Comments by FTS

"drive it to zero" ^^ no, that's ridiculous. This hard money is held by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, it's in the treasuries of public corporations, held in the personal accounts of millionaires and billionaires, held in pension funds, held in the BEST PERFORMING ETF IN HISTORY (IBIT), it might even be held by the US government as a strategic reserve. Oh, and it's the legal tender of a sovereign nation and people really do use it as a medium of exchange. I even heard that you can use Bitcoin to pay for a subscription to an Internet forum dedicated to reviewing strip clubs... The Ultimate something something something... I forget what it's called. So, no, it's extremely improbable that Bitcoin goes to zero. But... I suppose a meteor might strike the Earth and wipe out 99.9% of the population. Bitcoin might go to zero in that scenario. *shrug*

Can I pay with Bitcoin over the Lightning network, rather than on-chain?

^^ a good example of denial, and cognitive bias. Good luck, and have fun…

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/solidion-technology-announces-strategic-bitcoin-allocation-for-corporate-treasury-302305274.html https://ir.nano.cn/news-releases/news-release-details/nano-labs-starts-accepting-payments-bitcoin/

"It has zero uses." ^^ wrong. You're a wrong, broken record. I use Bitcoin all the time. https://news.bit2me.com/en/nigeria-en-2do-lugar-adopcion-global-de-criptomonedas Interest by region, Nigeria is #2: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=Bitcoin&hl=en Whatever these people are using, it's definitely, definitely not Bitcoin, because Bitcoin has zero uses.... https://x.com/BitcoinEkasi/status/1587416952305319936 https://x.com/BitcoinEkasi/status/1562568332783468545 https://x.com/saylor/status/1588581139136282624 https://x.com/Stromens/status/1775607668914131229 https://x.com/BitcoinIsaiah/status/1659637689216278533 https://x.com/bitcoin_racing/status/1856532723323519282 https://x.com/criptopepe1/status/1854735793727692883 https://x.com/efenigson/status/1856762797696159922 https://x.com/saylor/status/1593373985047183362 https://x.com/JoeNakamoto/status/1843735893309616349 https://x.com/BTCtoolshed/status/1857290595225440316 https://x.com/PichlerD/status/1596521856928030722 https://x.com/BTC_LN/status/1631980782523940865 https://x.com/Ecryptofficial/status/1771428722668908591 https://x.com/BTC_LN/status/1623721085454934016

^^ you didn’t account for the depreciation of the Naira. Bitcoin, priced in Naira, is up 4792% in the last 5 years. So, assuming a savings of 6 months’ salary (equivalent to $258) held in BTC, that’s a total appreciation of $12,363 vs the 40¢ x 12 x 5 = $40. Spend $40 in fees, and realize an appreciation of $12,363. Yea, Bitcoin is so expensive… /S I can tell by the way that you are focusing on this minute detail about fees that you are totally missing the forest and instead focusing on this tiny little twig.

@2Legged, You got the “cheap” part right; US dollars are very, very cheap… regardless of denomination. Marginal cost to produce a $100 note is about 7¢. “Full backing” of a government that says it’s valuable, just because, is meaningless. You guys have such a poor understanding of the purpose of currency “backing.” I had dinner with my Bitcoin buddies last night, about 8 people. We settled up in Bitcoin, over the Lightning network. Instantaneous and virtually free (less than 1¢). Why do people insist on making false statements when they’re shown to be incorrect? SMH.

^^ Tell me the use case of those digital dollars in your bank account. Show me the manufacturing plant that uses digital dollars as an intermediate good. Oh wait, you can’t.

@twentyfive "an attempt to deceive" ^^ show me my attempt at deception, motherfucker. How dare you. Here I am trying to TEACH, to CORRECT people's misunderstanding, and you accuse me of deception? Fuck you. You can say I'm shilling Bitcoin, but I hardly ever actually give direct recommendations to buy Bitcoin. People should do whatever they want, I'm not their financial advisor. I'm just telling it how it is--fiat currency is just a number in a privileged computer database, there is no limit to the amount they can produce. That's straight from the horses mouth, so to speak. "show us the evidence." ^^ show us your social security card, driver's license, and most recent bank statements and 401k statements, as well as a video recording of you, with your face clearly visible, holding these documents and verbally referring to this TUSCL conversation. If you do that then I'll show cryptographic proof of my largest Bitcoin holding (one address).

P.S. a lot of those people in third-world countries are using custodial Lightning wallets like Wallet Of Satoshi or Strike, which is admittedly not ideal, but the tx fees are usually 1¢ or less using these highly connected Lightning nodes. I actually moved some of my money around just last night, from my self-custodied Lightning Node… I just checked, the fee was 0 sats.

^^ you feel sorry for people paying 4¢ transaction fees whilst their money appreciates at an average annual rate of approx 40%? Are you dumb? You don’t feel sorry for the Argentinians whose fiat currency DEPRECIATES by over 100% per year? You think they should continue to save and transact in the Argentine Peso because their bank doesn’t charge them any fees?? LOL. Good lord, and you think I’m deluded… https://www.statista.com/statistics/1320016/monthly-inflation-rate-argentina/

^^ wrong. People use Bitcoin as medium of exchange for goods and services all the time. People like to post videos of it on Twitter. It's obviously not common in the United States, so you're not going to see it if you don't look for it, but in some parts of the world there are something like 50% of the local merchants accepting Bitcoin. All that confidence, without sufficient knowledge. SMH.

