| Physics paper that defines a model demonstrating centralization of value topology in a network of about 2 years production age with data from 2018-2019. Looking at channel balances and emergent channel topology. I don’t disagree with their conclusions, however I don’t think it follows with your conclusions. Nor do they really matter today. For one, they don’t actually have the visibility into the transaction volumes, just aggregate channels, so their analysis is limited to distribution of value — analogous to blockchain analysis that only looks at output balances and their associated other outputs.
Additionally, this space moves fast and any cryptocurrency data from 2018 is of less value post 2020. If we are arguing that decentralization of value is removed from peer to peer cryptocurrencies, I think this technology cannot deliver, indeed this is a socioeconomic issue rather than the technology. Of course the Gini coefficient is going to model the society that produces this tech, especially today. What is your criteria of failure here? You absolutely love saying “Bitcoin has failed” or “Lightning network has failed”, but at what? For some socioeconomic centralization of value metric? Ok cool but that’s not what Bitcoiners are getting at. I think you believe that the technology did not live up to its promises. I don’t agree, but I can see how one could feel that way. Now, I ask you, what is the alternative? It’s all well and good to deny existing technology as achieving its goal, but what should we do instead? If you think blockchain as a construction cannot remain decentralized in the face of spam bots and worldwide tx load, what are our alternatives that could possibly lead to this optimistic decentralized solutions? |
Both rvz and I have been really clear about the failure
rvz: > Bitcoin has failed for on-chain payments as described in this article, this paper [0] and it's own white-paper.
Me: > bitcoin really did fail at its core goal of being a currency.
As I went on to say, the failure at being a currency doesn't preclude it finding success at something else (and its price suggests its finding it).