Why are you using dollars?
This can be alleviated to some degree by the fact that not everyone needs the entire history of the network. You can get by with only copying your peers' most recent notes.
The only reason people demand money is to buy stuff with it. Literally, that is it's sole function.
In my mind, there is one big functional improvement for relays to ensure a truly decentralized system
Essentially, every client should also be a relay, but it only connects to a handful of other client/relays (perhaps the closest geographically, but this can be part of an algorithm).
The key is that each cluster of connections must not be isolated from other clusters. So, say you connect to 10 peers. Those peers must have one or more of their own peers be from outside of your set of peers.
Events must also broadcast to all peers. Since each cluster is not isolated from other clusters, each broadcast would eventually propagate the entire network.
Within these constraints, there can be a number of optimization techniques, such as when connecting to a set of peers, only download the last, say, 24 hour's worth of notes unless more is requested (such as while scrolling through one's feed). Notes themselves typically aren't that big, so getting up to speed would likely be fairly easy.
Granted, the trade-off is that your posts don't immediately make it to everyone, but that's just the trade-off. Such a network, which is clearly similar to the Bitcoin network, would certainly be resistant to shutdown. Frankly, the fact that you have to know particular relays in order for you to communicate with the broader network is a big problem. People don't want to deal with that. That stuff needs to be extracted away unless you know what you're doing.
People will want Bitcoin if they expect to be able to exchange it for goods and services. You don't need a society of people raised to believe in sound money for this process to take effect.
That better be what it's about, otherwise y'all are playing a very expensive game.
Well, if you offered one, that'd be a good start.
Monetary manipulation cannot be subverted by Bitcoin if people do not use Bitcoin as money. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be useful in this regard. I'm saying that a prerequisite for it to *actually be useful* in this regard would be that it be a general medium of exchange.
The problem of Bitcoin's lack of privacy is a significant obstacle to it's acceptance as a general medium of exchange.
You're going to be sarcastic about reading an unoriginal post in the context of crypto culture?
Idk, I think the fundamental promise of Bitcoin as an alternative money to fiat is somewhat complicated by its inability to be a full replacement for fiat.
Is it obvious? Because that payment option doesn't typically show up on the kiosk. I can convert some Bitcoin to dollars, maybe, but until then they don't typically give me the ham sandwich.
The rich don't get richer and the poor don't get poorer. In economies that prioritize private property and free enterprise, the poor get richer, the rich get richer. In states with redistributive welfare policies (like almost all western nations), inequality doesn't really go up either.
I should add that I do not believe that material inequality is a bad thing. If these redistributive policies were phased out, I wouldn't care insofar as it means people have more material inequality. What matters is poverty and inequality does not cause poverty.
Regardless of all of this, it has never been the case that money per se is the cause of any of these issues. Money is a general medium of exchange. It doesn't force anyone to do anything.
This is not what happens and even if it were, it would not "come from money."
I mean, right now, the most private and least controlled means for people to buy things is with #fiat: cash.
I know, it's value is manipulated by the central bank, but that is a product of the banking system. If everyone held cash, then the Fed would be impotent. Cash itself is fundamentally decentralized in the sense that it doesn't rely on a central authority to handle organizing exchange; you don't have to wait for the check to clear when you pay cash. Moreover, whatever you buy is between you and the seller; it's not visible to anyone else.
Until a crypto technology can replicate that kind of privacy, then the state will always have an upper hand on controlling people through money. Hell, they can effectively steal your money by blacklisting it when they know you have it! That's an extremely effective means of control, let alone knowing what you're buying and selling.
From what I understand, #Monero is the closest at trying to solve this problem, but it certainly isn't the most popular.
In my opinion, this is the single most important issue that #Bitcoin has left to resolve. Until then, I hate to say it, but #Bitcoin is just a game.
My certainly unpopular take on this platform: The public nature of the #Bitcoin blockchain will be the noose that strangles the #crypto as a means of subverting #fiat and liberating mankind from overbearing governments.
Well, probably because construction is real life.
The only real solution is to be your own ISP. Using wireless technology. On a nuclear-powered submarine. Named Red October. With Harry Potter's invisibility cloak.