TCP

JerryLeeDog

The next stage of this space is going to be education on why Bitcoin is different than all the other "cryptos". Mark it. First, the space needed legitimacy and players, now the shift will be truly understanding Bitcoin within the space. Sucks that new tech has to weed out all the junk before it's adopted, but the TCP/IP has already been chosen, and it's Bitcoin.

Oheson

ETH is the equivalent to TCP/IP. Used, yes. Of monetary value, No.

Oheson

USDC and USDT run on multiple chains. The layer 1 is just a glorified TCP/IP and does not affect the price.

HSuke

Uhh. It's not even a project. It's a protocol. That's like calling TCP/IP a scam

JerryLeeDog

Same reason we wouldn't use an improved version of TCP/IP; because we already have Bitcoin. There is no "improving" to do on Bitcoin. All coins that attempt to recreate the internet have, and will continue to fail. PhD caliber computer scientists, mathematicians, physicists etc. have been trying to improve on BTC for 15 years. No one has made anything better. You can only justify minimal improvements before you start to upset the balance of Bitcoin's security and its fundamentals.

vattenj

Another box of sand is like another value transfer protocol, but a protocol have network and first mover effect. Anyone can create their own network protocol and communicate with it, but in the end TCP/IP has become the most widely accepted around the world. Value transfer protocol would be the same

justignoremeplsthx

It's akin to TCP/IP. Brilliant technological discovery in the 1970's, but it took years for surrounding technology to catch up to what we have today (the internet). Bitcoin is THE most secure 'instant settlement' transaction in the world. But we need the industry to catch up to be able to handle it. Lightning is potentially the answer to this, so far. But it's continuing to evolve.

Oheson

ETH is a glorified TCP/IP. Scarcity is one of the 5 characteristics of money. ETH has an infinite supply, therefore it can never be considered money or a store of value.

JerryLeeDog

Eventually this is a guarantee. No one really unlearns why Bitcoin is the only TCP/IP

johnnyb0083

Bitcoin is a protocol like TCP/IP...Bitcoin is math. is very dogmatic. Bitcoin can be owned by everyone and controlled by nobody is what gives it so much value to me.

TheReveling

Bitcoin is the first. Bitcoin was created altruistically. There is no pre-mine, there is no leader, there is no CEO. Proof of work imbues value because energy is input into the system and block validation is the output. Proof of stake does not. Bitcoin is a protocol like TCP/IP. Bitcoin is math. Bitcoin is not monkey pictures. When Bitcoin began to trade in terms of dollar value, many many people saw the opportunity to copy it and make money disregarding the reasons Satoshi laid out on the forums and through the genesis block: The Bitcoin genesis block, also known as Block 0, contains a specific reference to a headline from the UK newspaper “The Times.” Embedded in the coinbase parameter of this block is the following text: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.” Bitcoin wasn’t created to enrich its founder, it was a gift to the world. The subsequent hard forks have all failed. I could go on and on, but when people talk about “crypto” they are talking about every money grubbing scammer that has followed in its wake. There is, and will only ever be one.

DiedOnTitan

This line of thinking is what leads to shitcoinery, platitudes like "pioneers get the arrows" and "the second mouse gets the cheese." Bitcoin is not a centralized platform like Myspace or Facebook. Or a technology owned by a company like Blackberry or iPhone. It's a decentralized Internet protocol that succeeded. Like TCP/IP, SMTP, and HTTPS. Just like TCP/IP, as Bitcoin continues to get integrated into the fabric of the Internet, it will become increasingly difficult to replace, if not impossible.

only_merit

It is running no problem. You only see outgoing connections as you are probably filtering the TCP port 8333. It's not an issue, but if it is an option for you, you can open it and thus help the network little more.

Trilzerobyte

It should have at least 1 incoming connection by now if the port was open. If you have good bandwidth in the upstream direction, you can help other peers connect to you by going into your router settings and forward port 8333 TCP to the machine running Bitcoin Core.

LIGHTLY_SEARED_ANUS

That's because they're never partnerships, and to refer to them as such is to accept a faulty premise. How in the actual fuck does a private corporation "partner" with a decentralised network? That type of relationship doesn't even apply between those two entities. That's like saying Walamrt has "partnered" with TCP/IP and HTTP because they have a website. The word "partner" does not, and cannot, apply in that situation.

IndubitablePrognosis

Same, but remember, people's eyes glaze over if you say "TCP/IP" -- but they'll still use it all day long.

JerryLeeDog

I'm 40 and have held Bitcoin for years. I started out buying "crypto" scams but thankfully it only took a few years to realize all of that stuff will bleed against Bitcoin forever. There is only 1 TCP/IP and it is far more risky to not hold Bitcoin at this point in time. The needle has only moved one way in 15 years. Stack sats and stay humble :)

JanPB

It's like "ossification" of the TCP/IP or TeX. Certain inventions, like the wheel, reach a certain stage where no substantial upgrades are a consideration.

