Topic: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion - page 4603. (Read 26609119 times)

I had to read that 3 times.

But what it means is Bitcoin has currently outpaced the amount of money being moved in the US by VISA+Mastercard?

That might be one of the biggest pieces of financial news of the year, and nearly no one knows. 

This is yet another rock solid proof of an asymmetric information situation, the magnitude of which is hard to overestimate.  Greatest wealth transfer in history, blah blah...  Still early, blah blah.

Now we just need the number of payments being made to outpace them as well.  I am sure we are still lagging there.  And that is the archetypal coffee transaction, and the LN is going to be a big part of that... not sure how long that takes.

Explanation

https://twitter.com/woonomic/status/1446760123062370307

No... that's about right.

They are just locked in a multisig address with your channel partner with some clever (albeit somewhat convoluted) safeguards so that eventually only one person can spend the coins at that address.

Theoretically sats in LN MS addresses can stay there indefinitely.  Though this is one of the areas it becomes interesting.  Because we are also both keeping a ledger of our transaction history for that channel which will continue to grow until it is finally executed.  This introduces some interesting realities.  For example you could drain all the bitcoin out of your channel but still leave it open. (This would be a pain in the ass)  And then you could just leave it up to the channel partner to close it eventually.  

So it is as Bob has put it, sort of a strange Bitcoin quantum state.  The money is spent and not spent at the same time.  You still have the lightning channel addresses with the bitcoin in them, but you have removed all your bitcoin and rode off into the sunset.

But it gets weirder still...  Say I establish a channel with you, then I pay myself ALL my share of the bitcoin from that channel.  So my sats have all shifted over to YOUR side now, and when the channel is close you will get all of them.  BUT... what if our channel is used by YOU to then make a payment.  What happens is this.  Another one of my channels send your payment out from MY outbound liquidity, and some of those sats in our shared channel scoot back over to me.

Lightning allows you to spend some of my OTHER outbound liquidity by shifting some of YOUR bitcoin in our channel over to my side.  This can be confusing when you are managing a lightning node because it's hard to know where your bitcoin has actually gone.  But all the math still adds up.

This brings one of my concerns/curiosities to the fore...

What happens when these channel states get ridiculously long?  Is there a point at which we really NEED to close the channel and start a fresh one?  Or can we really just keep these little channel ledgers going and going forever.

Fun to think about.

Bitaddress.org works like a charm, the average Joe just need to verify he is on the right site and a safe place to store the paper wallet (and a backup). For pocket money there's plenty of mobile apps like mycelium.

Not your keys, not your bitcoin. That's not a meme, bitcoin was created for a trustless environment, if you trust a middle man you don't need bitcoin at all (besides speculation).

I would be VERY uncomfortable storing significant wealth with a full custody custodian.  ESPECIALLY when it's Bitcoin.  Just the regulatory and counter party risks together are enough to scare me pretty badly.  And I do not really see a difference between these and an exchange. NYKNYC plain and simple.

But I also understand that keeping your bitcoin in you "coinbase wallet" is about as much as many people can handle.  And self custody is too complex AND risky for the masses.

So we have (still) a real conundrum here.  What are the safest ways for a person to store their bitcoin in a way that they retain control, but is also simple enough for the masses and protects adequately against all the "foot guns".

Personally I think the best middlegrounds currently for Bitcoin custody are the multisig setups like:

https://keys.casa
https://unchained.com

But these are still kind of complicated.  And currently I think that is because all the options are still fairly black and white.

I also think there some interesting possibilities that might emerge from 2nd layers.  Liquid's federated model allows for introducing amounts of trust somewhere between all and nothing.  So I think it will be interesting to see what that company works on as I think they are a little ahead of the curve in regards to trust models.  I also think we might see some creative things around lightning where trust can also possibly introduced in pieces.

In the end, Joe Sixpack is going to need someone to hold his hand.  It might be a custodian, or exchange, or maybe it's Brother-in-law Billy.

I actually thing there is a lot of opportunity for business to be developed in this area.  And to that point I do not think Blockstream's recent funding infusion is surprising.  They are probably the furthest out in development of the sorts of products and systems many are going to need.

Explanation

Fully agree. WOers, tech-freaks and computer-literates may be able to handle BYOB, and even they can have unintended boating accidents. It's totally unfair to expect and demand such competence from the average person. Banks can help these people manage their Bitcoin, as is currently the case with fiat, and the same thing happens with so many other services, insurance, health care, legal/inheritance matters, etc. -- there's always a trusted party involved. The main point is that people should have a choice. Those that feel competent enough to manage their Bitcoin should be able to do so (as is currently the case), and those who can't should have a choice to let a trusted party manage it for them. It's already happening via exchanges. If I'm not mistaken, Kraken has bank status in the USA, so it's effectively a bank that can keep one's coins. Many of my coiner friends have all their coins in Kraken... I've tried to explain to them the "not your keys..." motto, but when I started talking about seeds, keys and h/w wallets it was just too much for them to handle. They feel their coins are safer in Kraken than in their own hands, and they're probably right.

Somehow I fear that, in the coming years, this choice we now have, to be or not be our own bank, will cease to exist, and we'll all be forced to use banks to store our corn. I hope it will never happen...



