https://americanmind.org/salvo/free-bitcoin/

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Despite their best efforts, the Bank Secrecy Act and the KYC/AML regulations that have been created in its wake have done little to stop criminals from partaking in criminal activity, while objectively putting law-abiding citizens in harm's way and creating compliance costs that make it extremely burdensome for competition to enter the banking sector. By forcing companies to collect and store the personal information of everyone they allow to access their services, these ineffective laws and regulations have created massive data honeypots that are constantly being hacked…by criminals who use that data to impersonate people so they can engage in fraud.

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Compliance costs are high, maybe to the point of being onerous and burdensome. And institutions that falter on their trust relationship with clients should be penalized (by the market or governing body). But that institutions and its clients have an embedded trust and privacy relationship. The bitcoin network and ledger do not have the same expectation of privacy. By design any participant must make all transactions known to the entire network. I'm not certain privacy-obligated institutions can participate in such a system.

Agreed. I also don't think it will be as decentralized as advertised. I think there will be a half dozen mining companies hosting 90% of the BTC blockchain.

Many of the major BTC companies are publicly traded, and report earnings in USD.

ETA: I also think BTC's association with power costs to host the blockchain is discussed enough. BTC is heavily dependent on commodity prices of power.

The mining companies will individually be using gigawatts of electricity. 1 GW = 750,000 homes

CaptnCarl said:

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Agreed. I also don't think it will be as decentralized as advertised. I think there will be a half dozen mining companies hosting 90% of the BTC blockchain.

Many of the major BTC companies are publicly traded, and report earnings in USD.

ETA: I also think BTC's association with power costs to host the blockchain is discussed enough. BTC is heavily dependent on commodity prices of power.

The mining companies will individually be using gigawatts of electricity. 1 GW = 750,000 homes

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ERCOT will have no choice soon but to put limitations on this power usage.

CaptnCarl said:

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Agreed. I also don't think it will be as decentralized as advertised. I think there will be a half dozen mining companies hosting 90% of the BTC blockchain.

Many of the major BTC companies are publicly traded, and report earnings in USD.

ETA: I also think BTC's association with power costs to host the blockchain is discussed enough. BTC is heavily dependent on commodity prices of power.

The mining companies will individually be using gigawatts of electricity. 1 GW = 750,000 homes

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To paraphrase Jack Benny, "You'd never get away with that if Administrative Errors were here."

To a degree, ERCOT already is restricting, but that's just Texas. The utilities are too. Miners are placed into ERCOT's demand response program, which will shut the load off if ERCOT if demand exceeds supply. ERCOT can't control the price though. ERCOT's control is somewhat limited because it is an open market. They can't pick and choose who get's power. ERCOT does require a 'critical load' designation.

Must not be a great argument if it cannot be reproduced by others.

CaptnCarl said:

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Agreed. I also don't think it will be as decentralized as advertised. I think there will be a half dozen mining companies hosting 90% of the BTC blockchain.

Many of the major BTC companies are publicly traded, and report earnings in USD.

ETA: I also think BTC's association with power costs to host the blockchain is discussed enough. BTC is heavily dependent on commodity prices of power.

The mining companies will individually be using gigawatts of electricity. 1 GW = 750,000 homes

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How does that compare to someone like Bank of America's total energy usage?

I have thought about that. I doubt BOA's energy usage is anywhere near a Gigawatt.

BTC does have the advantage of all of the banks and credit unions brick and mortar locations. The amount of capital allocated to physical bank locations is extraordinary. BTC is allocating capital to the blockchain.

Which leads me to...

How will BTC/blockchain compete with banking and credit union services like mortgages, auto loans, etc? Can bitcoin compete agains the relationship aspect of lending? How will it change our daily lives? This is where I am open to learn.

There's an idea that miners will put money back into supporting/upgrading the grid or invest in electricity creation. While I agree with this premise I think that argument may fall on deaf ears in the way that 'Trophy Hunting for ivory may help elephant populations' does.

