If they implement it well, Bitcoin mining can help DECREASE the nation's energy shortages.

Bitcoin > IMF for any country with a brain.

When I visited this week, there were no cashiers. All ordering was done on a kiosk. It was incredibly painless and simple to use.

Paying with Bitcoin, in a non-custodial manner, was a beautiful thing.

The problem is repetition. We remember what we repeat.

Traditional fiat payment methods would also be a pain in the ass if workers only used them twice per year.

If Bitcoin payments actually become mainstream, workers will get used to it in no time. But these little one-offs from crazy revolutionaries like us just make their lives more difficult.

Zero. I use Bitcoin as money.

If a merchant only accepts fiat, I don't need whatever is it they're selling.

Well, that opens them up for business from my perspective. Now, I'll at least give them a chance.

I refuse to do business with companies that validate alt-coins in any way, whatsoever.

I'm lookin' at you, Casa. (fucking cowards)

This is a major part of Roger Ver's argument in "Hijacking Bitcoin". It's also a major talking point by the Bitcoin-Cash community. While I'm not a "casher" and own zero BCH myself, I perk up when I see their points validated.

We are walking a fine line....

OP, is your name Dennis?

"I'm 37, I'm not old."

People are actually buying dollars???

Laughable.

I think much of the development focus has gone toward using LSPs and/or running running the node in-app. What I'm frustrated with is the lack of development going into using Zues as a way to connect to a stationary node, running on a dedicated hardware elsewhere.

I run a Start9 node, and use Zues to connect to the Lightning Terminal app on my node so I can access LND.

It works great.... except 75% of the time it just doesn't work. I constantly get connection issues.

I was on vacation in Canada this week. I used Zues to pay for beer at a brewery there, and it worked great. When I went up for a second round, I got the big red screen telling me there was a connection issue and I needed to restart. Multiple restarts did not fix the issue. I usually have to restart the Lightning Terminal app on my node to get back to a good state.

It feels like a simple connection thing. Perhaps a few extra retries or something could fix it. Probably an easy fix. But it's been like this for years. A friend of mine has the exact setup I do, and reports the same thing. It only works half the time.

At first, I figured it was just early day buggish-ness. But it's been like this for years. I cannot rely on it for payments. I have to have a backup custodial wallet such as Strike. I've been quite discouraged recently about this. I guess it's time to research some alternative setups/apps.

"The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters, had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of the colonies to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III the international bankers was the prime reason for the revolutionary war." - Benjamin Franklin's autobiography

What I don't understand is, why are there not more Bitcoiners willing to fight their governments, demanding the ability to use Bitcoin as a MoE without repercussions? Where are the patriots among us?

I never expected governments to easily give up the benefits fiat money provides them. But I did expect a stronger, more militant stance by the Bitcoin community on the issue. As you say, they're more interested in NGU DCA HODL speculation, and all the talk about Bitcoin being a tool for freedom seems just a larp.

:D

I love it.

Thanks for not dissapointing!

Hey, @DarthCoin. You gonna smite on this one too??

Hey OP, answer this question.

I can't vote cuz I can't tell if you're asking what we are personally striving for, or what we expect the future to look like....

Exactly.

Sounds like a good way to get Jekyll Island Worm too.

Pfft. You're just salty cuz you don't have a tat as tardigreat as that one.

Shit, not only the "average person" has this problem, but the average Bitcoiner as well!

If this crowd won't even to go out of their way to stop using fiat, how can we ever expect it to propagate to the average person?

If the goal isn't to bring an end to fiat money, then what are we really doing here?

Everyone here should be inclined to click option 2. If you you're part of the 17% who clicked option 1, fuck you. Seriously.

While I was inclined to click option 2, I selected option 3 because I'm beginning to doubt that Bitcoin will ever be able to scale enough, from a technological perspective. Every L2/L3 solution seems to come with a large amount of centralization and the potential for paper-Bitcoin, re-hypothecation, and state-control. They also come with a lot of extra learning/overhead for normies. If we can't make it as easy to use as Visa/Venmo, it's not going to succeed because the average person doesn't care about financial mumbo-jumbo and will always choose convenience even if it's bad for them.

So, I'm in camp option 2 with the caveat that we still need to make it technologically possible to accomplish.

I think I see your point there, and you make some good ones.

Couldn't there be an extremely public ceremony at the setup of a city's mint whereby hundreds of third parties are present to validate the creation and distribution of the keys?

Just like our previous conversation, I feel like you're talking about Federations which exist today, where I'm trying to discuss hypothetical future federations which are setup "properly".

I also admit these will never be as good as cold-storage, self custody. That should be a given. We're discussing a Layer 3, so I shouldn't have to act like BTC level of security is desirable or necessary.

So, can't you have a hypothetical discussion about how a Federated Mint could be setup in a manner that I call "proper"? I'm not sure it's possible... but I am sure you aren't even trying.

Perhaps what I should be asking is: Can you not consider a hypothetical scenario whereby a Federated Mint is setup in such a way that offers FAR more security to the lowest economical person on the planet, than the current system today does? If the hurdle to beat is the current fiat banking system, how can you not see that Fedimints can easily beat such a low bar??

No it's not. It can potentially be far more decentralized and secure than custodial lighting.

Custodial LN == Single Sig

Fedimint == Multi-Sig with potentially hundreds of key holders

Both can be rug pulled. But Custodial LN makes it really super easy to rug-pull.