Why even save anytime besides transactions on the chain?
Why bigger blocks when the fees are 1 sat/vb all the time?
Discussion
First point we agree on, in fact that's the whole argument right now.
Why now, or why in the future?
Your 3G cellular network was fine until it wasn't, your 8MB of RAM in your computer was fine until it wasn't. IPv4 with it's 4 billion addresses was fine until it wasn't.
We should look to improve the tech. Are bigger blocks or spam removal better tech?
Spam is an opinion. My view is Bitcoin is money, that has nothing to do with cat JPEGs. Others have different opinions.
Blocksize determines transactions per second.
Currently Bitcoin runs at a maximum of around 7 TPS.
You can compare this to the banking system, who make settlements internally mostly using RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement), this has a max throughput of 9 TPS.
If you want Bitcoin to be the worldβs settlement layer, then its current capacity is sufficient.
If you want the world to use it to settle any transaction size, then 7 TPS will not be enough.
Currently Lightning is good up to about 1M Sats.
RTGS generally operates at millions of dollars.
In the future it is unlikely this gap will reduce as BTC price increases.
I think this is going to be a problem.
* gap will increase
Is it a problem for now or later?
Right now, the mempool is mostly empty, you have freedom of choice to use Lightning or mainchain.
Later, who knows.
I recently heard about the Ark protocol, which is an interesting development.
Looks interesting. In its current form, there needs to be a lot of trust on lightning.
What's your thoughts on banks not advancing into the custodial space so slowly? Are they like the music industry and in denial of the future?
I think they are advancing.
My bank is Xapo, a Bitcoin bank.
My original bank is Barclays, which is to customers extremely hostile to Bitcoin despite buying it for its own balance sheet.
Game theory wins, you are obliged to play a game that disadvantages you, because not playing it disadvantages you further
Also, everything goes in circles, we are re-fighting the encryption and privacy battles from the 1990's that PGP and Phil Zimmermann won, so many banks will continue to fight this and ultimately loose.
And the path to victory is never smooth.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Mike. Game theory is a bitch. Haha.
I was thinking that stocks would need to adopt a bitcoin treasury, but it seems like it would really only be a temporary reprieve for stocks. The end game is they should get mostly demonetised and provide only benefits to owners/workers. What's your thoughts?
Everything in the fiat system is going to collapse, Bitcoin is going to replace it, in the same way the Internet replaced fax machines.
Until a couple of years ago, Internet fax gateways still existed, however.
Most companies have tangible value and their share price should reflect this, as fiat becomes increasingly unable to do this, share prices will be shown in Sats.
In countries with hyper inflation, such as the Lebanon, people still use the currency on a day to day basis, but as soon as they received payment for their goods, they transfer that local currency into a more stable asset such as dollars, or in the Crypto world, Tether or Bitcoin.
What surprised me about observing these countries is that hyperinflation is no longer an end game, it simply enforces a different coping strategy.