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It should be a balance between readability, findability and integrity.

I would not bet on the btc blockchain for it. Its relativly complex to use, its very niche, it is already 360gb big and there might be a time were it either disappears or gets optimized and your information will be gone.


I wrote my name in the Bitcoin blockchain 6 years ago, I barely knew Javascript.

For a blockchain like Bitcoin to fit all of its transactions in only 420GB is an engineering feat that should be admired

The blockchain data will never be "optimized" or "disappear"

Please take the time to learn how Bitcoin works before pontificating


There's no technical barrier to truncating a blockchain. Just create a new genesis block and have it initialize every account balance to the balance it held at the end of the previous block chain. You could discard all the junk data as simply as that.


"No technical barrier" means nothing with respect to Bitcoin. You have to convince a large majority of Bitcoin users / miners / exchanges / services to switch to your new genesis block or other protocol modifications, otherwise your fork will die off, or at least not "be Bitcoin" as the rest of the world sees it (e.x. Bitcoin Cash, etc)

But really it's not even necessary, nodes can and do prune op_return, spent, and otherwise unspendable transaction outputs.

The point though is someone is likely to always hold onto a complete history of the Bitcoin blockchain, even if most users don't.


> The blockchain data will never be "optimized" or "disappear"

The former may or may not happen depending on how widely it is used, certainly not everyone will have the full blockchain on their devices due to storage requirements. The latter is a social issue not a technical one.

> Please take the time to learn how Bitcoin works before pontificating

One can definitely make an argument that Bitcoin will lose its social relevance in 100 years. Or 500 years. Or 1000 years. Do you see where i'm going with this?

Most of the OSes currently in use might not be relevant in a century. Most of HDDs or SSDs in use currently won't be around in a century, unless they're a part of an abstracted and clustered storage pool, which would take constant effort to maintain. Even short of the technical concerns, there is still need for social relevance - if and when it eventually ceases to be relevant, no one will care much about maintaining copies of the full blockchain, except for maybe in some museum archive.

Using a globally distributed store like that is a good idea, but it's definitely not foolproof. One of the better ways, perhaps, but maybe there are even better ones, that you or a foundation in your name controls, with properly sourced funding and preservation of data being its sole and primary concern.


>The blockchain data will never be "optimized" or "disappear" This is a really bold assumption - you do understand that core dev is still ongoing, yes?

You do understand that "infinite data on a disk" doesn't exist, yes? And as the chain goes on longer, more space is going to be needed, and centralization of the miners will continue to increase, yes?

Please take the time to learn how Bitcoin works before pontificating


Just like the Internet, Bitcoin is built on layers.

The Layer 2 technology, like the Lightning Network will fix the "infinite data on disk" problem.

> centralization of the miners will continue to increase

Ask yourself: why do miners use energy to run the Bitcoin software?

You can get paid to learn about Bitcoin with the Satoshi Passport app on iOS.


The point is someone will always store a complete history of the Bitcoin blockchain, even if most users/miners prune it.


If growth continues linearly it will be less than 20tb. It is possible to fit that much data on a single physical drive even now, let alone in 500 years. 360gb is just not that much.


The first blockchain will almost certainly be preserved for historic significance


We thought that about Usenet.


Wait, we lost it?


Don’t worry, Satoshi archived it in the genesis block!


At some point improvements in computing will mean that the "crypto" in current cryptocurrencies will no longer be secure, and therefore all current currencies of this type will have to be abandonded for something else - quantum-something.


Eh, you just need a different "crypto" that's quantum safe. Yes if someone today had a computer that could crack private keys, all current crypto would be dead immediately. If crypto has some advanced warning (enough time to implement a new quantum safe private key scheme, update node software, and allow users to move funds to quantum safe addresses), then it's not existential.


"but damn, getting all the necessary permissions for this involved SO much more effort that you would expect." srsly?

He choose facebook, the cancer of our society, to persuite his VR dreams.

What did he expect?


Do you have the feeling that you miss Satelite or that you use it a lot?

Because while i agree on GPS and all the others (and it happened anyway), i'm lost on why i would care about satelite?

I do prefer optic fiber when possible.


I have two specific needs for remote data connections (uploads in both cases). In one, satellite connectivity makes a ton of sense, and I think we are on the cutting edge of it being viable. This need is fairly tolerant of low bandwidths & high latencies.

The other need requires low power, high bandwidth and low latencies. Satellite is completely nonviable as of now. We might need an upgrade in the physical laws of reality to make it viable.

I imagine 90% of most people's usage would be closer to the latter case than the former. Denser constellations might make the former more palatable in the long run.


You can use satellites in many ways without realizing it.

Examples:

* Rural cell towers that use satellite backhaul

* Airplane wifi over the ocean

* Newscasts which use video uploaded via satellite, from places like Afganistan


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