
Bitcoin is more like ham radio than the early internet - JumpCrisscross
http://jpkoning.blogspot.com/2020/07/bitcoin-is-more-like-ham-radio-than.html
======
nostrademons
There's a pretty key quote in here and an attendant logical fallacy:

"If five years from now everyone in the world has become a bitcoin user, that
could only be because something very very bad has happened to the regular
monetary system ... Surely no bitcoiner would actually want such a dark
future."

That statement is absolutely true, as a conditional. But the logical fallacy
it represents is "If X happens, that would be unthinkably bad. Therefore, X
will not happen." (Similar thinking is behind coronavirus-denial and climate-
change denial.)

I think that most hardcore Bitcoin aficionados (the group that's still in it,
even now that the bubble has burst and you can't get rich off of it) would
accept the above premise. If Bitcoin becomes successful, something seriously
bad has happened to the monetary system.

The difference is that most hardcore Bitcoin investors also accept the premise
that _something seriously bad is going to happen to the monetary system_.
There's a very heavy overlap between folks who hodl Bitcoin and folks who
believe that the Fed is going to continue to debase the dollar, we'll get
hyperinflation, the government will collapse, and we'll all end up pledging
allegiance to a variety of crypto-anarchist communes that conduct commerce
through cryptocurrency. Many of them also include guns, stockpiles, and bug-
out bunkers in their contingency planning. If you accept that premise, the
goal is not "How do I get rich?", it's "How do I minimize the impact of this
collapse to myself and give myself a leg up in the post-collapse world?"

~~~
harryh
You know what's definitely going to be valuable in a post collapse world where
people are making heavy use of bug-out bunkers stashed with food and guns? A
digital currency that requires a sophisticated global computer network to
function.

Ya. That makes a lot of sense.

~~~
csomar
> A digital currency that requires a sophisticated global computer network to
> function.

That's stretching it a bit. While Bitcoin looks sophisticated to the average
Joe, it is actually a very simple protocol and require very little bandwidth.
It's possible to run mining operations from all over the world on very limited
connection (in fact you might need to connect only a few times per day).
Processing transactions also consume very little bandwidth.

The crypto-folks have come up with something for you:
[https://blockstream.com/satellite/](https://blockstream.com/satellite/)

So now even if your local infrastructure burned, you can still transact in
bitcoin. Granted, there should be some guys somewhere doing the mining to
ensure that the network is secure enough.

~~~
three_seagrass
They're not saying that bitcoin is sophisticated (it's not), but the entire
backbone of the internet is.

In some post-apocalyptic dystopia, people aren't going to be using their
phones and laptops to make payments with bitcoin, they're going to use
whatever is backed by the local authority.

~~~
nostrademons
Mesh networks over HAM radio, to tie it back to the article. ;-)

~~~
three_seagrass
That requires electricity, which is spotty in a dystopia. Best to stick to
encrypted smoke signals.

------
amasad
I'm surprised the author didn't complete the analogy -- if Bitcoin and ham
radio are both "clunky and old-fangled," what was the internet at its
inception?

The internet didn't start in "1991" it started in 1966 with ARPANET and it was
so hard and expensive to use it would make using Bitcoin feel like using a
toy.

The tone of this article gives me Krugman-on-internet vibes: "By 2005, it will
become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater
than the fax machine’s"

~~~
simias
It's pretty easy to see why ARPANET took a while to develop and turn into the
internet we know today. Youtube didn't exist in the 1960's not because people
though that streaming video was a dumb idea but rather because it was simply
technically impossible to do at that time. In order for the internet to
develop it required massive progress in hardware and infrastructure. To this
day many places in rich countries still have crappy internet access.

What's Bitcoin's excuse? Where is the technical limitation? Do we need nuclear
fusion or 100Terabyte internet links for it to become usable? Do we need high
speed data transmission to Mars?

The only thing standing in the way of Bitcoin is people finding compelling use
cases for it in order to drive adoption. 10+ years and billions of dollars
later it's still only useful as a tool for gambling and scams or to buy drugs
and other illegal things online.

Also, ARPANET was already very useful by the mid-1970s (it was declared
"operational" in 1975, 9 years after its inception). It was not the internet
we know today of course, but it wasn't really meant to be. It was a defence
project after all.

~~~
ballenf
> What's Bitcoin's excuse?

Existing currency solutions exist. There was no technology or infrastructure
displaced by the (early) internet. No industries or governments (who realized
they should feel) threatened by the internet.

The internet was backed by nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers. Is that
really a fair comparison? Just think if there was never a person in the room
to say "but what will regulators say?" when cryptocurrency came up.

Finally the internet as we know is unrecognizable compared to its initial
incarnation. The network protocols we now have are layers upon layers of
innovation that were all required steps to allow YouTube and Netflix to
operate. And many or these innovations are solutions to problems the early
engineers hadn't even encountered yet.

> Do we need nuclear fusion or 100Terabyte internet links for it to become
> usable? Do we need high speed data transmission to Mars?

I think it's fair to say that there are unknown innovations in our future that
will drive cryptocurrency adoption. I think it's unfair to insist that we must
predict those right now or abandon all work on the technology.

~~~
simias
So basically you're saying that cryptocurrencies don't work currently because
there are established solutions that already solve the problem it attempts to
solve but it's totally going to work eventually due to unknown unknowns and
it's unfair to point that out somehow?

Come on. Apply that logic to literally anything else and see how that sounds.

>The internet was backed by nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers. Is that
really a fair comparison

The comparison was made by cryptozealots to begin with to justify the lack of
results after many years of development and billions of dollars sunk into
them. "How useful was the internet 3/5/7 years after its inception?!". Now
that even this incredibly silly comparison fails to justify this waste of
resources for so little results, cryptozealots have turned their back on it.

