Why Satoshi's temporary anti-spam measure isn'ttemporary

Summary:

The writer of the email believes that Bitcoin may not be useful for micro-transactions in the long term unless something like lightning payment channels is deployed. They argue that the fact that all transactions of the entire world population can be made in-chain while keeping bitcoin decentralized is incredibly naive. Even Nasdaq does not have that capacity, and if full nodes require Nasdaq's capacity, it is difficult to talk about a decentralized system anymore.However, Adam Back thinks that Bitcoin has security properties, and a competing system cannot achieve better properties by bypassing security. Any blockchain faces the same fundamental security/decentralization limitations. Bitcoin can compete with itself with different parameters and defacto does today. The email suggests that more than 99% of Bitcoin transactions right now are happening in Bitcoin related systems with various degrees of audit, reconciliation, provable reserves, etc. These transactions can easily use relatively centralized systems (eg micropayments). The combination of a secure and decentralized layer 1 plus choices of less decentralized layer 2 options can be interesting because the layer 2 is provided cover from attack.Finally, the email suggests that the cheapest way to send value is not the only thing that Bitcoin is trying to do. The other features can be replicated into any alternative blockchain, including those with lower fees. In the open-source world of cryptocurrency, no feature will remain a value-add for very long after it has been identified to be such. That will leave economic policy as the distinguishing factor.The email is signed using PGP encryption, which provides cryptographic privacy and authentication for data communication. The signature ensures that the content of the email has not been tampered with and that the sender is who they claim to be. The email was sent to the Bitcoin development mailing list, which is used by developers working on the Bitcoin network to discuss technical aspects of the protocol. The email includes a link to the mailing list's website where users can subscribe or unsubscribe from the list.

Updated on: 2023-06-10T04:14:57.189501+00:00