Bitcoin and Crypto and DeFi and Sometimes Ayn Rand

[deanwins]

Re: can bitcoin be hacked?

Bitcoin technology is a ledger. Transfer/spending of ammounts requires a public key digital signature. People determine which history of the ledger to use based on which had the most work to build (proof of work) using brute force hash cracking.

If someone found a vulnerability in the digital signatures, people can move their amounts into a different public key algorithm.

People have already found minor (inconsequential) optimizations to improve the efficiency of the brute force hash cracking.  If someone found a way to break (solve in 1 try) the hash in use (sha256) for Proof of Work, then Bitcoin developers (and users) would have to switch the software to use a new hashing algorithm that doesn't have the vulnerability.

Theres a pretty huge economic incentive for people to break these things.  Theres actually a controversy back when an upgrade to Bitcoin's transaction signature storage (SegWit) was trying to be released by developers. The primary Bitcoin mining company was trying to deny the upgrade because: we suspect they were taking advantage of a little undocumented optimization in finding PoW hash solutions that SegWit would foil.

If you were able to break Bitcoin's public key crypto or block PoW hashing algorithms... you could get rich quick spending early generated bitcoins or creating new blocks to get the block rewards.  Its pretty dang hard math protecting it though... afaik theres only brute force.  Some people claim "quantum" computers can break Bitcoin's current public key crypto, which would be a problem for people who received coins from different transactions at the same address.  I initally use the definition "bullshit" when I read the word "quantum", as this is the most commonly used meaning of the word.

User's computers can be hacked though.  A specialized keylogger trojan can steal coins from your wallet.  Its been done on web browser and phone wallets.  The solution to that is hardware and cold storage wallets.  These are wallets that are disconnected from the internet, and have to be physically tampered with in person to be able to install a trojan.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dean.

What you said.

Now that countries are accepting it as legal tender, though, they have their own computer geeks who are keeping an eye on everything. Their very currency depends on it.

So I believe Bitcoin is, and will be about as unhackable as unhackable can get for a long, long time.

Michael

[deanwins]

Quote

Technically speaking there would be no reason why a competitor “money” could not start up, one which works using the same principles and methods as bitcoin.  I gather no one has set out to do this yet?

Strictly,

Litecoin was an early popularish altcoin bitcoin clone with trivial changes to block rate and supply schedule.  The creator was pretty successful at marketing his (bullshit) claims that his changes were good.  But its essentially just a Bitcoin clone, and since he didn't mess anything important up with his changes... its still a decent alternative to Bitcoin today.

There are other ledger systems out there that focus on more interesting niches.  Ethereum tries to handle more adaptive contracts than Bitcoin.  MimbleWimble gets rid of contracts in transactions, and is pure transaction only (or at least thats what I heard during its early development).  Monero has cryptographically hidden senders, recipients, and amounts transferred (much higher privacy).  I'm not saying any of these are all good, I'm just providing interesting design choice alternatives.

I suspect Ethereum will one day be worthless, since its more or less a clusterfuck of inefficiency of solutions looking for actual real life problems to solve.  And they moved away from Proof of Work preference to a "consensus" to determine the "official" ledger, which turns it more into a centralized organization that can be attacked by government regulation.

I welcome competing ledgers.  Some may be more suitable for different use cases, as their differences in features result in different market desires being fulfilled with differing efficiencies.

Theres the possibility that an alt coin in the future could have some invention that makes it significantly better than Bitcoin technology.  Better at handling more transactions with less network bandwidth or less CPU verification work.  But then Bitcoin can adopt the new tech (unless its patented).

People want to be able to trade for what ever their use cases are with the least cost/losses.  Using the slavers' monopoly money has high costs that most people dont realize.  I'm not saying Bitcoin will definitely be the ledger of the future that everyone will eventually use.  But theres the possibility... that Michael, Max, and I all fantasize of.  Where theres no men who get to rule the world by bribing slavery-enforcing-mercenaries with monopoly money.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dean,

Beware of shitcoins with governance boards, stakeholder rules, and things that sound like that.

 

As Max Keiser keeps saying, there is Bitcoin (currency) and there are all the other cryptos or shitcoins (unregulated securities). Incidentally, that's the way the law already is in El Salvador.

I think shitcoin is a technical term...

 

Michael

[Strictlylogical]

21 hours ago, deanwins said:

Re: can bitcoin be hacked?