What's next, the timescale of the evolution of life on Earth? Who knows, maybe
in a billion years Bitcoins will finally serve a purpose beyond buying cocaine
online. HODL!

------
vitaflo
You can tell the author is not a ham when he says hams "broadcast" their radio
message. They don't broadcast (per FCC rule), they make transmissions.

I can see where the author is going here, but the analogy seems a little
weird. It also ignores that there is an overlap in the bitcoin and ham world,
namely the "prepper" types that assume someday the entire world will implode
on itself. These tend to be a vocal minority though (at least in the ham
world, I can't speak to bitcoin as much).

The comparison seems flawed though because ham radio has never been about
money (except maybe saving on long distance charges in the 70's/80's), and
when money is involved (in whatever form) it certainly has an outsized
influence on behavior (good or bad). As such I'm not sure you can draw and
realistic comparisons between bitcoin and ham radio without stretching the
analogy.

~~~
beervirus
What's the difference between broadcasting and transmitting? It's not like the
"transmission" is some directed line-of-sight thing.

~~~
epanchin
Transmitting implies an exchange of messages. Broadcast implies
indiscriminately ... broadcasting.

~~~
beervirus
Transmitting and receiving implies an exchange. Transmitting just means
sending.

~~~
epanchin
Transmitting implies transmitting and receiving which implies an exchange of
messages. The important part is that broadcasting is not exchanging messages.

~~~
beervirus
This must be some nonstandard definition of transmitting.

~~~
epanchin
What was the purpose of your original question? Was it to further your
understanding or to open an opportunity to be fastidious?

Are you still incapable of seeing that broadcasting is a specific action?

~~~
beervirus
It was to further my understanding. But responses like "well, actually
transmitting means transmitting AND receiving" don't really do that.

------
aazaa
> If five years from now everyone in the world has become a bitcoin user, that
> could only be because something very very bad has happened to the regular
> monetary system. Perhaps hostile aliens have enslaved us and are using the
> payments system to control what we can buy, sort of like Margaret Atwood's
> Compucounts in her dystopic Handmaid's Tale. And so bitcoin has gone
> mainstream, but only because we have all been forced to become under-the-
> table bitcoin users in order to buy stuff we need.

I'm not sure the author is paying attention to what really is happening to
money around the world.

\- Local currencies are being weaponized in various ways from countries to
individuals, including surveillance, sanctions, and civil asset forfeiture.

\- Physical currency is being withdrawn incrementally around the world,
forcing citizens into electronic payment networks with greater weaponization
potential.

\- The dollar's position as global reserve currency and asset have placed
unprecedented stresses on the US financial/political system. there are only
two options: default on the national debt(s) or devaluation. It's not going to
be default. So, for as long as the global dollar short squeeze[1] rages, the
Fed's balance sheet will expand, fuel devastating bubbles, and cause rational
people to look for alternatives in the strangest places.

\- Gold is increasingly becoming problematic if held abroad. Venezuela
recently discovered that gold stored in UK vaults can be stolen by men in
3-piece suits. This makes the picture around gold as a settlement asset
increasingly murky.

Bitcoin may or may not offer solutions here. But to brush off obvious problems
with the world's financial system at this moment in time seems rather short-
sighted.

[1] [https://www.lynalden.com/global-dollar-short-
squeeze/](https://www.lynalden.com/global-dollar-short-squeeze/)

~~~
marcell
> there are only two options: default on the national debt(s) or devaluation

I disagree that these are the only two options. There are quite a few other
options:

(1) Limit deficit spending and continue paying down the current debt

(2) Raise taxes to eliminate the deficit, and continue paying down the current
debt

(3) Sell US government assets to pay down the current debt (land holdings,
gold)

(4) A combination of the above policies

------
john_alan
Bitcoin is an amazing project. And in fairness, has survived 11 years as a
target for every malicious actor and curious mind out there.

That said from both an applied cryptographic point of view, and from an
economic perspective I think Monero is just fabulous.

Given its fungible and private, its a lot closer to “money” than Bitcoin.

I think it has a strong probability of becoming an important part of global
payment options. Its daily transaction count is also at an all time high.

~~~
patricius
Does Monero have a upper limit of issued coins like Bitcoin?

~~~
john_alan
It drains to a trickle and then continues indefinitely. The supply is less
than bitcoins until 2040.

~~~
tromp
Still, like Bitcoin, the vast majority of all Monero emitted in the first
century, is emitted in the first few years. Grin has the simplest possible
emission, at 1 Grin per second forever. They're all disinflationary, i.e. the
yearly inflation rate goes down to 0.

------
mrb
« _No, bitcoin isn 't going to become a mainstream kind of money. It's too
awkward for most people._»

This strikes me as something written by someone who is fundamentally not a
problem solver. It's like someone seeing the first cars in the late 19th and
early 20th century: awkward, unreliable, etc, and thinking "clearly, cars are
NEVER going to become mainstream".

Really? You can't think of any way the technology and tools could improve to
make using Bitcoin less awkward?

« _Crazy price gyrations are far too wicked for the regular money-using public
to tolerate_ »

Objectively, volatility has significantly decreased over the last 11 years,
and will continue to decrease, which is perfectly expected with maturing
financial markets.

