"Bitcoin vs Altcoins"
"Since Bitcoin is free open source software, anyone can take the code, modify it, and run their own network. The tokens of these alternative networks are known as altcoins. Some of these altcoins tried to improve on Bitcoin, such as by increasing the blocksize as discussed with Bitcoin Cash. Others were simply ponzi schemes pumped up by individuals looking to defraud people who didn’t understand the difference, leading to the term “shitcoins”.
Many altcoins were pre-mined by their creators, who got a large fraction of the tokens, before launching to the general public. The creators of these altcoins were then extremely financially motivated to market their coins. Most altcoins were centrally controlled and quickly changed, in contrast to Bitcoin, which by design has been incredibly difficult to change. This proliferation of altcoins and other unsustainable businesses became known as “crypto” and has taken attention and market share away from Bitcoin. Most of these altcoins provided no value to the world, could not find market fit, and collapsed, causing millions of individuals to lose billions.
The key things that differentiate Bitcoin are the network and protocol. Bitcoin has the largest network and its network effect draws in more users, further increasing its utility as a global monetary network and the value of BTC. Altcoins simply cannot compete even if they have some perceived advantages such as higher throughput or privacy. As more merchants and consumers around the world adopt Bitcoin, the network effect should continue to strengthen.
Bitcoin is also a digital protocol for money on the internet, and with protocols, it’s almost always winner-takes-all. In the early decades of the internet, there were the Protocol Wars and eventually the world converged to use the same protocols to communicate. For example, we all use TCP/IP to send traffic over the internet, we all use HTTP to browse the web, and we all use SMTP to send emails. Bitcoin, and its higher layers such as the Lightning Network, is currently the dominant open protocol for sending value on the internet."
"The web of value":
"In the 1990’s, the invention of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee allowed information to easily flow on the internet. It introduced the masses to use websites to read the news, play games, or send emails. Individuals and organizations could easily set up web servers and mail servers and be connected on a global information network that was open to all.
What was missing was a permission less way for people to freely send value over the internet. Unfortunately, without easy-to-use digital money to pay for services, we ended up paying for “free” products with our attention and data. Many internet companies adopted the advertising business model, which inevitably pressured them to invade users’ privacy in order to maximize profits.
The reason many people are excited about Bitcoin is because of its potential to become the global value network that would allow us to freely send value and payments on the internet.
The first part of this process is making a valuable digital asset that people will want. This has mostly been accomplished in the 15 years since Satoshi mined the first BTC in 2009.
The second part of this process is making it easy for anyone to adopt Bitcoin and use it for payments. This is the main challenge in the next 15 years that will determine whether or not Bitcoin can succeed."
The second part of this process is making it easy for anyone to adopt Bitcoin and use it for payments. This is the main challenge in the next 15 years that will determine whether or not Bitcoin can succeed."
Well said. Autocracies do not tolerate their citizens having such freedom. The currently dominant 'liberal western democracies' have barely tolerated Bitcoin as a MoE- declaring it a commodity, not a currency, and imposing absurd and hugely obstructive CGT obligations upon citizens who wish to use Bitcoin as a means of payment- Bankers hold our western democracies by the throat- owning most politicians and slyly engineering the obstruction of Bitcoin as a competitor to their state sponsored Fiat monopoly. We will have to fight for the right to choose Bitcoin as our MoE. The ETFs advance a strategy of corporate banker capture and control which if combined with US government Order 6102B could largely destroy Bitcoin as our free and open source online universal MoE. Do not think they will not try- they are already moving to make it possible to ban MoE use of Bitcoin and ban private custody.
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I don't know how they are going to ban self-custody. There are more tools than ever... TAILS, linux, desktop wallets with good signatures and PGP, cheap open-source hardware wallets... all of which can generate private keys.
And people can still buy bitcoin today fortunately - it's widely available kyc and all. I don't know how the state, how governments are going to keep people from transacting in it, trading their fiat for it, and using it pseudonymously.
