“What problem does this technology solve? What does it do that other, much cheaper and easier-to-use technologies can’t do just as well or better? I still haven’t heard a clear answer."
Bitcoin (not crypto) solves the problem of centralization and control of money. It is a harder form of money than gold. You can send a billion dollars for pennies across the world in 10 minutes. It is completely transparent. It can provide access to finance to people who are traditionally excluded. It cannot be censored.
If he hasn’t heard a clear answer, it’s because he’s willfully ignorant at this point. And again, crypto is 99.9% BS. Bitcoin was not the first crypto, and it won’t be the last crypto, but it is the only one of its kind and if north of a trillion dollars doesn’t convince you of that, including institutional money, then nothing will and I invite you to invest in the stock market instead and hope inflation doesn’t steal your retirement away.
Among the many feasible vectors with which you could accomplish it: Bitmain’s HQ is in Beijing, and while there is some scrutiny on the subject there has never been a (public) investigation into what’s actually baked into the silicon to check and make sure there’s not a 1337 backdoor or similar. Antminers are a fucking stunning percentage of the nodes out there, and although nothing like 51% of all nodes are just antminers, it still wouldn’t be difficult (for a powerful nation-state) to repeat the process across multiple manufacturers and get that kind of distributed influence.
It’s completely possible that the classically imagined 51% attack has never occurred (the “muhahaha all your coins are belong to us” scenario), but having that kind of large influence over the blockchain would trivially allow for subtle manipulations that would have world-spanning impacts. We have no way of demonstrating that it’s happened, nor mitigating it if it has, which is a big part of why bitcoin is regarded as such a joke by everyone that isn’t part of the cult. And to be clear, I have no idea if this has happened - that’s the problem, there’s by design no way of checking or verifying integrity on that scale.
Bitcoin was a half-baked idea that’s only stuck around because of the speculative market.
Bitmain has actually discovered and used a vulnerability in SHA256 hash function to their own benefit before. It took months, but people eventually found out.
While the situation is concerning, it’s not like there are no eyes on what bitmain is doing. These days you can reflash the software on their machines, or eve use your own custom control boards if you wish. The guys from Braiins are doing some amazing work in this regard.
Yeah, there’s lots of hypothetical routes. Braiins or similar getting a poisoned repo would be my bet for a real attack, but I was mostly considering how much of an impact it would have to, say, slip a few tens of millions to a handful of TSMC (or buy 15% of NVIDIA…) design engineers to include something on the compute dies. The specific issue with ASICs is that manipulations could be present below firmware, baked in at the physical silicon level, and with modern lithographic densities there’s essentially no mechanism for anyone to check to make sure that hasn’t happened.
Why would you think I care? The audience I’m writing for isn’t you, one of the above referenced “cultists” they were talking about screaming in the comments, it’s for anyone who isn’t already firmly entrenched within this strange little cult. Your poor financial decisions are your own burdens to bear, don’t try to offload the burden for your choices onto me.
I do applaud you choosing not to make any more comically unfounded claims. The form leaves a little to be desired, but overall I’m glad to see improvement…
He should’ve taken an economics course.
Krugman is firmly Keynesian school. Where are they teaching whichever school of economics is Bitcoin maximalism?
Youtube.
He has won the nobel prize in economics.
Prime “don’t you know who I am?” material right there
That’s a shame
“What problem does this technology solve? What does it do that other, much cheaper and easier-to-use technologies can’t do just as well or better? I still haven’t heard a clear answer."
Bitcoin (not crypto) solves the problem of centralization and control of money. It is a harder form of money than gold. You can send a billion dollars for pennies across the world in 10 minutes. It is completely transparent. It can provide access to finance to people who are traditionally excluded. It cannot be censored.