~~~
noxer
Cars however did mature. Bitcoin does not. It just forks whenever someone
wants to do significant changes. Also at that point no change could ever get
it anywhere close to what other projects achieved with similar but better
tech. The fundamentals in Bitcoins are de-facto unchangeable and very much
outdated.

~~~
mrb
« _Bitcoin does not_ »

This statement betrays you have not paid attention to the numerous
improvements made to the Bitcoin infrastructure over the last 11 years:
wallets, nodes, exchanges, payment processors, vaults, blockchain upgrades,
basically all the BIPs
[https://github.com/bitcoin/bips](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips) : segwit,
P2SH, lightning, M-of-N keys, deterministic wallets, etc. Using Bitcoin in
2020 is nothing at all like it was in 2009.

~~~
noxer
Just because there are people coding on it and made improvements doesn't mean
it matured. I know very well that there where changes but none of them made
any relevant progress to get rid of the growing centralization, very slow
speed, limited throughput. etc. etc. Next bullrun Bitcoin will hit the ceiling
again and people will says Lightning and what not will solve this soon(TM)
while it clearly does not. Bitcoin itself is outdated tech incapable of
delivering what it promised 10 years ago and there is nothing being done to
change that.

------
Sargos
These posts always seem to focus on Bitcoin which of course is easy to dismiss
and isn't likely to make any major changes anytime soon. If you want to talk
about a financial network and something end users would actually use then
articles should focus on something like Ethereum which does support
decentralized finance applications and has easy to use interfaces such as
Argent that normal people can use without technical knowledge.

>Crazy price gyrations are far too wicked for the regular money-using public
to tolerate

This is what stablecoins such as DAI and USDC are for. People will use
stablecoins for their everyday lives as it's built for being a medium of
exchange.

>It's too awkward for most people

This is still true to an extent but most people would have no problem using
Argent.

Average people need easy to use savings accounts. Easy ways to save and invest
their money for the future. One click ways to purchase products. These can't
happen on Bitcoin but they already exist on Ethereum and DeFi. All possible in
a trustless way.

There's a lot of development happening on web3 right now but if you focus
entirely on Bitcoin you will miss the important parts of what make this space
interesting.

~~~
monokh
> These can't happen on Bitcoin but they already exist on Ethereum and DeFi.
> All possible in a trustless way.

In reality, just about every DeFi platform is not trustless nor are the
usecases possible in a trustless way. Uniswap is one exception that comes to
mind.

The parallel is that you can have the existing financial systems replicated on
Bitcoin, Ethereum, with some additional properties and tradeoffs. I don't
think you could make that kind of comparison with ham radio?

~~~
Sargos
>In reality, just about every DeFi platform is not trustless nor are the
usecases possible in a trustless way

While this is true in these early days where developers need the ability to
upgrade contracts and quickly fix bugs it is not the long term state of these
projects and all of the major ones have defined paths to full
decentralization. It's important to note that even today all of these services
are non-custodial which is already a huge step up from the status quo. The
amount of centralization is also variable with some projects able to upgrade
certain portions of their systems but not all of it and other projects simply
having an emergency kill switch they can use in case of a critical bug but
can't actually change the contract.

It's definitely not perfect right now but it's already better than traditional
systems with things becoming more trustless over time. Eventually these
services will be as fixed as Uniswap/Balancer/etc as things get more stable.

~~~
monokh
"The path to decentralisation" for these projects are usually very primitive
and don't actually arrive at the broad claims. Too often it's just putting
wall paper over the hole in the wall. A DAO it self doesn't bring you
decentralisation, the hardest problem is how you determine the members of the
DAO. With how this is being played (tokens) you arrive at oligarchy or a
federation, not decentralisation. The developers know this. That's why you
don't see anything but baby steps forward with regards to decreasing their
power over the protocols.

Ditto on the non custodial claims, I can count on one hand the amount of times
I've seen this term used to describe a product and for it to actually be the
case.

~~~
hanniabu
Since you guys seem to know your stuff and can see past all the marketing
bullshit meant to intentionally mislead people, you might be interested in
Blocknet and Block DX (DEX powered by Blocknet). Unlike Uniswap which is
Ethereum/account based, Block DX is UTXO based (ETH integration in the works)
with every component decentralize. Non-custodial, order books are p2p, order
matching is p2p, and verifications are performed locally, and settlement via
atomic swaps. Trades are also extremely fast (3-10s) with trade times
independent of block times. Also in regards to Blocknet as a whole, they also
offer decentralize oracles. Anyway, I'll stop here because I think I may be
coming off as a shill, but I just figured you'd enjoy taking a peak since you
could appreciate what they're doing for the ecosystem.

------
Empact
As a Bitcoin Core contributor[1] and recent Ham radio adopter, the author
mistakes a key point:

> This lack of a gate keeper means that there is no one to soften the user
> experience.

This is true of Ham radio[2], but it is not the case with Bitcoin. Like the
internet, and unlike Ham radio, Bitcoin as a system/protocol is open to people
creating centralized resources atop it and serving as gatekeepers.

The fact is that today a significant amount[3] of Bitcoin is stored in
centralized exchange accounts, controlled by gatekeepers by way of hosted
exchange wallets. Likewise, hosted web and mobile wallets are a significant
element of the ecosystem, for example, while work on refining self-
sovereign/non-custodial lightning network wallets continues, hosted/custodial
mobile lightning network wallets are simpler to use, because the hosted
gatekeeper can obviate concerns such as opening channels and managing
liquidity. Several of the top lightning network wallets[4] are custodial
gatekeepers.

Yes, Bitcoin enthusiasts are often hobbyist tinkerers of the sort you might
see in Ham radio. At the same time the broader community is served via
institutional exchanges and custodial wallets with no such effort required.
Often it's the tinkerers who end up running the service providers.

While this decentralized tinkering is an initial hurdle to overcome - it would
certainly be easier to have a single company build out all of the initial
infrastructure, rather than a host of companies - the result is much more
robust against the single failure or control of any one participant. Bitcoin
benefits from each service provider, but isn't dependent on any of them. Like
the internet, and unlike Ham radio.

