Edil Medeiros's avatar
Edil Medeiros
edil@nostrplebs.com
npub1uu8s...hr2k
Bitcoin Educator and Professor on Computer Engineering at the University of Brasília 🇧🇷
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edilmedeiros 1 year ago
One of the main drawbacks of building a trustless network is that people naively come to believe that trust is a bad thing. Bitcoin is trustless in a very strict sense, of not requiring an authority to clear transactions. Yet, you (probably) still trust: 1. ECC is not broken and will not break in the foreseeable future. 2. SHA256 and Ripemd160 will not break either. 3. The node software you run is not compromised. 4. The wallet you use is not compromised. 5. The OS you run is not compromised. 6. The many pieces of hardware you use are not compromised. 7. Your connection to other nodes is not compromised. Most of all, you trust other people will want to use Bitcoin, otherwise it's worthless and a waste of time. Even Satoshi trusted in the community to keep developing Bitcoin: "I’ve moved on to other things. It’s in good hands with Gavin and everyone." You just can't verify everything yourself, you have to start from somewhere and built upon. Don't be a trustless lunatic.
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edilmedeiros 1 year ago
Bitcoin misconception: all nodes maintain a copy of the same blockchain. In reality: most nodes will be able to synchronize to the exact same blockchain, but some won't. E.g. pre-segwit nodes don't see the same data as segwit aware nodes, so they can't maintain the same data. Yet, this won't cause a fork on the network because what matters is not to have the same blockchain. What matters is to agree about the UTXO set state at all times.
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edilmedeiros 1 year ago
It all boils down to people who believe they know what's best for others versus people who just want to be left alone to decide their own matters.
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edilmedeiros 1 year ago
Gold was an excellent money, it can hold value across time and space. But it has a fatal flaw: holding value a cross scale was difficult. Indeed, this is a problem with all physical commodities. If it is highly valuable, small value transactions that constitute the day to day routine of most people are hard to make. If it has low value, large scale transactions suffer and add friction to specialization and economic development. We solved this problem long ago with banks and gold certificates. But it was too easy for governments to corrupt the system and the people lost control of their money. Which is unfortunate, fiat looks convenient for small scale transactions, but it is made a hassle for large scale. It is not transferable across borders, and it doesn't hold value across time. It doesn't work for savers and innovators. It barely works for short term thinking people that conform to the norm. It only works to keep people under control. That's why it won't last forever.
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edilmedeiros 1 year ago
My most recent paper addresses the excellent book Better Money: Gold, Fiat, Or Bitcoin?, by Lawrence White. Tl;dr for the bitcoiners around: - you probably don't understand the economic weaknesses of bitcoin, it's not superior to gold in all aspects. Tl;dr for the bitcoin skepticals: - you probably don't understand money enough, it's inferior to gold and bitcoin in virtually all aspects. Unfortunately, what drives adoption of new technology is not technical superiority, but the increasing friction on the incumbent system. For fiat, friction is called inflation.
Can we rediscover Better Money? | MISES: Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, Law and Economics
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edilmedeiros 1 year ago
Quando eu digo que pra um advogado que ele PRECISA aprender o mínimo sobre o funcionamento da Internet, sempre recebo algum sarcasmo de volta. Até a hora que passa uma vergonha dessas… Sem enforcement, não existe lei. E na Internet, poucas coisas podem ser de fato enforced. image
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edilmedeiros 1 year ago
"Professor: If You Read To Your Kids, You’re ‘Unfairly Disadvantaging’ Others" Professor of Philosophy: “I don’t think parents reading their children bedtime stories should constantly have in their minds the way that they are unfairly disadvantaging other people’s children, but I think they should have that thought occasionally,” But he reveals himself, it's only a perverse anticapitalist mindset: “we could prevent elite private schooling without any real hit to elite family relationships.” I truly understand a professor who don't have to care about the real world saying such nonsense. I'm a professor myself, I know what I'm talking about. But I can't swallow people doubting themselves because of pompous titles. This is how the reporter finishes her article. "In general, I tend to believe that focusing on improving things for the less fortunate is a better way to advance our society than purposely making things worse for those who have more, but what do I know? After all, it’s not like I’m a philosopher or anything." Come on, you see something is wrong and you doubt yourself instead of questioning it? This is just an anecdote that shows why traditional media is so doomed.
National Review
Professor: If You Read To Your Kids, You’re ‘Unfairly Disadvantaging’ Others | National Review
According to a professor at the University of Warwick in England, parents who read to their kids should be thinking about how they’re “unfairly...
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edilmedeiros 1 year ago
Bitcoin is a debit card? That's how a dear colleague is trying to argue against my position that Bitcoin can become money someday. A debit card is just a messaging system, a kind of voucher that is redeemable for the underlying currency, which is Reais or Dollars, or any modern fiat. There existed this kind of stuff during the gold standard (not electronic, but in actual paper and in balance sheets) and it is estimated that it was more prevalent than barter and gold itself, coins being reserved for transactions with strangers, and bank notes for distant fairs and for large transactions. I highly disagree that Bitcoin is a debit card, but I'm curious about the rationale behind this position. Bitcoin is a messaging system in its core, just like a debit or credit card system, indeed. But it is not debit from someone else like in a debit (or credit) card system, it is the asset itself and the underlying "physical" phenomenon associated with this asset is being able to send new messages in this system. Yes, it looks like fiat in the sense it's not redeemable for an underlying commodity, but it is intrinsically different from fiat for it is an entitlement for sending messages in a real system that (some) people decided (in the market) to value. Lawrence White, in Better Money, argues that the difference in nature between fiat and Bitcoin is government coercion. I understand there's more to it. You may argue that Bitcoin is not money since it is not widely accepted as a medium of exchange. I'll agree with that. But for something to become money, it has to not be money before (like gold, silver, and fiat). Also, there's no accepted theory for how something becomes money. So, we may be witnessing the monetization of this thing (or not, who knows?). I'm betting in the monetization of this thing for more than economic reasons. I may be wrong, time will tell. --- You can see the discussion on LinkedIn:
Review Better Money by Lawrence White | Edil Medeiros posted on the topic | LinkedIn
New paper coming out soon. This time an extended review of Better Money, a book by Lawrence White that compares the gold, fiat, and bitcoin standa...
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edilmedeiros 1 year ago
Hoje teve live no Bitcoinheiros em que falamos mais sobre o Bitcoin Dev Launchpad:
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