediary to BTC-LN. Silicon Valley Crypto is not altruistic, it exists to make money, any way, and by any lie it can, period, any human benefit is secondary. As far as Human Freedom goes, it's all garbage... Govt and Banks are now all feeding the hype on Bitcoin because they know that since it is not privacy-enabled and that its low txrate and storage demands and fees and corporate dominated ASIC mining all continually forces it toward full custodial and censorship for 90% of humanity, that they can eventually control and usurp it into becoming their Devil's CBDC, now being trojaned upon the 90% with great fanfare of "Bitcoin" "laser eyes" "gainz" etc, great wealthy powers playing their extraction game as usual. Yes, you likely will make $big gainz from Bitcoin. But for so long as Bitcoin refuses to change to become a true p2p private scaleable simple cash, and for so long as no other Satoshi's stand up to create one, it eventually won't be usable as *your* Bitcoin, thus becoming useless for *your* Freedom. The best it can offer is a bizarre disheartening mashup of 1984 over Utopia. As the saying goes, "Money buys neither Love nor Freedom". And Freedom has never come from any Corporation or Governor. So quit lying to yourselves, put your Freedom hats back on, and go develop and release a simple private p2p electronic cash for the world. That's all humanity really wants, everything else comes later from that. https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2023/06/26/spains-largest-bank-… https://nodeless.io/ https://decrypt.co/146312/meet-nodeless-the-non-kyc-bitcoin-lightning-proce… https://decrypt.co/92482/bitcoin-payments-firm-opennode-closes-20m-series-a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eafzIW52Rgc Docu: WHO KILLED BITCOIN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq9bCuM0YQ8 Docu: QUIEN MATO BITCOIN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BZoKH-hX_o Why Blockstream Destroyed Bitcoin https://github.com/davidshares/Lightning-Network https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V365_59-Lc The Truth About The Lightening Network https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHFrf5ci_g How The Banks Bought Bitcoin Lightning Network https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k14EDcB-DcE What is the Lightning Network https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOZaLbUUZUs How Bitcoin Lightning Channels Work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYBOqW9SDmE Blockstream Turning Bitcoin Into Fiat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgts1qb0hLY Lightning Network Onion Routing Lack of Anonymity and Other Woes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbD0kiTddEs Big Blocks Can Scale But Will It Centralize Bitcoin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKYEQVPklLI Will Bitcoin Lightning Network Hubs Be Regulated https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGrUOLsC9cw Why The Lightning Network Does not Scale BTC Lightning Sucks, plenty more videos out there explain why that is. - All parties must be online, will not be used by sleeping antipodals - No cryptographic level of privacy - Only useful to preload (thus lockout) your funds from all other possible [priority] uses that may arise. - Only useful in a one way stream to a pre-known single recipient, such as a grocer or biller. - Bi-dir channels are made irrelevent by old school offline difference-keeping with settlement later, for less fees than all the channel and node bullshit would entail. - Fees already invalidate most small purchases, and will eventually eat up most other use cases since they all ultimately require settlement onchain. - Centralization regulatory nightmare. Bitcoin-BTC will now only be used as value store, it's fees will rise to alienate 90+% of humanity leading to paper shareholding schemes over centralized custody pools, and will, after one or two more huge waves, if left unchanged, be eventually obsoleted by a simple private p2p cash in the next 10 years. While riding the wave, seek the cash. "WHO KILLED BITCOIN?" "Just keep a tab" Lol, that's not how the real world works. BTC+LN+whatever is taking an unnecessary bet on futures, that somehow it will maintain stride for a final cutover to Freedom mode, or that a mass humanthink compromise on Freedom will be accepted before usurpation, rejection, or competition occur. None of those are likely. Whereas crypto's history to date has already shown that the raw power of millions of people with a *real* cash in hand around the globe is unstoppable. Make a simple private p2p cash now! That is what Maxi's are really describing, but are