What happens to your cryptocurrency when you die??

A thread...

1/20 Bitcoin is too slow and expensive for payments. We all know this. To solve this problem, the Lightning network is being built on top of Bitcoin's blockchain. Will it be the end of XRP?

(Video version @ https://t.co/7zJCuKrpqx)

A thread. 👇

2/20 On a normal day outside a bull run, Bitcoin takes ~10 mins to transfer, at a cost of about $0.50. Any time network activity ramps up, those times and fees multiply. Bitcoin's Proof of Work system is painfully slow and can only handle 7 transactions per second.

3/20 To attempt to solve this problem, the Lightning Network is being developed. It's a 2nd layer network that sits on top of Bitcoin's blockchain. It's been in the works since 2015. Yes, 6 years. Do you know anybody who uses it? Me, either, but I'll get to that.

4/20 Lightning works by opening "channels" between parties. Those parties can perform as many Bitcoin transactions as needed and then close the channel. Because the transactions aren't written to the Bitcoin blockchain until the channel is closed, it's much faster.

5/20 Individual payment channels between various parties combine to form a network of lightning nodes that can route transactions among themselves. The resulting interconnections between various payment channels is the Lightning Network.

Election day in US; to skip the politics and get straight to the money, here's our quarterly update. How do gold, silver, and government fiat money compare with bitcoin's 21 million? #Bitcoin is the 10th largest money in the world, ex-gold & silver. This is update #10.

2/ Bitcoin's monetary system marches on its continuously-lowering coin emission; meanwhile, other world monetary systems' units inflate, either naturally (like gold & silver ounces), or via monopolistic privilege (like government fiat money "printing").

3/ What follows isn't a lesson in stimulus or bailouts, whatever the world faces. It's an attempt at painting the monetary landscape around the globe. The dollars, euros, and yen we're all familiar with, collectively, are worth $25 trillion. This is an exercise in perspective.

4/ As many know, the response from governments worldwide to Covid-19 has been drastic, so expect big moves. Also interestingly, central banks have been much slower to update their data these days.

5/ Gold & silver is base money of the past. Government fiat is base money today. It comprises both physical cash… and a digital cash component. Bitcoin may be base money of the future. Before we get to the charts, it's important to clarify a few common misconceptions in money.

On the importance of leverage for the crypto ecosystem.
A long time ago, BNP Paribas bought a retail forex exchange, because they thought they'd get an insight into forex trading flows and positions. What they quickly discovered, is that the website was a muppet slaughterhouse.

People would get stopped out ALL THE TIME because they used too much leverage. Over 90% of them lost money in a consistent way. Those are worse than even casino odds.
That's why around 2005, you had so many forex trading websites popping up. They would offer up to 500x leverage.

The higher the leverage, the better (for the website).
This became such a huge trend that regulators stepped in, and introduced maximum leverage rules. Something like x30 for forex, if I remember correctly. All of a sudden, all the ads and Premier League sponsorships vanished.

Forex gambling is still around, but not nearly as profitable, because it takes time for people to lose their money with a pitiful x30 leverage. Currencies usually don't move by 3% in a day. It can take weeks for an amateur trader to lose it all. Plus the adrenaline rush is gone.

Enter crypto.
It's hard to explain how one-sided leveraged crypto trading is. Traders don't stand a chance. With currencies, you could expect to extract SOME money from real world flows. In crypto, there are no real world flows. It's just traders against traders against insiders.