[1]
[https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commits?author=Empact](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commits?author=Empact)

[2] Largely due to the peculiarities of antenna installation and frequency
selection.

[3] [https://news.bitcoin.com/new-list-claims-1-9-million-
bitcoin...](https://news.bitcoin.com/new-list-claims-1-9-million-bitcoin-held-
by-centralized-exchanges/)

[4] [https://blog.bitrefill.com/top-11-lightning-network-
wallets-...](https://blog.bitrefill.com/top-11-lightning-network-wallets-
bitrefill-328b5465b1b4)

------
wglb
The mind boggles at the absurdity of this comparison.

The amount of social good, emergency preparedness, advancement of technology
and just plain fun is what ham radio is about. Bouncing signals off the moon,
communicating across the world with just 10 watts--these are common
activities.

Can you compare the energy consumption of a ham radio conversation with the
amount of energy bitcoin requires to buy a pizza? Many orders of magnitude.

Insofar as being old and clunky, digital modes such as FT8, FT4, Olivia and
associated technology is far from clunky.

If there is a disaster that affects the financial system, bitcoin is not going
to help--it will be just as paralyzed as the rest of it.

One is expensive fantasy, the other has an ongoing practical use with social
benefit.

~~~
zucker42
Not saying there aren't big problems with Bitcoin, but I think that's it
something more than an expensive fantasy. I recently bought a service with
Bitcoin for a 10% discount, which seems to suggest it helps that company
process payments with lower cost. The engima with cryptocurrencies is that the
zealots seem to significantly overvaul it while some outsiders seem to
undervalue it.

And I think that's what the point of this article is: that
Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies can be useful without replacing the USD.

------
zitterbewegung
Blockchain is a database. Bitcoin is a blockchain database with an
cryptographic identity layer where transactions are mostly immutable. If all
of the people who run Bitcoin don’t all agree on governance then the database
is formed into two versions where the transactions before the fork are kept
but after the fork the second group will have a different set of transactions
(like bitcoin gold) . Ethereum has a super set of features which adds the
ability to run a stored procedure which enforce a contract that will be run on
the network but have the resources of a microcontroller .

Since the hello world of your own cryptocurrency can be done on ethereum it
makes it popular in that respect. Stablecoins are coins pinned to currency
values because of the volatility of the underlying coin poses unique issues
due to people paying each other in bitcoin or any altcoin.

Bitcoin is the most mature implementation of a blockchain due to being in
existence longer . Ethereum has had unique security challenges and transaction
issues but since databases are hard to make correctly it will win out due to
age .

Bitcoin has proven itself to be able to support speculative investment and
faster transaction times than a SWIFT transfer . Ethereum has been used to
implement altcoins and stable coins and also encompasses bitcoins feature set
too).

~~~
jraedisch
It does not encompass Bitcoin's feature of being Bitcoin. Should majority of
digital wealth ever be transferred to another Technology, I think it is most
probable that this transfer is going to be discussed a lot even before it
happens in orderly fashion, e.g. by forking or airdropping. Else, most Bitcoin
holders probably won't move on.

------
marcell
> If five years from now everyone in the world has become a bitcoin user, that
> could only be because something very very bad has happened to the regular
> monetary system

If you ask a bitcoin “true believer,” many will tell you that something
terrible has already happened to the regular monetary system. This crowd is
typically very concerned with the level of debt in society, especially US
government debt, and the devaluation of the dollar during WW2 and the Vietnam
War.

~~~
atomi
Or the fact that just holding capital has better returns than most any other
economic activity. That's a recipe for extreme income disparity. It appears
our current government is handing out billions in "relief" to churches in an
attempt to offset that income disparity.

~~~
simias
I don't disagree, but Bitcoin is deflationary by nature so it's effectively
worse on that count. You have zero incentive to spend or invest bitcoins since
by design they increase in value as time goes by.

~~~
spurdoman77
You have incentive to spend, since the point of life is not to die with as
many bitcoins as possible, but to spend your wealth on things that you enjoy
and matter. I think it is a great thing that BTC makes disincentivizes
_unnecessary_ spending.

~~~
simias
>You have incentive to spend, since the point of life is not to die with as
many bitcoins as possible, but to spend your wealth on things that you enjoy
and matter.

Do we live in the same world? Do you think Jeff Bezos has hoarded all this
money to buy himself nice clothes, ice cream and trips to the beach? Dying
with as much money (i.e. power) as possible is very much the endgame for many
people.

And note that it's not just individuals that accumulate a lot of wealth, it's
also corporations and governments. Do you think Fort Knox is just a piggy bank
for when the citizens of the US decide to go on a collective vacation in
Thailand?

>I think it is a great thing that BTC makes disincentivizes unnecessary
spending.

Investing into the economy is not unnecessary spending. Every time you hear
about a funding round or somebody making a loan, that's somebody else
investing money. Fractional reserve is also about reinvesting money instead of
letting it sit idly in a coffer.

