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Why do you boycott BTC MoE here on Stacker News?
Get a gun and get a horse and stop being a hypocrit.
The Economist’s choice criteria make sense. They are not looking for stable comfort but for meaningful change. That difference matters because it shifts focus from the easy winners toward those who actually claw their way out of decline. The fact that Argentina and Syria are the finalists tells you a lot about the state of the world right now. Argentina’s story is an economic gamble with high stakes. Milei’s willingness to push through painful reforms is rare but economic pain can quickly turn into political backlash and history shows that in Argentina such reversals are common.
Syria’s case is harder to judge partly because after so many years of war and authoritarianism almost any reduction in violence or oppression feels dramatic. If Assad is gone and political prisoners are being freed this represents a different kind of improvement one grounded in the basic ability to live without constant fear. That is not the same as genuine democracy but peace and security form the base for any potential rebuilding.
The P2SH case is an interesting reminder that Bitcoin’s history is not perfectly aligned with the principles we like to articulate today. When people say UTXOs are sacred it is usually framed as an unbreakable moral and technical stance but the truth is that consensus rules have already invalidated some outputs and most node operators accept that without thinking twice.
The fact that the frozen outputs in question were anyone can spend and that the total value was negligible does make the situation different in scope and impact compared to the idea of locking up funds secured with private keys. That distinction matters from a property rights perspective since the former had no clear owner while the latter would be cutting off someone from cryptographically provable control of their own funds.
That said the broader point still stands. Absolute positions tend to fall apart when tested against real world historical edge cases. If you run modern Bitcoin Core you are already preventing the spend of certain outputs and this is part of living with a chain that has evolved through soft forks and changing validation rules. In principle you can remove that rule from your own node if you truly reject the idea of confiscation but in practice almost nobody does because the costs of consensus divergence are high
The reason banks retreated from traditional business lending and became more of a funding source for private credit is precisely tied to this unpredictability. Regulation raised the cost of maintaining certain risk profiles and forced a shift in activities. It is not that banks cannot predict liquidity needs to a degree. They can and they have historically done so reasonably well. Yet modern frameworks force them to hold capital and liquidity in ways that make direct lending less profitable relative to lending to non-bank intermediaries. These intermediaries lack deposit liabilities that could vanish overnight so they can take different risks.
In a way what we are seeing is specialization brought about by regulation. Banks manage payment systems and deposits. Private credit manages long term lending. Insurers manage predictable risk pools. The ironic twist is that regulation intended to make banks safer has led to more credit creation outside the regulated banking sector. This does not remove the aggregate risk from the system. It simply moves it somewhere more opaque and less constrained. That is worth remembering when people talk about the future of finance or the next crisis.
This disconnect has existed for years but Lightning and related tools have widened it because the pace of development on the builder and user side has been so fast while the conversation on Twitter often remains stuck in a 2017 mental model. A lot of people talking on Twitter either have very little day to day interaction with Bitcoin or they view Bitcoin primarily as a political tool or investment vehicle rather than a system to actually transact with. As a result their frame of reference is dominated by debates about protocol purity block space ideology or fee markets in hypothetical scenarios rather than the actual mechanics of using the technology that is already here and functional.
Also, it would be worth understanding the Rate cuts as mentioned below ..
Dow Jones vs Federal Reserve Rate Cuts Before the 2008 Crisis
Many market participants assume that interest rate cuts act as a safety net for equities. The events leading up to the 2008 financial crisis tell a far more sobering story.
September 18, 2007 – First Cut Brings a Short-Lived Rally The Federal Reserve reduced the federal funds rate by 50 basis points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged roughly eight percent over the next four weeks. In hindsight, this rally represented the final bull trap, as underlying credit market stress continued to deepen out of sight.
October 31, 2007 – Marginal New High With Weak Momentum The Fed lowered rates by another 25 basis points. The Dow managed to notch a marginal new high, but momentum was already fading. Market activity displayed signs of distribution, signalling that the advance was losing conviction.
December 11, 2007 – Cuts Lose Their Stimulative Effect Another 25 basis point cut failed to deliver sustained support. Within weeks, the Dow fell approximately eight percent. This was the first clear indication that monetary easing was no longer acting as a stimulus and that broader forces were dominating market direction.
