142 karma · joined July 22, 2011
Interests: AI/ML, Entrepreneurship, Programming, Remote Work, Startups, Web Development, Philosophy, Investment, Fitness, Data Science
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Bundling a bunch of bad sounding things up and pretending they are interrelated is intellectually dishonest and counter productive to anyone who takes the time to read the article.
While I agree with you on this; online dating was seen as something only desperate people would do, until it was for everyone.
> The push for decentralization in cryptocurrencies is the root of most of its problems.
The push for decentralization is actually one of the properties that give cryptocurrency most of it's value. It is based on the notion having sovereign wealth and reduction in centralization creates a system that is censorship and manipulation resistant, giving the ability to lift billions of people from poverty.
> So everyone who joins early, bets that the value will not be stable, but grow exponentially over time
This is actually not true, due to Bitcoin's mathematically provably finite supply, this is a feature of the economic stock-to-flow model. With Bitcoin's halving every ~4 years, it's supply production is systematically cut in half causing supply shock. Understanding that a free market will always gravitate to the soundest money (evident over thousands of years through history), it actually makes perfect sense that adoption will grow.
> Instead we should skip the decentralization part, and have a central bank guarantee the value. This makes it stable, and stable is something we definitely need for a currency.
The key underlying problem with central banking is that the ability to inflate the money supply is too great for a government who wants to spend money it does not posses to achieve it's goals. This is evident in the economy today— just two days ago was reported the highest CPI increase in almost 3 decades. A direct result of central banking policy.
> Proof of work for Bitcoin is a colossal waste of electricity.
A vast majority of Bitcoin mining utilises "waste" energy that is over-produced by power stations for the grid. Bitcoin miners are incentivised to seek this waste energy, because it is the cheapest source of energy and maximises their profit margins. For example: Miners using by-product natural gas from oil drilling to produce mining energy which would usually be burned off in a flame stack. Miners are also seen to be geo-locating themselves close to power sources, this minimises energy lost when transporting over physical space.
In summary, the expenditure of energy on Bitcoin and PoW in general is an extremely efficient use of energy for the security and financial liberty it promises for the billions of people who are either outside of suppressed by the current financial system and monetary policies.
> There are other ways to limit supply in other cryptocurrencies, like proof of stake
Proof of stake is a great algorithm, but there is one key reason that you do not want to use it for a currency. It is a plutocratic system, meaning he/she with the largest wealth controls the entire integrity of the network. Block production, network updates, dispute resolution, monetary policy is all controlled by whoever has the largest stake in the network. You COULD say similar for Bitcoin, but the advantage of Proof of work is that your access to control is through CapEX in deploying infrastructure and competing with Bitcoin's increasing difficulty rate. Even if you manage to overcome this, the network of Bitcoin nodes can also reject your malicious blocks.
> Transactions are anonymous
This is false. Transactions on Bitcoin are completely transparent. Bitcoin is a pseudonymous system, anyone with an internet connection can see every wallet and transaction that is taking place on the network, and a mathematical proof of all transactions that have ever taken place on the network. So if tracing stolen funds is your objective— Bitcoin transactions are so visible, that any of us can prove with 100% confidence the destination of a specific transaction. Thanks to our good friend Proof-of-Work, this history is completely immutable.
> Each country should have their own digital currency, backed by that country's central bank.
CBDCs are no change from the current financial system. The one benefit we may see from a CBDC is lower transaction fees (if you are in USA) but large parts of the world don't face any transaction fees for bank transfers at the moment. Again, the issue with central bank backed currency is that savers and investors money is constantly inflated away, meaning that holding any of the currency long term is a guaranteed loss of purchasing power.
> A simple database with a transaction ledger would be fine.
This notion is extremely dangerous. You effectively introduce a single point of failure to the worlds monetary system. The feeble attempt at scaling this approach at the moment uses 4 times MORE energy than the Bitcoin network, and unlike Bitcoin it's energy expenditure scales linearly with transaction throughput.
There are many other flaws I would like to point out in this article, but I feel like my comment has gone on long enough.
This does not remove Bitcoin from the network, just because it is never spent.
> The developers/community may very well decide to change the total amount of bitcoins available in the future
Actually it's not possible. You can fork the network if you get some level of consensus from developers, miners and node runners (not to mention a community that is willing to accept their value be debased) and increase the supply, but then by definition your coin is not on the Bitcoin chain, it is on your new forked chain.
The US created 20% of all the dollars that have ever been created, ever– last year. This is infinitely more harmful than a reduction in price compared to another currency.
This idea was presented to President Bukele during a Twitter Spaces[1] session where he discussed the bill with the Bitcoin community whilst it was going through voting. Mining Bitcoin was not something he has previously considered and openly ideated on the call with the community. It seems like a fully proposed plan for how Bitcoin mining will play a part in the country's overall energy policy has likely not yet been fully formed.
I would argue that the population who can now operate and opt-out of a USD system where their money is being debased by 20%+ in the last year by a foreign government will be quite a bit better off.
Fiat currencies are exceptionally good instruments for exchange value for illicit purposes. Primarily this is because it is unknown what the total supply of fiat is (although there are reasonable models for estimation) and it's transactional history is impossible to define.
Both of these properties combined (although other factors undoubtably are at play) mean it's very easy for large amounts of fiat to exchange hands without any third parties knowing (i.e cash transactions).
This is the underlying issue that allows fiat currencies to be the best method for transacting for illicit purposes.
This is actually not true, as 1 USD does not equal a static percentage of all USD. If you look at the stock-to-flow of storing value in USD compared to Bitcoin or even Gold, it's immediately apparent that USD or central bank backed fiat currency is an exceptionally inefficient way to store value as it's being debased at alarming rates.
This is why $1000 was worth way more in 1980 than it is today.
Edit Note: I actually just re-read your comment and realised I misread. I read store value for an infinite amount of time
The underlying problem actually lies in the fiat system, not the Bitcoin one.
As for the value of 1 BTC, it's value fluctuates if you operate on a base currency which is not BTC, but that is the same for any currency exchange.
(I am suggesting currency, though I also understand that BTC may not be unanimously agreed on as a currency— but in El Salvador's case it is)
In terms of profiting from surplus electricity, Bitcoin (or cryptocurrency mining in general) is a great option as it's exceptionally simple to scale up and down in accordance with available cheap surplus. One major benefit that miners are taking advantage of is locating in close proximity to energy stations, reducing the inefficiency of transporting electrical energy over distance. This turns effectively "wasted" energy in to a solidly efficient energy store for infinite amount of time— for example: 1 BTC will always be equal to 1/21000000 of the total supply.
Not sure if any other steps will need to be taken for greater protection (for the ceramic heat shielding etc).
I'm now 22 and working for one of the top agencies in Scotland. All my friends are still in university or dead end jobs.
As long as you have passion for what you do, and keep learning new things - you'll progress faster than you believe.
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I think an online service could revolutionise the way we all read and digest news, Reddit is the first stepping stone in this revolution but I expect it to be overtaken soon by a superior service (The same way Facebook has MySpace).