It really doesn't help with that unless you use a completely different protocol and assume trusted setup. At which point, just use zcash, it will have smaller and faster to verify transactions. Trust me, I've been working with RSA accumulators for privacy in Bitcoin since 2011.
Ah, I didn't see how the blinding factor was being used (the code is actually easier to understand than the paper). This has approximately the same linkability as monero, inferior to zcash (complex) or chaumian tokens (hyper-efficient, but centralized per-currency, although currencies can be permissionless).
> Community funded. Pure mine. Rust, inflationary economics, cuckoo cycles. No governance, but that is debatable. Small team making decisions. What is that?
Somebody has to do the work to bootstrap and develop the network. Whom do you expect to govern the project? Governance meetings are public, bi-weekly, in the Gitter Lobby chat, you are free to join.
Also since I am into nitpicking, economics are inflationary for the first couple of decades gradually switching to deflationary (1 grin per second forever).
What about the waste generated by the banking system? Banks have to use electricity in order to operate, right? I haven't seen anybody complain about them as if they are eco-friendly or something. Or is it that since we are depending on our banks, they can do whatever they like but bitcoin being a ponzi scheme (or that's what I read on reddit) is an easy target to comment about on the Internets? As if Chinese miners have hooked their ASICs in your neighborhood's power supply. It is fascinating how people turn eco-friendly just to bash something but are part of a totally anti-ecological society.
The banking system's energy use is incidental and embracing greener practices is entirely within reach. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has energy waste as a feature that cannot be divorced from how it works. The entire thing works because computers are burning energy to find nonces, and the more people are using Bitcoin, the harder the hashing becomes, which uses even more power. The entire proof of work concept system is irredeemably linked to wasting energy and gets even worse with more adopters for a system that can barely handle 10 transactions a second. At least the banking system accomplishes something for its energy usage and that usage isn't intrinsically part of its functionality.
> energy waste as a feature that cannot be divorced from how it works
Er, this is entirely false. Proof of Authority, Proof of Stake, and a handful of other schemes which do not require large amounts of compute are possible. Bitcoin itself has not "switched" due to stagnated innovation and politicking, but it's entirely false to say that PoW "cannot be divorced from how [bitcoin] works"
I'm sure we're all victims of our own bias, but yours seems particularly vitriolic. There are nations out there bending over backwards to subsidize coal, build missiles, frack the earth, etc. Some compute being used on BTC instead of JavaScript or Videogames or whatever else would be consuming those CPUs is _hardly_ some vast evil.
He was specifically talking about proof of work though, which indeed is inherently wasteful. And seeing the whole block size issue, it seems impossible bitcoin would ever move away from proof of work.
I'm not sure you realize the scale: Bitcoin uses more electricity than entire countries. It uses as much electricity as 6 million US households. It's magnitudes more than VISA, despite the latter handling many more transactions.
Conspiracy theories aside, why would anyone's word be sufficient? How about the code? Give us the code, then we don't need anyone's promises. Enough with promises!
> Remember Usenet? Remember email? Remember IRC? I think there's a false dichotomy in the mind of many nowadays, mainly that the internet is either centralized or "blockchain based", whatever that means. It's a lie. The internet is fundamentally decentralized, the centralization is a relatively new phenomenon that started in the early '00s.
The internet started in the early 90s so you are talking approximately about two thirds of its lifespan hence "new" doesn't really apply.
Generally, I try to avoid criticising others but this logic is really disturbing and dangerous and I am very worried about people who stand behind it. It hasn't gotten us anywhere. It never will.
None of the above. What the parent comment is sarcastic about is a line of argument people use, especially politicians who want to promote their agendas.
Terrorists do use the air to convey voice; air is their primary communication medium for propagating their terrible ideas, and arranging their despicable plans. If we denied them access to air, to stop their voice communication, it would severely limit their ability to harm us. Isn't saving even just one child's life worth it?
And don't worry about the terrorists without air not being able to talk about the legal, daily matters. Relevant institutions are already equipped to handle deaf and mute people. They could also just use internet or other service.
Just deny them air so they can't talk, okay? It's the common sense solution. /s
Slippery slope is a thing, especially when actors with under-handed intentions ask for simplistic, ham-fisted solutions. Once a precedent is established for censorship or snooping, it's pretty hard to draw, and defend, a line in the sand.
Does this mean that we should sit back and enjoy the show because "actors with under-handed intentions" and "precedent"s? Wake up. We can only get through collectively.
