Cryptocurrency thread

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

20 hours ago, Californication said:

All of that is after the fact that the money to pay for miners expenses has to come from some where and the system does not generate any type of revenue. This eco-system is essentially functioning like wiley coyote running off a cliff and not looking down. 

It's amazing how many educated people are getting bamboozled.

You could say the same thing about gold or oil. There's no revenue generated by the act of mining, you have to sell what you mine to a willing buyer at or around the current fair market price. Sometimes miners operate at a loss, sometimes mining operations have to be shut down because their costs exceed their revenue. 

You can sell one Bitcoin right now for about $20k. If you think no miner can afford to mine Bitcoin at this price, you don't understand how mining works. 

With real world mining, such as with oil, if a bunch of mining operations shut down, that means less supply of oil entering the market. A reduction in new supply will likely lead to higher prices if demand is constant. So the remaining miners are able to offset their costs with those higher prices. 

With Bitcoin mining, supply generation is constant. If a bunch of mining operations shut down, the difficulty of acquiring that new supply of Bitcoin goes down, meaning a cost reduction for the remaining miners. 

Could the Bitcoin price stay in freefall forever, causing hashpower to continue to drop as miners leave the network, and in turn, making Bitcoin less attractive to buyers? Sure. But that doesn't mean miners cannot afford to mine at some magical threshold. 

Edited June 23, 2022 by MiamiSlice

[OptOut | 8,883]

25 minutes ago, MiamiSlice said:

Could the Bitcoin price stay in freefall forever, causing hashpower to continue to drop as miners leave the network, and in turn, making Bitcoin less attractive to buyers? Sure.

FUD confirmed. 

[Californication | 1,477]

2 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

You could say the same thing about gold or oil. There's no revenue generated by the act of mining, you have to sell what you mine to a willing buyer at or around the current fair market price. Sometimes miners operate at a loss, sometimes mining operations have to be shut down because their costs exceed their revenue. 

You can sell one Bitcoin right now for about $20k. If you think no miner can afford to mine Bitcoin at this price, you don't understand how mining works. 

With real world mining, such as with oil, if a bunch of mining operations shut down, that means less supply of oil entering the market. A reduction in new supply will likely lead to higher prices if demand is constant. So the remaining miners are able to offset their costs with those higher prices. 

With Bitcoin mining, supply generation is constant. If a bunch of mining operations shut down, the difficulty of acquiring that new supply of Bitcoin goes down, meaning a cost reduction for the remaining miners. 

Could the Bitcoin price stay in freefall forever, causing hashpower to continue to drop as miners leave the network, and in turn, making Bitcoin less attractive to buyers? Sure. But that doesn't mean miners cannot afford to mine at some magical threshold. 

Gold and oil are natural resources and have intrinsic value. Their intrinsic value is based on the fact that they have real world applications. 

Secondly, you do realize that mining for natural resources and mining for bitcoin are two very different things right?

Bitcoin marketers adopted the word mining although it makes no sense they same way they adopted the word currency.

Bitcoin has no value, the process of "mining" is masturabatory. It does nothing except try and create a basis for calculating value. 

Edited June 23, 2022 by Californication

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

I cringe every time I see that commercial that offers helpful instructions on how to change your retirement portfolio over to cryptocurrency.

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

8 hours ago, Californication said:

Gold and oil are natural resources and have intrinsic value. Their intrinsic value is based on the fact that they have real world applications. 

Secondly, you do realize that mining for natural resources and mining for bitcoin are two very different things right?

Bitcoin marketers adopted the word mining although it makes no sense they same way they adopted the word currency.

Bitcoin has no value, the process of "mining" is masturabatory. It does nothing except try and create a basis for calculating value. 

You are moving goalposts. This is why I don’t bother commenting in this thread much. 

[Californication | 1,477]

2 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

You are moving goalposts. This is why I don’t bother commenting in this thread much. 

Not sure what you are upset about. 

You made a long post comparing gold/oil mining to bit-coin mining and I responded by stating that gold/oil is not equal to bitcoin because of intrinsic value.

The other issue is that you say that mining gold/oil does not create value, the asset must be sold. That is not true, gold and oil if held will appreciate over time because inflation occurs since the resources have intrinsic value.

Bitcoin does not have intrinsic value.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Californication

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

24 minutes ago, Californication said:

Not sure what you are upset about. 