I think the longer term issue is that bitcoin network users pay a fee to the miners for their token. So the fee is simply shifted to initial purchaser of the mined token.

eta: what happens now is non-BTC holders wanting to use the bitcoin network have to pay a fee or rents to the BTC holder

ac04 said:

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bitcoin mining is also location agnostic and naturally seeks out the cheapest power. this cheap power is mostly available in areas where an excess amount of power is generated and would otherwise be wasted.

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this is assuming that energy ever creates a hash. could that energy have been used for better purposes elsewhere? there is always a trade off. tnstaafl still applies in cryptos

CaptnCarl said:

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I have thought about that. I doubt BOA's energy usage is anywhere near a Gigawatt.

BTC does have the advantage of all of the banks and credit unions brick and mortar locations. The amount of capital allocated to physical bank locations is extraordinary. BTC is allocating capital to the blockchain.

Which leads me to...

How will BTC/blockchain compete with banking and credit union services like mortgages, auto loans, etc? Can bitcoin compete agains the relationship aspect of lending? How will it change our daily lives? This is where I am open to learn.

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I wouldn't think of the Bitcoin network as competing with the financial/banking services you mentioned. It's principle objective is to facilitate the flow of money across space and time. Borderless, decentralized, 24/7 access, virtually instant and free. No other monetary transmission service offers anything close.

Financial/banking firms that offer the services you listed will still exist. "Defi" isn't going to take that over. But the Bitcoin network will be the vehicle by which funds are flowed.

Ethereum or any other sh*tcoin network claiming to put those financial/banking services on a "blockchain" has a management team that is lying in the interest of suckering people to buy their native coin. Unfortunately this will be profitable until regulators step in, but hopefully the scam is up soon.

In the next couple of months, Amazon is going to offer up a blueprint for how to plug into Lightning. Soon, the masses will understand the power that the Bitcoin network is going to yield. It will be inextricably linked to world monetary transmission. Time is running out for Western Union, Visa, Chase, etc unless they plug in. If they don't, their fixed overhead/3% fee charging business models will prevent them from being able to compete long term.

There's going to be a gigantic "a-ha" moment with Bitcoin in the near future. A moment where people realize that the power of Bitcoin is in the network. All the mainstream debates about Bitcoin today are meaningless. What's the price? Why is it so volatile? What's the utility? Is it a ponzi scheme? How much energy does it use? It's all a side show. The main event is the network power.

ac04 said:

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what do you mean by elsewhere? you can't transport energy over long distances as i mentioned later in my post. if there was an economically beneficial use of the energy locally, then it wouldn't be wasted. thus it wouldn't be cheap and wouldn't attract bitcoin miners.

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Probably should have deleted the word elsewhere, but i'll go with it and replace it with 'for other means.' miners can pull off the excess, but when demand increases and as storage becomes more prevalent will the government sanctioned utilities allow them to compete? there is a bit of NIMBYism with miners and its hard to explain what value they are providing to taxpayers who subsidize many utility companies.

Why wouldnt AMZN make its own ****coin? How about a FAANG + spotify + disney + WMT ****coin? Why would those players need to pay the fees to the BTC miners when they can do it themselves cooperatively?

tysker said:

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Why wouldnt AMZN make its own ****coin? How about a FAANG + spotify + disney + WMT ****coin? Why would those players need to pay the fees to the BTC miners when they can do it themselves cooperatively?

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You should read up on why Facebook threw in the towel on their coin endeavor. Too expensive and too many regulatory hurdles to build out an international network. And it especially makes no sense when there's a network that accomplishes everything they set out to accomplish that's virtually free to plug into.

Deluxe - great points. For the record, I do have a small position in BTC and also stock in publicly traded mining companies.

ac04 - So you are saying the hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars invested in mining equipment will soon be obsolete? How often will the equipment need to be replaced? Constantly churning in new players with the newest miners will cause major volatility.