RobDaGoer

Hashing falls under then broad category of encryption methods(cryptography is under this category as well), sha256 is a just specific kind of hashing, that gets gets special treatment because it is used as an encryption method for many protocols in the TCP/IP suite. Usually patents only last 20 years but the government has licensed it for free from the start. It is not getting broken anytime soon because the algorithm it runs on is kept secret

MachaMacMorrigan

The Bitcoin network is a trustless monetary layer running on the Internet, which itself runs Internet Protocol and Transmission Control Protocol as lower level layers. TCP is designed specifically to be fault-tolerant, ensuring that committed transactions at higher levels (such as Bitcoin) will always get through. I'm confused by what you describe as "incorrect transactions". Badly formatted ("wrongful"?) transactions will fail. Correctly constructed transactions *should* always get through, and by definition there cannot be a putative authority to 'reverse' them. That's the whole point of a blockchain. Surely this is *exactly* the immutable behavior we want and need from a trustless monetary network? Is it possible you're looking for a human authority over the Bitcoin network, to 'fix' things when another human says 'Oops'?

RobDaGoer

Put bitcoin aside for a bit and look into the hashing algorithm, which is patented by the US government, which is so important they license it for FREE. They are required to protect and defend it as it is used to encrypt many protocols in the TCP/IP suite. Ie. TLS encrypts every https website, which is all. Then read the paper by the Chinese researchers about how stout sha256 is with merkle damgard construction and DM compression function

Oheson

ETH’s fee model is not sustainable. A layer 1 is basically a glorified TCP/IP. They have value while we are in this speculative phase of crypto. As time goes on, layer 1’s will be transparent to the end user and one will dominate. Right now that looks like it will be Solana, but something else may come along. An ETH ETF changes absolutely nothing about ETH. The ETH ETF will get only a fraction of the BTC ETF volume. ETH is fundamentally broken tech. It was the first smart contract platform, but eventually ETF will be the Netscape of crypto.

Objective_Digit

> TCP/IP isn't a household protocol. You mean household name? It doesn't have to be well known to the public. No one is hoping that people will adopt it. They are forced to use it. Ah, the old only ETH has smart contracts line. Not true at all. Bitcoin has always had them. And even more so now with Taproot.

royDank

I'm aware, but thanks. It was an analogy. TCP/IP isn't a household protocol. Neither is IPv4 or IPv6. People care about what works for them and makes their lives better. Bitcoin is a pet rock at best. And don't get me wrong, products/services with a single use case are compelling, sure, but smart contracts are far more interesting than anything Bitcoin can do, and the vast majority of smart contract activity is happening on Ethereum. I've had no regrets about my bets so far.

Objective_Digit

Myspace and Facebook are not protocols. Once a protocol becomes established it is extremely hard to shift. Look at TCP/IP.

JerryLeeDog

You are right. I don't think there needs to be any effort whatsoever towards "maximalism" Was there TCP/IP maximalism I wonder? It's happening organically through people's increasing knowledge in the space

TG_King

BUIDL is just a tokenized fund. Chainlink is an oracle network protocol. Not sure why you’re implying that BUIDL or something like it would ever be a competitor to Chainlink, they don’t even remotely do the same thing. The existence of funds like BUIDL is why Chainlink is needed. That’s like saying Hyundai Elantra is a competitor to highway construction companies or something like that. Or that Reddit is a competitor to TCP/IP

uncapchad

First you bed down the architecture, then you start building on top of that. The internet was originally text based. You had to know how to navigate at the lower levels using TCP/IP, FTP, SMTP, IRC, explore directories and bulleting boards, before the evolution of HTTP. The tools and standards for Bitcoin and other blockchains will come. There are enough users now, enough reason to go forward with projects and in general, it's easier to make a case for funding than it was in the past. Don't underestimate the world-wide IT community. Just because legislators and the fearful see everything with centralised goggles, doesn't mean that is the only way to solve a problem.

Odd_Monk_132

>You buy Bitcoin to make profit Faulty premise to start with. Bitcoin isn't a stock. People buy bitcoin to use it. The human rights foundation a list of things that they **need** bitcoin for. There are also tonnes of softwares and products that are building on top of bitcoin protcol layer, the same way TCP/IP is used. So you have products like Strike, Bitrefil and apps like Lightning and Nostr as well as protocols like DID. Others use it for p2p trade, international payments, Micro-fee services and so on. One could perhaps argue the degree of utility, but to say that there is none is a disingenous argument.

