Bitcoin / Cryptocurrency Discussion (And Predictions)

[MJ DeMarco]

Saw this thread with slow responses in the last few weeks and I knew that the market must be downtrending.

Logged into my crypto account for the first time in weeks and saw its portfolio value lost 50% of its value.

Yikes. That's not a downtrend, but a falling out.

No I didn't sell anything. HODL.

 

[AceVentures]

I would like to teach everybody that's interested in leverage trading a very neat How To!

Without further delay, here is your guide:

F*cking don't!



Stay in spot and chill. We are still very early to crypto. Don't go bust by being too greedy. In a few years you'll look back and truly kick yourself for having drained all your coins trying to go too fast.

Crypto is already fastlane as F*ck. Don't go any faster than you need to or you'll end up getting yourself hurt.

 

[AceVentures]

I don't know much about the metaverse besides how it relates to lyxe but I can't see how it becomes mainstream?

On one hand people have more cash in their bank than usual, but on the other hand what needs does the metaverse fill?

Metaverse is a fancy word - confusing for many - abused by giga-corps to appease a younger crowd.

Let's try to make it simpler - think of it as a digital realm. Twitter is a digital realm. Facebook, Instagram, Discord, Twitch, are all examples of digital realms.

The hype you hear around the metaverse today is the hype around building interoperable digital realms. Blockchains, thanks to their transparent and permissionless design principles, serve as a great layer on-top of which applications can be built - because this would enable all of these apps to become interoperable with one another. In essence, they would be sharing the same database if you will. This opens up the door to a world of opportunities that was previously locked due to web2 design where each operator on the internet needed to secure their own database.

For example, you couldn't take your Twitter profile, and all of your posts, and say, jump into Instagram and "retweet" one of your twitter posts into Instagram - because the data between them is not shared, but instead siloed in each giga-corps proprietary data servers.

What's exciting about the metaverse is the ability for all participants to move more seamlessly across the web. You could, for example, have a smart-contract account, stored on a blockchain, and applications/games/socialmedia/etc. could simply fetch your smart-contract account from public ledgers, so you could, in practice, with ONE account access every web3 service. Not only is your profile now interoperable with other lego-pieces in the space, but your ASSETS also are interoperable. So let's say you bought a camera filter for your videos/photos, now you could take that same filter with you to different apps. The same is valid with any type of digital asset (photos, videos, programs, games and game assets, text and books, and any other digitized product you can think of).

What "need" does the metaverse fill? Every need you and I have when we access the internet. You currently have dozens if not hundreds of "accounts", with your information, as well as your money, stored on random people's servers. When you buy something, it can't "come" with you anywhere. You could store your PDFs for example on a cloud-based storage solution, but again, you would be storing it on some company's servers and access them with the internet. And this type of storage solution would still need other applications to speak to this server's APIs to request information. But if the base-layer is transparent and permissionless, anybody could fetch, add, and build around this information. Don't worry, you don't have to make your life public, there are cryptographic solutions that can prove the authenticity of your content without revealing it to just anybody if you wish to preserve privacy.

The possibilities are vast - these are simple examples I'm offering just to paint a picture.

Now the 3D/VR part of the Metaverse is a more ambitious effort to transform your experience across these realms into a more immersive one. So instead of looking at a 2D screen to view content on the web, you could be "walking through" this content inside of an immersive VR/AR environment. Instead of browsing IG's page by scrolling through images/texts in 2D, you could for example be sitting with your VR headset rendering a galaxy in space, and you could be viewing IG in 3D for example, whereby you can interact with the same content but in a much more engaging way. Instead of going to a WellsFargo website, again in 2D, to do your banking, you could be walking inside of a 3D world, say a Minecraft or a Fortnight type of world, and find an "ATM" inside the game, which connects your smart-contract based profile/assets to DeFi protocols: from inside the game, you could do your banking, or walk up to another player in the game and "trade" with them, exchanging valuable assets/tokens with each other.

However, this VR immersive experience is still a number of years out, primarily because of hardware constraints (headsets are still bulky, heavy, and not pleasant for extended use). The first iterations of the metaverse are web-based experiences still rendered on 2D screens - but the underlying data-access-points are interoperable. Take for instance something like SandBox, or CryptoVoxels, or Decentraland - they are 3D multiplayer environments that interface with blockchains on the backend.

I hope you can begin to understand the value proposition of this interoperable world of digital realms.

