this will continue until nation states ban self-custody and peer-to-peer transactions, at which point the cypherpunks will bloom again 100x and the fight will be more intense than ever in cypherpunk history.
the trick will be insuring that a sleeper contingent of true cypherpunks sticks around, lying in wait for that moment. the State will try to lull them into passivity and acceptance and it will be difficult to avoid getting caught in the spell. but this will also create a selection pressure: the deeply-convicted and the strongest, most secure hodlers will be all that are left -> exactly who we need at that moment.
we'll need to build through that ultra-"bear" - both software and spirit - like never before.
I have full confidence! 🏴
HODL
It feels like Bitcoin has finally crossed the Rubicon into the mainstream both a triumph and a tragedy.
Walking around the conference this year, you could easily mistake it for a fintech summit or SaaS expo in Vegas. Same blazers, same VC pitch decks, same awkward networking energy. The suitcoiners outnumber the cypherpunks by 100:1.
On one hand, this is what we fought for: global legitimacy, serious capital, institutional attention.
On the other, something’s been lost in translation. The raw edge, the revolutionary energy, the sense that we were building something against the system not polishing it up to sell it back to the system.
Bitcoin doesn’t feel quite as dangerous anymore.
It feels… professional. Predictable. “Respectable,” even.
Maybe that’s just the mask Bitcoin wears while it continues hollowing out the old world from within.
Either way, the vibe has shifted.
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Replies (24)
don't lie in wait
build in wait
Sadly getting overrun by the general population is probably the real reason so many continue to insist on Monero.
The security is worse than Lightning but they live in denial about that. What they do genuinely have over Bitcoin is 0 normies.
I'm not going to stop using the internet because normies got on and use it in normy ways. I think that reflex is a glitch in human thinking. I just carry on using the internet in my way.
Bitcoin is the same for me. Node runners, no KYC, p2p, is my way to use bitcoin and it is still available to me. I'm not going to stop because someone else bought the ETF.
exactly. no kyc p2p Bitcoin will always be an option - and the best option
> a sleeper contingent of true cypherpunks sticks around
As opposed to
@vinney...axkl 's previous plan where someone else takes on the business risk of Bitcoin volatility, this time it's someone else being the cypherpunk.
It wasn't "someone else" in the previous plan. If I deploy that plan locally, I'm going to be the one to take on the volatility risk.
Similarly, it's me in this plan, too.
curious
what about LN "security" is superior to monero?
but basically you're right on. Bitcoin now operates in normiespace and has lost the cypherpunk ethos. it won't turn out well.
I'm sure some monero bro will jump in with justifications but
@Super Testnet has repeatedly shown that more information is publicly available about a monero transaction than a lightning one.
I'll keep my eyes peeled.
there are certainly advantages to transacting on a L2.
there are disadvantages as well.
as STN will no doubt point out, NOT recording data forever on a blockchain has its perks.
and nobody denies it.
that doesnt make Lightning "security" (whatever the fuck that means) inherently better.
in fact, end users generally cannot even measure how secure any given Lightning tx is. it is unknown and users trust information isn't being recorded and shared.
what do you mean when you use the term "secure" here?
oh sure
let Bill run his mouth about superior security but hold my feet to the fire 😂
here I mean that information about the transaction isnt leaking to 3rd parties.
I wanted to make sure you guys were talking about the same thing. I knew what Bill meant (I think.
@Bill Cypher should confirm)
> users trust information isn't being recorded and shared
Even if routing nodes collude they cannot identify the sender or the recipient
@Hanshan, do you have evidence that this isn't true ?
if your threat model is a global passive adversary they clearly know where payments begin and end.
his (unexpressed) point is "the second and second-to-last nodes on a route can't be sure they are second and 2nd to last"
but it totally depends on the level of collusion between large nodes. a global passive adversary isn't required, if enough large nodes (particularly in a hub-and-spoke design) collude they can have *reasonable certainty* where payments originate and end up.
Add mapping via channel probing and consider.
not saying it happening now,
but I AM saying,if it was happening you wouldn't know.
which is why we have L1 systems designed to function in the open.
That is the advantage of using a blockchain and not an L2.
everything is tradeoffs.
> if your threat model is a global passive adversary they clearly know where payments begin and end
they don't know which of your messages are real and which are decoys
they also don't know the contents of your messages
> they can have *reasonable certainty* where payments originate and end up
they can "say" they have reasonable certainty about that, but in many jurisdictions they would have to prove it in court, and that's often a pretty tough standard
how do you know the person who *looks* like the sender (or the recipient) isn't just another routing node? Even mobile phones can route payments and are incentivized to do so, so you just don't know
yeah fair enough.
so what?
I'm concerned about users being able to make accurate threat assessment.
not being able to establish plausible deniability in court if their threat assessment is wrong.
"they could collude but you can just argue the payment came from somewhere else" isn't compelling.
Privacy is probably the better term here.
If every routing node colludes the best they can do is point to a node and say "that one was the next hop back and did not collude with us"
It might be your node, it might not be -- either way, they have no proof of wrongdoing
and thats usually good enough for normies.
but plausible deniability in the event they miscalculate or dont have all the information is not enough for most people with strong threat models.
Which nobody on this conversation uses.
The point was making payments privately (because censor exists) and to mine your coins in a fair way.
LN didn't solve that, because it wasn't even made with privacy in mind. This paper documented all the privacy holes quite some time ago:
https://cointhinktank.com/upload/Lightning%20Network%20-%20An%20Empirical%20Analysis%20of%20Privacy.pdf
A mere university researcher exposed all the flaws, whereas you have the full weigh of governments sponsoring experts to break monero anonimity since years without suceess, reason why now they force it to be delisted.
You will never do a p2p transaction of 100k USD in lightning because the channels don't even permit that, but remember that last month someone bought +330 million USD worth of monero in a single hour? People use monero to buy small stuff and big stuff, it is simple and work cheap.
Don't you ever wonder yourself why everyone is using Monero for real-world things since years now?
why do you think nobody here uses no kyc p2p Bitcoin?
I'm a fan of Monero.
and of Bitcoin, and Lightning.
its about context
Because BTCs lacks a spending culture (for better) and there is a risk someone gets it identified through mistake or surveillance which helps reconstruct money flows if meta data gets added.
Many herer have great opsec, but even with you guys I wouldn't do deals in BTC.
Sure, small payments with LN, but nothing significant.
People seem to agree. Decentralised P2P market "RetoSwap" does x3 volume on average after one year vs Bisq after 11 years!
