Nothing screams fixed and manipulated market like the LME (London Metals Exchange) protecting their own by cancelling a days trades done in good faith and closing up shop for a week.
2 Likes
I would prefer the “old way” proactive yet limited attempt to prevent laundering/fraud than the “new way” where one has to wait for a criminal case to open the books on the transactions. It’s just a metter of preference and might go slightly into politics. 
On this point I agree to disagree with you. I do understand that there are advantages on the crypto but they come with substantial risk.
Just to get everyone up to date with “what that is”;
“The LME connects physical and financial market participants to create a global pool of liquidity. These participants buy and sell LME futures and options to transfer (hedge) and take on (invest in) price risk and in that process discover globally relevant prices.”
I guess raw material futures aren’t currency and I hope that the LME doesn’t come to replace currency.
Freedom comes with it’s risks, true. Curtailing freedom comes with even more risks.
2 Likes
When you have a ruler, you can always blame them instead of yourself.
Self-soverignty scares people who don’t want the responsibility of their liberty and choices.
3 Likes
That is more true than you think. I live in a direct democracy and we can only blame ourselves for the ■■■■ we vote for. Our politicians can take the train or walk on the streets with out body guards.
Resentment against the leaders gets replaced with “people are just morons” lol
2 Likes
Not everyone has the time and skill to self-govern. It’s not the Wild West.
They have the time to take and follow orders without question don’t they.
“But they told me to do it…” look around, they won’t help you. “Yeah but you did that yourself” you still face the consequences, of their rule and they walk away, you’re on the floor.
WEF is a global example of regulatory/governance capture. Did you see the crowded venue at the “world government summit”? All the elites in awe, did you spot any ordinary people in the audience?
1 Like
I love the “self-governing” term, as people would think they can be “anarchist” (or mostly just decide on the age of consent of their partners) . Self governance is always following orders. The smaller the “self governing” group, the more control. The bigger, like ANY (independent) COUNTRY IN THE WORLD is self-governing, the more freedom.
It’s kinda like the nationalist/seperatist label. A seperatist is just a nationalist of a part of a nation. Once the dissenting region secedes, they become what they fought, a nation. Still they will need to follow their president/king/elected corrupt offical.
Self soverignty is about being responsible for yourself and the consequences of your own choices, the power to set your own destiny. Are you property or are you an individual? You own yourself or somebody owns you?
Many “elected” officials are now in “lockstep” as a result of “regulatory/governance capture” achieved by the many names of the WEF (elites) to rule over you.
Dig deep into the past of this organisation (it has had many names over the decades), members and elected officials connected to it along with various other members planted into ministerial acting as “news” reporters/questioners at the podium audience. Your vote, has been diminished long ago.
Where are you going to work? They want “face to face” business ended and they want “automation” to replace manual labour. What are you going to put on your dinner plate? Perhaps their “synthetic” food and insects. How are you going to be freer with that setup? Handouts (UBI) with “programmable” currency that can only be used where its been “programmed” to be used.
Dependency is the greatest form of control.
You can be cut off from society at the touch of a button, or decision of an algorithm.
Wait until you live in a society with no privacy boundaries, you will live in fear every day of everything you think say and do, and nothing will ever be forgotten or erasable.
Smart cities are not private cities. IoT, a spy device in every home at every angle on every corner.
Imagine a currency where they (the state or central bank) only program it to be spent in their own oligarch’s stores, or in a specific town/city/country or on specific items, it is a voucher.
Coins were made of precious metal, for a reason, the bearer held the tangible value, and many/everybody liked that metal.
2 Likes
The last few years have been tough. I have come to the inevitable conclusion that almost everybody thinks whatever the TV tells them to think. COVID. Need I say more? Now we have Ukraine. There are also the ridiculous “buy gold” people that clearly didn’t think up the idea themselves - they were told to think it.
The people just want to obey. They do not consider governance to be a burden, they need it and crave it.
2 Likes
A very nice and interesting post!
That’s a very strong argument against crypto and the Bitcoin.
We all remember when Bitcoin was promoted as “anonymous”. But it’s pseudonymous now.
We all remember when Bitcoin was promoted as “remove the middle man”. But it’s all about exchanges now.
We all remember when Bitcoin allows you to exchange BTC in a secure manner despite there being no authority to oversee the process. However, in the first quarter of 2022, a “loss” of over $1.23 billion transpired across the web3 ecosystem, according to a report by web3 bug bounty and security services platform Immunefi.
We all remember when Bitcoin was promoted as low transaction fee. Bitcoin transaction fees increase as transaction size and network volume rise. So it’s cheap because there aren’t many transactions.
Apparently only around 2018 and the first half of 2021 Bitcoin was used ‘intensely’. Then, it stopped.
For Bitcoin to prosper, they need a new ‘injection’ so people can think it’s a magical ever increasing value penny stock.
I use (cheap) IP cameras to keep an eye on various areas in and around my house. I did notice the camera’s wanted to connect to the Internet but I don’t let them. They still work even when restricted. And keep trying to ‘phone home’. But I guess the majority of users would be as careless with cameras as they are with the Big Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is more decentralised and you can run your own node, you can’t with a CBDC, and you have the source.
I look forward to open audits of CBDC’s, you think you will get one? I don’t. It will be “independently” audited by their own “auditor”.
2 Likes
They will not even pretend to audit it, just like the us federal reserve and gold reserves.
2 Likes
Still waiting to see the signed off audits of the EU accounts.
2 Likes
Show me where that was “promoted”
Now you are just messing with us right? You can’t seriously tell me that you don’t understand the difference of not requiring a middle man to transact and there being exchanges?