Corbimos

2 things, 1) You don't understand open source protocols. Bitcoin is not Nokia. Bitcoin is TCP/IP. Do you think there will be a better Internet? The answer is no. Even if a better protocol comes along, it won't be competing with TCP/IP. It will be worked into that stack and make everything better. We won't have two competing internets until one wins. The protocol will evolve. Bitcoin is the same. If a new protocol comes along that is proven, it will either be incorporated into the current Bitcoin stack, or Bitcoin will be forked. Either way, the UTXO set will live on, and we all still have the coins we hold the keys for. 2) Check your financial privilege. Bitcoin isn't about the price. It's about the freedom it enables. That is the utility. That is what Bitcoin grows. Sovereignty and freedom. Price in relation to its Scarcity is just a wonderful side effect. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/check-your-financial-privilege

godofleet

i just don't see a world where people stop caring about all the endless comfort and abundance we have, especially in the west... even if we have a massive and horrific world war - even if we use nukes to (some extent) i expect there will always be humans in the future still using electricity, the internet, and so on... we didn't stop using electricity or communications technology after the first and second world war... in fact adoption of those techs only ever increased - the wars were just tiny distractions comparatively. sure, there might be disruption... there could be some horrible nuclear winter and maybe no one survives... but if we do, bitcoin would still be a thing... if somehow every single node was lost, the IDEA of bitcoin would still be a thing... just like TCP/IP and Email ... you're not holding it for wartime, your holding it for the peace and prosperity time that comes after.

Corbimos

Seeds are a standard, a protocol. Same with the passphrase. If the wallet supports that standard (BIP39), it will be interoperable. Bitcoin is like TCP/IP (the internet). The internet works the same on different types of computers because they support the same protocol. You don't have a different internet on different types of hardware. If a wallet supports BIP39 or a node supports Bitcoin, it will all work the same.

JerryLeeDog

This is totally normal for a halving. Look at the 2016 halving. Besides, BTC just blew up from $40k to $70k in a couple weeks. Can't go up like that forever. As a matter of fact, we need a long cool down after what happened before the halving. As for ETH, don't mean to sound "condescending" but the truth is: ETH is a pre-mined and centralized, made for profits, shitcoin. It will bleed against Bitcoin forever because more and more people will understand this in the same way more and more people will understand why Bitcoin is already the TCP/IP of digital money. People cannot unlearn these things.

Ruzhyo04

TCP/IP is a scam

misunderstandingit

I have no fucking CLUE how TCP/IP works and I use it every day.

JanPB

It's like saying TCP/IP or MIDI are not "modern" enough. All that stuff you mention is done on level 2 layers. Like TCP/IP is not burdened with the WWW, it's done by the HTML protocol riding on top instead. Same thing with Bitcoin. Sheesh, it's really a super-old hat, why do people get constantly confused by the basics?

JerryLeeDog

Did anything flip TCP/IP? No. And there is a reason. It's not even a chance at this point.

JerryLeeDog

It's already the TCP/IP of digital money. It succeeded. Now will just be the adoption curve of monetization, which takes a LONG time.

FenwickDTR

Scaling will be achieved through layers 2 like lightning network. It's like saying that you want to increase TCP maximum segment size (which is around 1.5kb). It makes no sense.

Corbimos

You don't understand open source protocols. Bitcoin is not doomed to fail. It is literally built for resilience. Bitcoin is a protocol just like TCP/IP. Would you say the internet is doomed to fail? It's isn't. Even if we get a new protocol that is better than TCP/IP, we'd still call that new system "The Internet". Bitcoin will work the same way. The only ones using shitcoins are speculators who day trade. If your company is a shotcoin casino, then I guess you would limit your customers. If it's not, you are just wasting your time and effort.

Digital_Scarcity

As cooked as it is, it is also necessary. It will always be that way. Bitcoin is an open protocol like TCP/IP, ethernet. Anyone can run it and build on top of it and interoperate with it. BTC base protocol has achieved all this and guaranteed security + scarcity, albiet not privacy. This is why coinjoins and future privacy tools are important to defend for accessible privacy options for BTC users. "CoinJoin is a trustless method for combining multiple Bitcoin payments from multiple spenders into a single transaction to make it more difficult for outside parties to determine which spender paid which recipient or recipients. Unlike many other privacy solutions, coinjoin transactions do not require a modification to the bitcoin protocol." - Bitcoin wiki

Alfador8

Bitcoin is a foundational protocol, like TCP/IP. When TCP/IP was invented in 1974 no one could have imagined http, email, could storage, or messaging apps. All of which are built on top of TCP/IP in a layered fashion. You don't use TCP/IP itself to send email, you use a protocol built on top of TCP/IP. We're already seeing signs of this type of development on top of Bitcoin with second layer protocols like chaumian ecash, Lightning and Liquid. And more applications will be built on top of *those* in the future.  Bitcoin's strength is in its simplicity. Leave the complexity for higher layers, like other successful computer protocols have done in the past.

vinniedamac

Money is pretty much used for everything as well. I saw a comparison that BTC is the TCP/IP of money.

