The Big Gunt on Nostr: Every misunderstanding of #bitcoin can be traced back to the misapprehension that the ...
Every misunderstanding of #bitcoin can be traced back to the misapprehension that the essential functions of base-layer money are transact-ability, velocity, and privacy, rather than incorruptibility, censorship resistance, and auditability.
The #bitcoin blockchain was NOT designed to be private. In fact, a universal open ledger is the worst possible design you could think of for privacy. For privacy, physical cash is many times better than ANY blockchain-based system (Monero included - Monero, leading a digital footprint accessible to anyone, is WAY more easily traceable than physical cash), and for a blockchain-based system, privacy was always going to be a layer two + solution (ie e-cash) wherein the transaction ledger is NOT open and universally auditable.
#bitcoin was designed to be AS PRIVATE AS POSSIBLE while still being open, universally accessible, decentralized, and auditable. But that is not very private.
#bitcoin was not designed to be the currency of the Silk Road. Literally mailing cash in an envelope would have been better. The fact that it was used as such lead to a lot of this misapprehension both among government opponents of #BTC and among the early, more privacy-focused bitcoiners. But private transactions was not the problem #bitcoin or any blockchain was designed to solve; it is *orders of magnitude WORSE* than the existing tech: 💵.
The #bitcoin blockchain was NOT designed for high transaction throughput. Again, if you just sit down and back-of-the-envelope calculate the number of transactions per second of the current global economy (let alone one that is on a exponential growth trajectory and in which the volume of digital payments will likely increase by several orders of magnitude in the next few decades with a fully digital economy, AI compute etc.), blockchains per se simply cannot scale to any meaningful percentage of this.
You can add 100x capacity to #BTC and maybe it takes you from 0.00001% to 0.001%. It’s a worthless gesture. It can’t happen. You have to scale in layers. This was known from day one by anyone with the most basic of math skills. Layers offer the only way forward because keeping transactions off the main ledger is the ONLY way to scale by the 6+ orders of magnitude necessary for global economy. The blockchain was designed to be AS TRANSACT-ABLE AS POSSIBLE while maintaining robust syncing and decentralization.
There is a tradeoff here with full personal (ie holding and using your own private keys) sovereignty. #bitcoin cannot do this for everyone on earth. Not with 10x the block size. Not with 100x the block size. Not with 1000x the block size. Not without layers that make some careful and calculated trade offs between velocity and sovereignty. This is a tough pill for many to swallow, because it requires acknowledging that the way we use #BTC today is not the way it will be used by everyone forever.
Literally every ounce of FUD, from de Vries to the Big Blockers, to the Monero Bros, comes down to not understanding what base layer money *is* and what problem it solves: ie theft and incentive misalignment due to fiat debasement.
But the good news is that when you take away the money printer, governments become less powerful, and all of the other problems become less pressing. #bitcoin
The #bitcoin blockchain was NOT designed to be private. In fact, a universal open ledger is the worst possible design you could think of for privacy. For privacy, physical cash is many times better than ANY blockchain-based system (Monero included - Monero, leading a digital footprint accessible to anyone, is WAY more easily traceable than physical cash), and for a blockchain-based system, privacy was always going to be a layer two + solution (ie e-cash) wherein the transaction ledger is NOT open and universally auditable.
#bitcoin was designed to be AS PRIVATE AS POSSIBLE while still being open, universally accessible, decentralized, and auditable. But that is not very private.
#bitcoin was not designed to be the currency of the Silk Road. Literally mailing cash in an envelope would have been better. The fact that it was used as such lead to a lot of this misapprehension both among government opponents of #BTC and among the early, more privacy-focused bitcoiners. But private transactions was not the problem #bitcoin or any blockchain was designed to solve; it is *orders of magnitude WORSE* than the existing tech: 💵.
The #bitcoin blockchain was NOT designed for high transaction throughput. Again, if you just sit down and back-of-the-envelope calculate the number of transactions per second of the current global economy (let alone one that is on a exponential growth trajectory and in which the volume of digital payments will likely increase by several orders of magnitude in the next few decades with a fully digital economy, AI compute etc.), blockchains per se simply cannot scale to any meaningful percentage of this.
You can add 100x capacity to #BTC and maybe it takes you from 0.00001% to 0.001%. It’s a worthless gesture. It can’t happen. You have to scale in layers. This was known from day one by anyone with the most basic of math skills. Layers offer the only way forward because keeping transactions off the main ledger is the ONLY way to scale by the 6+ orders of magnitude necessary for global economy. The blockchain was designed to be AS TRANSACT-ABLE AS POSSIBLE while maintaining robust syncing and decentralization.
There is a tradeoff here with full personal (ie holding and using your own private keys) sovereignty. #bitcoin cannot do this for everyone on earth. Not with 10x the block size. Not with 100x the block size. Not with 1000x the block size. Not without layers that make some careful and calculated trade offs between velocity and sovereignty. This is a tough pill for many to swallow, because it requires acknowledging that the way we use #BTC today is not the way it will be used by everyone forever.
Literally every ounce of FUD, from de Vries to the Big Blockers, to the Monero Bros, comes down to not understanding what base layer money *is* and what problem it solves: ie theft and incentive misalignment due to fiat debasement.
But the good news is that when you take away the money printer, governments become less powerful, and all of the other problems become less pressing. #bitcoin