[kdragon]

As a Bitcoin maxi this is fun to watch. It's like the 08' financial collapse all over again, but there's no bailout coming this time around.

I think it is glaringly obvious at this point that most of society does not understand how money works, and will fall victim to the same old scams no matter where they manifest.

This entire crypto collapse has been a long time coming. You can't simply manufacture money out of nothing, nor can you inflate debt endlessly.

Bitcoin as a community has distanced themselves from 'crypto' and these boiler-room pump and dump scams.

Bitcoin maxis fight for the simplicity and real-word cost behind proof of work for a reason. Bitcoin may be arbitrary digits in a ledger but it isn't free to make. The supply is capped, yet the work anyone can put into securing the ledger is unbounded.

Regardless of where you choose to invest, self custody is king. Get your tokens off exchanges. Not your keys, not your coins.

[highwaylights]

"Don't buy Tony's magic beans. Tony's magic beans are a scam, they're not really magic at all. I buy my magic beans from Frank. Everyone knows that only Frank grows real magic beans."

[rufusroflpunch]

This is like pretending there’s no difference between USD and Turkish Lira. There are substantial and material differences between Bitcoin and nearly all other cryptocurrencies.

[kayamon]

The beans with the weird pyramid and floating eye logo are definitely the best beans.

[polygamous_bat]

I agree. They even have a whole army to defend that, unlike, uh, a whole room full of dusty old GPUs burning up a rainforest every time someone makes a transaction. /s

[snapcaster]

I know you're being sarcastic but what you said is true. USD is currently the best currency on stability, usage, acceptance, etc.

[lawn]

> Bitcoin maxis fight for the simplicity and real-word cost behind proof of work for a reason.

No they don't. They promote Lightning Network as some sort of savior of all things, but it's the complete opposite of simplicity and soundness.

[hanniabu]

Also it's be revealed that the seemingly only LN app that works without issues is actually just using bitcoin L1 and not using LN at all.

[origin_path]

Oh? Do tell! That sounds interesting. I lost interest in BTC after they decided to cap the block size and push LN because LN was so poorly thought out.

[hanniabu]

https://twitter.com/ercwl/status/1592666546543136769

[origin_path]

Can't say I'm surprised, though the only evidence for this appears to come from Peter Todd so how are you sure it's true?

LN should never have been pushed as hard as it was. If they'd launched it and it'd naturally outcompeted regular Bitcoin transactions then fine whatever, but destroying on-chain capacity before LN was even coded was truly crazy.

[bogomipz]

Might you or someone else have a link that discusses this revelation and failure? I'm kind of surprised to hear this.

[bvirb]

I thought Bitcoin was a really neat idea as an experiment of a completely market driven asset. It seems like it still could become/already is that (I think this is called the "digital gold" idea).

Of course when the mania settles I have no idea if the value of digital-gold-sans-gambling would be $5 or $500,000 or $0. But I do think there is a neat idea that isn't just a pure scam buried in there.

[pocket_cheese]

There's companies like Paxos that are actually audited and have a token PAXG that is backed 1:1 with actual gold reserves. The tokens themselves actually have serial numbers that are linked to a physical gold bar.

[bvirb]

That is interesting.

To me I think the neat thing about Bitcoin is that the decentralization and lack of intrinsic value are exactly what make it (mostly) purely market driven.

Blockchain/decentralization as a technology I'm not very sold on yet.

[ufo]

Bitcoin's supply is only capped if you don't count all the forks. 1 BTC = 1BTC + 1BCH + 1BTG + ...

[ohgodplsno]

Yeah, we know, you burn coal for funny internet monopoly money that's worthless in the real world.