You can also reference this post I made in February on the topic of the Metaverse, the article linked is very detailed and is a great starting point to help you better understand the thesis.

Metaversed

Thoughts on the technology, philosophy, and culture of this new world.

metaversed.net

A rather long read, but worth it if you're interested in getting a vision for what a digital future can look like with crypto as it's infrastructure.

Below is the TL;DR from the article.

• Crypto is laying the foundations for a self-sovereign financial system, an open creator economy, and a universal digital representation and ownership layer via NFTs (non-fungible tokens).
• The Metaverse is coming; trends indicate our direction of travel. Our next great milestone as a networked species awaits us: 7B digital souls with the option to exist almost exclusively online and participate in a virtual economy with societal impact.
• More time spent online will lead to more value created and consumed digitally.
• In order to maximize willingness of individuals to allocate serious time and capital to virtual environments, establishing trust in their durability as well as economic robustness is paramount.
• As education of web 2.0’s shortcomings rises, users will prefer credibly neutral platforms that lack altogether the capacity for arbitrary censorship, undue rent extraction (also in the form of privacy cost), or sudden cessation.
• All of these threats are only amplified by increasingly immersive, pervasive, and interconnected digital environments.
• Decentralized networks provide a unique and unmatchable degree of assurance, whilst a universal erosion of trust in institutions is forcing the desire for alternatives.
• NFTs on top of them enable a standardized universal digital representation and ownership layer for any natively digital “thing” such as game assets, digital art, or domain space.
• Early breakout successes will drive FOMO as onlookers scramble to understand the new tool sets available. The network effects of these protocols prove difficult to overcome; their open nature compounds permissionless innovation incredibly quickly as each additional creator builds on the shoulders of all who came before.
• Owning core pieces of these new worlds brings great financial returns to those who believed; many of whom will be from emerging markets who were quick to move on the opportunities available.
• Beyond wealth, the initial players are granted additional advantages. As pioneers of a variety of new business models and technologies, their accumulated IP and know-how provide a significant moat.
• In the same way the rise of mobile forced large buyouts and talent acquisition, so too will the rise of crypto across gaming and the creator economy.
• In hindsight, it will be obvious that crypto’s role in the Metaverse was the most imperative yet least explored by those speculating on its emergence.

 

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[MTF]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1394374934936293380

View: https://twitter.com/joinryze/status/1394374934936293380

That's pretty much the reason why after so much resistance I'm joining the crypto forces lol.

 

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[EVMaso]

Guys, I swear reading and learning about crypto and all this web3 stuff is like trying to drink from a firehose. I encounter way more information than I can possibly hope to properly absorb.

 

[Antifragile]

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Woah look at that, unelected power-hungry bureaucrats are speaking out against crpyto because "it's not backed by anything" -- lol, as if your paper currency which is unmercifully printed out of thin air is backed by anything?

Crypto savaged at Davos by top officials: Here's who said what

Financial officials described cryptocurrencies as unreliable and worthless, with one even comparing them to pyramid schemes.

fortune.com

These people disgust me.

 

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[MitchC]

 

[Vigilante]

Why Bitcoin Is the MySpace of Cryptocurrencies, But the Blockchain Is Here to Stay

Why Bitcoin Is the MySpace of Cryptocurrencies, But the Blockchain Is Here to Stay

 

[MJ DeMarco]

I have a dead hard drive here that is now worth over $4.6M if I could ever recover the bitcoin wallet from it.

Not sure if you're being serious here.

It's like knowing there's buried treasure underneath a big 3 ton boulder and then saying, "But I don't own a crane! Oh well!"

 

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[paulmp]

I rationalise it by thinking that if it didn't crash, I would have almost certainly cashed out long ago.

 

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[JAJT]

And yes, never buy at all time highs, buy the dips.

I think I bought every coin I own at their all time highs.

Since then I think I'm up 50%

Of course I'm not saying you're wrong. Just more of a point to how silly this whole game is right now

 

[Vigilante]

Scarcity psychology also plays a huge role. The fact that there is a perception of a limited quantity of gold plays into the market demand for gold and the price. The fact that there is the perception of limited quantities of cryptocurrency, added to the fact that even once you get an account you can't go Hog Wild from a ease of access on the buy side or the sell side... It's all creating additional mystery and hype that makes acquiring the coins more intriguing. I think the scarcity is going to continue to create more interest than availability. When there is more interest than availability the market responds with increased pricing. That's just common economics. Add to that the.com era hype and short-term visions of large gains and you have a bubble that is reminiscent of the dot-com era. The only difference is since this is a physically traded commodity that has the chance to really change the world currency, it doesn't necessarily have to end the same way the.com boom ended. There doesn't have to be a crash although there could be.