The fact that these Econ 101 points have to be made again and again in
cryptocurrency discussions is probably the best evidence as to why they're
doomed to fail. If you don't even understand what inflation is about how can
we have a reasonable discussion about currencies?

~~~
1996
> Dying with as much money (i.e. power) as possible is very much the endgame
> for many people

At which point, if they didn't provide their private keys to their heirs, the
UTXO become unusable, and everybody is a bit richer thanks to these thrifty
people generous sacrifice.

> Fractional reserve is also about reinvesting money instead of letting it sit
> idly in a coffer

Environmentalists seem to dislike investment for investment sake. I don't
think they will be too sad if we collectively think it's better to have fun
times and let money sit idly in wallets.

> probably the best evidence as to why they're doomed to fail

Doomed to fail, yet continuously succeeded, for over 10 years now, from less
than 1 cent apiece to over 10 grands apiece.

It took me a while to realize HN is not fundamentally different from other
social networks, like facebook. There is social pressure, and external reality
doesn't matter as much as conforming to what the peer group says. Here, ever
since BTC original announcement, the majority opinion has been mostly
negative, with people actively trying to steer other away from BTC.

The majority has been consistently proven wrong, but social pressure has made
that a non issue.

Meanwhile, those who learned how to dissent and did the opposite of what
everyone else recommended are set for life. A few people tried to warn us.
There was someone who announced here many years ago he put all of his
retirement savings in BTC, after which we never heard from him again.

Yet the sour grapes keep complaining. Just for fun, try to read this 2013
thread, and ask yourself what state of reality it will take to consider the
possibility you may be wrong:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6927637](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6927637)

~~~
atomi
You've entirely missed the point.

No one is arguing that Bitcoin isn't deflationary.

~~~
1996
And if you pretend deflation is bad, you also have entirely missed the point.

------
herenorthere
As someone who works at a large cryptocurrency business, and who's welfare is
thus bound to the ongoing success of cryptocurrencies, I would like to state
my unequivocal support of the notion presented in this article.

I think the potential of life improvement for many unbanked people in non-
first world countries extends a little beyond the life improving
characteristics of ham radio, but overall his sentiment on how inaccurate the
"BTC is basically 90's internet" people are, is entirely correct.

~~~
monoideism
Ham radio is often pretty critical during natural disasters.

------
noxer
>But when regular service is restored, it becomes a hobby again. And that's
fine.

A hobby that burns 1% of the words electricity and costs literally Millions of
dollars every day. If that should stay like that It would need to be a very
very popular hobby. Like watching soccer matches popular. The thing is 99.9%
do not participate in Bitcoin as a hobby on alternative money. They speculate
on gains in the regular money. If there is no more uptrend and crazy gains it
cant sustain as a small hobby with only a fraction of the people left paying
for the actual running costs which are now still payed by the block reward.

~~~
vmception
> A hobby that burns 1% of the words electricity and costs literally Millions
> of dollars every day.

70-80% of mining is using renewable energy or reducing pollution, and isn't
pulling away from other use cases.

But you didn't know where the energy came from, only how much was being used I
guess? You should be able to corroborate this, let me know!

~~~
noxer
Your pollution non-argument It's completely irrelevant. I never mentioned
pollution anyway. They could get the energy from clean fusion reactors or
magic unicorn generators. Someone still has to pay for it. The hobbyist would
collectively need to pay millions per day just for the energy. Even today with
probably around 100 Million Bitcoin owners that would lead to several dollars
per person per day. That half the Netflix user base paying their monthly
subscription every day. Do you seriously thing people will do that? For a
funny alternative money hobby thing. It's absurd. Its entirely running on its
own printed bitcoins which slowly fade to zero block reward.

~~~
vmception
okay I misunderstood, whats the problem with people paying millions of dollars
for something they want to do to the person providing power?

~~~
noxer
There is no problem. It's just highly unrealistic that such people can be
found. And if they cant be found the end result is quite clear. Hashrate will
drop to the point where attacks are possible and will occur. Or more likely
non-profitable miners will do the final double spend scam before turning their
hardware off. Or they go bankrupt and someone buys the hardware cheap to do
the double spend after the difficultly adjusted. Either way BTC can not become
the ham radio niche thing. Its endless growth or fatal failure.

------
madamelic
Last time I checked you didn't need to buy special equipment, study for a
test, pass that test and register with the government to buy or hold
cryptocurrency.

------
dharma1
While the clunky UX and low speed of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
definitely remind me of packet radio of early 90s, it was pretty amazing to
transmit data wirelessly like that, and now we have 4g (and soon 5g and
satellite internet) everywhere. I definitely don't think we are at early
IRC/netscape/email level experiences yet.

I think you can also only stretch the analogy so far through, and like others
have commented I think the future of decentralised cryptocurrencies has more
to do with the actions of central banks and the phase of the fiat mega cycle
we are coming to.

There has to be a stable store of value that also works well as a currency,
and these days it has to be digital. I don't know if it will bitcoin - it's
too volatile and not particularly good as currency - but there will be
something. Perhaps it will be backed by something physical with finite supply,
or perhaps by just algorithms - we will find out. Sometimes I wonder what
advanced enough AI would use as a medium of exchange and a store of value - if
anything?

------
exabrial
I completely disagree. The amount of c02 dumped in the atmosphere from this
product is unfathomable. HN is full of environmentalists and I don't
understand why they don't speak out against bitcoin and like technologies that
are doing tremendous damage to the planet.

~~~
staplers
The internet burns more. Why haven't you gone offline yet?

Source:
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2016/06/28/ho...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2016/06/28/how-
much-electricity-does-it-take-to-run-the-internet/#78527fed1fff)

~~~
NickM
Maybe because the internet actually provides tremendous value to society in
exchange for that energy, unlike Bitcoin.

