Is Big Crypto about ready to throw Bitcoin under the bus?

[Anti-Neocon]

Specifically, either globalist leftists themselves or who feel their best chance of extending their vastly profitable enterprise into the future is to meet the demands of those globalist leftists.

The key here is proof-of-work vs proof-of-stake. With Ethereum set to move to proof-of-stake at some point, many seem more than satisfied to see Bitcoin/other proof-of-work crypto blockchains fade into irrelevancy.

See:Bitcoin has no future as a payments network, says FTX chief

Regardless of personal feelings, I don't think this is going to end well for Bitcoin holders, with Ethereum potentially surpassing it in market value by the end of the year or early next year.

[ClaytonB]

Specifically, either globalist leftists themselves or who feel their best chance of extending their vastly profitable enterprise into the future is to meet the demands of those globalist leftists.

The key here is proof-of-work vs proof-of-stake. With Ethereum set to move to proof-of-stake at some point, many seem more than satisfied to see Bitcoin/other proof-of-work crypto blockchains fade into irrelevancy.

See:Bitcoin has no future as a payments network, says FTX chief

Regardless of personal feelings, I don't think this is going to end well for Bitcoin holders, with Ethereum potentially surpassing it in market value by the end of the year or early next year.

The proof-of-stake systems are riding parasitically on Bitcoin. Proof-of-work isn't about the ledger entries themselves (which can be thought of like any other database)... it's about the entire network stack. PoW acts like a secure, distributed lottery for the transaction fees and mining reward (payout) and this lottery abstracts away all the detailed considerations of how to secure the network down to a single criterion: the competition to dial a winning combination and add a block to the blockchain (and garner the payout.) One way that the Bitcoin network has been described: it is the world's most powerful spam-filter. In a world of endless digital spam/noise/hacks/scams/etc., having a supremely powerful spam-filter is valuable in its own right. It clears away all the BS noise and lays open a clear, single-source record of a monetary ledger that can be read and written by anyone (following the rules of the network protocol, of course.) As of 2022, the only known way to do that without a central trusted source on a distributed, peer-to-peer network... is proof-of-work.

Don't count Bitcoin out yet.

[Anti-Neocon]

Well there goes FTX... and now we're going to be seeing more regulation and with Dems running a lot of things still we're probably going to be seeing a preference for the more eco-friendly Ethereum.

[vita3]

Well there goes FTX... and now we're going to be seeing more regulation and with Dems running a lot of things still we're probably going to be seeing a preference for the more eco-friendly Ethereum.

Is Ethereum really eco-friendly? Or is that more repeated/ BS?

[ClaytonB]

Is Ethereum really eco-friendly? Or is that more repeated/ BS?

Ethereum doesn't need to use mining in order to operate. My (possibly flawed) understanding is that Ethereum does have a mining fallback mechanism. But the trouble with Ethereum is that it's way too complicated. I have no doubt that Vitalik Buterin has worked out all the corner-cases in the Ethereum protocol but it's a situation where he may be the only person who truly understands how it all works. For some weird reason I can't explain, I don't think that Buterin is a scammer... I'd trust him ahead of many people out there on the public stage. But the fact is that, practically speaking, Ethereum requires me to trust Buterin; Bitcoin does not require me to trust anyone as long as I can understand the moderately complex, but manageable, Bitcoin protocol. Ethereum may not use mining, but it has exchanged away mining for an enormous amount of protocol-complexity, way more than I can manage and I am well above the population-average in terms of technical/mathematical competency.

[vita3]

Trust Vitalik?

Umm no.

[Anti-Neocon]

Is Ethereum really eco-friendly? Or is that more repeated/ BS?

interesting question.

As with any question involving the environment I think it's important to first-off say that I believe the first and foremost purpose of a pro-liberty outlook is to promote policy that maximizes liberty. This I believe can be a bigger conundrum than many may make it out to be, if you can acknowledge that individual actions can end up infringing on other individuals, on a spread-out global scale. For instance, air pollution can spread quite a distance and I don't believe it's fair for people to spew out harmful crap that infringes on other people's property. Also things like emissions (byproduct of energy production) and deforestation do have a global impact (I won't use the scary word here).