@twentyfive 1. That link has nothing to do with etymology or the meaning of these latin words. 2. fiat currency and fiduciary currency are definitely similar, but there is a subtle difference. Not all fiduciary currency is/was fiat currency. For instance, during the free-banking era of the United States, banks were free to issue their own banknotes which were usually redeemable for gold (which is what is actually meant by a "backed" currency---the banknote was just a substitute for the desired money, which was gold). These banknotes were not fiat currency (not declared as legal tender by the government) but they WERE fiduciary currencies because they relied upon the trust from the customer that they can freely exchange the banknote for a fixed weight of gold. Nowadays, however, our currency is not backed by anything---the "full faith and credit" of the government is meaningless, especially when the government has demonstrated that they are NOT TRUSTWORTHY! That's why our currency is typically just referred to as "fiat," because it's just a database entry that is declared to be money by recognized authority. There isn't really any trust involved; I'm not trusting that they'll keep my gold safe for me, and that I can get it back whenever I want it back. 3. These are all moot points, but it's quite typical of how these arguments go. I make a correction to a misunderstanding, and the other person shifts the goalpost. You tried to argue that the latin word "fiat" is actually derived from another latin word, "fiducia." That's NOT correct. 4. You would do well to learn some history on this subject. There's plenty of historical records that conclusively demonstrate that governments pretty much ALWAYS debase and devalue the currency, for their benefit and to the detriment of their citizens. Why do you think we use the word "debasement," in this context? There are no metals being used in our exchanges anymore, but the phrase "debasement" is still used because that's how governments, historically, caused the inflation of prices, thereby depriving the citizens of their hard-earned incomes---they would switch out the core of the precious metal coins with a base metal and then put it back into circulation.

@twentyfive, here ya go. No mention of “fiducia.” https://www.etymonline.com/word/fiat#etymonline_v_5901

"the central bank will guarantee its value over time (price stability). " ^^ the central bank cannot guarantee value, nor can it guarantee stability. All they can do is adjust interest rates (Communistic price-setting) and buy bonds (print money, i.e. devalue the currency). You do not have a proper understanding of the concept of value. I'm sorry.

"That is why it is called fiat (from the Latin fiducia, which means trust)." ^^ false. the Latin word fiat does not come from the Latin word fiducia. That doesn't even make sense. That's like say the phrase "let it be," in English, is actually derived from the other English word "trust." That's not how linguistic derivation works.

^^ no I'm absolutely NOT trying to sell anything (except my US dollars)! lol. I'm just telling you how it is, because there's a lot of misunderstanding. I'm still buying.

Quick, nobody look! The centi-millionaires are all very interested in Bitcoin as it's being discussed as a reserve asset. https://x.com/saylor/status/1856041411436589317 But, remember, it's worth absolutely nothing! LOL.

^^ mostly false, fiat is a latin word meaning "be done" or "let it be done," usually used as an authoritative command. It's a third-person singular present active subjunctive form of the verb fieri, meaning "to become" or "to happen." You have to go back to the hypothetical and reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language before you find an ancestral root word connecting "fiat" to "fiducia" or "fides" (the latin words for "trust" or "faith"). "backed" by the full faith and trust of the US government doesn't mean anything. The US dollar has already depreciated 99% since the Federal Reserve act of 1913, and that's according to their own statistics. So, by your understanding, the US government must be 99% gone since 1913?? LOL. There have been several instances in which a fiat currency has completely failed (hyper inflated) while the government remained the same. So, you just pulled "as long as the government is here the money is good" right out of your a$$. It really seems like you're trying hard to demonstrate that you don't understand currency "backing"--what it means, and what its purpose is. $85,000.

^^ "there's nothing backing [fiat currency]."

^ nobody has to take my word for it. All the technical information is online and available, the source code is free and open-source, and the apps are free. Everybody does their own research, and I'll continue to point out the inadequacy of the sources that people use. The fees, denominated in Bitcoin, hit an all-time LOW just about a month ago.

^^ yea, they denominated the fees in US dollars. I wonder why the fees have increased... *rolls eyes* You probably shouldn't be using investopedia as a technical guide. That's only marginally better than the articles written by journalists who don't do any research.

@2LeggedChair, you don't know what you're talking about. If you don't know what this is --> (https://mempool.space/graphs/lightning/nodes-channels-map) then you really shouldn't be commenting on the quality of the technology as if you're an expert. Please stop pretending to be an expert.

$84,000.

@2LeggedChair, "No one cares about the technology they just care about they can do with it. Which is nothing." ^^ Name a use case for the US currency in your bank account, other than using it as a medium of exchange. Tell me about its industrial uses. How is it used in manufacturing? I can use Bitcoin as a medium of exchange exactly the same way that US currency is used--by sending it over an electronic telecommunications network. A significant difference is that Bitcoin is a nascent currency with comparatively little acceptance, but that's a circumstantial difference rather than a fundamental difference. If half of Africa decided to use Bitcoin to economically liberate themselves from their French masters then the circumstances would be totally different.