Or maybe because there's no inherent reason why the internet couldn't be made
more energy efficient, also unlike Bitcoin.

~~~
staplers

      the internet actually provides tremendous value to society
    

Like cat videos and clickbait?

------
vvpan
Whether intentionally or not the article entrenches some narrow ideas of what
blockchain is. At this point talking about Bitcoin as _the_ blockchain is an
ancient narrative and does not see wood for the trees. Bitcoin fulfills a
certain goal but the world of blockchain (and related to them) systems has
become extremely diverse, with many systems racing to fill many niches in
various ways. We should drop the Bitcoin == blockchain narrative. It's a
narrative for non-technical people and maximalists. We should even stop using
the word "cryptocurrency".

Let's take Baseline project as an example of one that defies our ideas of what
blockchain is meant to do. Baseline is a protocol developed by a few parties,
in particular EY and Microsoft, that means to reduce friction in
_communication_ between business entities. If, say, a factory needs more parts
delivered it's SAP system communicates with the supplier's Oracle system
through a public mainnet protocol encrypted via Zero-Knowledge Proofs. Yes,
the system could potentially also handle transfer of value, but it's more than
that. It's not bitcoin, it's not a currency, transfer of values isn't even the
main point, it's a system of record and communication.

~~~
0x0
What's so wrong with a HTTPS REST API call that you need a Zero-Knowledge
proof posted on a public mainnet protocol?

~~~
vvpan
I think you are vastly underestimating the complexity of communication across
businesses. I am not an expert in what it takes for, say, two ERP systems to
sync (EY are, though). But if you have two separate companies trying to order
things from each other:

* You need to decide on a protocol

* You need to run servers (if separate from ERP)

* You need to decide on a method of authentication

* Your REST API needs to be very secure (in blockchain you need to keep your keys secure, yes)

* If the other party is unreachable then you need to start queuing transactions and in theory they might be lost, the system falling out of sync without paper trail. Actually they could be lost in any case, cause the other party might be buggy and "forget" to record.

* Which brings to: you need secure logging of your transactions for paper trail.

* You need a method of resolution in case values on each side do not match ("Billion dollar question" Baseline people refer to it as. Immutable ledgers are perfect for this.)

* Probably lots more I cannot think of right now or just do not know.

Using smart contracts as your protocol solves all of those plus:

* You can effectively transfer value over the wire as well. No need to keep an extra payment system in sync. But yes you would need to eventually convert to fiat.

* A standard protocol. If you wanted to talk to yet another company you don't need to set up yet another system and get a team to negotiate auth, security, method of audit, conflict resolution, etc.

The process is, at least in theory, simpler, cheaper, more secure and
reliable.

------
clemensley
The money use case is cool, but only really that helpful if you want to evade
the law. A much broader use case is building applications. This will not work
for all apps (eg social networks that produce massive amounts of data), but
many apps in the business world (eg accounting systems) do not produce a lot
of data.

The advantages are that it will be easier to build apps this way because no
outside server is needed. This is great for prototyping and bootstrapping.
Apps built on Bitcoin have other advantages like maintaining data provenance
(useful for audit purposes), managing data ownership (who is allowed to update
a piece of data), or storing cryptocurrency atomically with data.

Frameworks along these lines are starting to pop up. One example is the
Bitcoin Computer ([http://bitcoincomputer.io/](http://bitcoincomputer.io/)):
It allows you to write an app entirely as frontend code and gives you simple
provisions for persisting data on chain with a single line of JS code.

~~~
ballenf
I don't get the dogma that bitcoin as a currency is all about lawlessness.

What if I just want to make an electronic transaction and maintain the same
privacy I have with physical currency? Am I an outlaw because electronic
transactions are usually completely tracked?

(And I understand that physical currency transactions do not have absolute
privacy. I can be physically tracked or recorded, etc. Just as my computer can
be bugged before I make a cryptocurrency transaction.)

My fear is that the answer very soon will be: only criminals want to use
physical currency -- what are you hiding?

~~~
clemensley
Where the legal money use case really shines is in micro transactions. If the
amount you want to send is really low it makes a difference if your fee is 30
cents on paypal vs a fraction of a cent with bch, bsv, or ltc. The problem is
that it is very hard to monetize apps with micropayments: you need a massive
user base because you only earn a fraction of each micropayment. It is hard to
convince a massive user base to go through the hassle of obtaining Bitcoin.

I do not want to discourage the use of Bitcoin for that, I think there will be
awesome businesses built on micropayments and payments in general. I just want
to point out that there is an opportunity to use Bitcoin to make application
development faster and cheaper.

------
TekMol
What this article misses is that Bitcoin is not a protocol but a _name_. You
might say a _currency_. Let me explain:

The dollar started as a gold backed piece of paper with a certain type of
look.

At that time, nobody would have accepted a payment via credit card with
today's fiat dollars.

But today, we still pay in "Dollar". Even when no paper at all changes hands.

The same can happen to Bitcoin. All kinds of future protocolls might be used
to transfer "Bitcoins". These future "Bitcoins" might coexist with current
"Bitcoins" during the transition phases.

In fact, in the early days, the Bitcoin protocol _did_ change. But the
"wealth" of each holder was preserved.

Saying "Bitcoin isn't going to become a mainstream kind of money. It's too
awkward for most people." is like someone 30 years ago saying the dollar must
be replaced with a different currency because eventually people will pay
digitally instead of moving paper around.

"Bitcoins" are not bound to a certain technology.

"Ham radio" _is_ a technology.

------
Geee
This is a failed argument. Internet is already decentralized; there's no need
for ham radios. This comparison would make some sense if there was just a
single website controlled by the government, and ham radio was the only
solution for freedom of information. Current money systems are centralized and
controlled by the governments. Bitcoin fixes that.

~~~
zelly
The internet is not decentralized. The internet is controlled by the
government to the same extent that money systems are centralized and
controlled by the government. Maybe more actually.

Ham radio allows for communication without the internet or really anyone's
permission. It is worth looking into possibilities that the internet may not
always be as free or as available. Ham radio fixes Bitcoin.

