| > Proof of work failing does not equal Bitcoin failing. Ok, so what would equal bitcoin failing? Or is bitcoin just defined to be a success a priori? > There are many methods of reaching consensus available in the toolbox Are you saying that someone will come out with some new code that reuses the bitcoin blockchain, but has different characteristics? If so then I would say there are already plenty of examples: bitcoin cash, zcash, etc. etc. Are these altcoins really substitutes for bitcoin? Why should we expect your new altcoin that's banged out under duress to perform better than bitcoin cash has in terms of maintaining value? And even if it does, nothing prevents me from 51% attacking that one, too. > There are many variations... Sure, and there are already tons of altcoins putting those variations to the test. So far none of them are in the same universe as bitcoin. Also, every one of them that I have seen relies on economic incentives for security. Economic incentives are not a restraint for an entity that prints the world reserve currency. > Good luck attacking a proof of stake hybrid that requires owning 50% of the supply, when the majority of the supply is already issued and is not available for sale. If it's really true that there is no market for the majority of coins in a POS network then I would say that this is not a decentralized network anymore, and you are making a very strong claim when you assert that this coin will be able to serve the same purpose as bitcoin currently does. This coin is basically launched with a built-in 51% attack by design, locked in by the majority owners. It's really not so different from a CBDC. On the other hand, if there is a market for coins in your POS world, the Fed will just buy them all. They can offer 10x, 100x, 1000x what anyone else will pay, it costs them nothing. Finally, this is all kind of irrelevant to the article. The article merely lays out how the Fed could destroy bitcoin, not some imaginary future thing we might or might not be able to invent after the Fed 51%s actual bitcoin to oblivion. I would give you 1,000,000 to 1 odds that 24 hours of no transactions on the bitcoin blockchain, nobody able to buy or sell bitcoin, would crash the price of bitcoin forever. What kind of person would pay $40k for such a thing. Anyone who did spend $40k of fiat to buy their bitcoin would then be out of luck, busted. That stings, and people remember the pain. > After a few trillion dollar expended on failed attacks, the currency being issued will be debased enough to be noticeable by consumers, this "infinite money printed" argument is not thought through. How long have the sound money people been making this tired argument? At least 50 years since Nixon put the final nail in the gold standard's coffin, but really even before that. Thought through or not, if you have been betting on the demise of fiat you've been on the losing side. After a long track record of being wrong, eventually you need to bring forth some compelling evidence that this time really is different, and I just don't see any. As an aside, I like how weird the recursive quoting is between our two comments here, LOL. |