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5538 sats \ 35 comments \ @028559d218 23h bitcoin

This is what Bitcoin has become:

Full blocks, but blocks full of

Whose only purpose is the "Uncommon Goods" memecoin

Entire blocks are the same op_return transaction, with the same addresses over and over

Or consolidations of more 'memecoins'

The number of 'real' transactions, economic transactions, with an economic purpose, is effectively extremely small.

And "this" is what most transactions look like

Pages and Pages and Pages of BRC20 tokens ('minted' in Witness script)

OR the transactions represent ways of stuffing 'data' in order to speculate on playing cards, 'collectible' images, or NFTs

This is not what Bitcoin was supposed to be about.

The number of economic transactions, although potentially 'hidden' under Lightning, is very very small and incredibly minuscule relative to real-world demand.

Meanwhile, there is a massive, significant government-led clampdown on digital privacy

With no easy solutions or "give and take" with governments that want NO 'give and take'... they want total control over money and your privacy.

Meanwhile Nostr, Bitcoin's social media for all practical purposes, is filled with Number-Go-Up feel-good bullshit.

Or conspiracy-theories that have nothing to do with Bitcoin

What good is Bitcoin if no-one is using it???

If blocks are full of junk (worthless NFTs and Memecoins) negligible fees, with very limited real-world monetary usage for actual goods and services...

Even the Monero Boys (and I am not a fan of Monero) speak the truth now and then:

"Presenting Bitcoin to outsiders as an NGU-driven get‑rich‑quick scheme invited the worst of society inside. Now deal with the consequences, you’ll have to live with your own poison. You will never separate money from state because this choices [sic] and behavior!

Fake freedom figthers [sic] all postures, no principles.

He is right, we have invited some of the worst, most speculative and desperate people to Bitcoin... They don't transact, they don't hold their own keys or run a node, all they care about is 'speculation'.

Bitcoiners talk of "challenging the BIS" (bank of international settlements), replacing the Fed, or even pressuring the IMF...

But these things aren't serious if the actual amount of Bitcoin USE is so small.

There is a lot of talk, a lot of noise... but the Memepool doesn't lie.

~5 minutes after the last block... ALL the entire world's on-chain Bitcoin transactions, awaiting confirmation, fit within the non-green parts.

Some Starbucks coffee-lines are longer than this...

How is that going to challenge the BIS or IMF or do anything to improve money?

Bitcoin isn't destined to succeed. Apathy, laziness, greed, or successful state-clampdowns can and will ruin Bitcoin under certain circumstances.

In short, Nostr is full of sandwhich pictures

But it's light on real Bitcoin usage and it shows.

The truth will come to light in the end.

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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @standardcrypto 6h

relax yo!

when the ETFs and Coinbase are hacked or seized by the desperate government, more people will self custody and blocks will fill up again.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4h

lol very true

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @fiatbad 15h

I've made a lot of big-blocker arguments on SN in the past. I always have to preface by saying, I am NOT a big-blocker and I own zero B-cash or crypto of any kind outside of Bitcoin.

But goddamm if Roger Ver didn't make some good points. His book "Hijacking Bitcoin" changed my view on a lot of things. Not enough to join his cause.... but enough to question the honey-badger kinds of narratives pushed around here.

I can't help but think that Core was hijacked, exactly how he describes, in order to ensure that Bitcoin can only be used as a SoV, and never as a MoE. The "Freedom Money" ethos has slowly died out, and been replaced by bullshit narratives about how MoE will "happen eventually, just not now".

I'm still not a big-blocker, because I also understand the reasons why Roger is wrong. But dammit, I'm incredibly disappointed at the current state of Bitcoin... especially the human element of it...

OP, your post is really good. Thanks for making it.

64 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 15h

Thank you.

In my humble opinion, the problems in Bitcoin today aren't 'technical'... they are cultural, social, and educational. I also own no crypto outside of Bitcoin, and echo the same things about 'big blocks'...

I haven't read 'Hijacking Bitcoin' (I'll check it out) and while I understand the reasons behind 'small blocks' I also feel we have lost our way somehow. Bitcoin the token is obviously quite valuable... but Bitcoin the network blockspace is almost worthless and there is a tone-deafness in the 'community' that doesn't sit right with me.

The "Freedom Money" ethos has slowly died out, and been replaced by bullshit narratives

I see this hardcore on Nostr and it is really just... sad. People who obviously should and do know better... want to pretend that all is right in Kansas when it is NOT. We are losing the war for 'better money' that's reasonably private and actually used and the head-in-the-sand imho doesn't help things.

But dammit, I'm incredibly disappointed at the current state of Bitcoin... especially the human element of it...

I am too. We could have a reasonable MoE and way more Bitcoin usage... but people just don't care. They'll LARP and tell you how great "freedom money" is but it's all BS when the mempool is empty.

If Bitcoin fails the laziness, apathy, greed, and negligence will be at fault... but you won't hear that on Nostr. The truth will come out eventually.

12 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 23h

The war for Freedom, for Better Money, for separation of Money and State... due to Apathy, Laziness, Greed, and a strong government clamp-down on Privacy and Sovereignty...

