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SEC says it will deregulate cryptocurrencies with 'Project Crypto' (qz.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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In a Thursday speech, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Paul S. Atkins announced “Project Crypto,” an initiative to modernize the country’s securities rules and regulations to move financial markets on-chain.

“Under my leadership, the SEC will not stand idly by and watch innovations develop overseas while our capital markets remain stagnant,” he said at an America First Policy Institute event in Washington D.C. His plan includes measures to reshore crypto businesses that have left the country and to ensure that “archaic rules and regulations do not smother innovation and entrepreneurship in America.”

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[–] 2 points 1 year ago (9 children)

I think it's early to call Bitcoin obsolete, it is still after all the dominant cryptocurrency by every measure.

Other blockchains have continued moving on.

So which systems do you see as offering real utility or innovation? Obviously there's etherium, and it has its own issues, but what else out there do you think is really more than a just gimmick or a scheme?

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Its technology is obsolete. That doesn't mean it can't still dominate the market share.

    For example, a case could be made that coal power is obsolete. There are still plenty of coal power plants on the grid. Windows 8 is obsolete, but you'll find plenty of computers still running it. And so forth. There's inertia in these things.

    And Bitcoin's current "dominance" is 60%. That's not exactly an overwhelming position.

    So which systems do you see as offering real utility or innovation? Obviously there's etherium

    You answered your own question.

    Ethereum's not just one token, mind you. There's an ecosystem on Ethereum with a lot of innovation that's not directly rooted in Ethereum's advances. That's the benefit of supporting smart contracts, it's a general purpose computer that other stuff can be run on. There are a lot of layer-2 blockchains running on Ethereum, for example Aztec which has Monero-like privacy built into it.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Yes, Etherium is very cool and it can do a whole bunch of really cool things! But on the other hand, it can't replace Bitcoin. It's too heavy, transactions are too large, the network can't hope to handle the number transactions per minute that Bitcoin does. I think most people agree that the two systems compliment each other, they each work well in their niche, but couldn't do the others' job.

    So yeah, I don't see Etherium replacing Bitcoin. Perhaps a layer-2 could, but I have yet to see any that offer the kind of tangible improvements that would really make it stand out.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (6 children)

    the network can't hope to handle the number transactions per minute that Bitcoin does.

    As of this writing, Ethereum is handling 21.1 transactions per second. Bitcoin is handling 4.9 transactions per second. So purely in layer-1 transactions per second Ethereum's got 4.3 times the capacity of Bitcoin.

    Some of those Ethereum transactions are for running layer-2s, as you mention that greatly expands Ethereum's capacity. Ethereum is specifically designed to be able to handle layer-2s well, it has features that were added to make them easier to scale. Bitcoin, on the other hand, was never designed for layer-2s and what it does have are hacked-together bodges like Lightning that are going nowhere.

    I think most people agree that the two systems compliment each other, they each work well in their niche, but couldn't do the others' job.

    What "job" does Bitcoin do that Ethereum can't? And before you say "digital gold", there are literal gold-backed stabletokens on Ethereum if that's what suits your fancy.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    A lot of bitcoin transactions are opening lightning channels so second layer is working there too

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    The comment you're responding to linked to a page giving statistics about the Lightning network. The number of channels peaked in 2022 and has been going down ever since then.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (3 children)

    Number of channels is decreasing, but the money in each channel increased. In BTC terms the money decreased, but in real terms the money increased.

    Real terms being 2022 dollar value

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (2 children)

    No it hasn't. Again, according to that link I provided, the total capacity of Lightning peaked in December 2024. These are not the graphs of a growing layer 2, it's been stagnant for many years.

    Bitcoin simply wasn't designed for this sort of application, and Bitcoin's foundation layer is absolutely frozen due to the ideology of its users and developers so I don't expect the situation will improve. If you want to do a layer 2 then why not use a blockchain that's specifically designed to support it? If you use Ethereum you can even use token-wrapped Bitcoin as your medium of exchange. There's $14.4 billion dollars worth of WBTC on Ethereum available for exchange, as opposed to the $440 million worth in Lightning channels.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    If bitcoin is worth more, you need to move fewer bitcoins to achieve the same result. If there USD value moved in lightning never increases then I would agree it's a failure

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I was specifically speaking in USD terms, take a look at the page I linked above. It has graphs with both USD and Bitcoin on them. In Bitcoin terms Lightning's capacity peaked in early 2023. In dollar terms it was December 2024. The line is squiggly and has a general long-term upward trend overall on the net dollar capacity, but it really doesn't look very impressive compared to Ethereum's layer-2 architecture. And that's the only line where I see a long-term rise, the rest have been stagnant or declining for years.

    I stand by my overall view that Bitcoin's technology is simply obsolete. It doesn't do anything, it just sits there being valuable because it's valuable. I don't think that's going to endure forever.

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