Toon of the Day - Hal's got the Last Laugh

The Crypto Binary Star

This drawing is inspired by Andrew DeSantis here's a drawing showing the Bitcoin network in a natural state of forking and merging. Bitcoin is like a binary star with many sidechains and networks orbiting it. With the user and the miner coded agendas in the centre and Ether as the mysterious unknown dark matter. Bitcoin will become like a world clock or a sun for time-based programming life.

Segwit2x UASF Paradise

Possibly my worst most juvenile cartoon ever, but I am so excited about ending the block debate and getting consensus I couldn't  care less, it's the natural consensus paradise. Transactions will be cheap again and the problem is solved in a sustainable way. Whatever happens in my opinion, it's looking like good good fun times.  Segwit2x isn't so bad, even if proved not to be ideal it's better politics than we see elsewhere. UASF actually worked and Mark Karlples might actually make us richer.

Altcoins are Making Kids Rich

There was a time not so long ago when if I had a young son, I may have paid them to do the yard work in Doge. 1 million Doge may not have been out of the question. Now that Doge is worth $3700 NZD. Time to join the cool kids crypto club is running out. It seems old money was a joke and Doge wins at being funny fun times! Altcoins are on a tear and 5 year old shibes around the world are getting ahead.

Even as dogerain closes down, mainly dues to the new cost of transactions, the generation of Dogeilionares are resistant and the memes keep flowing. In the new cryptoland even Doge may need segwit. Go the random resistance!

.   

The Price is UP Big Time but Where is the Volume?

The Price of bitcoin and a whole raft of crypto currencies are up a lot lately. It seems like everyone wants a slice of cryptographic pie, people are talking about it, but when we look at the charts it looks like less people are buying now than in 2013.

Bitstamp

OK Coin and Chinese volume seems to have completely dropped off months ago and haven't picked up. In part because of removal of bitcoin with drawals and leverage.

People say that a lot of new volume is on in Korea and . With their top exchanges bithumb and Bitflyer respectively. They stand rank currently at number 2 and three of exchanges world wide.

Overall we can see that the total USD volume has gone up some. 300million, that's a worldwide figure) but not nearly as much as you might expect. Coinhills is a good site to check exchange  volumes.

Polinex as number 1 ranked exchange, seems to be dominating the market. It offers a large variety of Altcoins. Given that fiat volumes are not that high, could this altcoin trading be helping to fuel the boom. Altcoin prices are going up faster than bitcoin in many places but are very volatile. So people need to get in and out of altcoins and when they do that the go through bitcoin because it's like the USD of the cryptocurrency world.

My prediction made here and here again are coming true, but a lot more that I didn't expect could be taking shape.

  

What to do this Weekend?

The price of bitcoin is going crazy. It feels like 2013 again. In the past weekends have been pretty pivotal. This one is going to count.

,

Intellectual Centralisation

I'm starting to get the feeling that in the future wizards type characters of our fantasy novels may actually come to be. Sorcerers of code and finance, shamans which future minions will come to to fix tablets and robots, for life advise and for mystical financial support.

With the lightning network We are adding layer to bitcoin, something that most people already struggled to understand. I didn't make it through the lightning networks white paper, The bitcoin white paper in comparison could be read to a four year old as a bed time story. For me the lightning network might have to remain in the magical category. That is like the mysterious inner workings current global financial system or how the hell i swipe the eftpos card and then the shop owners lets me take stuff. Where before bitcoin was fully explainable I think the lighting network will remain in the to hard basket "Don't worry it just works".

We don't want bitcoin and crypto currency as a whole to be come to become to complex, because in a way that would make it like the financial system it is built to replace. The progression of programing and the growth of the market is a natural force of intellectual centralisation. Though necessary, the mechanics of this kind of programing are beyond the general public. We need to actively resist complexity and the lack of education or it intellectual centralisation will inevitably happen.

Some bitcoiners love to show off their knowledge when discussing and explaining bitcoin, but this excludes some people from really participating. This defeats the dencetralised ideals on which bitcoin is supposed to be founded. Many new buyers of bitcoin are completely unaware of how it really works. Others feel that its not worth trying to understand. The concept of transaction fees rising, in itself can be confusing. That's not to mention quantum physics, string theory, micro processors, AI, interstellar travel and the big ban that us nerd talk about at bitcoin meetups. We don't want people to feel excluded from a global revolution because they think that they are not smart enough.

Old bitcoiners dream about the Higgs Boson and Astronomy whilst they HODL their millions, but many new enthusiasts don't have a clue. I'm not sure we want to impose nerd culture on the general public we need to ease them into a full enlightenment.And without coming across cultish, its a fine line. I'm a fan of keeping bitcoin as simple as possible and not blowing nubies minds when we explain to them "how bitcoin works", the price lately is enough to do that.