If he hasn’t heard a clear answer, it’s because he’s willfully ignorant at this point. And again, crypto is 99.9% BS. Bitcoin was not the first crypto, and it won’t be the last crypto, but it is the only one of its kind and if north of a trillion dollars doesn’t convince you of that, including institutional money, then nothing will and I invite you to invest in the stock market instead and hope inflation doesn’t steal your retirement away.
No it doesnt, 51% attack, please do hush. It’s the same reason TOR is probably compromised - we can’t actually detect if one has happened.
I can’t even fathom what the cost of trying to implement a 51% attack on bitcoin would be.
Among the many feasible vectors with which you could accomplish it: Bitmain’s HQ is in Beijing, and while there is some scrutiny on the subject there has never been a (public) investigation into what’s actually baked into the silicon to check and make sure there’s not a 1337 backdoor or similar. Antminers are a fucking stunning percentage of the nodes out there, and although nothing like 51% of all nodes are just antminers, it still wouldn’t be difficult (for a powerful nation-state) to repeat the process across multiple manufacturers and get that kind of distributed influence.
It’s completely possible that the classically imagined 51% attack has never occurred (the “muhahaha all your coins are belong to us” scenario), but having that kind of large influence over the blockchain would trivially allow for subtle manipulations that would have world-spanning impacts. We have no way of demonstrating that it’s happened, nor mitigating it if it has, which is a big part of why bitcoin is regarded as such a joke by everyone that isn’t part of the cult. And to be clear, I have no idea if this has happened - that’s the problem, there’s by design no way of checking or verifying integrity on that scale.
Bitcoin was a half-baked idea that’s only stuck around because of the speculative market.
Bitmain has actually discovered and used a vulnerability in SHA256 hash function to their own benefit before. It took months, but people eventually found out.
While the situation is concerning, it’s not like there are no eyes on what bitmain is doing. These days you can reflash the software on their machines, or eve use your own custom control boards if you wish. The guys from Braiins are doing some amazing work in this regard.
Yeah, there’s lots of hypothetical routes. Braiins or similar getting a poisoned repo would be my bet for a real attack, but I was mostly considering how much of an impact it would have to, say, slip a few tens of millions to a handful of TSMC (or buy 15% of NVIDIA…) design engineers to include something on the compute dies. The specific issue with ASICs is that manipulations could be present below firmware, baked in at the physical silicon level, and with modern lithographic densities there’s essentially no mechanism for anyone to check to make sure that hasn’t happened.
I just bought another $100, thank you
Why would you think I care? The audience I’m writing for isn’t you, one of the above referenced “cultists” they were talking about screaming in the comments, it’s for anyone who isn’t already firmly entrenched within this strange little cult. Your poor financial decisions are your own burdens to bear, don’t try to offload the burden for your choices onto me.
Remember this conversation. Seriously. Don’t forget it.
Obviously so you can laugh at my misfortune later, no other reason.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I do applaud you choosing not to make any more comically unfounded claims. The form leaves a little to be desired, but overall I’m glad to see improvement…
In such case, the Nobel commitee shoud probably set higher standards.
Lolz dafuq. Gotta be kidding me with this comment, and I hope it’s a joke.
Not at all.
Predictions for the price of Bitcoin in 2030? Give me a number. And then don’t forget it.
It’ll be worth exactly one bitcoin
Again…people don’t actually use it to buy anything. It has no tangible value aside from people buying.
Hasn’t it lost like 15% of its value this week?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2025/11/11/bitcoin-is-a-step-closer-to-being-money-with-square-bitcoin-launch/
Isn’t it worth 95,000?
I’ve been having conversations with doubters since it was 2,000 dollars. I wouldn’t waste your breath on me. I’ll be alright.
It worries me that you think this is a rebuttal to what they said.
And that doesn’t worry me…at all.
One further piece of evidence to support the theory that we are not the same person.
I’m downvoting you just to reinforce the idea that no one here gets sarcasm
They’re not being sarcastic, unfortunately they have gone on to double down. Rare hivemind W on this one.