JerryLeeDog

1. Bitcoin 2. Bitcoin 3. Bitcoin Its like asking what protocol you would use besides TCP/IP. Um, none. TCP/IP already won.

danielfd83

Central Governments are planing very tight controls over people’s money. Bank accounts are already constantly being frozen by some banks in Europe for deposits as small as 300€. (Revolut subreddit is full of people with frozen accounts). The President of the EU Central Bank has said that they are planing to make ilegal transactions of 1000€ outside of their banking system. The new Digital Euro & Dollar will just tighten the government control on money. All this big brother movements will push people towards Crypto. Bitcoin is the TCP IP of money. It is such a great invention that even governments are working on creating their own Centralized version.

VictorOgorodnov

Crypto enters cleansing era. Two misconceptions to overcome here: 1. Bitcoin is one and only forever, only 21 mil coins for 8 billion people, everything is a scam except Bitcoin, etc. Lies shilled by maxis to cash in their chips. You can literally create as much Bitcoin-like blockchains as you want, it’s all about adoption really. 2. Investing in tech is wrong idea. Tech was always free and will be, what people actually invest in is infrastructure and service. You don’t pay for TCP/IP, you pay for cables. Blockchains should be as simple as cables, and tech is being built upon.

0x0000001B

The TCP/IP of money? 😂 What does that even mean. Apples to oranges. 😂

Financial_Design_801

Bitcoin (the monetary layer) uses the communication layer (TCP/IP protocol) which came before it

TradeApe

But...it currently isn't the TCP/IP of money???

Qwahzi

Spam, QoS, fair queuing, & flow control are well understood computer science concepts. How do you think HTTP, SMTP, DNS, TCP/IP, and other internet protocols handle spam so well now (without fees), despite struggling in the early days of the internet? Nano is implementing the same things, it just takes time Fees don't solve the problem of an unusable network - Bitcoin just hit $100+ fees and multi-hour confirmations last week. Nano has almost always been faster and cheaper than that, even during a span attack Nano already has node incentives. It uses the same incentive model as Bitcoin full nodes (and almost every other internet protocol)

ammo_john

Let me ask you? How much do you value the discovery of digital scarcity? Because that is what Bitcoin is which no other copy of the chain can replicate (they can't attain escape velocity and full decentralisation, it's a miracle we got there with Bitcoin). So what does this digital scarcity give us? Well, it's the first time in human existence that we have a protocol for apolitical, uninflatable, uncensorable, and unconfiscatable transfer of digital scarcity. This has value because it fills a clear need, in times where money is being devalued, censored and confiscated, through human corruption. This is true everywhere, but even more acutely noticeable if you live in a country with a weaker currency and capital control. Because we now have true scarcity that can be settled online, we can build a whole more robust economy on top of it. So it's also a base layer of things to come (just like TCP/IP was for the internet). By the monetary properties it gives us, it's aiming for reserve currency of the world. So the value of Bitcoin is either zero or everything. This ultimate valuation of this asset is what leads to the volatility, people who buy and sell think it's either worth zero or everything, so volatility is to be expected. The volatility will come down over time, bitcoin will one day become the most boring asset there ever was, a reserve currency that is not only stable in price but that pegs the price of everything else, but this is most likely 25-50 years into the future. Enjoy the ride. Price is ultimately decided by buyers and sellers on the open market, betting on what the ultimate price of Bitcoin will be, zero or everything divided by 21.000.000.

JerryLeeDog

Why does that have to be people's reason to drop a pre-mined for insiders, centralized, POS shitcoin for the TCP/IP of digital assets and the hardest money on earth? That said, yeah I'd be shocked if ETH is every approved for an ETF. I'd be shocked if anything outside of Bitcoin even worth paying attention to is approved. It will be a sell the news event in any case

Spl00ky

I didn't realize TCP and UDP packets trade for $63k

sex6666666

If you think orange pilling people is hard, try to make them understand the TCP/IP protocol and you will see how much harder it is

combustioncat

TCP/IP truly is an amazing thing.

nerdiestnerdballer

TCP IP is the Internet protocol, Is the Internet being replaced or are we building on the Internet?

arcrad

Why do you think TCP/IP survived when others didn't? Might be some parallels.

