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Bitcoin is not broken. It works fundamentally as designed. It does what it was designed to do, which it what I need it to do.

geodesic 2y ago

Sorta. The design goals changed a bit over the years. Originally the design goal was trustless p2p money. Now we've settled for 'digital gold' or 'p2p fedwire' or whatever you want to call it. And yes, it does that fantastically.

But those of us who want to have a money free from banks still need to solve scalability and fungibility. I agree we shouldn't add those features directly into Bitcoin; Bitcoin's immutability is one of its greatest features. Trustless L2's is the way you get those features and build bankless money without building those features into Bitcoin itself.

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Discussion

Sedj 2y ago

I call it bitcoin, and I think it is scaling as much as it needs to through L2s. I think lightning and liquid will both go through some evolution before they actually see widespread use, but that evolution shouldn't require changes to the L1. I don't see any issue with bitcoin's present fungibility. Last I checked, my bitcoin was still free of banks.

I think our only point of contention is whether or not it is reasonable to make changes to an L1 based on proposed needs for an L2. I say it is not.

geodesic 2y ago

You're Bitcoin is free of banks, but it isn't money. I want money that's free of the banks, but money requires the following properties, some of which Bitcoin doesn't have and can't be obtained with today's L2's:

1. Durable ✅

2. Portable ✅

3. Divisible ✅

4. Scarce ✅

5. Verifiable ✅

6. Fungible ❌

7. Medium of exchange ❌

Without #6 and #7 Bitcoin will be a terrific financial instrument, but never money. Something else will always be used as money.

Sidechains can enable scale (medium of exchange) and fungibility, but they need to be trustless pegs, or else we end up with trusted money.

Since trustless p2p money would make us vastly more free than 'digital gold', I maintain we should still be striving for #6 & #7.

geodesic 2y ago

s/you're/your 😅

The Fertile Crescent 2y ago

I use bitcoin as a medium of exchange for goods and services all the time. And any 1 sat = 1 sat

geodesic 2y ago

So do I. But it cannot be used as a medium of exchange for the entire economic population, because it cannot process enough transactions. For it to be money, the entire population needs to be able to use it as a medium of exchange, but that isn't possible.

The Fertile Crescent 2y ago

No money is used by the entire economic population currently. Bitcoin is available to more of the entire population than any other money

geodesic 2y ago

We might be confusing terms here. Economic population means 'population of people who economically engage with each other'. So for USD, that would be at least US adults and businesses. For the Euro that would be Eruozone adults and businesses.

Bitcoin cannot even handle enough transactional volume to onboard the Eurozone economic population onto the lightning network. So therefore Bitcoin cannot become money in that population.

If we want Bitcoin to become global money, it needs to be able to process enough transactions to onboard the global adult/business population into the lightning network. That is not possible. Therefore people will result to lightning banks (like WalletOfSatoshi) which can do all the same evil stuff as fiat banks.

If you want to free the world from the banks, you want #6 & #7. If you just want a financial instrument to hedge you're portfolio, then Bitcoin's current status as digital gold is sufficient.