Topic: How to save Bitcoin (Read 1419 times)

how about hardware wallet like trezor ? and custom addres ? paper wallet ?
if you buy hardware wallet you can save your bitcoin with safety safe

if you want to interests from saving, that there is no safety place to safe.


BTC_BTC

Good questions. I'll try to answer, but whoever knows sidechain technical details better (and epecially whoever knows the future ) is welcome to correct me.
0) Sidecoins are not IOUs. They are bona fide coins, just like bitcoins. I would compare them with dollars of different denominations. Like 100$ bills vs quarters coins, they are different, but they are both dollars. Bills are more convenient for big purchases, coins are more convenient for micro-transactions , but both are basically the same and can always be converted to each other, at 1:1 rate.
1) If there is no bugs in the cryptocode, stealing parked bitcoins without parking corresponding sidecoins must be impossible. The same about breaking 1:1 ratio. (I use 1:1 for simplicity,
the original ratio could be any. Like ratio of changing quarters for 100$ bills is not 1:1, but 1:400. What matters is that you can return it back at exactly the same ratio).
2) If I understand it correctly, no second party required for (un)parking. Converting bitcoins to sidecoins and back is basically sending them to some special addresses, that is, not much different from moving your bitcoin between two your addresses. How the network would handle it depends on network. If you are using the network for purchases several times a day then using it one more time to park all out should be no problem (the network doesn't care how much you are transferring, 0.1c or 1M$, the load is the same). However, it there is "main" blockchain that have to be used for unparking and if it that can handle only, say, one transaction per person per year, then congestion may happen. It would be good business opportunity for aggregation services although. Anyone can offer it: "send your sidecoin and I transfer it to any other sidecoin within an hour". Even at 7 transactions per second, there is 25,000 time slots in an hour, so 25,000 competing companies can offer such a service. With such level of competition, prices won't be too high.
3) The government is the permanent threat, with or without sidechains. Yes, sidechain will make creating NSA-coin or IRS-coin much easier. But it will also make make escaping from them to some state-resistant coins, like Monero, much easier too.
4) "We" want different thins, as the current core dev split shows. I personally want and hope for bitcoin to kill and replace fiat. Where will be the mail volume of transaction, in bitcoin or on some sidechain, IMO, can't be told at this stage and doesn't matter much.

You lost me when you implied that you prefer dictatorship over democracy.

I do have some concerns though.
The idea of sidechains has a lot in common with how first banks operated.
You park your gold (bitcoins) with a bank in a vault (sidechain) and you get your IOUs to participate in the economy.
At first, those IOUs were 1:1 redeemable back to gold, but that didn't last very long.
We all know, that history repeats itself, so this analogy is really hard to overlook.

The questions that arise here are these:
1) How hard would it be to break the original 1:1 peg or steal parked bitcoins while everyone is using IOUs?
2) How will the network handle the load in case of a bank run, when a lot of people suddenly want to unpark their bitcoins from the sidechain they no longer trust? What would be the cost to switch here?
3) How tempting would it be for governments to create national sidechains and law-enforce them as legal tender, now that mechanism for such enforcement is shaping up (while the load on the mainchain would be such that it will be prohibitive for small players to use, so it would be of no value)?

Anyone who ever run a business or just has some life experience, knows: There Must Be Only One Boss. Many bosses - receipt for disaster.

I think that the core developers who work for BlockStream should be kicked out of the bitcoin core development team. They only work to benefit the BlockStream business model, BlockStream is trying to sell us their product with the help of the bitcoin core developers.

The sky is falling! Bitcoin leaders and visionaries, friends, allies and collaborators have turned into a pack of fighting rats. Bitcoiners are watching helplessly how their former semi-gods are destroying their  life-savings (Money is reputation and by killing reputation they kill bitcoin). And what is left will be taken over by NSA and replaced by banks' private chains.

Why?
Because of the consensus.