Bitcoin technology is a ledger. Transfer/spending of ammounts requires a public key digital signature. People determine which history of the ledger to use based on which had the most work to build (proof of work) using brute force hash cracking.

If someone found a vulnerability in the digital signatures, people can move their amounts into a different public key algorithm.

People have already found minor (inconsequential) optimizations to improve the efficiency of the brute force hash cracking.  If someone found a way to break (solve in 1 try) the hash in use (sha256) for Proof of Work, then Bitcoin developers (and users) would have to switch the software to use a new hashing algorithm that doesn't have the vulnerability.

Theres a pretty huge economic incentive for people to break these things.  Theres actually a controversy back when an upgrade to Bitcoin's transaction signature storage (SegWit) was trying to be released by developers. The primary Bitcoin mining company was trying to deny the upgrade because: we suspect they were taking advantage of a little undocumented optimization in finding PoW hash solutions that SegWit would foil.

If you were able to break Bitcoin's public key crypto or block PoW hashing algorithms... you could get rich quick spending early generated bitcoins or creating new blocks to get the block rewards.  Its pretty dang hard math protecting it though... afaik theres only brute force.  Some people claim "quantum" computers can break Bitcoin's current public key crypto, which would be a problem for people who received coins from different transactions at the same address.  I initally use the definition "bullshit" when I read the word "quantum", as this is the most commonly used meaning of the word.

User's computers can be hacked though.  A specialized keylogger trojan can steal coins from your wallet.  Its been done on web browser and phone wallets.  The solution to that is hardware and cold storage wallets.  These are wallets that are disconnected from the internet, and have to be physically tampered with in person to be able to install a trojan.

I think a puzzle piece just snapped in place into why Governments are dumping so much funding into Quantum Computers which are as of yet unproven in terms of their general usefulness….

the arms race is between freedom or domination.

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's how Max Keiser sees it.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

LOL...

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm not sure Max is a Randian, but this comment of his has Ayn Rand written all over it.

If you want to see what a Randian intended universe looks like when it is wedded to reality and not just words, look to El Salvador and Bitcoin.

Those people are not asking for anyone's permission or sanction to do it.

They're just doing it.

What's more, they know what they are doing and why.

Despite the religiosity of the country, they use reason as their guide for producing and interacting.

And it's working.

 

 

Apropos, I have read works by Taleb. He is clever, sometimes insightful, (forever wordy  ), but I have always been uneasy about the company he keeps. He's a darling of the Predator Class on the economic side.

I think he is useful to them because he gives them great metaphors like Black Swan, the Turkey at Thanksgiving, or clever phrases like being antifragile and so on. And he knows his bread is buttered by them, so he never takes his ideas all the way down to the individual. They stay right there in the Predator Class telling them how best to rule and fool the world.

And yes, Bitcoin is a mirror that exposes this more than any syllogism ever could.

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

For anyone who is worried about the Bitcoin fear porn you constantly see in the media, take a look at this.

Michael Saylor shut these guys with their gotcha questions down by simple facts and logic. He didn't even try to persuade them.

What's more, you can almost see them thinking about buying more Bitcoin themselves after the interview.

 

Michael Saylor is one my my favorite people in the Bitcoin world. I have a few I love and admire.

I honestly believe these are on a Founding Father level.

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What a great explanation for boobs (like me) of Bitcoin.

 

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I love Max.

LOL...

 

Michael

 

EDIT: Note that Max threw Jamie Dimon off his TV show in that compilation. Like really threw him off. It was ugly.  

For those who don't know, Dimon used to be one of the top Federal Reserve dudes and is now head honcho of JPMorgan Chase. It's funny as hell seeing him throwing chairs and shit while being thrown off a show.  

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Robert Breedlove is one of the Bitcoin maximalists who lives in El Salvador (at least I think he does). He has a podcast I see once in a while on YouTube (here is the podcast URL What is Money?).

In some of his stuff, I get the impression he leans to the ancap side.

But here he is reading Ayn Rand's money speech from Atlas Shrugged.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Saif orange-pilling Jordan Peterson.

I know, I know. Not full orange-pill yet. It's a process for most people.

 

btw - Saifedean Ammous is an economic author who is now one of President Bukele's economic advisors in El Salvador.

Also, someone had fun splashing rays in the video. LOL...  

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Man, do I feel it.

It's more than money.

