gge

bc1 isn't an uncommon prefix, its a bech32 native segwit address that's been in use for years now (IIRC 1 and 3 are the other prefixes, 1 being the first and most popular and 3 being a backwards compatible segwit address, i.e. non native). Stats: https://txstats.com/dashboard/db/bech32-statistics?orgId=1

faulty key pairs being generated is a well known issue with poorly developed wallets, not with Bitcoin itself. None of the popular wallets have this issue so it doesn't undermine Bitcoin.

What are you talking about? Chainlink is used a ton, literally powers most of defi. Its used to secure 10s of billions of $.

bullish

yup

> the supposed point of crypto is to reducing the reliance on, and grifting from, companies like Coinbase

Yes, that is still the case? Decentralized exchanges like Uniswap are dominating (over $1B volumes daily) and growing very rapidly. Crypto is and always has been about decentralization.

Settlement != payment

Are you agreeing or disagreeing that it is a threat? Linux did take a ton of market share from Microsoft on the server side.

Linux is also not a good analogy IMO, because Uniswap has a lot of direct retail/consumer usage whereas Linux isnt used directly by the average person.

Nope, wont happen. https://medium.com/dragonfly-research/ethereum-is-now-unfork...

False, smart contracts have so much demand that Ethereum gas prices have skyrocketed in the past year

Whenever crypto comes up on HN all the comments are either copium, Tether, or people saying "I'm not wrong its the market thats wrong".

Amazing to see how the tech/SV mainstream completely missed out on Defi, and are now missing out on NFTs.

This comment explains HNs relationship with crypto perfectly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24310174. Good quote from @balajis: "Crypto is what comes after Silicon Valley"

> Stellar

kek

Cardano is obviously a shitcoin. This should be immediately obvious to anyone in tech

Imagine being a HN reader and shilling Cardano. Do you know anything about technology?

Why are you shilling Nano? No one uses it, and no one will ever use it.

Here is a good piece explaining why the data backing that articles arguments is BS: https://medium.com/@nic__carter/assessing-bitcoins-liquidity...

Wow, Elon got scammed to buy Bitcoin?

What does the ex-CEO and former largest single shareholder of PayPal know about digital money?

What does the world's richest man know about money?

Apparently not much.

Definitely not more than you, since you know that Bitcoin is a scam.

If you think Bitcoin has no value, why not short it? Bet on your beliefs. I think it has value, which is why I'm long.

Skin in the game > debate

> people making investments with bitcoin backed loans

There already are Bitcoin backed loans offered by both decentralized services (like Aave, Compound, Maker etc) and centralized services (like BlockFi, Celsius etc). They get real usage. Aave, Compound and Maker have $17B worth of crypto deposited in them as collateral. BlockFi has a $2.85B valuation.

This time could end up being a bubble, but it is very different for many reasons.

The first is that Bitcoin is thriving as a store of value. It hasn't seen much adoption as a payments system and is unlikely to do so in the future, but 2020 saw many notable people using adopting Bitcoin as a store of value. See MassMutual, Paul Tudor Jones, Stan Druckenmiller, Tesla, among many other examples.

The second reason is that defi protocols grew in usage by an insane amount in 2020. Decentralized exchanges like Uniswap are beating centralized exchanges in volume and lending protocols like Aave have billions deposited in them. These defi protocols are generating huge cash flows. This is real people using decentralized technologies built on blockchains like Ethereum.

Even if the 2021 bull run ends up like a bubble, 2021 will be different in that a lot of the price rises will be based on fundamentals, not pure speculation like in 2017. One thing to note though is that a Bubble is not necessarily a bad thing. In every past Bitcoin "bubble" (2011, 2014, 2017 etc) the price Bitcoin crashed to has always been higher than the price it started the run up at.

I'm late to this thread, but this is incorrect. Flash loans are used for many things other than arbitrage/attacks. 2 examples include the ability to swap collateral/debt and the ability to migrate assets between defi protocols (migrate from aave v1 to aave v2 etc). Many of Defisavers and Instadapps features are powered by flash loans.

This comment explains it perfectly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24310174

> It's a sentiment that gets expressed under most every blockchain-related submission on HN, and I wonder why.

> Maybe it's something about blockchain tech, but I have the nagging feeling that HN is just getting old and complacent. If this community had existed, in 1995, on a BBS, it probably would have found nothing but fault with the emerging web.

> I can't understand why a tech-minded person would find blockchain repulsive. It's (in the case of Ethereum) the biggest and most powerful distributed computing environment. BTC has a history of no major losses or exploits in 10y of existing in the most adversarial environment I could think of.

> HN meanwhile: let's get totally over-excited by a new ePaper reader with drawing functionality

Good quote from @balajis: "Crypto is what comes after Silicon Valley." Defi is the new frontier, which HN and the Silicon Valley mainstream are completely missing out on it.

If thats what they choose to work on, they probably weren't the best minds ;)

What are the 1-2 books that are constantly recommended here?

How high are your power costs?

If ActivityPub gains adoption, it will end up like email, where there are a few large central providers that 99% of the users use.

A crypto based protocol will be the only way to achieve true censorship resistance and decentralization.

The gmail problem refers to the centralization of email by large central providers like gmail. In theory email is a protocol that anyone you can setup on your own server, but in practice any email you send from there cant be read by anyone, because it will automatically be marked as spam by central providers like gmail/yahoo/outlook (what 99% of email users use).

Protocols like ActivityPub and email are highly susceptible to this, whereas blockchain based protocols like Bitcoin are immune to this problem.

Can I use this to search other peoples tweet history?

It looks like it has what I'm looking for, I'm downloading it now.

Hi, I’m the creator of https://bitsms.org/ a Bitcoin to SMS relay that allows you to use Bitcoin without an Internet connection. This is useful in areas with cellular infrastructure but no internet infrastructure or when using a cellular plan that doesn’t have Internet.

Bitsms doesn’t act as a wallet or store your private keys, instead you sign transactions in your own wallet and broadcast it through Bitsms.

Hi, I’m the creator of https://bitsms.org/ a Bitcoin to SMS relay that allows you to use Bitcoin without an Internet connection.

This is useful in areas with cellular infrastructure but no internet infrastructure or when using a cellular plan that doesn’t have Internet.

Bitsms doesn’t act as a wallet or a store your private keys, instead you sign transactions in your own wallet and broadcast it through Bitsms.