This post triggered my /r/Bitcoin PTSD…

Nobody in this community cares about opening a tab on Lightning and needing to continually police it to make sure you don’t lose your coins, but let me explain the Power thing a bit more.

Bitcoin’s block confirmation algorithm is based on SHA-256, which is an algorithm that just uses computing capacity to work. Custom ASIC chips have been developed to solve that problem at a very high rate, and current Bitcoin mining farms just use a bunch of these in parallel to go faster and make more hashes. More chips = more power consumed.

But computing power is not the only resource that you can use for Proof-of-work. Other algorithms are designed to use a large amount of memory also, and memory is harder to scale than computing power. Other algorithms enforce that multiple nodes need to work in concert, and the network delays between them also enforce an additional cost. These make it harder to make things go faster simply by spamming more units. These are just as secure as the SHA256 algorithm that BTC uses. But fewer units = less power.

BTC Maxis think the enormous amount of power consumed on the network is a selling point, when in reality it is the only feasable excuse for governments to ban it. Governments can never ban the protocol itself – it’s just math, after all – but can severely restrict where mining can happen if they think it is burning too much power and endangering other parts of the economy.

Hah! Republicans will never pull off their coup by listening to experts…

Bitcoin used to be valuable as permissionless peer-to-peer currency, but then it was ruined when it zoomed in price. Nobody transacts with it anymore, because it is a StOrE oF vAlUe.

The energy thing is a solvable problem, once Bitcoiners see the problem. BTC’s PoW algorithm simply doesn’t scale. The devs could slot in a new algorithm if they wanted to, and dramatically reduce BTC’s power footprint. But they see the large energy expenditure as a feature, because they can say that all that energy is being used to secure the network.

“Donald Trump’s entire life has led to his election as the country’s 45th, 48th, and final President. Therefore, everything he did leading up to it is hereby declared an Official Act. Furthermore, Grand Moff Trump officially declares that the attorneys who filed this frivolous lawsuit will be subject to re-education at our new camp on the southern coast of Cuba.”

Your first link illustrates my point; the Wisconsin pension fund disclosed their Bitcoin investment. I see a lot of speculation that other funds are, but no hard facts about it. If it is happening, it is super early. Here is a link from Fidelity stating that many funds are “thinking” about it:

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/fidelity:-pension-funds-exploring-bitcoin-investments-on-etf-approval

It may happen on a broad scale (and I hope it does, I can use another 10x gain), but it’s not there yet. If it happens, they will do it cautiously. The last thing they want is regulatory scrutiny for destroying a pension fund in the next exchange token crash.

Your second link also doesn’t say what you think it does. It’s a link to a digital tech consulting company, who seems to have a vested interest in pushing crypto into the mainstream. Even then, the link is not about these banks investing in Crypto, but about banks figuring out how to provide custody services to retail customers. OG Crypto Bros self-custody, of course, but that involves a bunch of steps that the general public doesn’t want to bother with.

So, dont jump the gun on this.

If you have anything in mutual funds, investments funds, pension funds, most of them have some degree of exposure to it.

Ok. I call bullshit on this. Funds do not hold crypto unless they explicitly say they do, like some of these crypto ETFs that have started up. The regulatory landscape is so weird for crypto right now that we don’t even know if they are handled as a security or not. So I think it’s safe to assume that fund managers are steering clear of it unless they explicitly call out that they are in it. Unless you mean indirect exposure through investing in Crypto related businesses like Coinbase, but even that’s a stretch

Congress, on the other hand: yeah, they’re all into it. How else would they get their foreign bribe money?

Hey crypto bros, it’s a trap! Once they get your tax payment in Bitcoin, they will consider that a capital gain and expect to see the transaction on next year’s tax return.

They let other folks in now and then, as long as they play by the rules.

Just look at Clarence Thomas. By any measure, he is a smart man. Dude graduated from Yale Law school in the early 70’s when there were very few black folks there. However, major law firms did the same thing back then that Boebert is doing now, and assumed he just got into Yale due to affirmative action, to “tick a box”. Rather than blame the inherent racism at the time, he blamed Yale for admitting him in the first place. Which is bonkers, when you think about it.

Once he became a judge, he continued to work to dial back progress made in the 20th century, all because his fee-fees got hurt after law school. And the bribes, don’t forget the bribes!

There is a fundamental assumption among anti-DEI conservatives that there is only one Best Candidate for any job, one who conveniently looks like them. Anyone who look different, then, obviously can’t be the Best Candidate, so someone must have “tipped the scales” to get them in.

Diversity is important because it leads to better ideas, particularly in matters of public policy that affect everyone. I think it’s perfectly appropriate for a PR team to use, as one of its hiring guidelines, a goal to assemble people from different backgrounds, which will make everything they produce more relatable to the public. But since Conservatives don’t see the value in that at all, all they see is “They wanted to hire a black woman to tick a box”, not realizing the value that particular candidate’s lived experience brings to that team.

You know, that seems like total bullshit…

… but remember how he started rambling that the Georgia case would be derailed because of the prosecutor’s “boyfriend”, and we all didn’t know what he was talking about, then the story broke and it delayed the trial?

… or, how he kept saying the Supreme Court would bail him out of the NY case, and we all said “That simply can’t happen, it doesn’t work like that”, the the SC releases that ruling last week and now his sentencing is on hold?

The man is obviously plugged in what the Republican Party is doing, he may not be able to string two thoughts together cohesively but he obviously gets good info from more competent people and then we hear it filtered through his mushy brain.

I’ve learned over the years to be very careful with the random shit he says, because sometimes he’s right, if only because the last person he talked to gave him inside info, and he is incapable of keeping his mouth shut.

Yay! I will have a garbage plate in Joe Morelle’s honor the next time I am in Rochester.

(Although I do admit, I was probably gonna order the plate regardless)

My personal experience is that the current economy is every uneven. Some folks are doing extremely well (mainly the ones who had their housing sorted before the Pandemic), others are not seeing their wages rise to account for the increased cost of everything.

The overall average might be trending higher, but good luck telling that to the people that are getting the short end of the stick.

Thursday is July 4, I doubt Biden will announce that night while the fireworks are going off. But if things continue to be this bad, it could be Friday or Monday.

This can’t go all the way to the convention, because they made the convention so late. They actually have to make the formal nomination before the convention, in time to meet Ohio’s deadline.

The only path forward is for Harris to take over the nomination. This is far easier if Biden resigns totally. He can say he’s doing it for medical reasons, even if all he has is a chronic case of notgonnawinatall, complicated by inflammation of the opeds.

That’s exactly what I will expect him to say, right up until he leaves.

Too bad Taylor Swift is just a few months too young to be eligible.

I cannot see how Biden wins without some black swan.

Is that swan named “Kamala”, by any chance?

Harris is not an automatic loss, as long as the electorate is not composed solely of Lemmy users.

If Biden resigned, along with a direct endorsement of Harris, there will be no floor fight. The party will coalesce around the sitting President.

Shoot, I wanted to draft Polis! Now the highest one left on the board is Buttigieg…