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It should be expensive for a transaction like that to occur

It should not. Current systems manage it fine, because they don't use an insane model which tries to distribute every transaction to everyone, a model you're saying Bitcoin should move away from, at which point, why does Bitcoin exist?

I think it's perfectly reasonable to have second and third layer networks that sit on top of Bitcoin acting as transaction networks, while the main BTC chain is used for larger transactions or to settle large batches of transactions from other layers.

Instead of think of what we can do for Bitcoin, why don't we think about what it can do for us?

I don't really need a globally distributed ledger and all the problems that brings.

> It should not. Current systems manage it fine, because they don't use an insane model which tries to distribute every transaction to everyone, a model you're saying Bitcoin should move away from, at which point, why does Bitcoin exist?

I think you missed my entire point.. I am saying that Bitcoin layer 1 should be a settlement layer for other "less distributed" state systems that sit on top of it.

> I don't really need a globally distributed ledger and all the problems that brings.

I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on how to solve this.

It seems to me you have failed to answer why such a distributed blockchain settlement layer at the bottom is necessary at all? What payoff does it bring except to justify Bitcoin’s existence?

To solve ‘this’, i.e. global payments throw bitcoin away and start again.

Focus on the problems real people have with payments, identity, trust, fees, speed, reliability, reversibility, somewhere reliable to store their money.

Blockchains fix none of that and actively make some of it worse.

Cash on the internet. I want to be able to send money to someone else on the internet without trusting a third party, and I want it to settle quickly / in a way that is "cash-like" (no reversibility). It isn't going to solve all problems, but as far as I know there is no other global payment system that solves for what I described.

Sure, that's a good use-case though rather niche, as most people definitely don't want irreversible transactions. It's certainly well suited to that use and I agree better than normal payment networks for it.

I'm not convinced that niche in any way justifies the current valuation or hype, in particular from corps like Payal.

> Personal opinion: I think the part you are missing here is that lots of transactions shouldn't be occurring on the base layer.

What you're really saying is that you don't think BTC should help banking the unbanked (because they often live in poor countries where their weekly salary is your cup of coffee).

> Why is it "laughable" for the lightning network to use BTC as a settlement layer?

It's laughable because people will just use another crypto, so they don't have to pay the +2 large and expensive BTC on-chain fees.

> What you're really saying is that you don't think BTC should help banking the unbanked (because they often live in poor countries where their weekly salary is your cup of coffee).

That is not at all what I am saying. I'm saying that technically only a very small subset of transactions should be settling on the base BTC layer, and hence that is how incentives should be (and are) setup.

Why would people prefer to use a paypal that settles on the bitcoin network vs a paypal that is based around USD?

I have no idea, but second layer networks have much different properties than a custodial paypal service has.

In terms of USD vs BTC spending - I imagine a lot of people will want to spend USD, and BTC will serve as a store of value and backing asset. USD is possible via stablecoins though.

> Personal opinion: I think the part you are missing here is that lots of transactions shouldn't be occurring on the base layer. Remember that every transaction that occurs is stored in perpetuity on every node in the Bitcoin network. It should be expensive for a transaction like that to occur, and we should create incentives that limit the creation of these as much as possible.

Serious question because this is something I have had trouble figuring out.

Why should transactions not be on the base layer? Isn't the whole point that the ledger is fully decentralized? How does pushing transactions into side channels (lightning, eth's layer 2) not end up centralizing transaction validation (they might not be completely centralized, but they seem by definition less centralized than the bitcoin base network)?

Because "every transaction that occurs is stored in perpetuity on every node in the Bitcoin network" means there is naturally a scaling cap. Bitcoin's lightning network doesn't really centralize transaction validation in the way I think you're thinking - it simply allows 2 counterparties to spend money between each other in a way that doesn't have to be finalized on the Bitcoin layer 1 network after every change, but can be if either party tries to cheat or steal from the other. And then the "network" part of lightning allows either party to spend funds to anyone else in the network with these same guarantees.

Why are we even talking about first-gen cryptos like bitcoin in regards to transaction processing. There's a whole ecosystem of 2nd and 3rd gen cryptos which address these issues and more (the environmental impact is the biggest issue posed by bitcoin in my opinion)

They're perhaps not on the general public radar yet, but Ethereum and Cardano both have a greater market cap than bitcoin had 4 years ago, and Cardano currently addresses lots of the other issues people talk about.