Big Barry Bitcoin on Nostr: I also got into nano in my first encounter with crypto. It has some really ...
I also got into nano in my first encounter with crypto. It has some really interesting design decisions and I have critiques but not enough to say it is shit. It was called raiblocks back then.
1. Centralised development
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the software for running a node is still lead by a single team with a roadmap. Upgrades happen and if you don't upgrade, you'll likely fall out of the network and if not, it is only because the developers choose to be backwards compatible.
I asked this in the forums when I was trying to get my head around things, and the answers were around how the goal would be to have a system robust enough that anyone could build an alternative application to run as a Nano node.
2. Edge case scenarios
What would happen if half the world shut down? Like when Australia lost internet for weeks.
A decentralised network that has been isolated into two parts doesn't know which one is the bigger of the two. So they both continue in isolation.
Then the two meet and need to reconcile their differences. Bitcoin has a natural way to do this and it is EVENTUALLY consistent. And then it is business as usual.
Nano has a solution involving an automated voting system. Once a round of voting is complete, the network agrees on a "checkpoint" so that the voting system cannot be misused and disrupt the network.
Of course, the chance of disruption is quite low. You really need someone to take advantage of the situation and double spend across the two (or more) isolated networks for there to be the need for voting, but it isn't a perfect solution.
Let's say we split the network into 4 and then double spend across all of them.
Now we join them in pairs so 4 isolated networks become 2. They consolidate and resolve their respective double spends. Now we finally join the whole network. There is a double spend, but now each respective network is going to be stubborn: "I went through voting, we came to this conclusion, don't waste my time"
The two networks are isolated. There would need to be some sort of intervention to resolve this.
Bitcoin's fork and resolve methodology can be disruptive, but it always resolves. It's quite elegant.
3. Scarcity
Nano is scarce in that it was 100% premined and then issued in the most fair way it believed it could have been issued. There is no mechanism to make more tokens AFAIK.
But crypto as a whole is a never ending story and if we want any of them to have value, and if we want scarcity to be part of that value, then we need to pick one IMO.
So the question becomes: out of bitcoin and nano, which is better, is either of them unsustainable in the long term, which will win the race.
I just don't think nano is in the ring of public perception, let alone competing with bitcoin.
There was an Exchange hack (bitgrail) and controversy over whether it was a bug in the tech or in the Exchange's code. I think it was the exchanges fault. But everyone was boasting how this was Nano's mtgox moment. A lot of hopium, but not much result in the market.
It is hard to be magnitudes better than bitcoin to stand out in the market. Nano isn't magnitudes better, it is cool, but really it will shine only when bitcoin fails.
4. Toxic community
The nano community is very much like the bitcoin community, very friendly and welcoming, but toxic to anyone with criticism. When I was trying to make my own decisions, I obviously asked uncomfortable questions and actually I didn't get abused or anything, but people were defensive.
However, where the nano community is most toxic is with respect to bitcoin. They lap up the most stupid things. Bitcoin is bad for the environment, bitcoin will boil the oceans, bitcoin is slow. They don't apply critical thinking because they want to use these criticisms to "win" arguments.
Again, I think Nano's success is tied to believing that bitcoin has or will fail. So it is natural to expect the community to be stuck in that bubble.
This was a big put off for me. I was being critical about bitcoin too, but it's price movements motivated me to keep digging and I ended up finding a lot of gigi's stuff about proof of work vs proof of stake and variants to resonate with me.
I learned about nuance. Nuance is very important. There is a reason why bitcoin is slow and it isn't gonna get faster. Don't just stop at "it is slow", ask why it is slow and what benefits does it offer beyond its drawbacks.
5. Price
Of course price was a big factor. Anyone who says otherwise is just lying. It doesn't have to be the only factor, but it is a big factor.
Nano was the new kid, and it was small. It had a lot of answers to a lot of tough questions and no doubt it is a pretty impressive and well thought out design.
I especially liked the "transactions limited to the size of a TCP packet" limitation.
But it had spikes and then crashed, it really isn't picking up. It just isn't competing in the market and I don't think it will. I can like the tech and also think it is a losing tech at the same time.
6. Measure
One last thing I will mention is that Bitcoin's proof of work gives it a measure of success. We have the difficulty target and a hash rate. Because of this, we can get a number and know that bitcoin is on top.
Nano doesn't really have a way to measure how secure it is. So if another nano came about, which is the better one?
In a competition for the best money, we need these measures. Without it, the only measure we have is "how many people around me use this money?". I think all cryptos are still in the adoption phase, so if people only buy it if they think others will accept it and people only accept it if they think others want to spend it, crypto is going no where. In the sea of all this mess, we need measures to have a chance at finding a winner without the market.
Money is not a free market. We have legal tender laws, propaganda, taxes, all these things that are unfairly giving all cryptos a handicap.
Anyway. A lot of things here, mostly how I came to realise I should back one horse and that horse is bitcoin.
