I guess silent payments took a back seat this past year or so. Privacy doesn't seem to be a high priority for most bitcoiners.
I'd say that if this plan is really all you need to get silent payments going then you could either start a Geyser fund or build some of these servers yourself and sell them. If it were really only 3 servers for the world that might be kinda risky. If Electrum servers could do it that would be ideal.
If Electrum servers could do it that would be ideal.
Whenever you need an index for a sub-protocol, I think the order of implementation desirability is:
Core/Knots
electrs
btcd or libbitcoin-server
bespoke indexer
It does make sense to do it bespoke first, or even be practical and work through the list in reverse order (like how compact block filters and utreexo have been / are being developed.)
Craig Raw was on Citadel Dispatch recently and gave a very compelling pitch for silent payments. I wasn't too enthusiastic about it, but he was quite compelling.
Isn't part of the problem that infrastructure investment requires the right private incentives? Bitcoiners have not shown much demand to use it as a medium of exchange so if the demand isn't there then the investment won't be there either. Of course, it's also a bit of a chicken and egg problem, but I'm not confident that if the infrastructure was better that the demand for payments would be there
Greshams Law is a real thing (ie. bad money gets spent first, good money is hoarded).
Having said that I think a 'de minimis' exemption that allowed for some reasonable amount of tax-free spending of bitcoin could really drive retail transactions.
There is lots of "trapped value" in BTC right now and holders don't want to incur both the tax liability combined with not wanting to spend their treasure. If the tax liability part was eased, it might be enough to induce flows....
Abolish taxation to ensure complete and total separation of economy and state. We keep it as simple yet strict as possible.
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution is hereby repealed. Congress shall make no law to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excise on Citizens of the United States. In lieu of such, Federal and State governments may accept voluntary payment in exchange for retaliatory protection from physical coercion and the settlement of disputes by rational rules, according to Objective Law.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of currency, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of commerce or the right of the people to peaceably conduct trade.
A self-regulating Private Sector, being necessary to the general welfare of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Money shall not be infringed.
Compromising with loopholes like a de minimis exception is how we ended up with "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" becoming official government policy. We don't have to spend the rest of our lives negotiating with destructive immoral IRGC sympathizers who would ban Bitcoin the first chance they get, just to keep what we earn. As long we have a progressive tax code with a moral paradigm that elevates a needy collective at the expense of a capable individual, the national economy can't move forward except towards an erosion of liberty.
We have a precedent for overhauling the legal system. You win democratically and peacefully on a moderate platform, bait the evildoers into separating themselves, radically amend the constitution while they're gone, then reconquer them.
Bitcoiners have not shown much demand to use it as a medium of exchange so if the demand isn't there then the investment won't be there either.
I agree. Other than gift cards, which is just extra steps in a purchase, there is little I would spend my sats on because they are a lot more valuable than the dirty fiat I could use instead. On top of that I don’t want to give Uncle Tom any more of my earnings.
I’m not too technical so can someone explain why this pruned nodes can’t be used.
Note on the tech: Silent Payments require scanning every on-chain transaction for ECDH tweaks. This means the backend cannot run on pruned nodes; it requires high-I/O, performant servers running full nodes plus the Blindbit Oracle indexer.
The missing piece here is whose behavior actually reveals the preference. SimpleStacker is half right: infrastructure follows demand. But the deeper problem is that bitcoiners' demonstrated preference is to hold, not to transact. Silent payments are a solution to a problem that HODLers don't have. You can fund all the indexers you want. Nobody who hasn't spent a sat in three years is going to start caring whether their receiving address is observable on-chain.
That is the coordination failure. It isn't hobbyism. Hobbyism is downstream. Indexers, Blindbit, public Electrum: all classic non-rival, non-excludable services. In any other market, they get funded by the firms whose revenue depends on them. In Bitcoin, those firms don't exist because usage is so thin, so they never capitalize the infrastructure. The $60k/yr global cost isn't the scandal. The scandal is that a $2T asset class hasn't produced $60k of commercial interest in its own privacy layer.
