- A multi coin world literally exists right now, the last 15 years, and multi fiat currency for hundreds to thousands of years . Trending to one is only true in a perfect world if they are all functionally the same and they are not.
- You can say this for getting any crypto in general including Bitcoin (most users have to swap fiat). Binance, largest exchange in the world, delisted Monero and it's still around and doing fine. Atomic swaps, DEXs, and p2p exist and UX gets better every year.
- With lightning you must run your own node to gain any privacy benefits, offers no receiver privacy anyway, vulnerable to probing, leaks data when closing/opening channels. Vast majority use LN with an LSP or custodian anyway = much weaker privacy. Ironically unannounced channels, the most private way to use Lightning, offers no plausible deniability.
For your last two points...
-ASICs can't match the ubiquity and accessibility of CPU mining which is more conducive to decentralization. No large capital investment required.
-Ostensibly harder to attack, but if successful, much harder to deploy new ASICs to fight back since they're in such short supply
-Large concentrated mining farms are easy to co-opt and regulate for governments.
-Heat, noise, and energy draw make ASIC mining very obvious
-Everyone knows what you're doing/going to do with that ASIC miner you bought
-Over half the hashpower now requires KYC
-No p2pool. Stratumv2 helps but isn't sufficient. Large pool operators control payout.
-Targeted mining censorship possible
Good video though
"Police raid a concealed #Bitcoin mining operation, initially mistaking it for an illegal marijuana farm due to the heat signature"
https://twitter.com/BitcoinNewsCom/status/1721359382745874489
1. yes, but it's just an unstable equilibrium that can only be sustained because of:
a. cohercive force
b. lack of information
The tendency is to gravitate towards one form of money (like it was during the old gold standard)
2. you have some good points about technical shortcomings of lightning and mining, for sure, they are not perfect.
However, I think you miss the bigger picture: Bitcoin is a better product.
We can argue all day about technical details, but they only interest us and some other nerds on the internet, but this day and age, people want to save.
Monero is a shittier saving technology, which makes it a worst form of money, by a factor of idk 10x. All it's improvements are very marginal, and nothing compared to this big drawback.
1. Maybe so, but the cost (in time, effort, and money) of swapping currencies is now much smaller. It's not as big of a deal and continues getting easier so I imagine the "one form of money" thing carries less weight than it did in the past even if generally true. Compare swapping digital crypto online VS swapping precious metals/paper money irl. Take for example two businesses except; One accepts Bitcoin-only. The other accepts everything and later swaps what they won't need for awhile to Bitcoin. The second business has a much larger pool of customers and will likely do better, all things equal, even if they prefer Bitcoin.
a. yes, coercive force plays a big role in fiat, but gold is not exactly convenient for frequently settling debts in a global economy either. Paper money was bound to happen in some form instead of settling in gold for every transaction (although crypto changes that now)
b. There is always a lack of information
2. Not sure in what way Bitcoin is a better product unless you are specific about what that is. Better SoV? Maybe, time will see if it continues to hold true. Better MoE/currency? Not so much. Costly to transact, not private, and and weakly fungible. Doesn't seem as if that is going to change soon (if ever) considering the community not liking upgrades and wanting to ossify.
The technical details don't have to be of interest to users for their natural consequences to emerge and affect them. Nothing stop them from saving in Bitcoin and using something else as a currency either.
https://image.nostr.build/ccf181ed168942446d16535fa01942fcb9f471b7b689c9d9f8d12839df0b629c.jpg
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