@mhoye
Is this comment really here? Mastodon is giving me weird messages? Perhaps because you're on a different server?
On the topic of your comment, I've always regarded #BitCoin as an obvious scam. No scarcity there. There's an infinite supply of numbers and an infinite supply of algorithms to pretend that some of the numbers are special and more interesting than others.
Or do I need to repeat the proof that there's no such thing as an uninteresting number?
Doesn't matter what number you divide by infinity, the result is still effectively zero. One or two cryptocurrencies divided by an infinite number of them or 21 million Bitcoins divided by infinity. Still no real value anywhere there.
However what makes #Bitcoin into a special criminal scam is how it deliberately wastes power for the lottery tickets. Electric power is a real thing with a limited supply.
@shanen @Cosmic_Ray @mhoye Bitcoin doesn't "waste" energy. On the contrary, it's specifically the cost of the energy used that makes Bitcoin the first distributed solution to the Byzantine Generals' problem in Computer Science.
You're however absolutely correct in that if noone wants a global uncensorable value transfer network then of course the bitcoin tokens won't have value either.
@mhoye @shanen @Cosmic_Ray I agree that if you don't want an uncensorable global value transfer service then there's no need for a decentralized solution to the Byzantine Generals' problem.
If you do, however, then Bitcoin's Proof of Work is the first such proven to work. The cost of the energy spent (the work) is what makes the transfers uncensorable (cost prohibitive to attack).
@troed @mhoye @shanen @Cosmic_Ray "Uncensorable global transfer"?
This is incorrect. Unless you are able to hold the entire ledger on your system, you are reliant on someone else's db to validate your claim. The idea is that the people holding copies of the db is "diverse enough" which isn't an intrinsically guaranteed thing.
When YOU and only YOU can hold an entire copy of the blockchain maybe, till then it is NOT "uncensorable".
@troed @mhoye @shanen @Cosmic_Ray Censorship can be many things, for simplicity here are two: "Stop the message" and "Stop the speaker".
Stopping the message can be in means of fees you cannot pay, exchanges where you are not welcomed. While at the moment a network connection is all that is needed, as more nodes fall into centralized servers, you have less to peer with for the ledger's distribution.
@troed @mhoye @shanen @Cosmic_Ray Stopping the speaker is becoming easier each day. In this traceable information is is linked to wallets and that information is passed onward to those who would censor.
Unless you control the information collected from you by exchanges, you set the fees for transfer, and can peer with the exchanges, you are beholden to them.
@pop_justy @mhoye @shanen @Cosmic_Ray Hmm, no, the exchanges are but one type of on- and off-ramp between fiat and Bitcoin. Let's start with whether Bitcoin (not fiat ramps) is uncensorable.
1) You can receive the Bitcoin blockchain wherever you are on the globe due to the fact that it's broadcasted from satellite, needing only a tiny receiver.
2) Sending a Bitcoin transfer can be done over "any" medium. SMS is one example if you don't have actual Internet.
3) There are currently >15000 (reachable) Bitcoin nodes running in 89 different countries.
Except for a global authoritarian rule it's difficult to see how this can be censored.
As to the fiat on- off-ramps. Yes, those are much easier to attack. In the most extreme example you would need to go peer-to-peer (which is how bitcoin originally were sold/bought between individual node-miners and users). This is now possible to do on-chain with decentralized exchanges (Bisq et.al).
@troed @mhoye @shanen @Cosmic_Ray
Wait if you want to bring up "ramps".
"Satellite" The majority are broadcasted on Telstar sats owned by the Canadian company Telesat, you are beholden to them for broadcast.
"SMS" you are beholden to your cell provider.
">15000" TCP port 8333 and xfer across it is beholden to your ISP.
Don't start with on-off-ramps as bitcoin relies heavily on already built ones.
@troed @mhoye @shanen @Cosmic_Ray No you don't.
Chinese firewall exists. Iran and other countries routinely excise DNS entries and rotatable ports. Cell phone companies sells massive amounts of metadata that agencies act against. And ISPs easily demonstrated capriciousness early 2000s, hence why the whole Title II escapade. Which remind you no net neutrality currently
We don't need some global cabal for things that already happen.
@troed @mhoye @shanen @Cosmic_Ray I think you are missing the point in that governments have been able to shut down particular protocols before. While Bitcoin is "useful" to Iran that's again is not an intrinsically assured thing by bitcoin's protocol.
So in that governments have demonstrated the ability to shutdown particular traffic, there's not some magic element in bitcoin that separates it. It's Internet traffic all the same.
@pop_justy @mhoye @shanen @Cosmic_Ray What protocol/service has a government successfully shut down?
@troed @mhoye @shanen @Cosmic_Ray Seriously? Do I need to give a history lesson on Middle Eastern and Asian Internet censorship? Example: https://t.ly/qTOT
And while the notion that a VPN "will cut through" that is a cat and mouse game. While first world nations have the luxury thinking that people will always be a step ahead, that is hardly the case elsewhere.
@pop_justy @mhoye @shanen @Cosmic_Ray From your link: "how these measures might be sidestepped."
It's indeed a cat and mouse game. That means there will always be censorship resistant relays.
@troed @mhoye @shanen @Cosmic_Ray I think your perspective is … “interesting”.
While yes, the technical nature of things marches on, it kind of stops being a cat and mouse for those arrested and jailed for breaking internet censorship laws.
I think that’s the POV you miss here while inundating yourself in purely technical definition of censorship. Again this is just these “ramps” as you say.
@pop_justy @troed @shanen @Cosmic_Ray
The thing that kills me is how people do not seem to realize that all these transactions tie specific coins to specific wallets, immutably. The moment you can identify someone’s wallet you can trace all the coins that went in or out them, from where, to where, you can map out entire networks of interactions, immediately and trivially.
Any dissident relying on cryptocurrencies is strapping a bomb to their chests.
@mhoye @pop_justy @shanen @Cosmic_Ray Yes, you're correct - that's how it used to be. However, with the Taproot upgrade this privacy issue will go away as more and more transactions migrate.
https://www.investopedia.com/bitcoin-taproot-upgrade-5210039
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