ProfessionalCowbhoy

Hate to burst your bubble here but TCP/IP has been updated several times as it adapts to the ever changing network system. Bitcoin on the other hand and it's main user base are completely against this. They don't want it to move to a different consensus method for example they want it to remain proof of work even though that is terrible for the environment and energy prices and chips prices. They don't want to fork to a more efficient or faster chain that can handle more transactions even though that would ensure it's survival. I could go on for days

Vapourhands

Did they replace the TCP IP protocol yet?

loblaw-bob

The technological advancement would have to allow massive gains in utility to displace BTC. It can’t just be a little better (arguably many of those have already come and gone). It would have to be like 10-100x improvement and even then it may not take. Just image trying to introduce a new base protocol for the internet to usurp TCP/IP. Granted you could make a protocol for a special use case, but to display all TCP/IP means you need everyone to adopt it and all the layers riding on it to embrace the change. It’s a massive ask.

salinungatha

Books, hammers, bowls - just three technologies that haven't been "replaced". Oh you meant software? TCP/IP, HTTP, C, SQL Technology that's good enough tends to stick around

primekelseymichaels

"what's the point of TCP/IP if it's just going to get replaced?"

Lopsided_Life_6054

Same reason TCP/IP protocol and the internet hasn’t been replaced. BTC gave us digital scarcity just like the wheel gave us transportation.

jbe061

Look into how the internet works, and why nothing has replaced the protocols that it operates on. TCP/IP etc. Same idea

Get_the_nak

What’s stopping TCP/IP from being replaced?

Alfador8

Bitcoin is a protocol. Protocol's don't tend to be replaced easily because they benefit from and are subject to network effects. TCP/IP is still the standard even though it was invented in 1974. Bitcoin has already won the network effect battle among cryptos.  Today we have http, email, could storage, messaging apps. All built on top of TCP/IP. Like TCP/IP, Bitcoin will be the foundation for higher layer protocols. Bitcoin has irreproducible qualities. It launched perfectly fairly. Anyone with a computer could have mined bitcoin initially. But they didn't, because it launched with no monetary value attached to it. None of this is possible today. At least not without a centralized entity to market and develop it. And then you're competing with 10s of thousands of alt coins to have the second best network effects. The main threat to Bitcoin is the social layer. Bitcoin is vulnerable to broad user consensus. If everyone decides to run a compromised version of Bitcoin there isn't really a way to defend against that. That's a pretty small attack surface compared to any of its competitors.

No_Investigator3369

So I don't know exactly how to answer that besides starting to put numbers behind the $$$ side of it. But value is something different. Did any of us value Zelle or paypal and the ability to use Ebay when we were just using E-mail back in 1996? According to Statista, global revenues from internet services and advertising are expected to increase from $828 billion in 2023 to $1.05 trillion in 2027. In 2023, global retail e-commerce sales reached an estimated $5.8 trillion, and projections indicate a 39% growth over the coming years, with expectations to surpass $8 trillion by 2027. Personally, I think we'll start to see the marriage of traditional protocols like TCP/IP with blockchain technology. TCP/IP is not going anywhere but you are starting to see the infancy of this as there are a few whitepapers people have put together around these ideas with unfortunately BSV. It's only a matter of time before these ideas are re-introduced using the strongest blockchain protocol. To me, integrating blockchains with TCP/IP allows communications to have financial "skin in the game". At the moment, there's nothing stopping me from sending a shit ton of traffic to your routers to clog up https ports on your web server. And lets say my motive is not a DOS and to clog up your Web facing precense but to slip through a back door of the services you are using on your website. Again.....no cost to me to attempt to send a bunch of "if/then" statements to your "if/then defense box" to attempt to use logic to determine if my actions are nefarious. BSV / TCP/IP paper mentioned. https://www.bsvblockchain.org/news/ipv6-unlocks-the-true-power-of-the-bsv-blockchain Again....not an endorsement at all of BSV just an example of whats possible with blockchains and the protocols that run the internet today.

gumgum01

You need various layers, you can't store a coffee transaction on L1. It's the same concept for internet, you can't build Google without HTTP over TCP/IP over network over...

hurrrdurrr117

Damn. I've done as much research as I can. I'm extremely skeptical of other Crypto projects that aren't BTC. (Just less skeptical lol) If blockchain tech is going to be used widely there has to be a way to have all these different platforms/projects to interact with each other. TCP/IP or UDP are what we all use everyday when on our current version of the internet. Seeing Blackrocks interactivity with CL really has me chomping at the bit. Now that BTC has become somewhat accepted as a store of value with institutional money pouring in through ETF's. It feels like we are now only waiting on global acceptance/use case of these new networks. I'm interested if others here feel the same way or if I'm missing something. Where's the competition? Shouldn't there be other applications trying to step into this space??

hurrrdurrr117

Can someone explain to me CC/IP in relationship to TCP/IP? Is chainlink effectively just like tcp or even udp in that it's the protocol that allows different web apps to interact with each other. If so, wouldn't chainlink be involved in every transaction made over different blockchains? I'm a noob but that seems to me like a slam dunk. Does Chainlink even have any true competition?