Are you eluding to computing power continuing at an exponential rate? Maybe I am small minded, but it has to plateau eventually, right?

CaptnCarl said:

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Must not be a great argument if it cannot be reproduced by others.

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It was a joke.

I'm not going to argue with you about the merits of Bitcoin. Do your own research and draw your own conclusions. I'll post stuff I find interesting and that I think other Bitcoiners might as well.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/why-bitcoin-is-the-perfect-option

I'm very familiar. Its not unlike the reasons why banks and brokers are only involved through flow, providing liquidity, and where possible charging fees for access. There's plenty of usage cases for blockchains but how does that translate into a long term value of BTC?

tysker said:

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I'm very familiar. Its not unlike the reasons why banks and brokers are only involved through flow, providing liquidity, and where possible charging fees for access. There's plenty of usage cases for blockchains but how does that translate into a long term value of BTC?

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There's really only one use case for blockchain. It's one component of a series of checks and balances that allows Bitcoin to be fully decentralized. Most other "blockchain" applications are just marketing hype that have no long term viability.

"Blockchain "applications" require centralized management to run smoothly, scale, etc. Centralized management makes having a blockchain unnecessary, because it's nothing more than a database. Outside the confines of Bitcoin, the utility is self defeating.

https://unchained.com/blog/bitcoin-not-blockchain/

Just out of curiosity, if you are very familiar with why Facebook kicked aside its plans to initiate a coin, why did you propose AMZN do the same thing?

Its Texas Aggies, dammit said:

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https://bitcoinmagazine.com/markets/why-bitcoin-is-the-perfect-option

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this is a good article, i mentioned the convexity of the cryptos curves earlier in the thread but mainly as it relates to NFTs. BTC being long gamma with no theta certainly makes it a great long term play

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Just out of curiosity, if you are very familiar with why Facebook kicked aside its plans to initiate a coin, why did you propose AMZN do the same thing?

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Because BTC removes third-party and requires costly tokens to be accessed. It would be more financially beneficial for AMZN to step in and create its own chain for its own services and products.


edit to add, I should be better delineating between bitcoin, the network, and BTC the token.

from the Bitcoin Standard:

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Bitcoin's mechanism for establishing the authenticity and validity of the ledger is extremely complex and complicated, but it serves an explicit purpose: issuing a currency and moving value online without the need for a trusted third party."Blockchain technology," to the extent that such a thing exists, is not an efficient or cheap or fast way of transacting online. It is actually immensely inefficient and slow compared to centralized solutions. The only advantage that it offers is eliminating the need to trust in third-party intermediation.

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With all of its digital subscriptions, access points, breadth, networks and depth of knowledge provide goods and services while also acting as its own miner. Seems like a no brainer, if the regulators would allow it

tysker said:

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Just out of curiosity, if you are very familiar with why Facebook kicked aside its plans to initiate a coin, why did you propose AMZN do the same thing?

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Because BTC removes third-party and requires costly tokens to be accessed. It would be more financially beneficial for AMZN to step in and create its own chain for its own services and products.

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I think you're confusing BTC the asset with Bitcoin the network. You don't necessarily have to pay for a good/service with BTC to access the Lightning payment rails. Once I wrapped my head around that concept, everything made alot more sense.

Yep I caught that, sorry. bitcoin blockchain is changing the world. I still question how that translates into the long term value of BTC

tysker said:

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Yep I caught that, sorry. bitcoin blockchain is changing the world. I still question how that translates into the long term value of BTC

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In fairness, I occasionally think about that question too.

Play out a scenario where every good/service company in the world plugs into Bitcoin/Lightning. Does that guarantee BTC the asset will be valuable? Not necessarily.

There's something to be said for hashes needed to secure a network that's so inextricably linked to the world financial transmission system and miners will need to be compensated. But again, no guarantees.

My current thought is that the Bitcoin network's rise to prominence (combined with some regulatory clarity) will lift BTC the asset out of the shadowy fringes it sits in right now and investors will finally be able to legitimately evaluate it on the merits relative to other investment options.