------
bdcravens
Here's a telling fact about the Bitcoin community: this article is auto-
censored in a prominent online Bitcoin forum.

~~~
lawn
It's both hilarious and sad that the bitcoin subreddit that's about
uncensorable money is also one of the most censored places on reddit. And many
other cryptocurrency subreddits are similar.

~~~
grubles
It's sad that there is an ongoing dilution of the term "censorship" which is
really referring to moderatorship of online forums.

~~~
lawn
I would still call it censorship when you constantly violate the moderation
rules you supposedly follow.

Just look at their "no altcoin discussion rule". Altcoin discussion is allowed
if it makes Bitcoin look good, but you'll get banned if you point out benefits
of other coins over Bitcoin (or pointing out any flaws with Bitcoin at all).

Or how discussion about the Lightning Network and the centralized sidechain
Liquid is allowed and even encouraged, while discussion on a blocksize
increase has been bannable for years. Even before Bitcoin forked discussion of
full node clients such as Bitcoin XT, which followed all the rules of Bitcoin,
were blocked because it was "an altcoin" (which is was not).

Explaining away the countless of unjustly banned users with "moderation" is
part of the problem.

------
scottmsul
We don't need the entire system to collapse for bitcoin to become mainstream.
This can occur with slow integration. It's probably a good thing the halvings
occur every 4 years since these tend to drive bull cycles, and are spaced out
enough to give time for the technology to catch up with the market cap.

------
hyko
The difference between Bitcoin and ham radio is money. Money is an extremely
powerful technology that has changed the world, but one of the most profound
ways it’s done so is to distort the minds of those trying to harness it.

When your intellect is a servant of your lust for shiny digital metal,
something has gone badly wrong.

------
blueprint
Wow the old "bitcoin is an energy hog" argument. (kidding)

Terrible jokes aside, I like this take, but from the standpoint that Bitcoin
is a "primitive", almost analogue type technology. But it demonstrates clear
innovations over the old existing "normal" payment systems. So the conclusion,
in my opinion, that Bitcoin is only for hobbyists in extreme circumstances,
includes a fallacy, and one piece of evidence is the increased efficiency in
using Bitcoin for intl settlement / remittance.

But Bitcoin is not the end-all of cryptocurrencies. It has flaws and its
iteration is relatively frozen.

We need a sound settlement layer first and that settlement layer will need to
obtain some degree of generalization in programmability.

~~~
forgotmypw17
Bitcoin is still under active development and conservatively and very
carefully adding new features.

Source: Attended one dev group meeting.

That said, I do think that it's like the DOS of cryptocurrencies.

~~~
blueprint
Bitcoin is not under fully free "active" development when its technical spec
is constrained by its social contract.

Besides, privacy is the important thing (no fungibility), and you will not be
able to hide all that metadata anymore.

------
dnprock
Bitcoin is an incredible technology. It can survive on its own. Bitcoin is an
important piece of future money. Bitcoin is not the new internet protocol. The
system is slow moving and hard to change. Bitcoin can be compared to ham
radio. But it can interact with other systems. This is how Bitcoin is
different from ham radio.

I see Bitcoin as the first puzzle piece. We're searching for more pieces to
construct the future of money puzzle. I think a missing piece is a crypto with
inflation. I started a project to explore this:

[https://bitflate.org/](https://bitflate.org/)

------
fossuser
This does fit with what I think is the most interesting use case of bitcoin
that I'd read about: A Ukrainian living in the Russian controlled portion of
the country getting out with his wealth intact.

The border was controlled by corrupt Russian guards that would steal things of
value. You could pass the border occasionally to visit family on the other
side, but it was risky to take anything.

He put all his wealth into bitcoin, memorized his wallet seed words like his
life depended on it, crossed the border with nothing, and then regenerated his
wallet on the other side (and then presumably transferred the money back into
a usable fiat currency/bank account).

I thought that was pretty cool.

It'd be interesting if the community put a guide together to make it easy for
people that need to escape hostile countries with their wealth intact to do
so, something I might try to do if I find some time to write it up.

~~~
nannal
Just as a warning to people that might want to try this, a lot of work has
gone into monitoring the addresses tied to private keys created from potential
words.

For example, if you use a word in the (infamous) rockyou wordlist as your
private key & send money to the corresponding public key, it will not be your
money for long.

If it were me, I think I'd be sneaking out an SD card in a condom in my prison
wallet.

~~~
martinko
BIP39
([https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawi...](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki))
mnemonics are the industry standard for deriving keys. If you use enough words
(the standard will not let you use less than 12), then you are completely
fine.

~~~
csomar
The problem is if you come up with the words yourself, you are most likely to
screw up. So people should be aware that they should use a random number
generator.

------
keyraycheck
I think the game changed a while ago. It is not Bitcoin mainstream if/when
something bad happens to the monetary system anymore.

It is many blockchain building alternatives to the monetary system. With
Bitcoin being a digital gold, Ethereum being a decentralized central bank for
layer two solutions running decentralized finance system (with stable coins
and financial instruments) and perhaps other blockchains with different roles
(payments anyone?).

------
DevKoala
The crypto boom of 2017 was fueled by the launch of new trading platforms
making it easy to trade for small investors. Most of those investors graduated
to stocks and options, and never looked back. There has not been anything to
increase the valuation of Bitcoin as an asset since then. I say this as
someone holding >$10k of crypto assets in case I am wrong.

~~~
save_ferris
It was also fueled by market manipulation by one major bitcoin holder using
Bitfinex[0]

0: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/04/study-single-anonymous-
marke...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/04/study-single-anonymous-market-
manipulator-pushed-bitcoin-to-20000.html)

~~~
ColanR
Interesting, and I think I've heard that before, but your source doesn't seem
that great.

~~~
skohan
Here's a report from the WSJ if you don't like CNBC:

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/large-bitcoin-player-
manipulate...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/large-bitcoin-player-manipulated-
price-sharply-higher-study-says-11572863400)

------
tptacek
Bitcoin being ham radio rather than the Internet would be problematic, because
it is priced as if it's the heir to the Internet.