0xIlmari

So much disinformation in this post, but this guy is correct. Transactions would be fine, if you can afford an extra up to 44 minutes of delay (22 to submit to Earth, then wait for it to be mined and 22 more to get the first confirmation). We might have to add a UDP-based version of the P2P protocol to Bitcoin, because TCP is not very tolerant of huge lag. Lightning Network should largely be fine. Two nodes on Mars, after opening a channel between them (which would involve Earth), would be able to transact instantly as long there is LAN/Intranet on Mars. Mining would have to stay on Earth, however. For mining efficiency, the network relies on a new block being distributed throughout the network within seconds. Rarely does a block take more than 44 minutes (longest round-trip for Mars), giving a Martian miner a chance (would have more chances when closer but still mostly a waste of energy).

Which-Occasion-9246

For me, Solana is like the UFP protocol vs. a TCP protocol which is expensive but less efficient.

JerryLeeDog

Bitcoin... and then a smaller revolving door of junk than there used to be, because more and more people will realize Bitcoin is already to TCP/IP

geppelle

I think we will even want no fees at all as we always see this: a crypto is expensive -> people move to a much cheaper one -> it gets some activity and becomes expensive too. With a feeless crypto, you know that this problem won’t come up. And it solves many questions about UX, dust, etc. It’s the way most of the internet works now: you don’t pay for your TCP requests as a user.

jony_be

long term value? Can't be devaluated. Gold can always be mined, houses can always be build, stock can always be issued, fiat can and will be devaluated. With bitcoin the only thing you need to do to build wealth is to save it. That's it. There's no need to be a wanna be self learn from the internet investor and risk your money. You buy it and you save it. There's alsothe other things like cant be confiscated, cant be censured, there's no third party risk etc etc etc. Thats value to people that live in opressing regimes and hyperinflated ones. >But what happens when a superior coin or a superior technology emerges, which it will, we can be sure of that. Would that not render bitcoin essential useless? This is like asking: What if a protocol better than TCP/IP emerges for the internet? What if a form of air transportation surpasses airplanes? What if an audio-visual transmission method superior to television appears? Do you see the point I’m trying to make? This convergence toward a superior technology that becomes a global standard is called a **Schelling point**. Bitcoin is the Schelling point of money.

rickandm00rty

While I don't disagree with the "forever" term, we can't reliably answer this question one way or the other. Computing power also applies to both the difficulty problem and mining hardware, meaning that theoretically the protocol will always keep up, including with quantum solutions. Transaction speed is purely a software problem and very promising solutions have been proposed recently with more on their way. I think of "Bitcoin" very similarly to the early internet protocols. Nothing has replaced TCP/IP but we have certainly improved upon it using software abstraction to increase its usefulness. The internet also won't last forever but it's next to impossible to predict it's replacement (not evolution) so I don't try. I tend to treat Bitcoins future the same way. This also doesn't invalidate other tokens or projects, but none of them address the deepest layers of the problem as sufficiently and fairly nor as robustly as Bitcoin and there is no reason the logic of those projects cannot be rolled into Bitcoins base layer where the value/truth is really stored.

Bhob13

My favorite way to look at this is the following: The internet is built on a base layer: TCP/IP. Then we built Email and the World Wide Web on top of that, then Ecommerce and streaming video on top of that. Then we added smartphones and apps to it. All of this over the last 30yrs. If you see BTC as TCP/IP then imagine what the next 30yrs will bring in world of decentralized finance. BTC is the springboard not the holdback.

Amber_Sam

Not really. The lightbulb got replaced multiple times, we're currently using LED. Bitcoin isn't just a coin. It's a protocol to build on, like the TCP/IP. That's why electricity, not a lightbulb.

Texas-NativeATX

Interesting question, but the answer might be that Satoshi had no deep understanding of stores of value and only wanted to solve the problem that they recognized. The developers of internet protocols TCP/IP never envisioned e-commerce, electronic banking, VOIP, etc. I do not think anyone would argue that we should go back to the original intent of the internet and kill all the advanced use cases.

Frozen555

People their view about how fast things go is so distorted imo, the internet as we know it today was invented around 1983, the TCP/IP protocol enabling the invention of the internet was invented in 1970. Why did it take 20+ years for the internet to take off? People need generations to adjust to new technology and usually only younger people really understand what the social and economic implications are. Look at even "AI" , the ideas around neural networks are 80 years old and only just now we have enough computation for the masses to interact with AI models directly.

Frozen555

We are the year 1999, the internet was invented around 1983. It's been 15 years and counting. This is 5 lifetimes in tech. The TCP/IP protocol is open sourced. If anyone could find anything useful with mass appeal, it would have been done by now.

Frogolocalypse

Bitcoin is a protocol. Like TCP/IP. Anything that's important will be added to it or built on top of it. It's like saying "what happens if someone comes up with a better method of counting?"