Hard to tell the real value of a Bitcoin. Is it zero? Is it $20,000? Is it a million dollars? The answer is it is worth whatever people are willing to pay for it. The more people that want it... the more it is worth.

 

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[Vigilante]

I doubled my initial buy-in on LTC when it shot up to $370's, pulled 50% out, waited for a pull back, and now put the 50% back in after the pull back.

Sold out of ETH and am just long in LTC and will just let that ride now. If everybody's psychological number on it is $1,000, I'll start dumping at $950.

I'm content now to just let it ride.

 

[Scot]

Guys i know this question must have been asked so many times...but are you using Coinbase or Binance ?
What do you thing about Coinbase because i'm getting myself started but then i saw the facebook page of Coinbase and a lot of people are saying that they can't withdraw their money or nobody is answering...
(I can't even verify my account i can't receive any confirmation email from them)

Thanks!

I created my Coinbase acct at 5am and had no issues. Took 5 minutes, was verified within 15 min and ny Eth purchase from debit card went through in less than 15 min.

I sent all my Eth to binance though because I dumped everything into alt coins that I plan on forgetting I own until a year from now.

 

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[Kingmaker]

All board.. you got about 2-3 hours (maybe 4-5) to catch it. It's currently 1:13am pacific.

In, trusting a guy on an internet forum to invest a few grand is a thrill like no other, I tell you.

Edit: Saw you're from Vegas, what have I done .

 

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[Tom.V]

Looks like BTC is on a rally, as are the majority of my other holdings. Will be keeping an eye out today through Monday to see how things progress and see if there are opportunities to jump on. I have also begun organizing my efforts via Google Sheets and API's from the exchanges to sync up data and identify opportunities in a more automated fashion. Work in progress. May also hire some offshore help to perform additional analysis and organize it for me to review, it could be a game changer in this space with all of the current noise.

Up about $20k~ this week, can't complain. 7 figure gains are looking more realistic by the day.

 

[Frinys]

What happens if (when) the government decides to crack down on Crytocurrencies? The whole point of Cryptos is to take power away from Government monetary systems. You think they're going to let that happen?

What government? I guess you mean the government of the USA. Public blockchains are by design global systems. Governments are not. No government can crack down on Cryptocurrencies.

What would happen if China banned the Internet? The rest of the world would get a huge advantage.

What would happen if the USA banned crypto? The rest of the world will get a huge advantage.

The government of the USA knows this. They can try to tax it, regulate it or get their share of it, but they cannot ban it or take it down. Single governments cannot control a global system like blockchain is.

Even more haunting is: Does anyone know what people actually buy with Cryptocurriencies? Have you ever purchased something with Bitcoin? I hate to break it to you but 90% what cryptocurrency's are used for is for buying heroin and handguns off the dark web.

Let me guess. You are an American, you have seen North America, and that's about it? Because this statement is completely false and is based on a limited world view.

In many places in South America (Argentina, Chile, etc)crypto is used because many people don't have access to banks.

In Venezuela, crypto is preferred over their highly inflated Bolívar.

In Russia, crypto is one of the only ways for non-corrupt entrepreneurs to get funding.

Go to South Korea with an Ethereum wallet, and you will never have to buy any Won because crypto is so commonly accepted.

In Africa, at places where the internet is uncommon and almost no one has smartphones, they use SMS to transfer Bitcoin.

Your statement is only true for a very small part of the world, namely Europe and North America. And even in this small part of the world, the legal use of crypto is increasing.

Also, Bitcoin and the other cryptos are vulnerable to technological advances. Bitcoin transactions sometimes take hours to process because if the verification process. If a blockchain technology comes along that offers immediate verification, Bitcoin will be rendered obsolete. Are people going to start buying products on the web with BTC? By the time it's done processing you could have already had your Amazon Prime package lol.

There are many blockchain technologies that offer faster verification than Bitcoin. However, they are less secure. And that's fin

The IP protocol is irreplaceable. Not because it's the best internet protocol, but it was first to be widely adopted.

Bitcoin is irreplaceable because it was the first to be widely adopted. The security a high hashrate PoW consensus blockchain offers is unmatchable. And because Bitcoin was the first blockchain to be adopted, it will keep its status as the most secure.

