Oddbean

Ah, conspiracy theory and FUD to shill altcoins. Nice. 1. Banks want to keep you using banks: Absolutely, and that's why Bitcoin exists to provide an alternative financial system outside of traditional banking. 2. Keeping Bitcoin blocks small makes Layer 1 unusable as real-world cash: Layer 1 is designed for security and decentralization, not for buying your daily coffee. That's where Layer 2 solutions like Lightning Network come in, enabling fast and cheap transactions. 3. Non-Custodial Layer 2 is complex: Early technology often is complex. Bitcoin is money for the next 1000 years. Remember when using the internet required dial-up modems and command lines? User-friendly interfaces are rapidly developing for Lightning Network. 4. Custodial Layer 2 is the new Banking: Only if you choose to use custodial services. Bitcoin gives you the freedom to be your own bank or to use services at your discretion. 5. Fiat Banks and insurance companies funded Blockstream: Blockstream's funding is public, and while they have investors, the leap to say they control Bitcoin's development is a bit of a stretch. 6. Bitcoin Core devs also worked for Blockstream conflict of interest: Bitcoin Core is open-source, and contributions come from a global community. If you suspect foul play, you're free to audit the code or contribute yourself. 7. Maxis force unrealistic solutions, pushing custodial accounts: No one's forcing anything. The beauty of Bitcoin is that it's open and permissionless. If better solutions exist, the market is free to adopt them. 8. Small blocks don't decentralize it: On the contrary, smaller blocks allow more people to run full nodes, enhancing decentralization. As for Lightning, it's becoming more accessible, and you can open channels with minimal amounts. Therefore, people do use Bitcoin in the real world, and banks are noticing. That's why there's so much interest in Bitcoin and not something like Monero. So, what am I disputing? The notion that Bitcoin isn't evolving to meet these challenges. It is, and doing so while maintaining the principles that make it valuable in the first place. But hey, enjoy your privacy coins. Meanwhile, we'll be over here continuing to build the future of global finance for Earth.

nostr:nprofile1qqs2c0m2lct4j0mpsyz38kkf58j5f6rmnn53kf7n0wywck8m42gpf2spz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduhstc4dhe is right. Small blocks help you run a node, but what's the point of being able to run a node fon an old $100 computer when transaction fees can get that high? The block size is fine for now, but needs to scale with adoption and better technology. Without the ability to conduct bank runs, custodians are free to fractionally reserve Bitcoin. I'm not suggesting to give up on Bitcoin and go all in on monero, but it has a place to challenge complacency and force Bitcoin to be competitive. The optimistic game theory for Bitcoin is that nation states will preference Bitcoin and suppress privacy coins. Once Bitcoin grows it will strangle the money printer and diminish the power of nation states. The powerful are then the wealth, who will desire privacy to avoid popular uprisings. The wealthy will desire the rest to be dependent on their banks and resist attempts to increase the block size. The block size could be increased by the majority of nodes and miners reaching consensus, but with a small block reward keeping mining from being profitable, mining could be captured by bankers who run it at a loss to control the network. This could be Moneros advantage. Tail emissions keep mining profitable. Variable block sizes allow increased transaction throughput allowing bankruns on any custodian. Without a large custodian control the incentives between miners and users are stronger. Moneros future is to keep Bitcoin accountable. If Bitcoin gets captured and used as a weapon of control, monero will grow as the coin of the people. By the time Bitcoin reacts, it may be too late. I'm buying Bitcoin for me and some monero for my grandkids.

re your answer to #3: you literally just pretended that user friendliness is equivalent to sovereignty. it's not. it doesn't matter if lightning gets "easier." if you don't own a UTXO and use it to open your own channel, it's someone else's money. and bitcoin is designed right now so that there is not enough room for lots of people to own and interact with their own UTXO. in a mass adoption scenario with small blocks and lightning, the number of people who can be sovereign is way smaller than the number of people who want to be. 99% of the population gets shoved into a centralized custodian. that's just not going to protect decentralization.

