I hope the price tanks so that BTC will be primarily used for its intended purpose, like it was in the Silk Road days.
Let's hope it is just a side-step given that BTC with censorship/regulation is just a breaking of a glass-wall away from perfectly free monetary unit.
P.S. If you are looking to get no-KYC truly anonymous BTC you'd better live in a top-10 city (e.g. Prague), because in a top-100 city (e.g. Sofia) it is not quite straight-forward and takes tons of waiting/selecting.
No, he didn't. He got convicted of money laundering, conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics. Evidence related to the alleged murder for hire scheme was presented at trial and was weighed in the sentencing phase in terms of what sentence he got within the range authorized for the crimes he was convicted of, but he was not tried, convicted, or sentenced for “hired gun charges”.
> Not to mention that all the major mining pools have voluntarily chosen to collaborate with governments on censoring the blockchain, etc.
What do you mean by this?
BTW Juraj is a great source on anything crypto-related. And from what I now there has been no resistance from the pools so far (at least the EU/US-based ones, though in China it is probably even more difficult.)
BTW Juraj is a great source on anything crypto-related. And from what I now there has been no resistance from the pools so far (at least the EU/US-based ones, though in Chine it is probably even more difficult.)
> Not to mention that all the major mining pools have voluntarily chosen to collaborate with governments on censoring the blockchain, etc.
I never understood why people described Bitcoin as an anonymous currency, it really isn’t. Arguably physical currency is much, much more anonymous than Bitcoin.
On the other hand, "anonymous" is to some degree like computer "security". Secure against what threat? Anonymous to who?
Paper money is certainly traceable to some degree. Plus it almost requires you to meet in person, where the other person in the transaction can see your physical appearance (or your proxy/accomplice's).
Both mediums of exchange have similar risk profiles, but they are a little bit different. Not sure that I'd argue one is better than the other, generally. Depends on the use case.
Plus there isn't any way to order 500 hits of acid from 3 timezones away in-person without a lot of issues. Lotta ID checks at the airport, and lots of cameras on highways.
If something goes weird with the darknet shipment I walk, feign ignorance, burn the laptop. If I'm carrying drugs on a plane and get busted then it's on me, no question.
But yeah, if you didn't pull good OpSec in 2014 it's possible the feds might link it to you in 2023, or whenever they get around to it.
> Is there any reason a cryptocurrency can’t be made that uses very little energy?
As far as proof-of-work is concerned, if you don't use enough energy, you are vulnerable to 51% attacks.
As far as other schemes (e.g. proof-of-stake) are concerned - none of them have the same desirable security properties as PoW.
BTC is "clean" money in that it doesn't have the blood of millions and an imperialistic army powering it.
The energy usage by BTC is a drop in the bucket compared to the ecological damage wreaked by the US military.
Most evidence shows the U.S. no longer benefits from the dollar as a global reserve currency. And lots of governments have currency boards or currencies they don’t control.
1. The currency board countries are very small players, mostly beaten to blue and also not all currency boards are tied to USD.
2. The bulk (I guess 90%+) of global lending is still in USD - a currency which the Fed can debase at will - as has been happening since 2008 and happened at a grande scale in 2020.
This brings only frustration and bitterness - the last two things you want in international relations, especially in the post-nuclear age soft-power days.
P.S. I think that the US was playing this role very well over the past 76 years and am perfectly happy with 90% of what has been done.
Monero solves this problem currently.
I'm developing a blockchain to block these people using sustainable AI. Want to get in on the initial coin offering?
There's a lot of extreme Bitcoin hate on this site, but BTC is helping a ton of people right now, as evidenced by the rapidly increasing demand and money flowing into Bitcoin investment.
There really is no alternative for where to park your money in 2021 unless you want to buy real-estate or stocks both of which come with their own massive set of problems.
Not making a judgement either way on BTC's success but what you've highlighted there isn't evidence. An artificially inflated market based on speculation would show the exact same signs.
I don't think this is the case, it feels more like people here are no longer as easily charmed by the whole buzzword catalogue surrounding bitcoin. This switch from everyone starting a new cryptocurrency and "X, but on blockchain" dominating the discourse towards a more critical view probably just feels more extreme than it really is.