Just as I don't need a full-blown data center to run a homemade script, you I need bitcoin's security to buy a $3 package from Amazon. But that does not mean that neither data centers nor bitcoin is useless.

However, if I need to send $10,000,000 from Venezuela to Sri Lanka, then I would want to be very sure that the transaction is sent and arrives correctly. (Corrupt) Banks can't offer this security. Neither can Cash. Bitcoin, on the other hand, will. And not only will the transaction be secure, but it also will be both cheap and fast.

Take it back to First Principals; when you make an investment you're basically betting that X product will become a huge part of life in the future. If you buy stock in a company you are betting that that company is going to grow in the future.

It's clear to me that blockchain will become a huge part of everyone's life in the future. We western people just don't fully understand its advantages because we're spoiled with a (so far) well-functioning money system.

But I would not suggest using it as a ling term investment strategy, and I definitely don't putting all your eggs in this basket. I think that most, if not all, of the current Cryptos are way too vulnerable. There are so many things that can go wrong and crash the whole thing.

I think it's a very good long term investment, but it will be a bumpy ride. But dollar-cost averaging can be used to minimize the risks of volatility.

I think we can agree on one thing, to put all eggs in the blockchain basket is a very bad idea. One should never do this, but unfortunately, people do put their eggs in one basket way too often.

 

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[Kak]

Leave the lottery mentality to the slowlaners.

Bingo.

While I disagree about inherent nefariousness in crypto, I do agree that there are no real shortcuts. It isn’t some walk in the park to make millions of dollars. The people that think they can just buy a Bitcoin and get rich, are just trying to will something to happen more than they are looking at reality. They may end up right, but they may end up very wrong.

The reality is there are a LOT of headwinds for crypto that many in the crypto community willfully ignore, dismiss or even laugh at. The government is absolutely the single biggest headwind right now. The government hates competition. They have a well documented history of doing everything in their power to destroy competition in all forms.

Let me be clear, I’m not a crypto bear. I would actually describe myself on the bullish side of the median. I think it is cool as can be. I think it belongs in the portfolios of people seeking certain objectives, but the crypto community is, without question, a confirmation bias echo chamber.

I know this post won’t get much love, and that is ok. Just know if this very objective post pisses someone in this thread off, they prefer comforting lies to uncomfortable truth.

 

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[Kak]

Who records the deeds to real property?

This is my only problem with AnCap thinking. I absolutely love the theory and discussion of it. The practice, however, might be interesting.

On one hand there is only one property owner in the USA, the Government. It is theirs and you rent it from them.

The only reason the US government owns it instead of some other overlord is because they have the most guns and willingness to use them. All borders are drawn basically when the world is at a relative violence equilibrium. Borders exist because of guns. They didn’t file these borders with a higher authority. They just simply are.

The fact of the matter is this. We are most prosperous with the least amount of government and we are most oppressed with most amount of government. Measures should always be taken to limit government as much as possible. Now, eliminate government? I would argue it would be difficult and abstract, but we would have pockets of cooperating people either way.

If the land was TRULY yours, to the deepest definition of the word “yours,” it would be your country, and you would be the dictator of it. Sounds cool right? How many guns do you have? They and your willingness to use them are now the only thing drawing your border.

Obviously there are private sector solutions to this, like widespread treaties and alliances, but it is all general theory and never been tried. Read some Murray Rothbard, it is fascinating stuff.

Super small units of government are the most realistic. Little governments that actually represent the area and also have to compete with other nearby governments for the residency of the best and brightest. They have to run the place like a business, or go out of business.

Seasteading will be the first attempt at stateless society and it might be epic. Don’t like the rules, yacht your a$$ to a place with rules you like.

The bottom line, until we put the government in a place where what is in their best interest is ALSO in our best interest, we will experience some level of oppression. It is absolutely possible, but it is currently NOT how things work.

 

[Kak]

By increasing profitability and lowering reliance on subsidies, bitcoin mining can positively contribute to the development and scaling of renewable energy projects wherever conditions are the most favourable

I love this kind of thing. Considering cause and effect, not just the cause.

If everyone could think like this, the world would be a MUCH better place. Alas, they won’t.

Driving up the demand curve does more than “rob” supply, it makes more profitable and therefore more viable the development of cheap and effective alternatives.

