> rejecting bitcoin because you don't agree with that is simply self-harm
This is only as true as saying that any personal attempt to minimize your carbon footprint is self-harm. But here, it has other implications as well: society needs to "agree" that Bitcoin has value. If Bitcoin starts (rightfully, IMHO) being seen as a "dirty" good, it becomes less desirable on the market even if I, personally, were indifferent to the carbon footprint.
> The Lightning Network is running now
What volume of transactions is it doing? (This isn't rhetorical, I genuinely haven't been able to find this out and I'm curious)
> When I first heard of it in 2011 it was being branded as a ponzi scheme
Yep, I remember those days. The difference was, that perception was mostly wrong at the time. The community was filled with people who genuinely wanted to make Bitcoin happen. Sure it would make them rich in the process, but at least they were willing to put in the work.
Once Bitcoin became relatively mainstream, grifters moved in and it was tragedy of the commons; all the goodwill was capitalized by scammers and ICO promoters. People who were involved in the early days became either disillusioned or displaced and lost control of the brand. It's hard to recover from that sort of public image problem without a central authority to control the brand.
> This is only as true as saying that any personal attempt to minimize your carbon footprint is self-harm. But here, it has other implications as well: society needs to "agree" that Bitcoin has value. If Bitcoin starts (rightfully, IMHO) being seen as a "dirty" good, it becomes less desirable on the market even if I, personally, were indifferent to the carbon footprint.
"Society" is a mythical entity. Not everyone needs to agree. It only needs the people who use it to agree, and the rest will follow. Even if you don't agree about the carbon footprint, there is nothing you can do to stop it. It's pointless worrying yourself over something that is absolutely out of your control, and will never be under your control, no matter how much as you crave the power to control other people's behavior.
> What volume of transactions is it doing? (This isn't rhetorical, I genuinely haven't been able to find this out and I'm curious)
Nobody knows because it is not known. Transactions are private, and individual nodes in the network are dumb routers who know naught of the transactions they forward. No nodes know about the volume because they have incomplete information. This is by design.
> Yep, I remember those days. The difference was, that perception was mostly wrong at the time. The community was filled with people who genuinely wanted to make Bitcoin happen. Sure it would make them rich in the process, but at least they were willing to put in the work.
Not sure about your version of events here. Early on there were plenty of people discussing their gains and selling off bitcoin, which is what caused a lot of the early publicity in 2010 and 2011. If it had merely been a cryptographer's toy then it would probably never have left the mailing lists. The finance guys were some of the first people in Bitcoin and were not at all concerned with the fundamentals, only making a quick profit.
Those same people sidelined Bitcoin to focus on shitcoins and ICOs because they were no longer able to make a quick killing from Bitcoin. Bitcoin became expensive, and the profit margins for trading it were shrinking. ICOs and other scams were just the continuation for these guys, who don't care about economics or technology, or have any second thoughts about literally scamming people out of hard earned money.
> This is only as true as saying that any personal attempt to minimize your carbon footprint is self-harm.
I sometimes wonder, when the mining energy question is raised, about the carbon footprint of all the servers and buildings and air conditioning in all the banks in all the world.
This is only as true as saying that any personal attempt to minimize your carbon footprint is self-harm. But here, it has other implications as well: society needs to "agree" that Bitcoin has value. If Bitcoin starts (rightfully, IMHO) being seen as a "dirty" good, it becomes less desirable on the market even if I, personally, were indifferent to the carbon footprint.
> The Lightning Network is running now
What volume of transactions is it doing? (This isn't rhetorical, I genuinely haven't been able to find this out and I'm curious)
> When I first heard of it in 2011 it was being branded as a ponzi scheme
Yep, I remember those days. The difference was, that perception was mostly wrong at the time. The community was filled with people who genuinely wanted to make Bitcoin happen. Sure it would make them rich in the process, but at least they were willing to put in the work.
Once Bitcoin became relatively mainstream, grifters moved in and it was tragedy of the commons; all the goodwill was capitalized by scammers and ICO promoters. People who were involved in the early days became either disillusioned or displaced and lost control of the brand. It's hard to recover from that sort of public image problem without a central authority to control the brand.