Bitcoin's niche will be as a long term store of value. It's the only asset that cannot be diluted. It's easily transferable across borders. Accessible 24/7. You don't have to pay property taxes on it. It doesn't cost anything to maintain. It's the first ever true decentralized digital property. It's guaranteed to be the same in 100 years as it is today (conceptually anyway). It can be sold on an international market. Someone in Monaco has the same access to Bitcoin as someone in Texas. It's fully liquid.

Everyone will still want to hold dollars for short term living expenses. There will still be spots in an investment portfolio for stocks, bonds, real estate, but their valuations will be less inflated because alot of capital invested in those asset classes today are there simply to store value (a consequence of an economic system with materially negative risk free yields). But I see an increasing portion of long term "store of value" capital away from stocks/real estate and into BTC the asset as the network becomes legitimized (and regulators finally step in and clean up the "crypto" space).

Another day AE unjustly sits in perma

https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/cbdcs?utm_source=url

https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2022/02/24/national-vaccine-quietly-rolled-out/?sh=3920fdfb6be6

Shortly I’ll be going on with the @MayorConger of Jackson, Tennessee and State Rep. @JasonLPowell to discuss the amazing work to adopt #Bitcoin in their state.

We’ll also chat about current US legislation and adopting #Bitcoin in the USA. @WatcherGuru https://t.co/n9Bs7NwX58

— Dennis Porter (@Dennis_Porter_) February 25, 2022

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Preparations begin to cut Russia off SWIFT.

The decision to cut Russia off the international payment order system has not been officially issued yet, but the technical preparations are ongoing, according to Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

"I thank the thousands of people, including the Ukrainian diaspora, who are putting pressure on their governments to support this decision," he said. "Ukrainian diplomats dedicate this victory to all defenders of Ukraine."

It was announced on Feb. 26 that the EU countries that opposed the measure Hungary, Italy, Cyprus and Germany changed their position and supported it.

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SWIFT banning Russia sends Russia to Crypto, crypto then banned to further "sanction" Russia?

Meanwhile rollout of US Vaccine passports and then CBDC, seems oddly well-timed.

Distraction; new ridiculous legislation created in the darkness while the public remains unaware and attention deprived. Standard formula.

Angry face for solidarity.

https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3274344/0

Question for staff/mods: How is TexasRebel coming onto posting the Bitcoin troll thread and deriding Bitcoin as unicorn farts etc. any different than AE going on to threads regarding Fiat, non-bitcoin etc. and espousing the value of Bitcoin?

Brigading/trolling is brigading / trolling. Transparency/consistency goes a long way for your users.


And yes I know I've crossposted this to two other threads but I want DEMAND an answer.

Geez, as if we are supposed to believe this! If he invented Bitcoin, he would have held onto half of it.

https://news.coincu.com/69901-vitalik-buterin-claims-he-is-actually-satoshi-nakamoto-and-bitcoin-is-a-failed-experiment/

Madagascar said:

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Geez, as if we are supposed to believe this! If he invented Bitcoin, he would have held onto half of it.

https://news.coincu.com/69901-vitalik-buterin-claims-he-is-actually-satoshi-nakamoto-and-bitcoin-is-a-failed-experiment/

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Vitalik is not Satoshi. The article even says he didn't learn about Bitcoin til 2011. Click bait.

ThreatLevel: Midnight said:

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https://texags.com/forums/16/topics/3274344/0

Question for staff/mods: How is TexasRebel coming onto posting the Bitcoin troll thread and deriding Bitcoin as unicorn farts etc. any different than AE going on to threads regarding Fiat, non-bitcoin etc. and espousing the value of Bitcoin?

Brigading/trolling is brigading / trolling. Transparency/consistency goes a long way for your users.


And yes I know I've crossposted this to two other threads but I want DEMAND an answer.

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I agree completely.