 

[csalvato]

@Timmy C

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1372256950730170375

View: https://twitter.com/cmsintern/status/1372256950730170375?s=20

 

[Kak]

Yeah I don’t agree. They will preach how volatile the private cryptos are(btc,Eth) to get mass adoption of their bank coins. If they do the same thing as gold they will then try to regulate the purchase of btc to make it hard and buy as much as they can to become majority shareholders. Once again becoming the ones who own all of the real money. If everyone is running around with masks for covid and acting crazy do you think the sheep will buy btc when their government says it is illegal?

They are already starting to discount btc over their bank coins if you start googling articles from them.

A cryptographic dollar is scary as hell. Every transaction you ever make is recorded in a blockchain for review by authorities. Yeah no thanks. Even if you are in the top 1% of most diligent book keeping people out there, this is still scary.

That’s like biblical, cashless society, revelations shit. Mix that with vaccine passports… Even if it isn’t the mark of the beast, it’s certainly a mark of A beast.

 

[Timmy C]

LOL.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1389490658319257603

View: https://twitter.com/DominicFrisby/status/1389490658319257603

 

[Timmy C]

So many people here seem to forget the first rule of investing.
Buy low sell high. Nothing has changed in the value proposition apart from the price of the assets, and now, you want to sell.
That's not investing, that's gambling and letting your emotions lead your decisions.
If your thinking about selling because you are down, you invested more than you can afford to lose.
Full stop.

 

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[JamesQB8]

 

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[Wouter]

I think it's very important to understand how early we still are in the crypto space. We're entering a period of democratization of value.

Bitcoin is like the internet in 1996. At that time, the internet was slow, raw, expensive and clunky. You needed expensive equipment, it was very expensive to access and difficult to use. Downloading anything from the internet took forever. And still people thought it was exciting. Just like the internet, Bitcoin is a protocol.

The internet we have today is abundant, it's cheap and 'it just works'. It's put the whole world at our fingertips. You have access to more information today than many world leaders did 30 years ago, all thanks to the internet!

Video tapes turn into DVD's which turn into digital movies (information). Cassette tapes turn into CD's which turn into digital music (information). Things turn into information and information becomes free. A web developer in the Philippines can work for a business owner in the U.S. They use Zoom to meet, Paypal to transfer money, Gmail to send each other emails. All these tools are free for anyone to use.

Bitcoin and crypto in general right now is slow, expensive, raw and hard to use for many. In 10 or 20 years we'll be looking back at this time the same way we look back on the internet in 1996. How crazy it was to pay $10 for a transaction on the Bitcoin network ('wow, people used to do transactions on the base layer?!').

People say about Bitcoin: 'It's so clunky and not user friendly, my mom will never be able to use it'. They forget that you could have said the same thing about internet in the 90's. Yet today, even my grandma knows how to use Facebook, Instagram or make contactless payments in the supermarket. We're judging a lot of these projects for what they are now instead of what they could be.

Just look at old talk show clips from the 90's on YouTube. People sitting around a table discussing how they cannot imagine how the internet is useful. 'Why would you send an email, when you can just send a post card?' or 'Why would I need a mobile phone when people can just call me at home?'. It's only later that the majority of people will realise why it's useful. The late majority will just use it and don't even think about how it works or why it's useful because it's become so normal.

The internet is built on the rails of TCP/IP. If you asked 100 people how the internet works and what TCP/IP is, how many people do you think can explain that? I bet it's less than 1/100. And the great thing is you don't NEED to know how it works to know the internet is valuable and to be able to use it in your daily life today. Yet people expect to know how Ethereum or Bitcoin work from a 30 minute YouTube video.

How many people do you think were able to predict Netflix, Airbnb, Uber, Amazon, 4G/5G, Artificial Intelligence in the 90's? Hell, even the iPhone and all things it's replaced. You don't need to buy a professional camera, car navigation system, computer, radio, CD's, DVD's or phone book anymore. You just buy an iPhone. There's an app for everything and most of them are free.

You needed to have a lot of imagination to see what the internet could become in the 90's. That's why you see all these new crypto projects popping up. People are experimenting, seeing what they can build. Seeing what value they can provide. Most of these projects will fail, but that's not the point. The point is that we're discovering what this new technology CAN DO. Yet people are asking why people pay $500K for a CryptoPunk NFT. Even if only a few projects stand the test of time, the impact on our lives will be hard to grasp right now. We do know one thing: the genie is out of the bottle and it won't go back in.

That's why I appreciate @AceVentures taking the time to educate people and being on the front lines of this.