You made a long post comparing gold/oil mining to bit-coin mining and I responded by stating that gold/oil is not equal to bitcoin because of intrinsic value.

The other issue is that you say that mining gold/oil does not create value, the asset must be sold. That is not true, gold and oil if held will appreciate over time because inflation occurs since the resources have intrinsic value.

Bitcoin does not have intrinsic value.

So I don’t actually own a physical piece of the blockchain?

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

1 hour ago, Californication said:

Not sure what you are upset about. 

You made a long post comparing gold/oil mining to bit-coin mining and I responded by stating that gold/oil is not equal to bitcoin because of intrinsic value.

The other issue is that you say that mining gold/oil does not create value, the asset must be sold. That is not true, gold and oil if held will appreciate over time because inflation occurs since the resources have intrinsic value.

Bitcoin does not have intrinsic value.

Not at all what I said, anyone is welcome to read my post and determine for themselves whether I corrected RH's and your misunderstandings about the cost/revenue equation with Bitcoin mining or not. 

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

2 hours ago, Californication said:

The other issue is that you say that mining gold/oil does not create value, the asset must be sold. That is not true, gold and oil if held will appreciate over time because inflation occurs since the resources have intrinsic value.

Also just to be clear, and again I'm only refuting a specific point, storing oil has significant costs. If you can sell it quickly you of course have various transfer costs involved to move it to the refinery that will be buying it. If you decide to sit on it to capitalize on the long term "inflation" opportunity instead, you have various costs associated with storing it and making sure it does not degrade underground. There are plenty of resources you can read online about this, but one great example is the FAQ about the USA's strategic oil reserves, which mentions that the cost to store a barrel of oil above ground in tanks is usually about $15-$18 whereas storing it deep underground in salt caves is about $3.50. 

Furthermore, oil has always been a volatile market and the long term benefits of storing it are not really reflected in the price. Here's a chart for the price of 1 barrel in USD over the past ~40 years. You have a 20 year period where the price was relatively steady with peaks and troughs, then a huge runup to 2008, then large volatility onward with the price still not having recovered since. This is partly because the supply of oil long term is hard to predict, with predictions about "peak oil" in the past having turned out to be wrong. We keep finding more oil!

Likewise, while gold is easier to store and has no risk of degrading over time, there are costs associated with storing it, including securing it - meaning you need to put it in vaults and have security for those vaults. And, the price of gold has likewise had long periods of price stability or volatility that make it risky to hold long term (although it has held up well recently). 

Basically, from 1982 on to 2000 you would have lost money sitting on gold (paying to store it while the spot price slowly bled out), then it was a very good hold onward to 2012, and has been considerably volatile since. 

Edited June 24, 2022 by MiamiSlice

[Californication | 1,477]

4 minutes ago, MiamiSlice said:

Also just to be clear, and again I'm only refuting a specific point, storing oil has significant costs. If you can sell it quickly you of course have various transfer costs involved to move it to the refinery that will be buying it. If you decide to sit on it to capitalize on the long term "inflation" opportunity instead, you have various costs associated with storing it and making sure it does not degrade underground. There are plenty of resources you can read online about this, but one great example is the FAQ about the USA's strategic oil reserves, which mentions that the cost to store a barrel of oil above ground in tanks is usually about $15-$18 whereas storing it deep underground in salt caves is about $3.50. 

Furthermore, oil has always been a volatile market and the long term benefits of storing it are not really reflected in the price. Here's a chart for the price of 1 barrel in USD over the past ~40 years. You have a 20 year period where the price was relatively steady with peaks and troughs, then a huge runup to 2008, then large volatility onward with the price still not having recovered since. This is partly because the supply of oil long term is hard to predict, with predictions about "peak oil" in the past having turned out to be wrong. We keep finding more oil!

Likewise, while gold is easier to store and has no risk of degrading over time, there are costs associated with storing it, including securing it - meaning you need to put it in vaults and have security for those vaults. And, the price of gold has likewise had long periods of price stability or volatility that make it risky to hold long term (although it has held up well recently). 

Basically, from 1982 on to 2000 you would have lost money sitting on gold (paying to store it while the spot price slowly bled out), then it was a very good hold onward to 

 

 

[OptOut | 8,883]

Genuine question:

Transactions in Bitcoin are verified by "miners" who pay huge sums of money in terms of hardware and electricity bills to verify the transactions. In return, they receive newly "minted" bitcoins, as a form of compensation, which makes the whole process profitable.

