Absolutely. And spending is always possible. You can work for me and I can work for you.
The normies... well..., they are too stupid to not give us what we want.
Is this what's about to break?
https://swentr.site/news/596567-orban-liberal-world-order-over/
In some parts of soviet union the second half of 20th century was totally indifferent from second half of 19th century, which wasn't much different from a number of even earlier centuries.
I mean no cars, no electricity, no phones, artisan blacksmith metal tools and parts of a cart.
Except, most already had modern bicycles.
The collective farms did have the machinery, but not the people at home. So outside the collective farms life was pretty much early 19th century.
I could never be convinced that our ancestors were some uncultured "horse and cart" losers with no meaningful technology.
https://video.nostr.build/c8d53d0cb0f6465910b2d8b50390e4b6e3eb3fa6aa68e46d64a7405e4544f74a.mp4
Trust me, I lived with them, they really were exactly that - horse and cart with no meaningful technology.
Yeah. But who is me? 😁
Yes, valid points. Lightning nodes as they are now are generally not for people who have never run another type of server at home. Lightning needs constant innovation and improvement.
But in general, I don't think the problem is 100% solvable. If you look at bitcoin miners - they are totally nicely plug and play. But then the hardware is not universal and very much centralized. We depend on the few producers. So to achieve decentralization, there must be a significant element of "do it yourself with nails and a hammer".
But also a thing is that there still are millions if not billions of people who do not know how files and directories work, and even Excel. They have never even had a bank account nor had any savings in any form. They will need some form of custodians forever.
When it is too costly to open a channel, then yes, custodians to some extent is probably the answer. But I think that is far away, because you do not need to be opening and rebalancing your channels all the time, especially if you live a sedentary life. You just have the right size channels with your major clients/employers and your major vendors forever. It is a bit like LinkedIn is now. Try to pick a random person from your hood you never met before, and you will find out he is your 2nd or 3rd connection in LinkedIn.
You can even inherit lightning nodes. Or your father can setup a wallet for you on his node.
And even if a miracle happened and democracy actually became a thing, I am not OK with it. If 51 idiots agree that all 100 must go on a robbing expedition, I am not going. If they agree that they need my bike, they ain't getting it. They decided on a speed limit, but my guys have a different speed limit. So? So what kind of democracy are we talking about?
The thing is that nobody can decide what is not his to be decided. This is me, and this is my earth, and I do whatever the hell I want and am capable to do on it. I can even change my mind about everything every day if I want to.
And we all lived like that with no problems in the early childhood. Remember sandboxes and playgrounds? If we and the guys agreed on the game rules, you either play by them, or find another gang, or play alone, or go to mommy, but nobody forced anybody to play by any specific rules. Because nobody cared to own all the sandboxes.
Bitcoin will bring us there. Because nobody will care to own a house he does not live in, nor a land he does not really use. Because bitcoin will appreciate more than anything else forever.
And bitcoin will be supported by rich and powerful men (a.k.a. kings) on this path to normalcy.
If I open a channel to my cafe, how am I not able to pay for coffee regardless of what the rest of the world does or does not with lightning?
Or even if we both have Blink accounts? How are we not able to pay each other?
The same as with credit cards. You either both have visa, or the russian brand, or you go look for the right coins in your purse, or use silver.
OK, time to sleep. Going to dream a few months into the future, where Chase is still down, and all the banks in US operate on manual paper procedures only. Bitcoin standard is not yet fully in, but crypto exchanges are the only viable way of transacting.
Of course, all wars are long over.
If I was coder and hacker enough to build Samourai wallet, I would also plant a nice terminal attack on banking and fed that would auto-activate in case my peaceful life is disturbed. Totally speculating. But a nice coincidence.
Correction to myself: since chase.com is down at the same time, we will see which way bitcoin price turns.
Still down.
Feels like they will even come after Lightning node operators because why the fuck not at this point
Absolutely. Following their logic, they should.
An attempt to trigger bank run? Nice.
If it comes to me being unable to buy food and pay my bills using bitcoin and without government knowing about it, I guess that is the point I am moving to El Salvador.