Is being Lost.

Sometimes the Good Guys lose the war and we are losing.

38 sats \ 1 reply \ @3a42879d5f 22h

He is right, we have invited some of the worst, most speculative and desperate people to Bitcoin... They don't transact, they don't hold their own keys or run a node, all they care about is 'speculation'.

People doing things you don't like is part of freedom.

19 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 21h

It's not 'what I don't like'. It's the state of the network and it is not growing in a healthy fashion that incorporates a healthy, vibrant fee market.

28 sats \ 0 replies \ @bitcoingecko 20h

This is the true Bitcoin battle

38 sats \ 1 reply \ @3a42879d5f 22h

What's like, the point of this post? Are NFTs and memecoins somehow restricting you from using Bitcoin? Are you incapable of spending more than 1sat on a transaction fee to get your transaction higher priority and included in a block? Gimme a break, the tx fees have been 1000s of times higher what they are right now. The fees right now are a blessing.

7 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 21h

Are NFTs and memecoins somehow restricting you from using Bitcoin?

No they're not. But that's not the point of the article/post.

The fees right now are a blessing.

No they're not. The anemic fees are a sign that no-one is using Bitcoin and the network is not growing healthy.

123 sats \ 2 replies \ @SwapMarket 22h

You can't shove freedom down people's throats. Those who deserve it use Bitcoin privately on L2 Lightning and Liquid networks. L1 is easily traced and only suitable as an aggregate settlement level for L2s. DEX trading volumes are also going up. BIS are locking themselves out from seeing our flows. They were never expected to do down without a fight.

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 OP 21h

I have used Lightning in many different places, in person and online in several different countries.

The 'next generations' in my opinion are not learning the lessons of history, they are not leaning their Bitcoin history, there is too much emphasis on 'corporate treasuries' and not enough emphasis on soverignity, self-custody, and Bitcoin usership.

We are not going to 'change the world' by watching Bitcoin's ticker go up and down while a few companies buy up a ton of Bitcoin.

There needs to be, eventually, a vibrant fee market to offset the declining subsidy - that fact is on a timer and while we have time we don't have forever.

This is a war for better and more monetary freedom, and we are losing it.

121 sats \ 0 replies \ @fiatbad 16h

This is a war for better and more monetary freedom, and we are losing it.

"Naw bro, you don't understand. NGU happens first, then MoE can happen. It costs too much taxes to spend mah Bitcoin... just use dollars. Also, spend the weak money first." /s

(I completely agree with you)

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 8h

I really like this post, and your attitude.

But to me this is an improvement on what we had in summer of 23/24(?) when fees were skyrocketing to hundreds of sats/vb due to people minting runes or ordinals or some other bulls***.

At least with the low fees, the network is usable for transactions for those who want to.

I do think it's concerning that there's no demand for on-chain economic transactions. However, this extremely tiny amount of on-chain economic transactions bodes well for the scalability of the network if/when demand for opening lightning channels picks up

30 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 OP 3h

But to me this is an improvement on what we had in summer of 23/24(?) when fees were skyrocketing to hundreds of sats/vb due to people minting runes or ordinals or some other bulls***.

I agree with you it is 'better'.... However I think we should be really really clear on our language. No-one "minted" anything on Bitcoin. There are no "runes" on Bitcoin, or "ordinals" on Bitcoin those things don't exist.

They could be called Runes Dunes Moons Prunes Loons... it's a little arbitrary data that is "interpreted" to bestow ownership of 'tokens' that aren't on Bitcoin that have NOTHING to do with Bitcoin. No "token" was EVER actually put on or added to Bitcoin's ledger.

Inscriptions are the same... they're just arbitrary data that people think they can own, it's technically and economically incoherent. Those JPEGS are infinitely reproducible they cannot be 'owned' and it's all technical nonsense.

I think mempool.space has done Bitcoin a 'disservice'... "naming" the "runes" and "inscriptions" as such because they don't actually exist... they're a kind of crypto scam that will be forgotten in a few years.

At least with the low fees, the network is usable for transactions for those who want to.

True however it also shows that people are not learning their history, that the 'educational' process is slower than it needs to be.

I do think it's concerning that there's no demand for on-chain economic transactions. However, this extremely tiny amount of on-chain economic transactions bodes well for the scalability of the network

The network is scalable... and one day eventually the fees will be very high but we aren't there yet.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 3h

Agree, inscriptions, ordinals, runes... they're all crap to me.

I guess what's a good sign to me is that minimal block space is needed for all the lightning tx's that are going on currently... which from what I can tell LN use is still increasing... suggests that blockspace should be plenty to onboard new lightning users

0 sats \ 8 replies \ @guerratotal 8h

Let me ask you a few questions:

Do I send spam? No.
Does that spam affect my use of Bitcoin? No, I can still make transactions by paying the corresponding fee.
Does the sender of that spam pay for it? Yes, they pay fees like everyone else.
Are miners earning more by including those transactions? Yes, and that strengthens the security of the network.
Is this a free market in action? Exactly. Each transaction competes for space in the block.
Was there a consensus to allow it? Yes.

I don't know if I'm wrong, but that's the way things should go, right? If I'm wrong, please let me know.