"2. Keeping Bitcoin blocks small makes Layer 1 unusable as real-world cash: Layer 1 is designed for security and decentralization, not for buying your daily coffee." Cash isn't made for every day purchase like coffee ? https://image.nostr.build/caf207f15bc1077160c9e0da7c819bd6ad21020f1af6210c8570cb3942ebabd4.png

Lightning should not be necessary, that's all the problem, Bitcoin is scalable and should scale, but now there is a conflict of interest by Blockstream, not a good thing https://image.nostr.build/c846ce58a34c4f8853d471c1aaff5d7f1c859d16c595aa549fdbe386f7dbb972.png

Bitcoin prioritizes decentralization and security, which are essential to maintaining trust in the network. That’s what gives Bitcoin its value and, yes, what ultimately affects price. Scaling Bitcoin's base layer without compromising on these fundamentals simply isn’t possible—fast and cheap transactions are secondary to trust. We want price, adoption, and security to grow, but that means making strategic trade-offs. That’s why Lightning exists, to make Bitcoin faster and more efficient for smaller, everyday transactions. It doesn't sacrifice the base layer’s security or decentralization, nor does it attempt to be a ‘trustless’ system on its own. Think of it as a convenience layer on top of Bitcoin, not a replacement for what makes Bitcoin unique. And as adoption grows, Lightning will evolve to be more accessible. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but adults understand that you can’t have everything without compromise. I’m here for Bitcoin’s long-term resilience, not a quick-fix solution. There will always be a new, better faster or whatever coin by some metric but there will never be another Bitcoin Network. This is where the value is. This is where the trust is. I don't think sacrifice security for convenience is ever a good idea for the global base layer of money. If we want as many people as possible to run full nodes then this is the way. If you need to buy a coffee, use Lightning. It's easy, fast and cheap.

Bitcoin is not long-term resilience, it's already controlled ^^ In 15 years (already done from years) the mining was captured by big corporations which will comply for sure to the authorities to censor transactions, the LN nodes are cloud hosted by Google & Amazon alone for 50%, if we take all the ISP it's probably close to 90%, where 5 entities alone own 50% of the liquidity, it's so decentralized... The real problem is transactions are traceable, they are not anonymous, censorship is possible, so I expect it will happen soon or later. At this point it's not a compromise, it's a failure https://image.nostr.build/33ef7f545dce3b1f340d18a769f889a99dd3b7518018af3a4ee9509009e7a1d2.jpg https://image.nostr.build/7da21812d906daaef0558a8fe93d0377ed7153f13b57bf410098043058c9c4d3.png

So you don't think this is exactly how global adoption works? Bitcoin is for everyone. My enemy, my friend, for me and for Megacorp. Nodes are the real authority of the network. UASF is our tool of control. The Noderunners control the Bitcoin Network. Not miners, not whales. This is exactly why keeping the blockchain as small as possible and as accessible as possible is the highest priority.

If a miner censors a valid transaction, it stays in the mempool until another miner includes it. Other miners want to maximize fees, so they’re likely to pick it up. Bitcoin’s incentives makes censorship tough and costly for any miner trying it. To block a transaction entirely, a majority of miners would need to coordinate, which is hard and expensive. If miners tried sustained censorship, users could push back with a UASF, forcing the network to ignore their blocks and making censorship attempts pointless.

Interesting, bitcoiners will have a moral choice to do : Fight censorship and accept that Bitcoin will suddenly be the wrong guy, Bitcoin will be delisted, people involved will be hunted down and wall street will move out their billions, tanking the price or Accept the censorship, after all it's only the criminals which are censored... do business as usual and see wall street inject billions What do you think will happen ?

Bitcoin is the money, there’s no such thing as ‘delisting’ it. When Bitcoin becomes the base layer of value, accepting it won’t be optional. And for many people, including me, it already is the base layer of value. If you want money, you’ll accept Bitcoin. It’s a bit absurd to keep debating this. Altcoiners just don’t see the big picture.