It's actually happening (repost from 4chan)
(media.communities.win)
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Bitcoin, and only Bitcoin is able to defeat the private western central banking system.
Gold has a place for sure, BUT, it’s far too easy to obfuscate … we have historical data, and the markets are so damn manipulated it’s insanity.
What if Russia decides to sell their oil for either Gold or Bitcoin? OH MY!
The DS is pissing their pants atm.
Doesn’t Saudi Arabia already sell oil for gold, in part?
I don’t know about this.
It would be much better for them to sell Oil using a stable currency as a transaction medium .. USD or Euros… then just turning around and buying real Gold and storing it within their borders.
You know, like Russia :)
Isn't silver more manipulated than gold via ETFs though? Interesting stats over the last 5 years showing mine output declining vs use going up that don't square with spot price. Peak production around 2015. Doesn't mean silver is running out but that getting it takes more effort. If production cost goes up... That aside from the possibility of ETFs being bogus.
/see also, the producers (film, 1967)
Both Gold and Silvers are manipulated via the derivative markets - the core of the issue is assay/verification.
There is just no way for us to truly verify holdings within the vaults. The best we get are “Trust us, it’s all there” — history has shown us many times, you can’t trust centralized institutions with this.
There is far more ‘paper silver and gold’ in circulation than there is actual Silver or Gold. They literally made Silver out of thin air.
IMO Silver should be way, way higher than it is now, even higher in comparison to Gold by % growth.
https://youtu.be/mBS0OWGUidc
"Oh those gold reserves in Ft. Knox? It's all still there. Was always there. Trust us."
Can we see it?
"No."
And you'll be as likely to ever find it as the Civil War gold hunters... even if it did or does exist, the powers that be sure as shit don't want you to see anything.
🤣
I'm calling it now, one day ... the powers that be will denounce gold as racist and a direct violation to equity.
Better save this comment fren, for when it happens, you can pat me on the back for this one :)
One of the main reasons Satoshi decided to make Bitcoin completely transparent was so that anyone could verify that the blockchain was accurate and no one could cheat the system by claiming they had more than they really did. That means no dirty banker tricks like fractional reserve and unlimited money printing.
The DS hates Bitcoin because they can't debase it. They did capture the developers and cripple the protocol though, which prevents Bitcoin from scaling like it should have. If blocks had been allowed to scale organically the central banks would already be dead and buried.
Why do you say the protocol is crippled?
DS can’t capture the developers as it’s developed open source. You can’t capture something that is Open Source, and the Developers themselves have no power.
The power is in the Nodes… the people who RUN the software, that validates. We saw how they told the rich/Wall Street type folks many years back to eat dirt…
There was a point in history when a bunch of centralized exchanges, companies and rich oligarchs wanted to change the protocol (basically change the code) to increase the block size — the ‘New York Agreement’
On face value, we would agree that a large block size would mean more Transactions per Block, but why would this be a bad thing?
Because then the Blockchain would be much larger by magnitudes, and the cost to run a full node would increase by a large margin.
When the cost to run a full node increases, then you will ‘price out’ everyone… which will eventually centralize the operations of Full Nodes to those who can afford it, OR, you offload it to some centralized cloud service like an Infura (runs Ethereum nodes).
At the end of this story is how you capture Bitcoin (BTC).
The Bitcoin Miners were on board with this proposed upgrade. Why? = More BTC per block = more Money
The Companies were on board, why? = They can control more of BTC
The Nodes said “Eat sand” …
The upgrade did not catch.
Bitcoin scales via a Layer 2 solution (like the Lightning Network, which we see now operating in El Salvador at a country scale level). The settlement happens on the Layer 1 protocol.
Ok, so I am sorry to inform you that you have fallen for the BTC maximalist propaganda.
You can check out this article for a decent summary of how it was taken over at the highest levels: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@adambalm/the-truth-about-who-is-behind-blockstream-and-segwit-as-the-saying-goes-follow-the-money
There is also this account of the block size debate which shows how early on there was collusion to keep the blocks small and ostracize anyone who spoke out about it. https://medium.com/hackernoon/the-great-bitcoin-scaling-debate-a-timeline-6108081dbada
Censorship on the crypto subreddits was off the charts. Still is, although I don't know how many people are still trying to post truth there.
Basically, Satoshi always intended to increase the block size. The 1MB limit was a safeguard in order to protect the network from spam/DDoS attacks in the early days. Satoshi knew that hardware technology improves according to Moore's Law and we could expect hardware to keep up with demands for the foreseeable future. He knew eventually mining nodes would become specialized and fewer people overall will be running nodes if the cost is high.