I haven't been able to use the Proton Wallet product yet (on the waitlist) however it sounds really neat. With one anonymous email address, paid for through Bitcoin, all the 'key rotation' can be handled by Proton (according to them in a private way, encrypted). Instead of posting an address online, just post your anon proton email address... and a new address will be auto-generated for every Bitcoin utxo sent to you with a message. No address reuse, all the UTXOs sent to you separated as easily as reading an email.
It's like silent payments meet email if I understand it correctly with just an email address.
I don't know how the **** governments will be able to stop that.
The cgt stuff going on is imo completely unworkable and totally impractical. We need legislative reforms to address it imo.
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Same way they did with gold. The vast majority of custody is within the US and most western coutries are monetasrily and militarily subservient to the US. A ban on private custody in the US would further deplete the amount of Bitcoin held in private hands and capable of use P2P. How much Bitcoin is not already KYCed? 10% They will tell you its better handled by the banks to prevent terrorists or other undesirables using Bitcoin. They might even admit its threatening the USAs most important strategic asset- its global fiat debt hegemony. They have taken all the steps required to prepare for a very effective Order 6102B- KYC, selected CEXes (killing any establishment of large scale p2p or DEX trading volumes, and the ETFs...they don't care if a few hold outs hold out- the important thing is to kill widespread and open legal use of Bitcoin as a competitor to fiat MoE. The CGT is central to the overall capture and control strategy and its not being reversed- its being increasingly enforced.
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I honestly don't know how the dollar is going to go on forever (yes I know people have been saying that for years but...) the debt in the US is just unsustainable. It's all monopoly money now.
50 trillion in the next 10 years and people are like... eh what debt? what's that eh who cares?
I look at Bitcoin the same way I look at guns... the government may know who has them, and there are records of the gun purchases. But there are way too many of them in private hands for government to seize them all. I just hope we have enough self-custodied/real Bitcoiners for when and if the government comes knocking for the Bitcoin. The Bitcoin simply cannot be seized without the private keys.
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They will probably offer compensation at a market price...as they did with gold. So hodlers have a choice accept the offer or become an outlaw holding Bitcoin that cannot legally be used. What happened with gold the vast majority citizens complied. The Bitcoin already held by ETFs and exchanges is already captured. How many private hodlers are in it for the revolution and prepared to lose their liquidity in the fact of government acquisition offer? 5%? Less? Until/unless the CGT nonsense is removed and our right to use Bitcoin as a practicable and legal MoE without absurd government imposed 'tax compliance'-obstruction is recognised the threat and viability of a ban on private custody is only growing. At current rates the ETFs (+ CEXes) will hold a majority of the market cap within 5 years. The decline of the dollar only increases the government incentive to capture and control Bitcoin. The other primary challenger to the USD is the Chinese CBDC Yuan which is already operational and enabling trade payments outside of SWIFT with Russia and Iran. The collapse of the dollar does not inevitably result in Bitcoinisation...
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bitcoin to me at least is so much fun to use. it's money.... just with a personal touch, it's really transparent, and everything is just so accountable. it doesn't feel like a distant centralized monopoly money like government money does. it's way more personal and interesting.
about the dollar... i'm hoping that people are realizing what's going on, and they will flock reflexively to bitcoin or other hard assets... and there will be just so many bitcoiners. 'the race to avoid the war' they call it.
i believe, and ive posted about this, that the 'crypto' phenomenon has confused the public about bitcoin and lumped it all together with scams. i think that's slowly changing... but it does feel like making up for lost opportunities sometimes. proton is a respected company and i hope they do a good job with their 'wallet'. some of the comments elsewhere about proton and the release of their wallet are to the effect of... oh no we don't want crypto. 'no more crypto tokens' lol 'we don't want the proton token' facepalm lol
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TL;DR
Bitcoin = good Altcoin = bad
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Do read, Proton Wallet is cool ;)
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I like bitcoin because there are only so many that can be mined without expansion beyond that or any other sly increases of suppy. I also like other coins because some of them might be valuable for speculation purposes. I would like to be in at the bottom of a new coin and make it big time. Just think of paying 20 bitcoins for a pizza and it makes your head spin.
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