HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

As someone who is more familiar with BCH rhetoric, I can tell you that what the parent comment is referring to is not mining companies but rather LN relay node operators and other "services"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHFrf5ci_g

> If you want faster and cheaper transactions, use lightning network, it's functional and growing in adoption.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHFrf5ci_g

The author describes how coyotes win the "skirmish game" when they casually walk into suburban yards and demonstrate that they are not afraid of the humans when they do things to scare them away such as make loud noises at them. However, they lose the "meta-game" when animal control shows up and puts them down because they won't go away.

The author uses this analogy to compare coyotes to financial innovators. His argument is that every time financial innovation gets out of control and the economy at large is impacted, larger powers step in and squash it. He argues tha this is what happened in the 2008 financial crisis with mortage backed securities, and that this is the same thing happening now with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

I disagree with the parallel he draws to cryptocurrencies.

While I don't necessarily think cryptocurrencies will dominate the world, and Governments may even succeed in reigning them in, they aren't in the same category as other financial innovation.

Mortgage backed securites were the coyotes stalking across the laws of suburban moms, hoping animal control wouldn't interfere.

Cryptocurrencies are a coordinated attack by a pack of coyotes on animal control headquarters.

They were designed specifically to be as government-resistant as possible. Now, animal control has a lot of firepower and they can call in reinforcements. Governments have a lot of resources and powers they can draw on to stop and regulate cryptocurrencies. However, these coyotes are well aware of the meta-game, who the true enemy is and they're gunning hard for him.

Before bitcoin, no currency that wasn't backed by a government lasted long before being shut down by a government entity. Bitcoin has been going for nine years now, and in that time further innovation has given us Monero and Zcash which are even more censorship and surveillance resistant.

The primary attack vector, the only one that's worked, has been made by the "racoons" at Blockstream and their investors from Visa and the banking industry. This is a much more subtle attack than direct government intervention. In a nut-shell, when Satoshi left the project, he left a guy named Gavin Andresen in charge. Gavin trusted the wrong person with commit access to the project, who was co-opted by the banking industry and who then booted him from access. Thos current group of developers crippled Bitcoin by repeatedly refusing to expand the block size and moving forward developing the "Lightning Network" which is nothing more than a copy of the current inter-bank payment system and which, quite frankly doesn't work.[1][2] They also took over the r/bitcoin subreddit as well as the bitcointalk forum and completely censored it.[3]

The fact that the racoons have taken this more subtle approach, suggests to me that the enemies of Bitcoin now believe that attempts to shut it down by more direct mean will fail.

However there are still a lot of coyotes working on other cryptocurrency projects. These coyotes are clearly playing the meta-game, and for now they're winning.

[1] Summary of what the lightning network is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHFrf5ci_g [2] Discussion of a developer who tried to implement micropayments with lightning network, but had to switch because it did not work well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew2MWVtNAt0 [3] A (brief and incomplete) history of censorship in /r/Bitcoin: https://medium.com/@johnblocke/a-brief-and-incomplete-histor...

⬐ jeffreyrogers

It would be pretty easy for the government to shut down any cryptocurrencies it cared too: go after the exchanges. This is already happening by making them follow the know your customer regulations that banks have had to follow for years. But I think you're being a little to cynical. I don't think the government cares that much about bitcoin except to the extent that it allows people to get around existing laws, and its high potential for abuse by unscrupulous business people.

What is your oppinion about that: https://youtu.be/UYHFrf5ci_g

⬐ shapiro92

a wonderful video about the lighting network and how banks are invovled in BTC

P.S I am not affiliated with any of the companies mentioned or the video creator

if you agree upvote it on ProductHunt or reshare the video

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/how-the-banks-bought-bitco...

⬐ mentos

A quote from the video:

"The lightning hubs will require they be setup for financial regulation and reporting laws. Require massive amounts of liquidity to keep well funded open channels. Offer fraud departments to watch the block chain constantly and prevent theft, all while taking small fees for every transaction you route through them. Does this system sound familiar? Just replace the term 'open channel' with 'checking account'."

Anyone with more intimate understanding of the lightning network agree with these 'requirements' ?