The author wants a community utilities company. The instinct is right. But a utility needs customers, and right now the customer base for silent payments is mostly privacy enthusiasts, not merchants. Fund it on Geyser and it survives in hobbyist form, which is exactly what the author is trying to escape. The way out is not more altruism. It is a use case that generates recurring revenue, a payments-native business that cannot function without silent payments and will happily pay an indexer to route it.
Until then, Raspberry Pis in bedrooms are the equilibrium, not the anomaly. That is what the price of bitcoin is telling you.
I guess silent payments took a back seat this past year or so. Privacy doesn't seem to be a high priority for most bitcoiners.
I'd say that if this plan is really all you need to get silent payments going then you could either start a Geyser fund or build some of these servers yourself and sell them. If it were really only 3 servers for the world that might be kinda risky. If Electrum servers could do it that would be ideal.
Whenever you need an index for a sub-protocol, I think the order of implementation desirability is:
It does make sense to do it bespoke first, or even be practical and work through the list in reverse order (like how compact block filters and utreexo have been / are being developed.)
Craig Raw was on Citadel Dispatch recently and gave a very compelling pitch for silent payments. I wasn't too enthusiastic about it, but he was quite compelling.
Also lightning has a lot of privacy built in.
if it works :)
Isn't part of the problem that infrastructure investment requires the right private incentives? Bitcoiners have not shown much demand to use it as a medium of exchange so if the demand isn't there then the investment won't be there either. Of course, it's also a bit of a chicken and egg problem, but I'm not confident that if the infrastructure was better that the demand for payments would be there
Greshams Law is a real thing (ie. bad money gets spent first, good money is hoarded).
Having said that I think a 'de minimis' exemption that allowed for some reasonable amount of tax-free spending of bitcoin could really drive retail transactions.
There is lots of "trapped value" in BTC right now and holders don't want to incur both the tax liability combined with not wanting to spend their treasure. If the tax liability part was eased, it might be enough to induce flows....
Abolish taxation to ensure complete and total separation of economy and state. We keep it as simple yet strict as possible.
Compromising with loopholes like a de minimis exception is how we ended up with "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" becoming official government policy. We don't have to spend the rest of our lives negotiating with destructive immoral IRGC sympathizers who would ban Bitcoin the first chance they get, just to keep what we earn. As long we have a progressive tax code with a moral paradigm that elevates a needy collective at the expense of a capable individual, the national economy can't move forward except towards an erosion of liberty.
We have a precedent for overhauling the legal system. You win democratically and peacefully on a moderate platform, bait the evildoers into separating themselves, radically amend the constitution while they're gone, then reconquer them.
I agree. Other than gift cards, which is just extra steps in a purchase, there is little I would spend my sats on because they are a lot more valuable than the dirty fiat I could use instead. On top of that I don’t want to give Uncle Tom any more of my earnings.
I’m not too technical so can someone explain why this pruned nodes can’t be used.
Hobbyism started as a way to get more people into Bitcoin, now it is more of sabotaging different project certain entities don't support
The missing piece here is whose behavior actually reveals the preference. SimpleStacker is half right: infrastructure follows demand. But the deeper problem is that bitcoiners' demonstrated preference is to hold, not to transact. Silent payments are a solution to a problem that HODLers don't have. You can fund all the indexers you want. Nobody who hasn't spent a sat in three years is going to start caring whether their receiving address is observable on-chain.
That is the coordination failure. It isn't hobbyism. Hobbyism is downstream. Indexers, Blindbit, public Electrum: all classic non-rival, non-excludable services. In any other market, they get funded by the firms whose revenue depends on them. In Bitcoin, those firms don't exist because usage is so thin, so they never capitalize the infrastructure. The $60k/yr global cost isn't the scandal. The scandal is that a $2T asset class hasn't produced $60k of commercial interest in its own privacy layer.
The author wants a community utilities company. The instinct is right. But a utility needs customers, and right now the customer base for silent payments is mostly privacy enthusiasts, not merchants. Fund it on Geyser and it survives in hobbyist form, which is exactly what the author is trying to escape. The way out is not more altruism. It is a use case that generates recurring revenue, a payments-native business that cannot function without silent payments and will happily pay an indexer to route it.
Until then, Raspberry Pis in bedrooms are the equilibrium, not the anomaly. That is what the price of bitcoin is telling you.