 

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[AceVentures]

Why Crypto? Take a look at this article titled Bitcoin is Civilization by Balaji S. Srinivasan

Bitcoin is great and has many believers, but for the purposes of highlighting the TECHNOLOGY and separating that from speculation on any one specific asset, I've gone ahead and replaced all instances of "Bitcoin" or "Ethereum" With [CRYPTO] to avoid shilling any one thing.

Keep your eyes on the prize my friends - this is about personal liberty and not about getting rich enough to buy yachts.

1. Crypto Protects Human Rights Around the World

[CRYPTO] might seem like a curiosity in a democracy with a stable currency. But in countries with deeply unstable economies and authoritarian politics, it is a lifeline. As Alex Gladstein recently explained in Reason Magazine, [CRYPTO] has been used by dissidents and activists in places like Cuba, Nigeria, and Belarus. In Russia, the country’s most prominent opposition politician and Putin critic, Alexei Navaly, has raised millions in [CRYPTO]. As Gladstein wrote: “Putin can do a lot of things, but he can't freeze a [CRYPTO] account.” If you want to understand what crypto is really about, ask Venezuelans if they’d rather own bolívar or [CRYPTO].

2. Crypto Provides Currency Stability

There was a day not so long ago that $787 billion was a jaw-dropping number. Do any of us know how many trillions of dollars the US government has printed since the 2008 bailout? Do we even want to imagine the potential inflationary effects?

Recall that at the start of the Weimar hyperinflation, everyone thought they were getting rich, with asset prices going through the roof. By the end, everyone unfortunate enough to trust the monetary policy of Weimar Germany was wiped out, and the mark was restandardized on gold. [CRYPTO] — digital gold — offers an algorithmic, written, transparent, cryptographically-enforced monetary policy that can be predicted far into the future. So it should come as no surprise that prominent investors like Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller are investing in [CRYPTO] as a guard against inflation.

3. Crypto’s Decentralization Guarantees Fairness

After the 2008 financial crisis, the issuance of new banking charters was cut off and the imposition of Dodd-Frank created formidable regulatory barriers around financial innovation. In many ways, this was a coronation disguised as regulation, as it “punished” the banks by locking in their moats, boxing out their competitors, and enshrining them as the only players with root access to the financial system.

Fortunately, technologists spent the decade building crypto protocols and digital assets that replace the need for bank access entirely. They built them not just on [CRYPTO], but on newer blockchains like [CRYPTO]. These protocols and assets are now being used together in an internet-native ecosystem known as decentralized finance (defi for short) that is fundamentally fair in a way that Wall Street isn’t. An Indian can use defi protocols without a Bloomberg Terminal. A Nigerian can create defi contracts without paying for American lawyers. And a Filipino can computationally verify that defi code is fair without trusting American politicians and bankers.

4. Crypto Protects Free Speech

The spirit of the First Amendment is under attack from giant technology companies and media corporations, with institutional diktat treated as truth and speech restrictions imposed in the name of content moderation. Decentralized social networks allow users to make an end run around these companies.

What’s a decentralized social network, you ask? The same technology that makes it possible to send digital currency to each other without a central hub like the Federal Reserve makes it possible to send digital messages to each other without a central hub like Facebook.

Some partially decentralized social networks already exist, like Mirror, Mastodon, Twetch, Peertube, D.Tube, Manyverse, Commonwealth, and Bitclout. More are being built.

If that seems like gibberish, remember that [CRYPTO] is now worth more than Facebook, and that crypto suggests a strategy to bootstrap a decentralized competitor to Facebook. What if the near-trillion-dollar valuation of Facebook was split amongst its users, with more going towards the early adopters, and without a central point of corporate control? As far-fetched as this may sound, it’s exactly the dynamic these new networks are pursuing.

5. Crypto Protects Private Property

Several years ago, the total amount seized by police surpassed the amount stolen from citizens by burglars. Most people don’t realize that officers can take cash and property from people without convicting or even charging them with a crime — yes, really! — through the highly controversial practice known as civil asset forfeiture.

The practice is part of a general abrogation of the Fourth Amendment that we can track back to at least the Patriot Act. Dealing with this legislatively may be futile — the trend has been moving in only one direction — but crypto again provides a solution. It is much harder for an oppressive government to arbitrarily seize (or even locate) someone’s digital property. This resets the relationship between state and citizen to make it impossible to search your digital “papers and effects” without your consent. No doubt we can imagine abuses, but when legislative approaches fail, only something unyieldingly principled can bring back the spirit of the Fourth Amendment.