100 sats \ 7 replies \ @fiatbad 8h

Yes, that's the way things should go.

But many of us were hoping Bitcoin would be a catalyst to free the world from the enslavement of fiat-money.

"Bitcoin isn't being used" is what OP's point was. It's just a shame that we have this amazing freedom technology, and all people want to do it use it for jpegs and other garbage. Hardly anyone is using it the way it was intended to be used.

It reminds me of something the great Hank Moody once said:

".... people seem to be getting dumber and dumber. You know, I mean we have all this amazing technology and yet computers have turned into basically four figure wank machines. The internet was supposed to set us free, democratize us, but all it's really given us is Howard Dean's aborted candidacy and 24 hour a day access to kiddie porn. People... they don't write anymore, they blog. Instead of talking, they text, no punctuation, no grammar: LOL this and LMFAO that. You know, it just seems to me it's just a bunch of stupid people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people at a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the King's English." - Hank Moody

0 sats \ 6 replies \ @guerratotal 5h

Damn, what a great quote....!!!

It's actually true, except that if someone wants to use it as a means of payment, they can. If someone wants to "burn" sats on things others consider useless, they can do that too... and pay for it.

So many people still don't use it for what we dream of? Maybe. But the important thing is that the possibility exists, and no one can take it away. Time and people's real needs are what will drive the use of Bitcoin as money, not what we want to impose.

I also think it's the problem of being something "new," and people have taken it as fury, like when monkey portraits were worth millions and thousands of people threw their money away. Those who don't understand things pay the consequences of their stupidity.

23 sats \ 5 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4h

If someone wants to "burn" sats on things others consider useless, they can do that too... and pay for it.

While this is true... 'burning sats' on useless things ultimately consumes finite node resources. The biggest 'resource' being consumed isn't hard-disk space...

It's memory/CPU (I think) during the initial block download and the bloating of the UTXO set makes this issue worse. The spammers want to cause 'maximum damage' and "pretend" their dust outputs give them 'memecoins'... so they create lots of outputs, dust outputs, and over time this bloats the UTXO set and it's what has happened.

So activity doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Time and people's real needs are what will drive the use of Bitcoin as money, not what we want to impose.

Very true, but we need to be honest about the success or failure of our educational efforts so far.

I also think it's the problem of being something "new," and people have taken it as fury, like when monkey portraits were worth millions and thousands of people threw their money away.

We will have another bear market and the ****coiners will get rekt. It happens over and over again and we want to protect/educate people both to benefit them and the network.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @guerratotal 3h

I really think it's an education issue. Most people still don't understand the intrinsic value of Bitcoin. They only see it as a way to make money, not a way to bring freedom to their lives.

I think it's more an education issue than anything else.

23 sats \ 3 replies \ @028559d218 OP 3h

see it as a way to make money

As in a way to 'trade' for more fiat?

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @guerratotal 3h

That's right...!!

Most people don't see it as a source of freedom.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 OP 3h

Rhetorical Question: If the only point of it was to 'trade it' for more Fiat...

Then what was the point of it at all???

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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @LibertasBR 18h

It's just a bunch of data entered into a paid transaction. This mound of data only becomes something if you organize it correctly. Trying to filter this is introducing an element of censorship that Bitcoin doesn't have.

Regarding Nostr and all this chaos you promoted in your warning post, I can only think that this is how decentralization should be: free.

7 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 17h

I think Shinobi makes the point I'm trying to make so much better

https://xcancel.com/brian_trollz/status/1958272714604417090#m

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @3a42879d5f 22h

7 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 21h

I agree with much of what Shinobi says he speaks his mind and says what he thinks even if it's unpopular

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @jakoyoh629 23h

I already noticed the mempool was acting weird, and this isn't the way I want to see things go. Is it possible to know, in percentages, what kind of UTXO belongs to what?

14 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 23h

Click on 'data' on mempool.space. The 'highlighted' stuff is data-carrying 99% of which is memecoins and NFTs.

Most blocks are full of it. And after the 'next block' is mined there are literally no on-chain transactions waiting in the mempool across the entire world's economies.

23 sats \ 0 replies \ @fd055dcc2f 16h

bitcoin is like a honey-badger. he doesn't give a damn.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @alice_bob 4h

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @028559d218 OP 4h

I love Giacomo and generally speaking I'm a Big Fan. Some of his other tweets... suggest the futility of 'filtering'. NOT that it's bad or the wrong thing to do according to him, but the futility of filtering long term.

The spammers want to do "maximum damage" and they will do whatever causes the most damage - probably 4 mb blocks with lots of unspendable/unprunable UTXOs.

That's why increasing the op_return size won't be used by malicious spammers... because it doesn't do as much harm as stamps/unspendable outputs do.

According to him even a soft-fork/consensus change probably won't be effective... because spammers can easily change and do whatever causes the most damage.

In the long run fee aggregation/L2 fee pressure is the most powerful way to mitigate spam.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 22h

Now's a good time to open some lightning channels I'd guess!

What are routing fees on Lightning currently? It could be a good time to earn some routing profits, since re-establishing drained channels will be cheap.