misattributing to BTC. DeFi systems, and everything else, will come to use that cash later. https://decrypt.co/146312/meet-nodeless-the-non-kyc-bitcoin-lightning-proce… Meet Nodeless, The Non-KYC Bitcoin Lightning Processor Jack Dorsey Tweeted About The platform makes it possible to accept Bitcoin Lightning payments without Know-Your-Customer requirements. Late last week, Jack Dorsey tweeted a link to Nodeless —and nothing else. Although cryptic, the mention seemed like a stamp of approval for the platform from one of Bitcoin’s most famous backers, sparking buzzy excitement as well as some debate over the merits of the Lightning payment processor. https://t.co/LZmNol22Ho — jack (@jack) June 22, 2023 What is Nodeless, exactly? In short, merchants can add the tool to their website to accept Bitcoin payments more easily. Specifically, it helps with making transactions over the Lightning Network, which offers cheaper and faster payments over Bitcoin and is widely heralded as the most likely method through which Bitcoin will go mainstream. "Our goal is to make Bitcoin a medium of exchange by making it as easy as possible for merchants to accept Bitcoin," Nodeless's pseudonymous creator UTXO told Decrypt. Still, using Lightning non-custodially—without a middleman taking control of a user’s funds—can be tricky for newer users. In some ways, Nodeless's functionality is similar to OpenNode, another Lightning-based Bitcoin payments provider. But Nodeless offers one key difference: users don't have to share identifying information to begin accepting payments using the platform. In other words, it's a non-KYC (Know Your Customer) service. ‘Nodeless’ payments Using Lightning non-custodially generally requires a user to run their own Lightning node. This can be tricky for non-technical users or users strapped for time. There are already platforms out there like Voltage or Greenlight, however, which provide a one-click solution for setting up a Lightning node, and where users don't have to maintain the node over time. But Nodeless takes a different approach. Nodeless is "nodeless" in the sense that a merchant accepting payments doesn't have to run their own Lightning node—which takes time and resources to establish and run, and eats up computational resources. There's still a node involved—a node is always involved when sending a Bitcoin or Lightning payment. But instead of a user running their own node, Nodeless's node is the one passing on the payment. When a payment is sent to the merchant, it's sent to Nodeless. Nodeless then immediately sends the payment to the merchant’s on-chain or Lightning address. "Technically we custody individual payments for several seconds while the payment is in transit. We believe this is a fair trade-off versus the complexities of running a lightning node," UTXO said. So, Nodeless is technically a custodial solution in that it holds a user's funds for a minute. But it promises to give it back very quickly. Users provide a Lightning address or cold wallet storage Bitcoin address to which Nodeless will promptly forward the user's funds. Privacy money Some Bitcoiners expressed skepticism about this model, arguing that as the company grows, KYC requirements from governments will get more stringent. Or, since Nodeless is technically a centralized solution, governments could conceivably step in and force the company to stop transactions it doesn't like. But UTXO thinks Nodeless can bypass these pressures. Nodeless operates legally in Canada, where transactions under $1,000 don't require KYC identification. In the long-term, they're looking to move to El Salvador, known for its lax measures toward Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, where UTXO said "this business is welcomed with open arms." "I also think [governments will] be more interested in the non-KYC custodians before Nodeless," UTXO said.

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Cryptocurrency: Quantum Qubits PQC - Slowly Then Suddenly, Google 70 Qubits
by grarpamp 08 Jul '23

08 Jul '23

https://www.earth.com/news/quantum-computer-can-instantly-execute-a-task-th… Google just announced a 70 qubit computer that can perform calculations almost instantly that would take current supercomputers 47 years Cryptocurrency: BTC Silent About NIST PQC And Looming Classical Break Cryptocurrency: Homomorphic / Privacy / Censorship / QSC / PQC / Quantum / AI Threat to classical crypto known and growing for many years. NIST approves PQC algorithms. Bitcoin-BTC says nothing about moving to PQC to secure users funds. Move to and use privacy enabled PQC coins. Zero Knowledge.

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