Author: Prayank 2021-05-11 09:05:40
Published on: 2021-05-11T09:05:40+00:00
The email discusses the use of futures markets in Bitcoin, highlighting their potential benefits for hedging and collecting information, but also warning about their potential misuse. The writer agrees that development must be free to experiment and follow what is best technically, but disagrees that development must follow the market. They argue that people funding Bitcoin development can have opinions and influence but cannot impose or force anything on the Bitcoin protocol. Prediction markets are suggested as a way to negotiate between the two aspects. The email provides examples of how futures markets can be used in Bitcoin, such as hedging transaction fees or the activation of soft forks like Taproot. However, the email also warns about issues with incentives, legality, knowledge, and volume and liquidity that could lead to incorrect usage of futures markets. The inaccuracies of prediction markets are also discussed, including past failures in predicting events such as Brexit and the 2016 US presidential elections. The email concludes by acknowledging the role of futures markets in Bitcoin but cautions against relying solely on them to decide important matters in Bitcoin. Instead, the writer emphasizes the importance of considering a wide range of sources such as Bitcoin Dev Mailing List, GitHub repositories, IRC channels, and conversations with various stakeholders involved in Bitcoin.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T19:58:32.025013+00:00