What happens after the last Bitcoin is minted, the maximum number of 21 million Bitcoins are out there? Who is going to pay the huge expense necessary to verify Bitcoin transactions, when there is no more profit to be made, because there are no more coins left to "mine"?

Isn't the technology inherently flawed in a way that guarantees it will become absolutely useless at an arbitrary point of time in the future? 

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

1 hour ago, OptOut said:

Genuine question:

Transactions in Bitcoin are verified by "miners" who pay huge sums of money in terms of hardware and electricity bills to verify the transactions. In return, they receive newly "minted" bitcoins, as a form of compensation, which makes the whole process profitable.

What happens after the last Bitcoin is minted, the maximum number of 21 million Bitcoins are out there? Who is going to pay the huge expense necessary to verify Bitcoin transactions, when there is no more profit to be made, because there are no more coins left to "mine"?

Isn't the technology inherently flawed in a way that guarantees it will become absolutely useless at an arbitrary point of time in the future? 

This has been debated for years. I’ve been following this debate casually since 2017. There are various proposals from “eventually the value of fees will be high enough to cover costs” to “maybe modify the protocol to remove the supply cap or reward miners in some other way.” I don’t have a horse in this race, I am heavily focused on Ethereum, but I do think this issue with Bitcoin needs to be addressed eventually.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

8 hours ago, OptOut said:

Genuine question:

Transactions in Bitcoin are verified by "miners" who pay huge sums of money in terms of hardware and electricity bills to verify the transactions. In return, they receive newly "minted" bitcoins, as a form of compensation, which makes the whole process profitable.

What happens after the last Bitcoin is minted, the maximum number of 21 million Bitcoins are out there? Who is going to pay the huge expense necessary to verify Bitcoin transactions, when there is no more profit to be made, because there are no more coins left to "mine"?

Isn't the technology inherently flawed in a way that guarantees it will become absolutely useless at an arbitrary point of time in the future? 

The idea is that the fees alone will be enough of an incentive to make mining profitable. It's estimated that the last bitcoin will mined around 2140, so it likely won't be an issue in any of our lifetimes.

[OptOut | 8,883]

6 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

The idea is that the fees alone will be enough of an incentive to make mining profitable. It's estimated that the last bitcoin will mined around 2140, so it likely won't be an issue in any of our lifetimes.

Roughly how high would fees have to be to make mining profitable? Let's say, for example, miners today had to verify transactions for fees alone, without gaining any new bitcoin, how many transactions would that be and at what rate?

Genuinely curious, because if they are struggling to turn a profit at 20k per bitcoin, I can only imagine how expensive it must be to verify all these transactions.

[RH | 4,898]

@OptOut, this is for you.  *cough* I know you don't like to read long things *cough* werewolf *cough*, but just work through this slowly if you want and care about the insight from the early days when I was knit picking the development and was working on early alt coins.

You have to understand that BTC was always considered to be an "experiment" by Satoshi.  I mean, they did hope it would have some degree of success, but no one expected what we have today, and certainly for Bitcoin to remain "king".

The early idea was simple.  When BTC was worthless, or very little, it was easy for the average joe to earn BTC off of his CPU.  As value increased, so would the cost because difficulty would increase as well.  This, of course, happened when a guy named LukeJr (IIRC) wrote the first GPU miner and almost overnight, CPU mining was practically useless.  Well, it wasn't that fast because not everyone had compatible GPUs but pretty quickly, people who were already into BTC upgraded their PCs because BTC was around the $.25-.70/each at that point.  Mining pools were already a thing back then and, in fact, were around even during the CPU days, but when GPU mining hit, it was momentarily an option for individuals to actually mine and hit the occasional block on a commodity PC with a top-of-the-line GPU.

We've only gone up from there regarding price and cost of commitment to mine. Mining and profitability is fierce.  I tried to keep up with it a bit and just about anyone could be profitable because from 2010-2015, everyone had a "HODL!" mindset and, well, people still do.  But back then BTC could only go up because as it gained more mind-share of the public, it only became more popular.  You could mine at a loss today, but in a year, sell and possibly make a great profit.

