ClaytonB
Member
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2011
- Messages
- 10,252
It's hilarious to me watching from the outside as Jonathan takes this journey into Bitcoin because I know that it's basically inevitable that he's going to be converted as he starts using it and understanding it on a functional level. And I think his skepticism and careful approach are extremely valuable because Bitcoin-speak is just alien-ese to the ordinary person: "hash", "block", "public key", "proof-of-work", "blockchain address", "multi-signature transaction", and so on. As a techie, watching Jonathan struggle through the concepts of Bitcoin is very interesting and I think it will also be very helpful to non-technical people who have all the same questions that Jonathan has.
Skip to the 9:00 timestamp if you want to skip personal introductions and just want to get into the discussion of Bitcoin.
PS: I do have one technical quibble with Mr. Armani when he states that the blockchain can be replicated, thus increasing the number of Bitcoins. While the blockchain can be forked, and the pre-fork holders can be offered real value for the coins they hold, this does not increase the number of Bitcoins in existence. The fork, rather, is an existential attack on Bitcoin itself, that is, it is an attempt to woo away holders of Bitcoin into the new Bitcoin-prime. When "Bitcoin"-Cash tried to woo people off of Bitcoin, it just backfired on them because the smart Bitcoiners simply cashed out their "Bitcoin"-cash for more Bitcoins. In effect, the "Bitcoin"-cash miners were just donating money to Bitcoiners. And this will be the outcome every time, unless one of these copy-and-fork schemes were to actually move people out of Bitcoin. But why would they move unless there is an existential crisis in the original network? You can slosh the water in the pan all you want but, sooner or later, it's going to settle back down to the bottom. The holders who just ignore the hubbub end up winning out.
So no, you can't increase the number of Bitcoins, not even by forking. So the coins themselves are truly scarce. But what a Bitcoin is is easily misunderstood. A Bitcoin is actually an entry in the blockchain, and the blockchain consists in all its hosted copies spread out over the physical computers of Bitcoin nodes and miners. So, the number of Bitcoins can't be increased because those node and miner operators have no incentive to move to a blockchain with more Bitcoins, not even if it is a copy-and-fork of the blockchain, such as "Bitcoin"-cash.
Skip to the 9:00 timestamp if you want to skip personal introductions and just want to get into the discussion of Bitcoin.
PS: I do have one technical quibble with Mr. Armani when he states that the blockchain can be replicated, thus increasing the number of Bitcoins. While the blockchain can be forked, and the pre-fork holders can be offered real value for the coins they hold, this does not increase the number of Bitcoins in existence. The fork, rather, is an existential attack on Bitcoin itself, that is, it is an attempt to woo away holders of Bitcoin into the new Bitcoin-prime. When "Bitcoin"-Cash tried to woo people off of Bitcoin, it just backfired on them because the smart Bitcoiners simply cashed out their "Bitcoin"-cash for more Bitcoins. In effect, the "Bitcoin"-cash miners were just donating money to Bitcoiners. And this will be the outcome every time, unless one of these copy-and-fork schemes were to actually move people out of Bitcoin. But why would they move unless there is an existential crisis in the original network? You can slosh the water in the pan all you want but, sooner or later, it's going to settle back down to the bottom. The holders who just ignore the hubbub end up winning out.
So no, you can't increase the number of Bitcoins, not even by forking. So the coins themselves are truly scarce. But what a Bitcoin is is easily misunderstood. A Bitcoin is actually an entry in the blockchain, and the blockchain consists in all its hosted copies spread out over the physical computers of Bitcoin nodes and miners. So, the number of Bitcoins can't be increased because those node and miner operators have no incentive to move to a blockchain with more Bitcoins, not even if it is a copy-and-fork of the blockchain, such as "Bitcoin"-cash.
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