Perhaps it is time to stop promoting BTC to the non-coiners

in #btc22 days ago

As Bitcoin advocates we should recognize that there are two bitcoins (lower case 'b') in wide adoption today. I know that some of you may have strong opinions but I will state my point of view and argue why it is the case. The other roughly twelve bitcoin alt-chains. The two that seem the most popular are Bitcoin Core (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Each of the fourteen bitcoins are a continuation of the bitcoin history from 2009. That's why I don't call these alt coins but instead alt chains of bitcoin. Of course alt-chains are distinct currencies with the end of the history being different. I would say alt-chains are also alt-coins. Now these fourteen have changed from the original work significantly including Bitcoin Core (BTC). Bitcoin Core has changed to a larger degree than the other two with segregated witness forks adding several new kinds of transaction types, and replace by fee and a modest rise in block size.

In the same way Hive is a continuation of the original Steem before the interference of Justin Sun. The Sun side of the fork kept the Steem name, but I'll assume most of you think that Hive at least as legitimate as Steem but probably way more. Hive and today's Steem are alt chains of Steem.

At some point in the chain's history people became dissatisfied with the performance of bitcoin and a disagreement on how the development should continue. The "small block-heads" argued that a fee-market will provide miners with the incentive to keep mining to secure the chain and the smaller blocks are important to keep that buy-pressure on fees. The "big block-heads" argued that bitcoin will become unusable for more and more use cases and that adoption will stall. I felt both sides had good arguments and we see today both were right.

Small Block Bitcoin: Bitcoin Core

Bitcoin Core fees today are ten percent of the total mining reward of the bitcoin blockchain. Should the mining fees continue to stay the same in dollar amounts, the bitcoin core chain will have a tenth of the amount of fees to keep the mining going. The difficulty adjustments should probably drop as mining will move to where electricity is free or nearly free. The average block today has 1693 transactions.

Big Smaller Block Bitcoin: Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash fees today are not even a percent of the total mining reward. It is hard to to imagine all of the Bitcoin Cash miners surviving on fees alone. It chugs along these days with not even $2000 of block reward. It makes me wonder why Bitcoin Core miners need so much. The average block has 280 transactions.

TxStreet

When looking at the two bitcoins on TxStreet, it seems to me that it is Bitcoin Cash that has a smaller volume of transactions and should the users change from Bitcoin Core to all Bitcoin Cash they would be much better off in reliability.

Bitcoin Burns

If you give bitcoin cores to a non-coiner and the new bitcoin finds he is unable to spend his coins because they have turned into dust, they are going to distrust cryptocurrency altogether and decide not to use any cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency gives you the advantages of electronic money but without the risk of another party controlling your funds. So it is a good place for savings, but you want to be able to easily and cheaply access your savings. Bitcoin has been great for appreciation but with no rational explanation apart from limited supply. There is very limited utility in Bitcoin as a currency.

Currency Properties We Want

  • Monetary Autonomy: I don't want anyone to have the ability to freeze other people's money for any reason.
  • Inexpensive: Multi-dollar fees are a real turn off.
  • Flexible with Multi-signature or scripting
  • Private: I don't want chain analysis to be used by tyrants against me.
  • Market Acceptance: I want places whee I can spend it directly
  • Stable: Don't vary more than 20% with the USD in one year in the downward direction.
Hive DollarBitcoin CoreBitcoin CashMonero
AutonomyGoodExcellentExcellentExcellent
Fees0HighNear zeroNear zero
FlexibleMultisigMultisig, some scriptingmultisig, more scriptingmultisig, no scripting
Privatenononoyes
AcceptanceSucre, Venezuela 😟world wideworld wideCExes delisting
Stableyes, maybe too much 😄sometimesnot so muchnot so much

We are going to have a hard time getting people to adopt Hive Dollars, or Monero. Considering for Hive dollars there are no direct way to trade Hive dollars for fiat or vice versa without a terrible spread penalty and Monero is delisted in many places. In spite of volatility of Monero and the lack of privacy in the Hive dollar, I think these are much better alternatives to any of the bitcoins if you are not holding for long term speculation.

There is actually no cheap wallet support for multisignature for Hive dollars. Does anyone want it?

See:

@leprechaun ☘️☘️☘️☘️


Posted with proof of brain