I remember the first time that blocks dropped from 50BTC/ea to 25.  People wondered if it the price would drop off and if miners would cut off their machines.  They didn't.  BTC was designed so with time, the "value" of mining would slowly shift to gaining value from fees rather than hitting blocks and getting the reward.  This is why the timing pegs it finishing around 2140.  Miners were mentally prepped and ready for the halfing of profits, so mining continued as usual.  But of course, everyone was basically holding because everyone expected crazy prices, making losses less painful, so long as you could wait to cash out BTC.

The further hope and intent was that focus on mining would slowly dwindle, or hash power over the decades would taper off in growth.  If the rewards aren't as big, not as many people will try to mine because it's "not worth it".  But computational graphs have yet to show that affect.  There was another problem that was "noticed" years after BTC was established and that's that blocks do (or at least they did) have a fixed number of transactions in them.  This mean that every transaction has to "compete" to get on a block.  How does it do that?  Well, miners have a list of queued transactions people have sent.  They then sort them however they want BUT everyone sorts the pending transactions by fee amount.  This means if you want to get a transaction in a block sooner, rather than later, you better put a decent fee on it. Conversely, if you have a low-priority transaction that you want to send "whenever", then just submit something with no fees or even a $.01 value fee and it will likely get picked up, but who knows when.  It's just not worth it to the miners, so they'll take it when there just aren't that many transactions pending to go through.

In time, if BTC remains popular and transaction throughput gets higher and higher, we'll see an increase in fees.  It's hard to say how much that will be in direct BTC per block, but what will really matter is the payout in local fiat to where ever the miners do business.

BTC as a currency is trash, though.  The idea is like a killer game that broke new ground when it came out.  An amazing idea and it was critically acclaimed at launch.  However, 20 years later that game has been "duplicated" 100 times, has had stellar, direct sequels but none have captured the zeitgeist of the original.  People love the original game, but they all know that there are now far better games that were built off of the original concept, and the first first game of this genre is now just fun to play for history and nostalgia.

This is what BTC should be.  It's an amazing coin as a first-of-kind!  Kudos to Satoshi Nakamoto and the other original devs for hammering out something that amazingly worked and proved you could have decentralized currency!  I laud and appreciate their efforts!  That said, the code was buggy, felt like it was written by a coding novice (and was possibly a mathematician rather than a professional coder because the OG code for years was traaaaaaaash (and probably still is...)).  BUT, it was a starting point and even Satoshi felt that way.  BTC was never the end, just the starting point.

One small, final note.  I started hanging out at BitcoinTalk about a month or so after Satoshi "disappeared".  I even messaged him, not knowing he was gone.  I legit missed those early days and being part of the conversations wit him by, maybe, a few weeks.  I have had conversations with Gavin Anderson (I think that was his name) who took over as lead dev. I mostly asked technical questions and I had even made other posts and comments questioning the general efficacy of certain aspects.  We alt coin supporters were not liked, even in 2011.  Even back then, "BTC was king", and it just blew my mind that people couldn't see the forest for the trees regarding the real notion that we could decouple currency from government control if we improved the process.  Instead, BTC was first and that was what the 90% wanted to put all of their chips behind.

[OptOut | 8,883]

So, what you're basically saying is that if we ever get to the point that miners are relying on fees as opposed to bitcoin rewards for payment, it's just going to be whoever has the most money to spend on fees that are gonna get all their coin processed? What will happen to all of the little guys wanting to trade their coins, won't they basically just get eaten alive by fees?

At that point it's less a case of "what's in it for the miners" and more a case of "what's in it for everyone else", right?

[RH | 4,898]

30 minutes ago, OptOut said:

So, what you're basically saying is that if we ever get to the point that miners are relying on fees as opposed to bitcoin rewards for payment, it's just going to be whoever has the most money to spend on fees that are gonna get all their coin processed? What will happen to all of the little guys wanting to trade their coins, won't they basically just get eaten alive by fees?

At that point it's less a case of "what's in it for the miners" and more a case of "what's in it for everyone else", right?

It's tough to say and no one can say.  The overly optimistic idea is there would be a "balance".  But, the blue-sky believers would have argued long ago, BTC would be mostly held by companies like Coinbase, and you can "transfer" funds by other means.  You own "virtual" BTC, while companies like BTC can manage larger transactions worth paying, I don't know, $10-20 transaction fees.  Again, no one knows for sure, but there is an assumption there will be an equilibrium.