It's freedom.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Max and Alex are having fun and it's a little silly, but the questions are good. And so is the rapport between the two.

 

 

Here are the 5 questions I cribbed from an X post:

1. Total supply of BTC?
2. Frequency of difficulty adjustment?
3. Core hashing algorithm?
4. Frequency of new blocks?
5. Who is Satoshi?

I'll edit them later. I know the last question is a bit off because Max asked Alex if some dude was Satoshi, not who Satoshi is. But, as presented, they are right in the sense of being in the ballpark.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

20 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I'll edit them later.

I don't need to. Max posted them:

 

And here are the answers (and yes, I had to look this stuff up  -- I hope I didn't get it wrong):

1. 21 million. (However, an initial 50 or so can never be used and some have been lost forever due to the hash being lost.)
2. SHA-256.
3. After every 2016 blocks are mined, more or less every 2 weeks.
4. About every 10 minutes (from mining).
5. No. Craig Wright is an Australian who claimed to be Satoshi, but, despite litigation, is widely viewed as a hoaxer and scammer.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What a beautiful sight to behold.

Javier Milei, a Bitcoin believer, just won the presidency of Argentina. And the people celebrated by ripping up pesos and using it as confetti.

What a great time to be alive...

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

And Max goes there.

LOL...

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This is how you do it.

Now Argentina is going to do it.

 

The world will begin to see this when there are enough wins that are only wins.

Meanwhile, parts of the world are seeing it just fine. Including the bad guys.

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Just a thought.

The Predator Class does not have your best interests at heart.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Now that Milei has been sworn in down in Argentina, there are some rumblings that he is not a true Bitcoiner because he has had meetings with people who are unsavory in our neck of the woods (notably, Bill Clinton and Zelensky).

But he is President of Argentina, all of Argentina, and has to deal with all kinds of people out in reality--and those who deal with those, not just purists from behind a computer screen. 

Argentina is a mess right now and needs serious attention, not playacting.

So I am not worried.

I gage my own opinion based on El Salvador's biggest Bitcoin watchdog, Max Keiser.

Max says Milei gets it, so I am certain he gets it.

Max is colorful in his form of addressing issues, but don't let that fool you. He does not suffer fools or politicians speaking out of both sides of their mouths.

I, for one, am looking forward to a soon-improved Argentina with a growing Bitcoin economy.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This is a BFD, meaning it's a big deal.  

Reuters, today, January 10, 2024.

US SEC approves 11 spot bitcoin ETFs

Quote

Jan 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has approved 11 spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds, including those of Grayscale, Bitwise and Hashdex, according to a statement on Wednesday.

The approval would be a game-changer for bitcoin, offering institutional and retail investors exposure to the world's largest cryptocurrency without directly holding it, and a major boost for a crypto industry beset by a string of scandals.

 

 

If you are thinking of buying Bitcoin through an ETF, though, be aware of one thing. The government can confiscate an ETF at any time (and give you dollars or CBDCs in return).

If you own Bitcoin itself in your own Bitcoin wallet, the government cannot confiscate it. Period.

btw - The entry of all this new fiat money in an official scheme around Bitcoin will only increase the fiat value of Bitcoin since many of these fiat money people will outright buy Bitcoin. And that makes the price go up.

Since we are talking about funds like Blackrock and so on, well...

 

I'm loathe to talk about Bitcoin as an investment (although it has proven to be one of the best investments in the world medium-to-long term). I'm much happier talking about Bitcoin as the perfect money.

But right now, if I were to think along investment lines, it seems to me like one of the best times ever to buy Bitcoin.

Not any ETFs.

Bitcoin.

That's my opinion.

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Before we pop champagne, a word of caution from one of the few men I trust completely about Bitcoin.

I suspect there is a lot of cross-notices that are contradictory as the insiders play their games to pump what they can. And in the end, it will all be resolved and the bureaucracy will be clear. I think this is the reason for Michael's irritation.

 

We'll just have to wait and see. I'm not celebrating just yet, but I do have the party shit all laid out. In my opinion, from what I know and speculate right now, the insiders gotta play their games first, then the party can get going.

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It's happening.

 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

There was a small bump today, but it was more of a nuisance than a problem.

So customers are closing their accounts at the above banks (and others) that are doing this bullshit. After all, it's their rules.

Even with the tiny bump, Bitcoin is still over $46k.

Tomorrow things will probably go back to rocket blast-off mode.

 

Michael