Anyone who ever run a business or just has some life experience, knows: There Must Be Only One Boss. Many bosses - receipt for disaster.
Because people tend to disagree.  It's in our nature.
What would happen if we demand consensus from core developers? It depend on how much do they care.
If they don't care a lot, it'll be stalemate. I.e. nothing will be done. It was yesterday.
If they do care a lot, it'll be a war. I.e. everything will be destroyed. It is today.

So, one boss. But one boss means centralization. The boss will work not for us, but against us, for himself. Or for NSA. Problem we have.

If we want anything done, there must be one boss.
If we want anything done for us, everybody must be the bosses.

How to resolve this dilemma?
The solution is known for thousand of years: The Free Market. And it already exist in coinspase: altcoins. If you feel you know the right way, create your alt. Or join (and obey) any other creator. Or use anyone's alt.  Creator is the boss because he is choosing what to create. And user is the boss because he is choosing what to use. The problem solved, hurrah!
-Want big blocks? Here is an altcoin for it.
-Want fast confirmations? Here is an altcoin for it.
-Want anonymity? Want blacklisting? Want micro-transactions? Want whatever you want, there will be an altcoin for it, tailored for your needs and tastes.

Except it doesn't work. We are not using this solution. Instead of sailing off happily on our favorite altcoin, we are all remaining hostages on this sinking bitcoin Titanic.
Why?

Because of cost of switching.
If switching costs are low, customer is a king. He is in control.
If switching costs are high, customer is a hostage. He is powerless.
Switching costs in bitcoin are very high. Buying an altcoin is a bet. And considering the number of possible wrong ways (and the most of ways are wrong) - almost guaranteed losing bet. Switching is too high risk. And this risk turns us from kings to hostages.

So, to make the free market to work, we have to eliminate the cost of switching.
Fortunately, it is possible. What's more, it is almost done. I'm talking about sidechains, of course. If you bet on a wrong sidecoin, you won't lose a dime, because you can always switch back to main bitcoin blockchain or to any other sidecoin. At the rate 1:1. Which means that the risk (i.e. the cost) of switching is zero.

As Antonopulos predicts, switching between sidecoins would be done directly in smartphone wallets. You may even don't bother to know, which exact sidecoins are used for this specific transaction.

So all what have to be done is to:
1. Complete the sidechain BIP (along with bigger blocksize, to cut paranoia level )
2. Freeze the bitcoin core code.

The frozen core will give stability and sidechains will give flexibility. And let a 100 flowers sidechains blossom! While the miracle of free market will turn fighting rats and evil gods back into our best friends.

tl;dr: Sidechains (i.e. blockstream) will enable free market in bitcoin development. It'll save Bitcoin.

if you want to interests from saving, that there is no safety place to safe.
BTC_BTC

Nearly all of the Alt coins were a copy/paste clone of Bitcoin with trivial modifications.
That garbage was not a free market.
If a good alternative to Bitcoin ever comes out, not the Alt trash, the market will be receptive.

Edit to my initial reaction:


I agree, everybody must be the bosses. We need a way of reaching consensus. We have the technology!!

I see too many people proposing centralization as a solution, that is why I overreacted initially...

i dont think you read all of it.

You should change your title to "How to DESTROY Bitcoin."

This is literally the worst idea I have ever heard. Bitcoin as the first decentralized method for reaching consensus is set to revelutionize the world by removing the need for a trusted authority, and you are proposing to introduce a trusted central authority and centralize bitcoin.

I am disgusted. And I see too many who have said similar things. Consensus begins with disagreement and overtime evolves towards agreement. We are currently in the disagreement stage and you people are losing your god damned minds. IMMEDIATELY the human mind wants to elect a KING a SAVIOR to come take control of the situation, someone we can TRUST. Fuck that.

We are the pioneers of the new world of decentralization. We pave the roads here, it is not easy, we all will have arrows in our backs before the end, but it is our duty to protect CONSENSUS and DECENTRALIZATION, if we don't have those things, we might as well just use VISA and MASTERCARD and give in to your Bankster overlords you dunce.