Skittles_the_Clown

I don’t really think Bitcoin will ever seem archaic. We will just build on top of it and make it adapt to the changing technology around it. At the end of the day Bitcoin is a protocol just like the internet (TCP/IP). We just continued to build application’s on top of it. We will do the same with Bitcoin.

Revolutionary-Ebb-26

Not true, it might be the case in the US and other places where the infrastructure makes one system synonymous with the other. They are probably being sent over long band cell towers hat aren't set up to transmit TCP/IP packets

godofleet

Eh, how can i put it... Fire was the first fire... You don't reinvent fire... sure maybe you can generate heat in ways other than combustion/flames but a flame is a flame. This idea that bitcoin is dominant simply because it was first is (IMO) misguided... Being first is a factor of course, but bitcoin's superior technology is the reason it has been adopted in ways copy-cats haven't. It's hard to logically see it any other way to me... Similar rings true of Email and TCP/IP ... these technologies were just that good that they stuck and their alternatives/competitors didn't **And above all, Bitcoin was NOT the first form of cryptographic money or internet-based money... many other attempts were made prior... It's just the first to do it properly.**

Hot_Collar_8910

Also the addresses of these seed nodes? They are hardcoded into the protocol. What happens if the standards of TCP/IPv4 gets deprecated and a new protocol comes around? Just fork it?

Ar0war

Bitcoin protocol is to money the same as TCP/IP is to internet. TCP/IP is not he same as decades ago and there are layers built over it, the same is going to happend with bitcoin.

HateActiveDirectory

The cyber kill chain was made by Lockheed Martin, the TCP/IP model was developed by the United States Defence Department

MikeDGorman

As someone who has worked within the IT industry since 1995 I believe I can offer some insight as to why you tend to encounter disbelief towards BTC from seemingly well qualified people. It has been my experience that information technology has attracted a certain type of person in previous times, the very literal minded, text book savvy types who value the more engineering aspects of networking, and devices, the thing is, 'Information' has an epistemological, and flexible quality, in reality human intelligence has an open ended, and variable tendency: what is considered absolutely true and profoundly unquestionable in one era, becomes an absurdity and blatantly untrue in a subsequent time. The 'consensus' empirical truth of the 15th Century gave way to quite a different paradigm of thinking in the 18th Century, right? The Sun was not the center of the universe, but to suggest it wasn't was heresy at one time. IT is very much a microcosm of our civilization, the "AI" developments and the derivation of artificial intelligence is now a solid reality, only 30 years ago this was science fiction only! The same applies to Bitcoin, this was regarded as being almost a technical spoof, a joke among network and data base engineers, as if Satoshi Nakamoto was a character in some Japanese cartoon. IT engineer types are very conservative people, the 2 men who invented TCP/IP, and later on Tim Berners-Lee who developed individual addressing for online documents (the World Wide Web) were also highly practical, engineering types. Bitcoin was too much of a science-fiction idea for these kinds of people, it took actual acceptance by the financial world to shift their minds.

kevinrb13

lol No. Bitcoin is a protocol. you are asking like our internet will be replace from TCP/IP protocol to another better protocol ? protocol can not be replaced once it comes to adoption as long as it is doing its thing.

Jacked_1

Cypress for example, amongst others. You say the legacy financial system has worked and offered such a big leap, yet managed to leave the majority of the world's countries either unbanked or highly indebted whilst stealing their natural resources. No sir, YOU'RE delusional - That illusion has done quite the work on your mind if you truly believe it's sustainable to any degree. Bitcoin was created precisely because an absolute centralised monetary policy corrupts absolutely. The traditional form of money would've potentially worked longer if the gold standard hadn't been dropped. Every single form of money has been debased, in the last millenium every 200 or so years, taking fiat off the gold standard likely just accelerated things. With the advent of the internet, the TCP/IP protocol stack would just be a prelude to a money protocol. Bitcoin, out of sheer necessity and as a voice to all those who've been wronged fit that slot nicely. Is it the answer? We'll see, but truth is, is does everything we need money to do, and what it doesn't do, it's developing. Programmable money might be something you're simply unable to comprehend in your current state of indoctrinated hive-mind. If you continue to have any sort of confidence in fiat, then you ought to check your financial privilege and really take a good hard look at the world around you, and especially beyond you and yours.