I dont have real deal breaker points to prove that nano is dogshit. But I have my reasons for not paying it anymore of my attention.
1. Centralised development
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the software for running a node is still lead by a single team with a roadmap. Upgrades happen and if you don't upgrade, you'll likely fall out of the network and if not, it is only because the developers choose to be backwards compatible.
I asked this in the forums when I was trying to get my head around things, and the answers were around how the goal would be to have a system robust enough that anyone could build an alternative application to run as a Nano node.
2. Edge case scenarios
What would happen if half the world shut down? Like when Australia lost internet for weeks.
A decentralised network that has been isolated into two parts doesn't know which one is the bigger of the two. So they both continue in isolation.
Then the two meet and need to reconcile their differences. Bitcoin has a natural way to do this and it is EVENTUALLY consistent. And then it is business as usual.
Nano has a solution involving an automated voting system. Once a round of voting is complete, the network agrees on a "checkpoint" so that the voting system cannot be misused and disrupt the network.
Of course, the chance of disruption is quite low. You really need someone to take advantage of the situation and double spend across the two (or more) isolated networks for there to be the need for voting, but it isn't a perfect solution.
Let's say we split the network into 4 and then double spend across all of them.
Now we join them in pairs so 4 isolated networks become 2. They consolidate and resolve their respective double spends. Now we finally join the whole network. There is a double spend, but now each respective network is going to be stubborn: "I went through voting, we came to this conclusion, don't waste my time"
The two networks are isolated. There would need to be some sort of intervention to resolve this.
Bitcoin's fork and resolve methodology can be disruptive, but it always resolves. It's quite elegant.
3. Scarcity
Nano is scarce in that it was 100% premined and then issued in the most fair way it believed it could have been issued. There is no mechanism to make more tokens AFAIK.
But crypto as a whole is a never ending story and if we want any of them to have value, and if we want scarcity to be part of that value, then we need to pick one IMO.
So the question becomes: out of bitcoin and nano, which is better, is either of them unsustainable in the long term, which will win the race.
I just don't think nano is in the ring of public perception, let alone competing with bitcoin.
There was an Exchange hack (bitgrail) and controversy over whether it was a bug in the tech or in the Exchange's code. I think it was the exchanges fault. But everyone was boasting how this was Nano's mtgox moment. A lot of hopium, but not much result in the market.
It is hard to be magnitudes better than bitcoin to stand out in the market. Nano isn't magnitudes better, it is cool, but really it will shine only when bitcoin fails.
4. Toxic community
The nano community is very much like the bitcoin community, very friendly and welcoming, but toxic to anyone with criticism. When I was trying to make my own decisions, I obviously asked uncomfortable questions and actually I didn't get abused or anything, but people were defensive.
However, where the nano community is most toxic is with respect to bitcoin. They lap up the most stupid things. Bitcoin is bad for the environment, bitcoin will boil the oceans, bitcoin is slow. They don't apply critical thinking because they want to use these criticisms to "win" arguments.
Again, I think Nano's success is tied to believing that bitcoin has or will fail. So it is natural to expect the community to be stuck in that bubble.
This was a big put off for me. I was being critical about bitcoin too, but it's price movements motivated me to keep digging and I ended up finding a lot of gigi's stuff about proof of work vs proof of stake and variants to resonate with me.
I learned about nuance. Nuance is very important. There is a reason why bitcoin is slow and it isn't gonna get faster. Don't just stop at "it is slow", ask why it is slow and what benefits does it offer beyond its drawbacks.
5. Price
Of course price was a big factor. Anyone who says otherwise is just lying. It doesn't have to be the only factor, but it is a big factor.
Nano was the new kid, and it was small. It had a lot of answers to a lot of tough questions and no doubt it is a pretty impressive and well thought out design.
I especially liked the "transactions limited to the size of a TCP packet" limitation.
But it had spikes and then crashed, it really isn't picking up. It just isn't competing in the market and I don't think it will. I can like the tech and also think it is a losing tech at the same time.
6. Measure
One last thing I will mention is that Bitcoin's proof of work gives it a measure of success. We have the difficulty target and a hash rate. Because of this, we can get a number and know that bitcoin is on top.
Nano doesn't really have a way to measure how secure it is. So if another nano came about, which is the better one?
In a competition for the best money, we need these measures. Without it, the only measure we have is "how many people around me use this money?". I think all cryptos are still in the adoption phase, so if people only buy it if they think others will accept it and people only accept it if they think others want to spend it, crypto is going no where. In the sea of all this mess, we need measures to have a chance at finding a winner without the market.
Money is not a free market. We have legal tender laws, propaganda, taxes, all these things that are unfairly giving all cryptos a handicap.
Anyway. A lot of things here, mostly how I came to realise I should back one horse and that horse is bitcoin.
I dont have real deal breaker points to prove that nano is dogshit. But I have my reasons for not paying it anymore of my attention.