This is even more hilarious. Dude…
Ok, so first Bitcoin has nothing to do with “web3” and none of those losses and security issues where on the Bitcoin network. Those where some random shitcoin networks where stuff like that happens basically on a daily basis.
But really… this is a bit like someone tells you “this elevator here is pretty secure”, and it actually is. But then somewhere in some other crappy elevator of which we did not talk about, some guy pours a can of gasoline over his head and sets himself on fire. And you then be like “You said the elevator was secure!!!”
On-chain yes, it’s a fee market, block space is valuable. That’s why we have Lightning.
Those where the peaks of the two last bull runs when the mempool got so crowded that block space became extremely expensive. That does not mean it doesn’t get used otherwise, just that there is not more traffic than it can actually handle and people start to pay insane fee prices to settle a transaction.
Over wireless? There was once a nice hack demonstration where the attacker took the cameras over by tricking them to connect to their own wifi access point on a drone. Pretty neat if you can monitor the area you want to break in from afar.
Uuuhhh
1 Like
“While cryptocurrency has a reputation for anonymity, the reality is more complicated.” - https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/crypto/is-bitcoin-really-anonymous/
" Cryptocurrencies have gained popularity due to several factors, including privacy and anonymity. " - The 6 Most Private Cryptocurrencies
“Bitcoin is anonymous, but it’s far from private” - Untraceable Bitcoin Is a Myth - WSJ
A middle man is a middle man, if the only defense of Bitcoin is “the wording” I have serious doubts on it’s acceptance. Please state the minimum amount of education required to understand crypto, this can be an important point in the regularisation.
Many Web3 projects use blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.
It’s based upon blockchain, it’s what people use to transact more than a billion $ over. But okay, it’s not “literally” Bitcoin.
I think it’s a strange comparison. I would rephrase it as “Someone claims elevators are secure”, I go to a badly maintained hotel and get a shock from the badly installed “control panel”. But still, it shows that projects built upon it have huge issues and crypto is far from ready to be used by the general public.
I could say " Various cybersecurity vulnerabilities are entirely unique to Lightning. The most famous, described by developer Joost Jager, demonstrated that the Lightning Network is vulnerable to denial-of-service attacks. An attacker could fill channels to maximum capacity for hash-time-lock contracts (HTLCs)."
But then you can copy and paste the web3 answer to dodge this.
And the only moments the average person got interested in Bitcoin but they had no idea of why it went up and were sad when it went back down. Probably some twice…
No, I only use the wired connection. The wifi is disabled and the antenna removed. Wifi is never secure. I do use wifi for tablets and phones though. ;(
I’m sorry, I assumed it sounded funny. I should have known EVE Online forums have a tough crowd full of hardened people. But hey, one can only try to make people enjoy a sensible chuckle.
1 Like
This are all third-party sites. Do you have no sources from actual Bitcoin devs that say it’s anonymous?
I hope I don’t have to explain how some third party writing anything doesn’t count as “advertised”?
It’s not about the wording. You don’t have to use an exchange at all. Bitcoin works completely independent of them. They are independent businesses that connect to the Bitcoin network and transact on it. They are users just like everyone else. It just happens that they find customers that use them to buy Bitcoin for fiat, but there are other methods to acquire them. You can produce something and sell it for Bitcoin, you can mine them, you can get your salary in Bitcoin, etc.
Sometimes I don’t know if you are serious if you utter stuff like this or you are just messing with us.
Web3 is a term used by smart contract platforms like Ethereum or Cardano. They allow the construction of arbitrary Turing-complete smart contracts. Anyone can build some crazy stuff on them that can spectacularly explode in all directions. People who put money into this contracts are completely crazy. That’s also where all that NFT crap lives. But it all has absolutely nothing to do with Bitcoin.
No, there are still attack vectors on the Lightning Network. That’s just one of them, there are others. But as a normal user you are not at risk. This attacks are only a concern for routing nodes and those people know what they are doing and how to mitigate them.
Probably true. Don’t invest money into something you don’t understand.
No worries. ironically I really want to use Bitcoin for payments because I care about security. When I pay in the shop I want to confirm the amount I pay on a device that is under my control and where I can trust the software to not lie how much I pay, because it’s open source and independently audited. I don’t want to give a random terminal under someone else’s control access to my bank account or credit card information. Think about it.
2 Likes
It depends, but either it’s paid or non paid advertisment. Those sites didn’t say to keep away from evil Bitcoin so I guess they aren’t “counter adverts” .
It’s rare to see a company start it’s own newspaper, radio or TV station just to advertise while cutting out “the middle man”. 
I only see technical discussions on the forums of Bitcoin, which in my opinion doesn’t count as advertising to the large population. Could not find more from a google search and one does not have to know how bad a situation commercially is if one needs to google for the advertisement.
For me as a bitcoin outsider, this looks bad. but Bitcoin/Crypto looks more like a cult so it’s hard to say if it will catch on. Recreational drug use of the hippie cult became mainstream. So if society is all doom and gloom, bitcoin might have a chance given the civilians are indoctrinated with a fear/hate against their elected government so it can be replaced with a Caldari Style Corporatism. Which will bring along a different world. Only time will tell.
Like a car dealership is just like a guy who owns a car. I’m sorry, but this isn’t the case.
Usually I don’t know that but I try to keep the conversation interesting and fun. Your contributions are welcomed as you appear to have a very large knowledge into the world of crypto.
I shortened the quote a bit, I hope it still represented what you said, if not just ignore this answer.
For an outsider all of it “crypto” is the same and the “master coin” is Bitcoin. Like I said before for the general public, this system -albeit easy to get in, harder to get out- does not look like a smart move for them to take.
It’s good lightning protects the ‘normal user’.
I think most people have the same concern. before Paypal and other trusted payment middlemen, itr was quite the risk to enter your credit card information on websites.