The question about maximizing liberty then becomes tricky, however this is a policy question, not a truth question, and it is important to make that distinction. The truth is that, yes, energy consumption DOES harm the environment. It's also important to make the distinction between what libertarian-friendly optimal policy would be, and what actual policy will likely be. The former is what we should be advocating for, but the latter is what we should be investing in if our goal is to make money. Given the current balance of power in the world both domestically and internationally, it is a good prediction that Etheruem WILL be favored over Bitcoin due to its scrapping of energy consumption through eliminating the mining process.

I think the point that @ClaytonB brought up is interestinig. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum generally operate off off-chain governance which is more of a centralized committee determining the future of the project. More modern cryptocurrencies are more truly decentralized in all aspects, although one could probably make the argument that Etheruem DOES have more of a framework to expand to a higher level of on-chain governance (where the stakeholders decide, rather than a centralized committee). However this democratic method of decision-making can lead to "50% + 1" attacks where a malicious actor takes a controlling stake in the project and then does what they want with it rather than what is necessarily best. Ethereum, luckily, has such a large market cap, making it resistant to such attacks. Given that neither method of governance is flawless, it's important to consider what you personally feel more comfortable with and I don't personally see any reason to trust the Bitcoin folks more than Vitalik and the Ethereum folks. I think the fact that Vitalik is such a public meme makes decisionmaking appear more centralized but I'm skeptical that it truly is and I think he is fairly good with being open about his reasoning.

tl;dr: I don't think you're ever really going to escape the question of trustworthiness and if you really want something that circumvents these concerns, buy metals. I also would suggest investing in only Ethereum if you are to invest in crypto, due to its established nature and the likelihood of future regulatory frameworks to favor their proof-of-stake mechanism. This is not an endorsement of the mechanism, just saying where I would rather my money.

[ClaytonB]

it is a good prediction that Etheruem WILL be favored over Bitcoin due to its scrapping of energy consumption through eliminating the mining process.

Naw. The same crew of globalist oompa-loompas that brought you the "Global Warming" and "carbon credits" scam are the ones pumping this narrative that "Bitcoin is not energy-sustainable!"

Bitcoin exists because of the Fed and the globalist takeover of the banking industry. It might even have come into being without that impetus, but it's far and away the primary driving impetus. The amount of resources that people are willing to divert to maintaining the Bitcoin ledger shows just how much real demand there is for an alternative to the globalist's funny-money banking con-game. There is nothing inherently unsustainable in Bitcoin itself. It's the globalist counterfeiters who are driving the demand for any alternative into the stratosphere.

I think the point that @ClaytonB brought up is interestinig. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum generally operate off off-chain governance which is more of a centralized committee determining the future of the project.

Not what I said, and also incorrect. While the Bitcoin core client developers and others working on developing the Bitcoin protocol have a lot of influence in that community, they are a far cry from a "centralized committee" and do not "determine the future of the project". The nodes are run by people like you and me and it is the nodes -- not miners, not Bitcoin-client developers -- who have the final say in what Bitcoin is. The upgrade from non-segwit to segwit blocks, for example, took several years. I'm not sure if it's 100% yet. This slow transition shows just how conservative the Bitcoin network really is -- even relatively minor changes with big performance benefits are integrated only very slowly as network participants upgrade their clients and transition their configuration settings to the updated protocol. Nobody can put a gun to their head and force them to move. If they so choose, they can just refuse to budge off the current protocol and it would become un-changeable. It's up to the nodes, and the nodes are just regular people. Even the miners cannot shift the network. The miners determine the next block in the blockchain within the current protocol, but it is the nodes who hold the "voting-power" of determining what the Bitcoin protocol will be. And numbers don't matter, either. You can swamp the network with nodes and run non-compatible protocol on them, but then you're just another Bitcoin Cash... you cannot change the protocol being run on the core nodes. They just go on doing business as they were, and ignore you.