6. Crypto Protects Online Privacy

We learned several years ago that the NSA was spying on Americans and lying to its oversight committee. Eight years later, Edward Snowden still hasn’t been pardoned, and the surveillance state is more tightly merged with social networks and search engines than ever before. Similar developments are taking place overseas, especially in China.

The only force that stands against this is encryption. Encryption isn’t synonymous with crypto, any more than software is synonymous with the internet. But just like the internet was a highly monetizable platform for software, crypto is turning out to be a highly monetizable application of encryption — and the billions of dollars in cryptocurrencies are stimulating a boom in applied cryptography.

7. Crypto Is the Next Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley as we know it is over. San Francisco has gone from the capital of the tech boom to post-apocalyptic wasteland, with failing businesses, violent assaults, and technologists leaving as fast as the cloud will carry them. But spiritually it’s declined as well, with box-checking ideologues staffing many of the large tech companies, and replacing the innovative spirit that built technology in the first place.

But all is not lost — quite the opposite. As valuable as Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are, if you plot their stock prices they look like slow growth vehicles relative to the multi-trillion dollar crypto-economy. The next center of innovation isn’t in Silicon Valley, it’s on-chain. And we should cheer the transition from Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” to crypto’s “Can’t Be Evil.”

8. Crypto’s Smart Contracts Replace Fallible Courts and Lawyers

Lawyers and judges are fallible and can be fickle. Smart contracts built on blockchain technology are not. The combination of a predictable monetary policy and rule-of-code allows us to make binding, long-term, public commitments to pay someone X amount under Y conditions at Z date. The more trustworthy this commitment is, the lower the cost of contract enforcement, the more reliable the deal. For example, if 100 people commit to crowdfund a new housing complex, and their funds are locked up on-chain, you can be sure they're good for the money — and proceed appropriately.

9. Crypto’s Economic Alignment Addresses Social Polarization

Legacy media and social media have polarized us, but cryptocurrencies offer the possibility of bringing us together on the basis of tangible, quantifiable economic alignment. It is now possible for an Israeli and a Palestinian, a Chinese citizen and a Japanese citizen, or a Democrat and a Republican, to all agree on the state of the [CRYPTO] blockchain. Regardless of your political views or your geography, everyone in the same crypto network prospers or fails together.

10. Crypto’s International Protocols Are the New Code-Based Order

As China and America slug it out in a trade war, a Chinese citizen and an American citizen might not trust each others’ legal systems. But they do trust the [CRYPTO] and [CRYPTO] blockchains, because the code executes exactly the same way on a Chinese or an American computer (or a Japanese or German one, for that matter). Cross-border trade is alive and well on-chain. Indeed, it’s not too far-fetched to believe that by 2030 or 2040, most cross-border trade may be mediated in whole or in part by a smart contract.

The crypto community today is truly international, reaching 100 million members across every country in the world in just its first decade. It’s not particularist or chauvinist or nationalist. Neither is it socialist or communist or statist. It's internationalist and capitalist, offering global equality of opportunity to anyone with an internet-connected device, which will soon be everyone. What Pax Americana purported to guarantee with guns, Pax [CRYPTO]ica guarantees with code.

 

[AceVentures]

Would you mind expanding on this more? How would you go about doing this? Are the criteria for validating the network known already since mainnet hasn't launched yet?

Staking is the mechanism for validating the network under Proof of Stake consensus. It is akin to running a "mining rig" albeit the way it works is you put your tokens up as stake in order to validate the network. I have attached the Casper FFG consensus mechanism paper for you to dig a little deeper if you want to understand the exact mechanism. This is the same consensus mechanism ETH2.0 will be using.

In fact, the LUKSO network will be using all ETH based components (Geth execution engine + CasperFFG consensus mechanism). In the LUKSO network, these will be called the Pandora execution engine and the Vanguard Consensus Mechanism. The below diagram is a simplified overview of the mechanisms involved in how the engine operates.



The exact criteria for validating the network have not been announced but expected to be announced at the L16 testnet launch. An update was posted by Fabian on the state of the L16 testnet launch on July 28th.

Many are speculating on the validation requirements, but if we assume ETH2.0 design principles, then 32LYX is what you would need to run a node. So if you have 3200 Lyx, that would be 100 nodes you can operate. But this is still not officially confirmed so take it with a grain of salt.