Revolutionary-Ebb-26

I see what you're saying but how many users of the internet can tell you how a TCP or UDP packet works ? Bitcoin in its current form will be the winning thing with longevity. That is what Michael Saylor has been going on about for the past couple years. This is what he's investing in. The usability of Bitcoin, utility, efficiency, interoperability, etc etc will take place on layers above Bitcoin like we already have seen with the advent of the lightning network and liquid chain and rootstock

JerryLeeDog

Shitcoins are called shitcoins for a reason. You can catch lightning in a bottle and SELL a shitcoin that will otherwise become worthless one day to increase you fiat position. Thats basically the purpose of them. Compared any shitcoin/BTC chart over years time and you'll notice on thing: they all bleed against bitcoin because it actually has the monetary principles and antifragile properties to make it the king. Whether people like it or not, Bitcoin is the TCP/IP of the protocol wars. It's already won

Ar0war

I know I mean I am positive this is going to infinite. Bitcoin is the protocol for money the same as TCP/IP is the protocol for the internet. It is going to change the world

mossyskeleton

It's going to take years for crypto technology to be distilled down into pragmatic concepts that actually make sense. First we have to establish a set of "winners" whose technology become the agreed upon protocols (in a technical sense) that everyone uses. Similar to TCP/IP or other networking protocols. Then layer on programming languages. Then layer on financial and game theory concepts. Then later on government regulations. etc. Crypto is incredibly difficult to communicate about. Hopefully the chaotic dust of jargon upon jargon will settle over time as the best protocols rise to the top, but it will always require expert communicators to teach the concepts.

Ar0war

Of course. This won't happend now. It will take decades for the common joe to see they need an alternative. It won't happend first either in Europe or USA - places with an "strong" currency. But it is inevitable every fiat will go down in value against bitcoin. Bitcoin is to money the same TCP/IP is to internet. Back then only people on the computer world would access the jnternet - now a kid 8 years old can get a tablet and go to YouTube and watch videos. It will be updates and the same as TCP/IP, bitcoin will be easy to access to anyone. Same as cold storage services. All of this will come if, and only if, bitcoin keep surviving. The reality is that this is either going to infinite, absorbing every currency in the world during the next centuries or is going to die. No in between. No forever 70k-100k during decades. It is either moon or literally nothing but a dream that didn't came true.

SmilingWithFear

Bitcoin is the protocol for money. The same as TCP/IP is the protocol for internet. TCP/IP is not the same as 20 years ago. The same as Bitcoin is no the same. It keeps evolving and being updated. The problem about the speed of transactions and its cost is solved via layer network, which is a layer on top of the chain. There is no second best. There can not be a second best. If there is something bitcoin can adopt because it is a good idea, miners will update to that as its been hapening all those years. Welcome to the rabbit hole.

bff_T_fishbine

Start thinking about bitcoin, not as a currency, but as a protocol. How do computers connect to the interwebs? Through TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/internet protocol) rules. It's nothing more than a framework that everyone agrees on to be able to talk to each other. Are there better ways? maybe. But it doesn't matter. This is what everyone is agreeing on. If you use a different protocol, it doesn't make you wrong, it just means you won't be able to talk to 99.9% of the internet. What makes bitcoin different is that it's a protocol for transferring value. And value needs a different set of rules than simple communication. As this is going to be a winner take all scenario and given BTC's market share it looks like the market is narrowing in on a single protocol. Bet against it, but understand why people pick btc over all the other options. Can a government make bitcoin illegal? Sure. But at what cost? It would be nearly impossible to enforce. And if bitcoin has no value, then why does every government seem to have a hard on to recreate it?

jaymeetee

If your analogy is the internet then BTC is TCP/IP which you are using to read this now

lazertazerx

>I'm not talking about encryption type security. im talking more along the lines of a 51% attack type thing. It's the same thing. Trying to hack Bitcoin you have only a few options, none of which are remotely feasible. 1. Brute-force generating keys until you find one that has a balance (nearly impossible) 2. Reverse engineering the private key from the public key (impossible as far as we know) 3. 51% attack With the current mind-bogglingly massive total hash rate of over *550 quintillion hashes per second*, this is also nearly impossible and completely foolish to even attempt, since those efforts would be much better allocated to buying BTC or miners anyways. 51% attacks and other network takeovers are only a concern for altcoins. ​ >because bitcoin can only do 600k transactions per day. Meaning you can only update \~600k wallets once per day. Even with lightning protocol that is an extremely bleak propsect and IMO a fatal flaw. I'm not too concerned with the specifics of lightning, because it's not the only possible scaling solution. I think there will be one or multiple layer-2s and layer-3s in the future, the same as how the internet protocol developed over time. Maybe lightning will be the equivalent of UDP, or maybe it will end up being TCP, if you know what I mean. Also keep in mind that not every end user has or will have a unique address on the base layer. For example, the ETFs are very popular and are attracting a lot of inflows since they were launched, and the ETF managers are certainly not making a new Bitcoin address for every single person who buys the ETF. Same thing with exchanges. Maybe there is a cryptographic way to do this too. Of course, ideally you'd stack early and have your own Bitcoin on the base layer, it's like buying Manhattan land in the 1800s. And how did Manhattan scale? Vertically.