But here's the thing: NOT EVERYONE NEEDS TO RUN A NODE
The way Bitcoin is designed, anyone with just a small piece of software called a lite wallet, can easily verify the blockchain data using the Merkle roots without having to download a full copy of the blockchain. As a normal user, there is no need to verify EVERY transaction on the blockchain when you are only interested in your own.
The BTC propagandists were able to convince people that the point of Bitcoin was to run a node so you don't have to trust anyone to verify YOUR transactions, and to be a "true bitcoiner" you MUST run your own node, therefore blocks must remain small forever so that everyone can run a full node on a raspberry pi.
This is just stupid, since running a full node is a highly technical skill that most people just aren't going to do. Now you also have an even steeper learning curve to teach someone about bitcoin. Then they want to push everything onto layer 2 where Nakamoto consensus is no longer observed. This, IMO, defeats the foundational purpose of Bitcoin since it allows third parties to set themselves up as liquidity providers (aka banks) and provide custodial services to the ignorant masses.
Since 2015 or so, all development on the base protocol has been geared toward making it more compatible and welcoming for the legacy financial institutions while pushing user activity onto layer 2 where third parties have more control.
So that is why I say BTC is compromised and crippled.
Edit to add another point. You said:
So here you are differentiating between "Miners" and "Nodes". The only difference between these groups is that one (miners) has write access to the blockchain, while the other (nodes, or non-miners) can only verify and relay information to each other. You seem to think that non-mining nodes have some sort of veto power on the bitcoin network. They do not. The miners are the only true stakeholders, and so all decisions are theirs.
The New York Agreement was a proposal to increase the block size to 2MB along with a host of other changes, and it turned out to be a bait and switch to placate the big block crowd until after SegWit was released, since that change fundamentally altered the signature architecture and big blockers didn't want it. Thankfully Bitcoin Cash forked before that happened so it preserved the original chain.
A good point of view, but there is a conflation here between participation requirement and control -- Yes, no one needs to run a full node. There will be those who decide to for a variety of purposes... however there is no monetary incentive to run a full node. Why even bring in the maximalist point-of-view into the fundamental debate? It really serves no purpose other than color opinion.
However, you DO bring up good debate points which frankly will lead us to nowhere as I can equally counter your narrative/points and you the same with me, and we end up creating a duality to this debate. I much rather we focus on facts, both observable and prove-able.
There are 2 points which I disagree with you -- compromised and crippled.
With regards to compromised -- there is no evidence for this other than conjecture. I believe you are actually referring to Control vs. Compromised. From what I understand, your assertion is BTC is controlled, but how so? what data and proof do you have that a group of people can at any time change Bitcoin?
For example -- Satoshi is MIA, what he intended may be to increase the blocksize (debatable, but let's run with it), BUT what he also intended was for this protocol to be decentralized and governed by the ecosystem, the People if you may.
Do you see the irony?
At inception, even Satoshi could not control Bitcoin; since then many attempts were made to fork the code to create easily controlled forms of 'Bitcoin-like' Crypto (e.g. BSV, BCH, DOGE, etc.).
So his creation is exactly what was intended... however he can only control the inception, from there is is up the network to decide where it goes.
The point of Bitcoin was to remove the power of money from the central bank and give it to The People of the World (not just America). At the core is the monetary policy or supply -- from there we must discuss what IS 'Money?' (a different time perhaps).
Unfortunately, an open system, is exactly that -- Open, anyone can participate, good or bad. But neither can control -- we can game theory it out for sure. Central Banks are welcomed to participate, but for some reason, they absolutely hate Bitcoin (BTC), I wonder why.
When Sathoshi's invention was released, with the start of the Genesis block, he relinquished all forms of control he had... now it's in the hands of the ecosystem. WHERE does it go from there? we shall see... but after over a decade, and after countless attempts to ban Bitcoin at the nation state level, it's still strong and thriving.
How is that crippled ?
Edit to your Edit!
Yes, the miners can write, but the Nodes need to validate IF they run the software. All the nodes could disappear tomorrow and BTC (and all other crypto really) would cease to exist as an unbroken blockchain.
Again, I would say we are debating the merits and operation of the tech -- all good debates and discussion. But I would assert that Bitcoin (BTC), or any crypto, needs to be looked at from multiple perspectives ... e.g. tech, decentralization, concentration of power (who holds the most), time scale, market size (adoption), mine concentration, hash rate, etc. etc.