Edit: I wrote the following before reading smooth's latest post above. He and I were apparently writing at the same time. Interesting to see how well I guessed his stance.
this whole debate is consistent with my long held belief that all innovation should occur on the mainchain. if Bitcoin fails to do that as an open source project similar to linux, which was supposedly the great promise it made imo, then the whole concept of cryptocurrencies has failed and we'll just go back to fiat for the next hundred years.
Such underlined overly generalized grandiose black&white perspectives can usually be assumed to be false by applying Occam's Razor without any further analysis.
You've assumed:
1. Bitcoin won't end up monopolized by the State (which is I assume what you mean by your and most everyone's
imprecise use of the term 'fiat').
2. Bitcoin is the only way to scale to masses (i.e. to compete with the fiats).
3. That the "whole purpose" of crypto-currency is to scale to the masses.
I have explained in detail in this thread that Bitcoin can not scale to the masses without violating assumption #1. And I have argued that for those of us who want to protect ourselves from #1, we need to violate assumption #3 and create an anonymous coin that does scale decentralized for the "rest of us" to use. In other to achieve that goal, we need to identity a niche market for crypto-currency that is large enough to achieve monetary scale but doesn't depend on the diligence of the preoccupied masses.
I have also explained in detail in this thread that the #2 assumption only applies if someone doesn't invent a design for crypto-currency that doesn't violate the End-to-end Principle and Principle of Least Power.
i've always said i'd welcome more privacy in Bitcoin and it's possible Monero does that. i know there was a big technical issue months back but can't remember what it was. maybe someone could clarify. but that's beside the point. it is NOT innovating on top of Bitcoin which i quite frankly see as a problem for it. it is not leveraging upon the huge network effect already achieved by Bitcoin. does that necessarily mean it will fail? no. but i think we get one chance with this b/c the implications are so huge. if Bitcoin fails, they all fail. if it's not improved upon or upgraded, it will fail. if we all don't stick together as a group, it will fail. if that means the economic majority has to fork off and shed the likes of the Blockstream cabal, we have a chance. the more i think about it, the better i like the idea of getting rid of gmax and luke. i think they're toxic. yeah, gmax is a brilliant cryptographer but he can't be trusted with the keys or to run a company. he's a KNOWN Bitcoin bear and posts an XMR donation address. that's his prerogative but i think a core dev should be all out pushing and working on Bitcoin like Gavin does to advance the project forward. shedding those guys would be a good thing.
It is implausible to put Monero's autonomous End-to-end Principle respecting anonymity onto the Bitcoin block chain. It would be a hard fork against numerous vested interests.
It is technically impossible to achieve that End-to-end Principle respecting anonymity off-chain.
Your conceptualization of a world of "all or nothing" flies in the face of the reason the internet scales, which is the autonomy and freedom of choice and freedom to have many different choices that is embodied in the End-to-end Principle.
There isn't one flavor of Unix nor Linux. And there isn't one operating system on the internet. The internet doesn't care which operating system the END user chooses.
Cypherdoc your simpleton myopia is going to be paradigm shifted and you'll be standing there dazed and confused and wondering what happened.
this hasn't even been the greatest Bear, imo, which was from 32 to 1.98 in 2011.
$1000 to < $50 will make it so. (I didn't place 100% odds on that potential outcome)
i've always said that the majority of ppl investing in cryptocurrencies will lose money.
SOBO (statement of the blatantly obvious)
Bitcoin is like threading a needle; it needs to stay private enough to prevent all out war with TPTB. so far so good.
You meant stay non-private enough.
This death by a 1000 papercuts future is acceptable to most people and one of the reasons Bitcoin must be accepted as reality.
even smooth, who offers up decent stuff, was confusing me a while back before i found out he was a Monero core dev. i couldn't figure out why when i got skeptical about altcoins he'd always quickly negate anything i had to say on that. also when we got to talking about the 49%-51% attacks against Bitcoin he was posting highly frequently against Bitcoin. that's ok, he's smart and is entitled to his opinion. but it was never clear until someone mentioned his Monero connection what was happening. i like to focus on what ppl's motivations are, that should be clear. i won't let that cloud my judgment however.
I believe smooth would like to see maximum experimentation because he recognizes the potential for the death by 1000 papercuts future and in general I think he is interested in crypto-currency but isn't convinced we've hit on the best design yet. He may have a profit motive too in Monero, but I am not knowledgeable about to what degree that motivates him.
My motivation is clear. I think Bitcoin is the death by 1000 papercuts NWO future. I accept it as reality and for the network effects it brings to crypto-currency, yet I would rather die trying than accept that 1000 papercuts NWO future. And I am certain Bitcoin does not have the scaling attributes of the internet. It violates the fundamental End-to-end principle for scaling.
This guarantees that it is a dead-end (just as Facebook is a dead-end). But dead-ends can cause a lot of pain for a while.
The salient quote is:
Bitcoin can never scale as the internet did because it violates the two key scaling principles of the internet, End-to-end and Principle of Least Power. They might be able to scale it as they did Facebook to most people on earth, but it will never scale to most economic activity on earth (and note the distinction). The only way they win with Bitcoin (i.e. for it to encompass most economic activity) is by oppressing the economic freedom that will drive most of the future economic activity.
