If you think of your public key as the "username" and the private key as the password, then it's uncontroversial to enter your password to gain access an app or website.
Some thoughts passing through my head this morning, regarding the big "Balaji Bet".
This "bet" is causing a big stir. People are in disbelief. Others wondering how such a smart guy can be making such a bet unless he has insights most others don't have.
At first glance, the very idea that bitcoin could reach $1 million in 90 days seems absurd. So I thought about it for quite some time and realised that for such a thing to happen would require massive bank failures, requiring ever-more bailout dollars, leading to more inflation - worse still, hyperinflation.
So the real question is, is it possible that such a situation and the follow-on hyperinflation to emerge within 90 days? If that's possible, then bitcoin could rise exponentially.
Some have commented that in such a scenario bitcoin at $1 million wouldn't actually be worth $1 million as we know it today, due to such hyperinflation. In other words, they're saying its purchasing power wouln't change much.
I don't agree with that, and this is why. It doesn't require the full emergence of hyperinflation to trigger a panice run to bitcoin, just the conviction/fear that it's going to happen. In other words, people front-running anticipated hyperinflation could easily push up bitcoin's price well before the full devaluation of the currency arrived.
Others are saying that the amount of capital required to fund a $1 million price tag for bitcoin is too much, so it can't happen. But is that really the case? As I write this, bitcoin is around $28K with a market cap of $540.46 billion.
To reach a $1 million price bitcoin needs to rise by a factor of 35.7 times. That would require 35.7 times the current market cap. That's $19.29 trillion.
The current market capitalisation of gold is $12.75 trillion - so essentially bitcoin would need a market cap of around 1.5 times that of gold. Given that there's a ton load of money outside of the gold market, this doesn't seem unrealistic to me.
Finally, I come back to a basic bitcoin foundational premise, the expectation of hyperbitcoinisation at some point. I've thought about this a lot over the past 10 years or so, wondering how long it would take to arrive at such a situation.
One thing I do know, it's not going to happen gradually by "educating" people and "orange-pilling" them. The percentage of the world's population that would ever be persuading by such a strategy is miniscule.
No, the only way the masses of people around the world would adopt bitcoin was because they have no choice, as in an emergency. There will be no hyperbitcoinisation without a financial crisis of some sort - like a massive failure of the global financial system.
So what Balaji is betting on, is the emergence of such a crisis within 90 days. That is the basis of his bet for bitcoin to reach $1 million.
Personally, my mind is unable to fully grasp a reality like that. However, when I look at history I realise that massive "black swan" events do happen. The global order does change. The financial system has changed. We do have an unsustainable global debt problem - caused by the very nature of the financial system itself, based as it is on debt-based money.
My current state of mind is that such an event is possible, but impossible to be certain about as to timing. So unless Balaji has "inside" information, his definitive timing of "within 90 days" seems very inflexible.
So I am left with holding two thoughts in my mind. The scenario outlined is certainly posssible, but the timeline can't be accurately predicted. As a result, I will watch with great interest what happens in the global financial markets in the next three months in the hope I can arrive at some clarity and increased understanding.
Meanwhile, I'm holding on to my bitcoin!
I want to kick myself for watching it through to the end. What started off as an interesting premise about fungi infection, turned out to be a never-ending nothingburger featuring "zombies". Filling in segments with past narratives did nothing to alleviate the boredom. Total waste of time and I'm ashamed I watched it all.
There's a completely redesigned interface appearing now, although no messages are loading for me. Obviously a major refresh as to how Reddit looks.
I've been having issues with the Following feed on #Iris over the past couple of days. Using MacOS and the Brave browser the feed is not loading without constant refresh. Global feed works fine.
So I tried it with a few different browsers - Safari, Orion and Chrome - and in each case the Following feed is working fine.
For whatever reason, the issue seems related specifically to the Brave browser, which is where I have my Alby wallet unfortunately.
Something weird happing on the web version if #Iris at the moment.
I notice the new layout with a "Feeds" item in the menu. However, when I choose "Following" nothing comes up, just blank. I tried a few times, but no luck. Then I refreshed the page and the feed showed up. Trouble was, when I moved over to Global and came back - same thing, blank page needing a full refresh to show content.
Any other Iris users noticing this?
Buy local is just the 'little brother' of buying national. I recall,years ago, while living in Australia, there was a full-blown government campaign urging everyone to buy Australian made goods. I always thought this was a strange way of thinking.
On the other hand, if I find a local shop or market which offers unique or better quality goods, then I would be happy to buy local, but there needs to be a valid reason to, not just because it's local.
That's true. I guess it's just initial reluctance to venture into new subjects, because of some unconscious desire to "keep the peace" and not venture into potential controversy.
I don't think that's true. Germany was ahead with its technology but lost in the end. Also, based on what's happening in Ukraine, I don't see WW3 (if it happens) being fought in cyberspace, but very much on the meatspace called earth.
93 cents just now at https://coincap.io/assets/usd-coin
"Those were the days"
Just discovered further enhancement to the zap function using Iris, super smooth working with my Alby wallet using Brave browser.
I think this is a natural development due to bitcoiners being the first to adopt Nostr in a big way. Going forward more and more people will learn about Nostr and the potential for discussions on a wide variety of topics will grow accordingly.
It's also import to realise that what you see on the "following" feed is determined by who you follow.