What you're saying makes sense. LN for petty cash and everyday expenses, and on-chain for savings. I get the sense that once you put some coins in LN, they stay there forever until you spend them (this sounds wrong and it probably is, but it feels that way to me -- total LN noob).

Good morning Bitcoinland.

I see we're back up over $55k... currently $55070USD/$68678CAD (Bitcoinaverage).

Still digesting the last big leg up. Q4 rally should resume soon.

Go Bitcoin go.


Vitalik reminds me of Roger.

Both were early Bitcoin evangelists. Ver was "Bitcoin Jesus" and Buterin gave us Bitcoin Magazine.

Somewhere along the way both turned. Ver with his forkcoin trash and Buterin with his centralized, pre-mined, unlimited-supply scamcoin.

Now they're Bitcoin haters. I guess that shines a new light on their original intentions.

Not sure, but throwing more liquidity into it, and making respectable effort to shill this thread.

Screenshot for 69 lulz. Just opened channel 70, so, yeah, wanted to catch this shot before I build out the next routes.

Kinda pain in my dick. Using https://lnrouter.app/graph for visualization. Select my node, then look at the graph of what I'm NOT connected to, way on the opposite side of where I am situated.

Appreciate the visualization tools, but the back-and-forth copying/pasting to 1ML to further vet the node is a micromanagement issue I'm not enjoying.

Anyway, off to get ready for party time later.

Kind of.  Locking Bitcoin into LN channels is a sort of complex bargain.  But it enables you to use Bitcoin as a means of exchange with instant settlement and finality.  It's not going to be a good lace to put ALL your bitcoin.

The more I think about it the more the checking account analogy works.  You keep an amount of money that you need to be liquid in this account.  You might even take your paycheck there.  Pay for your groceries from there. But if you are a saver, and you spend less then you make, then eventually you will also want to move some of that value into savings on the base layer where it is more safe, and less mobile.

Some emails do encrypt the data on the backend I think. I think most email providers encrypt it on the backend because it makes it easier for normal people to use the email without knowing how to encrypt. I think it is well supported and it makes it easy to use. You cannot expect a 80 year person to learn about PGP and encrypt their own emails because it would reduce the people they could talk to because not everyone knows how to do it. I think encrypting it on the backend makes it easier for people to communicate quickly and safely.

I think you are missing what  fillippone is saying they are saying that if you are not technically minded enough to timelock your wallet then finding someone trusted who can do it for you would work. I would not recommend storing the Bitcoin with that person but you could ask them to setup the time lock. Time lock is probably the best option for releasing your coins after death to a family member.

Explanation

My point is even if I do self custody my sats, I reckon this is not for everyone.
Once the forum population was made by übernerds users, capable of handling the complex procedures required of a simple transaction (change addresses and everything).

Now crypto users are more diverse, and even the most technically advanced users could worry about significant others not so advanded, for a variety of reasons.

Regarding the “not your keys, not your coins” this is surely true, but as always it is a balance of risks. It depends where you live, how advanced is the legislative system, how worried are you about inheritance of your coins, how technical, and how many coins do you own. It is a little bit complicated than a “meme phrase”. And above all, the solution that is good for everyone of us can, and probably is, different.

To be fair, email is a pretty shitty protocol by today's standards. Encryption and signing should be standard. Some email clients kinda-sorta can but it's not what you could call well supported. Even the web with it's broke-ass root CA system has managed to get everyone moving to https.

It's an interesting study in human psychology for sure.

Explanation

Torque's Prediction:

1. China's over-leveraged, mega Ponzi property market will start to finally, really implode by mid 2022. This will be the catalyst for another possible worldwide recession (did we ever leave one?)

2. Wealthy investors and hedge funds with insider knowledge will start front running these events, buying up Bitcoin starting Dec 2021 and resuming first week of January 2022. They likely already know what is coming and are front running it now.

3. To further fuel the fire, we could finally see a new U.S. Bitcoin ETF in Q1/Q2 of 2022.

4. We could see a new Bitcoin ATH and blow off top come mid year 2022.

5. China will of course retaliate by shutting down all onshore crypto exchanges, popping the Bitcoin bubble. Once again.   The bears will then take over. China PBOC will then print yuan like a mofo and bail out any and all Chinese property developers.

You heard it here first. Just doing this for funzies. Typing it here to see how well my prediction plays out.

Fyi, my former (bearish?) views are quickly being left in the rear view. Will always hodl no matter what happens.

Gold has been around for here years and the community has grown substantially and they don't make weird excuses for investing in it like they did for bitcoin.But they lack vision that if you wear excessive gold you could come into eyes of thieves apart from the government's who might ask you to freeze your gold certificate and even gold in your bank lockers at the time of any emergency but you can roam freely with billion dollars of qr code and your coins in your wallet or hardware devices.But still some stupids say gold is better need to check the returns and then have a clarification.I would also not call btc gold heaven because now it has turned to hell for the holders.

No surprise the forum going downhill, its done a full 180° from the early days.
Did register on new forum the other day, (not crypto) as time nears to move on.
Maybe new for some (newbies) but not your keys not your coin.