Yes, but only for brief periods of time. As I recall, the last time the monkeys outbid the monetary guys, it lasted maybe 8-9 hours. Fees were over 1,000. Eventually the monkey folks are paying more in fees than theyāre earning on the monkeys and fee rates return to normal. But I can tell you firsthand, if you have urgent non-monkey-business to do on-chain during one of those monkey-heavy periods, youāre in for a world of hurt. šµ
Discussion
Most altcoin activity is one-and-done.
What makes you think there will be another wave of monkey JPEGs of similar scale? People have learned itās a scam now and the market is flooded with their unlimited supply.
Even if there is another wave of that stuff, imagine the types of clogs that will exist once bitcoin is successful as a global payment and settlement network.
All sorts of people will be priced out of the base layer from monetary transactions alone, unless Bitcoin stays small and niche.
What makes me think there will be another wave of monkey spam? Bitcoin Core devs are literally pushing through a source code update as we speak, against the wishes of many, that lifts the cap on the amount of spam that can be crammed into a transaction and, if Iām reading the proposal correctly, makes it more difficult to filter it out at the node level. Theyāre literally welcoming this type of activity with open arms. Itās championed by a fellow who promotes and profits from these schemes.
No, altcoin scams are most certainly NOT āone and done.ā Thereās a sucker born every minute. People will not learn. Even the lionās share of prior victims will not learn.
Now, if your point is that people wonāt be fooled by that *exact* same monkey promotion, then ok, I concede. Maybe they wonāt. Maybe next time itāll be a rhino. Or a Trump-themed cat. Or some other harebrained meme. One of them will catch on and fees will spike as monetary transactions get crowded out in favor of these garbage transactions. Then the fee bubble will pop and the cycle repeats.
As an aside, one of the things I absolutely love about Ethereum (as a Bitcoin maxi) is that historically, itās acted as a magnet š§² for this type of garbage, keeping it out of the Bitcoin ecosystem. And how does the Bitcoin developer community respond? By inviting that exact same garbage into our own house.
Your point that hypothetically L1 backspace competition would heat up anyway, even in the absence of all monkeys š, due to the sheer quantity of legitimate monetary transactions, is well taken. Youāre absolutely right. And if it happens before the general masses get acclimated to L2 solutions then yeah, thatās a problem. But whatever time window you imagine we have before that happens shrinks dramatically with monkeys (and other chicanery) crowding out legit transactions.
lol that should be block space not backspace. Guess I shouldāve used my backspace before hitting Post.
Dude whatās happening here?Iām fairly new to the btc game so I donāt have historical lived examples, but this behavior of btc core does not make any sense!
The only reasons for their behaviour I canāt think of are:
- they got corrupted by the system or blackmailed
- they got drunk with power and think they can force whatever they decide
- they got rich enough and now donāt care anymore about btc original mission
But what I donāt get the most is that if implemented this change will destroy btc, like you said it will be flooded with spam without a doubt, pushing out ppl who want to use it for monetary transaction. Do core really believe this will not happen? I canāt believe they donāt see it coming
Sorry man just trying to engage with someone on this issue which is managed in such a weird way
I wish I had some inside information on whatās going on with the Bitcoin core devs, but Iām just an outside observer reading the same stuff you are.
From what I can tell, one of the key guys trying to obsolete Bitcoinās original mission as a medium of exchange and store of value and transform into a less capable Ethereum knockoff, is a partner in a company that promotes this garbage. Itās just greed.
I wouldnāt say itās the end of Bitcoin, but when I see that those in control are banning dissenting opinions, deleting comments, and ramming through harmful proposals that mainstream Bitcoiners donāt want, Iād say it might be the *beginning* of the end. Itās just too soon to say.
At the end of the day, maybe itās just inevitable that the control of money, be it fiat or Bitcoin, eventually finds its way into the hands of a small group intent on using it for their own ends at the expense of everyone else. Maybe thatās just the nature of money.
Yes I agree with you, it might be the beginning of the end if things donāt changeā¦.
But it seems fishy as hell, even Lyn, which I always considered as one of my reference point in the btc community, seems strange about this issue (the answers she gives, and the way she treats the topic as if itās not a major point of contention)
Lynās a macroeconomic wiz but not necessarily in a position to understand the ripple effects of these seemingly small protocol changes. Nor does he claim to be. Nor do I, for that matter.
Iām a pretty simple minded guy with only a surface level understanding of how these BTC transactions are crafted. From my perspective, Iām just asking myself, āDoes this make things easier for spammers , or harder? Does it further Bitcoinās primary purpose as money, or just it make it easier to crowd out monetary transactions with garbage? Do the people pushing the proposal receive outsized financial benefits from the change due to their own business interests?ā
The only response Iāve seen so far is, āNo worries. Spammers probably wonāt make use of this exploit weāre introducing because, guess what, weāve already introduced a *prior* attack vector thatās even *more* effective for supporting spam transactions.ā Meh, ok. Maybe thatās true, but not exactly a compelling narrative. Why take the risk when no one is really certain what the side effects will be?
Even if turns out the change is a non-issue from a technical standpoint, if thereās enough acrimony over it to cause a split or hard fork, either on the chain itself or in terms developer mindshare, that truly is a problem. No way institutions or government agencies will want to stay onboard if thereās a debate over which branch is the real Bitcoin. I donāt think itāll come to that, but I already see rumblings of people digging in, running alternate Bitcoin implementations, trying to poach devs from the core group, etc.
Itāll be interesting to see how it plays out.
The questions you asks yourself are exactly the same I ask myself!!
Yes the response core gave is not very compelling, but most of all itās the way they behave that is worrying me. Almost like they donāt have to explain things to anybody and we plebs are too stupid to understand anyway and shouldnāt have a say in the matterā¦.
Letās see how it unfoldsā¦.if even btc fails to revolutionize the world Iām giving up forever !!