Now, a lot might have changed in the past 2017 regarding ways to upgrade the system.  That said, in the past there have been multiple coup attempts to change BTC and when the main devs denied those changes, other people changed the code and forks in the blockchain were created, effectively, making a second coin.  These coins are still around, but none of the forks have become the primary BTC chain.  The leadership to BTC has been very hesitant to change the mechanics, as defined for over 10 years, to fix problems like this.  Come another decade or two, I highly doubt they will change the mining algorithm to allow the continual creation of BTC, but we'll see.  It might be outlawed and nearly entirely dead by then.  Who knows, really?

Edited June 24, 2022 by RH

[OptOut | 8,883]

I guess the miners better hope we haven't cracked quantum computing by the year 2140... You could probably mine all the remaining bitcoin in like 20 mins on a fully operational quantum rig! 

[Californication | 1,477]

51 minutes ago, RH said:

 Even back then, "BTC was king", and it just blew my mind that people couldn't see the forest for the trees regarding the real notion that we could decouple currency from government control if we improved the process.  Instead, BTC was first and that was what the 90% wanted to put all of their chips behind.

It sounds like you're saying that there are other options to decoupling currency from governments and that that is a positive thing. 

The issue with decoupling currency from government is that government provides regulation which protect people. 

Since bitcoin has avoided the same regulatory scrutiny as banks what has resulted is massive number of scams and people being defrauded.

For me this is evidence that this decoupling is a ridiculous and just another failed  libertarian idea. Our banks used to be unregulated and it had horrible results including fly-by-night banks which is exactly what we have seen with these shit coins.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Californication

[RH | 4,898]

Just now, Californication said:

It sounds like you're saying that there are other options to decoupling currency from governments and that that is a positive thing. 

The issue with decoupling currency from government is that government provides regulation which protect people. 

Since bitcoin has avoided the same regulatory scrutiny as banks what has resulted is massive number of scams and people being defrauded.

For me this is evidence that this decoupling is a ridiculous idea and just another failed  libertarian idea. Our banks used to be unregulated and it had horrible results including fly-by-night banks and that is exactly what we have seen with these shit coins.

The reason why I disagree, and many of us did back then in the early years,  was the combo of banks working with the government created the perfect storm for the housing crisis in 2008/09 that sent massive financial ripples across the globe.  In fact, it's assumed that that event was largely the motivation for Satoshi to invent BTC.  Regulations can certainly benefit consumers and protect against scams but the flip of that is that the Fed manages the money and can (and does!) manipulate it to it's own will, or print it as it desires. (I know it's not that simple, but it's nothing we normal people can control.)

Yes, scams can happen with BTC but most of those come from ignorance and personal choice.  Using a system like BTC, you have to exercise a healthy degree of skepticism when dealing with business.  Cryptocurrency doesn't have to be an entire "wild west".  A dream coin for me would only be a currency that operate quickly, would allow for the setup of senders having to 2FA (or nFA) confirm transactions and even provide a payment receipt mechanism where the receiver can verify the transaction has been sent before final sender approval so that transactions can be optionally cancelled in mid-execution.  This has its merits in certain use cases. Oh, and fees would be minimal, if not eliminated and would certainly not be POW or POS.  There are ways to get close to this, if not fully implemented.  Believe me, I've thought long and hard about this but I never took the time to roll my own coin.  There are novel changes to the fundamentals of how transactions are managed but implementing them in a decentralized way is tough, but not impossible.  Essentially, you need to eliminate the "block" and instead use a straight transaction chain.  But, I digress.  That's getting off in the weeds.

Even USD can be used for scams, especially when hard cash is involved.  Crypto just takes the hard cash approach and makes it digital.  I see no difference, it's just global in scale vs. local.  You can still regulate business and people using crypto could see it like cash, if you want to be safe, use a company that is known and legally registered in your country as a business.  Regardless, the creation of the currency and the flow of the "cash" does not have to be controlled by the US government and even with cash, it doesn't control much of that.  All it does is make the bills as it sees fit and transfers it to the banks for distribution.

[OptOut | 8,883]

It would be pretty sweet if I could just send as much money as I wanted, to anyone, anywhere, instantly, without getting taxed, with no paper trail and no PayPal or eBay getting their greedy, greasy hands all over my money.

It'll never be like that though, crypto is decentralised, which means there will never be a standard everyone can settle on, and by the time the actual government comes out with a coin and makes all the others illegal, it will be taxed to hell and back.

PayPal sucks, is my point.