I think the fact that Vitalik is such a public meme makes decisionmaking appear more centralized but I'm skeptical that it truly is and I think he is fairly good with being open about his reasoning.

Yeah, I have no issues with Vitalik in terms of making sure the protocol is open and well-documented. There is no doubt that Ethereum is transparent. But it's a little bit like publishing the plans of the Saturn V rocket... sure, all the information is there but good luck understanding it if you're not a rocket-scientist. This is how non-techies tend to feel about all crypto, including Bitcoin, but if you think Bitcoin is difficult to understand, Ethereum is easily an order of magnitude more difficult. Part of Bitcoin's strength is how ridiculously dumb the protocol is. Instead of building in complex decision-making protocol features, it just uses mining.

tl;dr: I don't think you're ever really going to escape the question of trustworthiness and if you really want something that circumvents these concerns, buy metals.

Agreed. I don't think anyone should be owning Bitcoin instead of gold.

I also would suggest investing in only Ethereum if you are to invest in crypto, due to its established nature and the likelihood of future regulatory frameworks to favor their proof-of-stake mechanism. This is not an endorsement of the mechanism, just saying where I would rather my money.

Naw. Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum are the three cryptos I recommend to anyone without blinking. Bitcoin is the OG, and it's going to remain the OG. Ethereum has adoption in areas where Bitcoin use may be more difficult (Russian economic sphere). It can do some things that Bitcoin can't. Both of those facts are interesting and important but Bitcoin isn't going anywhere.

[vita3]

Peter Schiff on FTX Fraud & Cryptocurrencies. worth the listen

[dannno]

I also would suggest investing in only Ethereum if you are to invest in crypto, due to its established nature and the likelihood of future regulatory frameworks to favor their proof-of-stake mechanism. This is not an endorsement of the mechanism, just saying where I would rather my money.

Great thread, you really nailed it, but not sure I agree with you here.

Leftists love ethereum and we all know how smart people on the left are when it comes to economics. I own it, but I don't fully trust it.

Libertarians always like alternatives and competition so we will always support ethereum in that regard. I agree that it may succeed more in the short term due to government regulatory frameworks. However, the whole point of bitcoin is to revolutionize money and $#@! over the government regulatory frameworks.

I have both, but the majority is in BTC. I always recommend people diversify in crypto, because we just don't know what's going to happen. I know a leftist dude who refuses to buy btc, he is sinking hundreds of thousands of dollars into ETH. The thing is, he wouldn't have to spend all that money if he listened to me from the beginning, he would already have a significant crypto investment and could go out and buy a house instead... Dude lost about $10k in bitconnect. These people are prone to scams.

Ethereum has adoption in areas where Bitcoin use may be more difficult (Russian economic sphere). It can do some things that Bitcoin can't. Both of those facts are interesting and important but Bitcoin isn't going anywhere.

I'm not aware of anything you can do with ETH that you can't do with bitcoin.

You can do smart contracts with bitcoin:

https://www.rsk.co/

https://www.stacks.co/

[ClaytonB]

I own it, but I don't fully trust it.

Ding ding ding! This man gets it!

However, the whole point of bitcoin is to revolutionize money and $#@! over the government regulatory frameworks.

These people are prone to scams.

Slam-dunk. Nailed it.

I'm not aware of anything you can do with ETH that you can't do with bitcoin.

You can do smart contracts with bitcoin:

On-chain, Bitcoin has an enumerated set of functions which can be performed, and it is very limited. This is a feature, not a bug. On-chain ETH is Turing-complete (you can compute anything on ETH) but Bitcoin is not. Obviously, you can setup Bitcoin-based side-chains, layer-2 protocols, etc. that are Turing-complete, etc. but the on-chain transactions can only be used for a limited set of calculations.

PS: Note that Turing-completeness, in this realm, is undesirable because a Turing-complete protocol is undecidable, which means that it is impossible to prove that it is bug-free. Also note that "infeasible" and "impossible" are not the same. Evaporating the oceans is possible but infeasible. Proving a Turing-complete computing system to be free of bugs is impossible.