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by tomputer 1460 days ago
> Your argument strikes me as very odd -- you seem to suggest that nothing can beat Bitcoin in theory, but Ethereum is already beating it in practice.

In theory everything is possible. I do not follow the beating really. They can both exist with different use cases.

Bitcoin wants to be digital gold (and money) and Ethereum wants to be a smart contract world computer running dapps. They solve different problems.
1 comments
jrm4 1460 days ago
But Ethereum is a technically superior option for both cases. It does what Bitcoin can't do, but it also does what Bitcoin does better, and has a roadmap to improvement beyond that. Bitcoin is still wildly slow and destroys the environment, and Ethereum is on track to mostly not do that, to say nothing of "post-Eth" projects like Pulsechain.

Now, I'm sure Bitcoin will enjoy name recognition for some time, but in my experience, always bet on the tech.

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djschnei 1459 days ago
Bitcoin slow? I make virtually free, instant, micro-payments on Bitcoin hundreds of times every day (Podcasting 2.0). I also accept Bitcoin payments on my e-commerce site that settle instantly for fractions of a percent in fees. I also route hundreds of Bitcoin payments per day using a raspberry pi which draws an extremely low amount of energy. Not sure which "reality" you're referring to...
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jrm4 1459 days ago
Man, your use case is one I hope I'm wrong about. I love the idea of microtransactions and tipping and such. But, I never much paid attention to Lightning given that the BTC price didn't really move when it came out, which strongly suggested to me that not enough people really cared.
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djschnei 1459 days ago
It's impossible to consider Bitcoin without considering lightning. Two sides of the same coin. It's still early in its adoption curve for sure, but it has been gaining traction.

- Twitter uses lightning for its tipping mechanism

- The Podcasting 2.0 standard is all lightning based

- NCR is integrating lightning

- Blackhawk is integrating lightning

- Kraken has enabled lightning

- Robinhood is integrating lightning

- Square/block is investing heavily into lightning development and enablement

I'm probably missing some big ones...

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