January 22, 2008 – Emergency Cut Sparks Panic
In an unscheduled move, the Fed cut rates by 75 basis points. The Dow fell about five percent the same day. Emergency action served less as reassurance and more as confirmation that policymakers were reacting to a deepening crisis. The market interpreted this as a sign of eroding confidence.
January 30, 2008 – Brief Bounce Then Renewed Decline
A further reduction of 50 basis points produced a short-lived rebound. The underlying trend, however, had already turned bearish. Selling pressure soon resumed.
Final Outcome
The Dow Jones peaked in October 2007 and went on to fall roughly fifty-four percent by March 2009. Rather than halting the decline, the sequence of rate cuts confirmed that the financial system was under severe strain.
What we can learn from this ? Accelerating rate cuts often coincide with rising risk rather than diminishing it. In times of systemic stress, monetary easing alone may be insufficient to halt the downward momentum.
@DarthCoin does not use Bitcoin wallet on Stacker News. @DarthCoin is deliberately boycotting BTC MoE on Stacker News. Boycott @DarthCoin as long as he maintains this gross hypocrisy.
It is 2025 and we have just crossed a line that nobody thought possible. Inflation-adjusted home prices have now climbed past every historical bubble in the United States.
Back in 2006 at the peak of the housing mania the index stood at 266.4. Everyone knows what happened after that. The market imploded millions of homeowners were caught underwater and it took years to recover. Today we are not only matching that peak we are sitting closer to 300 inflation adjusted. That is unprecedented territory and it should make anyone paying attention stop and think.
When asset prices are rising faster than both incomes and employment stability you are not looking at a healthy housing market. You are looking at a speculative fever. The problem with speculative fever is that it always feels good at the top and yet by definition it cannot last. What follows is determined by how much risk people have taken on when reality catches up.
3 Experts Predicted the 2008 Crash. All 3 are Back.
2 Dec: Michael Burry: "A prolonged bear market is coming."
4 Dec: Raghuram Rajan: "It’s now a combination of 2001 & 2008 bubbles."
9 Dec: Howard Marks (Memo): "Are we in a bubble?"
Use Their Signals to Adjust Your Portfolio:
“Memories are short, and natural human risk aversion is no match for the dream of getting rich.” – Howard Marks (Memo) 9 Dec, 2025
The risk with The Line was that it was treated like an architectural object instead of a living system
Big visions sound great on day one but scaling requires the messy feedback loop of reality
If you are building anything that depends on human adoption start with proof of pull rather than proof of concept Test demand in increments Let the people who will actually use it shape it..
Today's Highlights
📰 Story 1 — Putin’s Visit & India’s Market Jinx
History shows Indian markets drop every time Vladimir Putin visits:
- Oct 2000: ‑15%
- Dec 2002: ‑4%
- Dec 2012: ‑1.5%
- Dec 2014: ‑5%
- Oct 2018: ‑5%
- Dec 2021: ‑3.5%
Now, ahead of his 7th visit on Dec 4–5, 2025, markets are already sliding.
📰 Story 2 — US Jobless Claims Hit 3‑Year Low
US unemployment claims fell to 191,000 during Thanksgiving week — lowest since 2020. Despite high‑profile layoffs at HP and FedEx, employers aren’t cutting jobs aggressively. The “low‑hire, low‑fire” trend keeps initial claims near record lows, but continuing claims have risen to 1.94M, showing it’s harder for job seekers to find new work.
INR just did a “global tour” and it lost every single fight.
Not 1 win.
Not 1 moment of strength.
Just pure 📉 across all currencies.
Here’s the Yearly Decline Scorecard:
1️⃣ RUB → -44%
2️⃣ EUR → -18%
3️⃣ THB → -15%
4️⃣ GBP → -11%
5️⃣ CNY → -10%
6️⃣ USD → -6%
7️⃣ JPY → -3%
That’s seven L’s in twelve months.
“Historic leap to progress.” 🙃
When stories overpower stats, the market listens to vibes, not data. And that’s dangerous but also a signal.
If you don't wanna support fiat channels RGB assets and Taproot assets can be used to represent other things - they can be used for betting in prediction markets, they can represent DAO votes, they can also represent other crypto coins or they can represent Bitcoin options / futures .
Lightning network is stagnating, why not try pouring some tequila into the system ?!