And in general, what approach would you recommend to A) learn more about LUKSO B) start getting involved in LUKSO?

A) To learn more about LUKSO here is what you can do:

1. Read thru the Official website and dig thru the whitepaper
2. Read the Official Medium Articles
3. If you understand code - or if you're simply curious, you can dig thru the official GitHub repos
4. I personally find this Telegram Archive which is built and managed by the community to be an excellent source of recent-most information with all kinds of links to articles, interviews, and short clips that drive the point

B) To start getting involved:

1. Stay up to date with LUKSO's main Twitter profile
2. Join the official Discord server
3. Join a LUKSO community - I recommend this Telegram group because it contains many veteran contributors
4. Follow some of the community contributors on Twitter to stay plugged into the latest.

In no particular order, here are some members I personally follow:

https://twitter.com/m_h_d_v (this is Marjorie Hernandez - she is Fabian's wife and co-founder of LUKSO)
https://twitter.com/feindura (this is Fabian's official twitter)
https://twitter.com/Luksolukson
https://twitter.com/Alts_Anonymous
https://twitter.com/liminalspread
https://twitter.com/LUKACACIC
https://twitter.com/luksogood
https://twitter.com/DexGemsReal
https://twitter.com/selbydafox

I do not vouch for any of these members or what they shill - simply trying to curate you a list of people I've personally known for several months now to have been positive contributors that understand the vision and the technology stack pretty well.

From there, you can continue to dig and find additional resources, make new friends, contribute to ideas/projects you are passionate about, and get your hands dirty.

You now have access to the same resources I use at this point. All the best my friend!

 

[AceVentures]

I wrote this in the NFT thread but I know this thread has many more visitors. I still wanted to reshare here because this mental model has really helped me understand this technology better and I believe it might help others here too:

What is the creator economy? What is the social economy?

They are simply a set of words we are using today to encapsulate the big idea which is human interaction.

Human interaction is what allowed us to understand one another and cooperate, form tribes, to look after and feed one another, to learn about the world from each other and to expose ourselves to more and more beautiful renders of this experience.

With the advent of the internet, our ability to communicate with one another saw an exponential gain in efficiency, connectivity to the massive global human network, and the ability to iterate on ideas and converge to a majority consensus at faster and faster rates.

Crypto, is another word. It's used today to describe cryptographically secured transmissions of programmable data on blockchain networks. Phew. Fancy set of words. Only because it hasn't been simplified yet...

When we communicate our innermost experiences using a pre-defined language, the basis for communications lends itself to inefficiencies from the get go.

Here's another mental model for the internet, or crypto, that I like to think about:

Communication: you can currently make sounds with air, send frequencies of vibrations across different mediums, to get to your listeners ears, and hopefully translated despite what the other person's relationship with those words might be.

The internet: an emergent form of communication that sends "vibrations" of the entire collection of your communication across different mediums, to get to your listeners receiver device, and translated precisely as you wrote it, or painted it, or better yet showed it in a collection of moving images put together at 30 frames per second.

Crypto: an emergent form of the internet, and ultimately communication, that sends bits of code across networks of computers around the world, to encapsulate the entirety of the message you wish to communicate, but this time in an encrypted format. Your message is then decrypted by your listener, translated precisely as you wrote it, or painted it, or displayed moving imagesof, or this time, a message that is programmed to perform an automatic action upon interacting with your listener.

This, is where things get wicked. This new method of communication is the genesis of a brand new set of human interactions. Upon interaction with these "contracts" or capsules of programs, the network of participants trustlessly provides encrypted and verified services to the other members of this channel of communication.

This, we can think of as what our evolution of the idea of governance has manifested into. Because that is precisely what these networks, channels of communication, would be doing: allowing verifiable, uncorruptible encapsulation of human interaction, accessible by all who tune into this channel. How these chanels operate, can also be determined by those who tune into the channel. So if a channel seems to be producing weird signals, you can change the channel you're on into a more honest network, with more honest validators and participants, as can be evidenced by the performance and sustainability of the network (you can use mathematics to quantitatively model performance).

Guys I want you all to think bigger here - don't fall into narratives about what this stuff is. If it was a scam, if it was all just bullshit and a bubble, why is everything in the world seemingly converging to problems caused by human arbiters, and the on the other hand computer systems rapidly evolving to present alternate forms or communication that greatly reduce human arbitration bias from the rails?

There is beautiful synchronicity to that alone. Keep digging down the rabbit hole, there is much to see here.

 

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