~~~
spottybanana
Bitcoin market cap is 171 billion, to say if that's lot or not so lot is quite
hard to say. Personally however I don't think its that much - there are lots
of individual companies worth more than that.

~~~
tptacek
How many of them derive most of their revenue from the ham radio market?

------
photon12
Like HAM radio, there is an incredible amount of metadata that is necessarily
public.

(Seriously, any use case for which Bitcoin is a privacy solution puts Bitcoin
up against strictly superior implementations of decentralized BFT value
exchange protocols which I will not list as to not come across as a shill but
are all things you have probably heard of).

------
biolurker1
I usually filter out articles when they make arguments like "no, x isn't going
to y" either in the title or inside them. It shows that the author is
passionately biased against what he is writing and wants also to show how
right he is, traits that don't go well with factual realism

------
mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE
Most people think Bitcoin is a gambling chip, but it is first and foremost a
new form of money. Let me repeat Bitcoin's benefits:

\- You can pay anyone and been paid by anyone without anyone's permission. Not
so with government money.

\- Can't be counterfeited. You don't need to check the bills under UV light,
no need to check if your gold bullion has lead or copper inside.

\- Can't be inflated

\- No one can take it from you. No one even knows that you have it and how
much.

\- Safe for merchants. If they got it, they got it, no risk of transaction
being reversed because the shopper paid by a stolen credit card. Because of
that, merchant doesn't need to ask for your name, phone number, home address
and other information required to sue you in case of a fraud. So the shopper
in turn enjoys better privacy.

\- With second layer solution in place, such as Lightning Network,
transactions will be fast, cheap and private. We are not there yet, but will
be in a few years.

------
slugiscool99
I don't use bitcoin because every method of converting fiat to btc (or vice
versa) takes an absurdly high fee. It's even worse when buying stablecoins.

------
nickpinkston
I'm just waiting for whatever crypto/digital finance thing that comes along
next that actually works and lead them to crash.

------
dzonga
crypto is a nice idealistic idea. would work well, on a local level. however,
since money is invested into crypto all logical thought goes out of the
window, compared to radio operators. now people function by pure emotion. to
tell someone they've invested into a bubble, is a personal attack. as we
noticed, into the late 2017 crypto bubble.

------
jsanford9292
There are massive flaws in the logic of this piece. In order for JP's
metaphors to be accurate, the following would need to be true:

1) CELL PHONES CAUSE HURRICANES. 2) HOSTILE ALIENS ENSLAVE US EVERY YEAR.

First, let's not get hung up on Bitcoin alone. Bitcoin is designed for a
specific use case (store of value) while other cryptocurrencies have different
use cases (means of transaction, etc.). Bitcoin is also version 1 of a new
category. So maybe Bitcoin will end up being like Netscape and will pass the
baton to other cryptocurrencies which go on to be successful.

I will use JP's hurricane metaphor against him. He basically compares
"mainstream" telecommunications (cell phones, 911 call centers) to fiat
currency. He says mainstream telco is preferable to ham radios just like fiat
currency is preferable to cryptocurrency. Fine. Here's where the metaphor
breaks down:

Mainstream telco doesn't CAUSE hurricanes.

Fiat currency CAUSES (leads to) hyperinflation crises. If mainstream telco
usage CAUSED hurricanes, I guarantee alternative communication methods would
be given more attention.

JP also claims a breakdown in the fiat system would be similar in magnitude
and probability to a situation where "hostile aliens have enslaved us." Wrong
again.

There have been 34 episodes of hyperinflation in the LAST 30 YEARS
([https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/workingpa...](https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/workingpaper-8.pdf)).

Just because you are lucky to live in a place where hurricanes haven't
affected you (erm...Canada) doesn't mean hurricanes aren't a problem. Also,
these "hurricanes" don't just hit the coast. Argentina had a population of
around 30 million people when hyperinflation was raging in 1990, impoverishing
millions in a matter of months.

In order for JP's model to be accurate, modern telecommunication equipment
would cause hurricanes and hostile aliens would enslave us roughly every year
(34 times in the last 30 years).

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies fix a little bug in fiat currencies where
every so often ALL THE PEOPLE USING THAT CURRENCY ARE SWIFTLY IMPOVERISHED. I
think it's worth keeping an eye on crypto.

------
intotheabyss
If Bitcoin is like ham radio, then Ethereum is more like the early internet.

------
louwrentius
I think Bitcoin is not at all like ham radio.

I think Bitcoin is a dangerous fad that just conjures money out of the pockets
of rubes to enrich a few.

Bitcoin should die, and all the cryptocurrencies with it. They solve no
relevant problem but they cost our society dearly.

~~~
intotheabyss
How do you explain decentralized finance and Ethereum? Anyone, anywhere, can
have access to a financial system with zero barriers to entry. I'd say that's
pretty useful.

------
sam_lowry_
Bitcoin is more like an environmentalist's worst nightmare.

------
samsaragroove
Oh the good old "Most active and vocal Bitcoin fans are talking non-sense all
the time so the Bitcoin is not that important" narrative.

------
momentmaker
bitcoin -> ham radio ethereum -> computer chainlink -> internet

------
skee0083
Perfect analogy. Just like Ham Radio. Pretty cool but of little practical use.