[Californication | 1,477]

2 hours ago, RH said:

The reason why I disagree, and many of us did back then in the early years,  was the combo of banks working with the government created the perfect storm for the housing crisis in 2008/09 that sent massive financial ripples across the globe.  In fact, it's assumed that that event was largely the motivation for Satoshi to invent BTC.  Regulations can certainly benefit consumers and protect against scams but the flip of that is that the Fed manages the money and can (and does!) manipulate it to it's own will, or print it as it desires. (I know it's not that simple, but it's nothing we normal people can control.)

Yes, scams can happen with BTC but most of those come from ignorance and personal choice.  Using a system like BTC, you have to exercise a healthy degree of skepticism when dealing with business.  Cryptocurrency doesn't have to be an entire "wild west".  A dream coin for me would only be a currency that operate quickly, would allow for the setup of senders having to 2FA (or nFA) confirm transactions and even provide a payment receipt mechanism where the receiver can verify the transaction has been sent before final sender approval so that transactions can be optionally cancelled in mid-execution.  This has its merits in certain use cases. Oh, and fees would be minimal, if not eliminated and would certainly not be POW or POS.  There are ways to get close to this, if not fully implemented.  Believe me, I've thought long and hard about this but I never took the time to roll my own coin.  There are novel changes to the fundamentals of how transactions are managed but implementing them in a decentralized way is tough, but not impossible.  Essentially, you need to eliminate the "block" and instead use a straight transaction chain.  But, I digress.  That's getting off in the weeds.

Even USD can be used for scams, especially when hard cash is involved.  Crypto just takes the hard cash approach and makes it digital.  I see no difference, it's just global in scale vs. local.  You can still regulate business and people using crypto could see it like cash, if you want to be safe, use a company that is known and legally registered in your country as a business.  Regardless, the creation of the currency and the flow of the "cash" does not have to be controlled by the US government and even with cash, it doesn't control much of that.  All it does is make the bills as it sees fit and transfers it to the banks for distribution.

A few years ago I would have whole heartedly disagreed with the complaints about the Fed, but after the last two years I have moved over some. The Fed has single handedly re-aligned the economy for decades and we are only seeing pieces of the damage they have done. 

That being said a decentralized currency is not the way. The same people that benefited the most from Fed decisions are the same people that would benefit the most from a decentralized currency. 

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

On 6/18/2022 at 6:53 AM, Bearcat-Doug said:

How are you doing now? With the bitcoin prices dropping as low as they are, I'm almost back to where I was two years ago when I started. I had actually considered selling a full coin back in November near the ATH, but I talked myself out of it, which isn't looking so good right now.

I haven't been totally devastated since I don't own any bitcoin and keep half of all my crypto in stable coins for liquidity mining. That being said, I'm probably down just as far on crypto as I am on my risky stocks, probably in the 30-50% range. It's rough out there.

I still think Solana is the way to go. It's one of the least decentralized and has quite a few corporate backers. Yeah, it's not the dream DeFi that we all want, but it's background gives it a lot more likelihood of survival. I've also been slowly accumulating some Fantom.

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

11 hours ago, OptOut said:

So, what you're basically saying is that if we ever get to the point that miners are relying on fees as opposed to bitcoin rewards for payment, it's just going to be whoever has the most money to spend on fees that are gonna get all their coin processed? What will happen to all of the little guys wanting to trade their coins, won't they basically just get eaten alive by fees?

At that point it's less a case of "what's in it for the miners" and more a case of "what's in it for everyone else", right?

This is what layer 2’s are for. Lightning Network will be used by most people to transact, with rollups being finalized on Bitcoin layer 1 with high fees to cover the mining cost. 

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

10 hours ago, OptOut said:

It would be pretty sweet if I could just send as much money as I wanted, to anyone, anywhere, instantly, without getting taxed, with no paper trail and no PayPal or eBay getting their greedy, greasy hands all over my money.

It'll never be like that though, crypto is decentralised, which means there will never be a standard everyone can settle on, and by the time the actual government comes out with a coin and makes all the others illegal, it will be taxed to hell and back.

PayPal sucks, is my point.

Having Bitcoin and Ethereum accepted around the world, convertible to almost any local currency, is as much of a standard as anyone should hope for. You can swap your money to Bitcoin right now, send it with a small fee and call it a day. You might get dinged by your local anti-money laundering laws if you are sending to a total stranger, but otherwise the service you are asking for already exists.

Edited June 25, 2022 by MiamiSlice