
Ari Paul, Tuur Demeester ‘Look Forward’ to Up to $1k Bitcoin Fees - acjohnson55
https://cointelegraph.com/news/ari-paul-tuur-demeester-look-forward-to-up-to-1k-bitcoin-fees
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acjohnson55
I'm confused. I thought the idea behind cryptocurrency is that transactions
are supposed to be much cheaper than existing money infrastructure. At some
point, is this just a big scam to pay miners to produce waste heat?

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al2o3cr
The article specifically focuses on using BTC for settlement - essentially,
Joe Consumer wouldn't be using on-network transactions to buy coffee. He'd use
an off-network transaction at a wallet provider, his wallet provider would
tell the merchant's provider, at the end of an agreed time period (daily,
usually in banking today) the two providers "settle" whatever net balance
differential lies between them.

If this makes you start asking questions like "wait, aren't 'wallet providers'
here just unregulated banks? How is this better?", remember the Cryptocurrency
Creed: "From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his
greed."

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acjohnson55
Indeed.

But if BTC is _really_ just for settlement between big players, may as well
use Ripple and dispense with the massive waste of computation in mining.

