Bitcoin Q&A: Net Neutrality and open blockchains

Andreas, what's your opinion on Hyperledger projects such as fabric, sawtooth etc ?

It is truly scary to hear governments talking about all kinds of internet restrictions, lucky for us we already see projects like Sentinel security group developing payment gateway infrastructure which already gave us first working blockchain based solution for bandwidth based metering and incentivization. You can now pay for dVPN bandwidth with crypto currency. Good luck restricting that uncle Sam. Blockchain is perfect for these types of use cases and I am glad to be part of this revolution

Everyone going on about buy substratum, whats the value of the coin? How does the coin/currency provide utility,
Is it to pay to use decentralised version of internet? Thats worse than what we have now, its a case of just invest in anything that has block chain or decentralised in it.

So who is going to pay for the maintenance and installation of routers and ISP infrastructure etc? who is going to do the actual work involved. Who will sort out government permits to trench fiber?

To get from your house to the ISPs internet breakout, I am not sure how we can get rid of these companies for that portion. It will always be needed there,

Boy I hope that is true.

It was fine before 2015, and it is fine today.

Excellent

Funny how the names of these bills con people. Net neutrality,affordable care act,patriot act.

Andreas, love your talks. Can you speak on hashgraph? Could existing crypto's that are mined / distributed via blockchain technology eventually be ported over to a hashgraph-type distribution network (assuming this resolves the existing constraints of blockchain). I would really look forward to anything you can speak of regarding hashgraph technology

For everyone that's concerned about this issue. I would recommend to look into the substratum Project.

Hi… I'm a complete simpleton and know nothing about computers or crypto currencies… I have a small property with a garden plot, a chicken coop, an old pickup truck, and work as a pipe fitter and welder.

What does all this mean for people like me?

I've always distrusted the banking and monetary system and did my best to function independently of it.
I'm all for 'democratizing' currencies and putting power back in the hands of the people so they can determine their destinies.
If digital currencies grant people more autonomy and sovereignty, then great.

However, what does all this mean for 'peasants' like me who are not involved in this digital world, and quite frankly, have no desire for it?

Assuming digital currencies take over, I don't see what will stop the richest and most powerful people from acquiring the bulk of digital currencies simply because they have the most money to buy it, and/or invest in the computing power to mine it.

Sure, some regular folk have jumped in and increased their wealth, but the vast majority of people have not.

Furthermore, the success of digital currencies is being measured against already existing national currencies… everyone is celebrating because their digital currencies are worth more 'dollars' that can be used to buy tangible assets.
Even if the currency is digital, life is still analog.

I may just be a dumb welder, but I know that digital industries are heavily dependent on mining and oil.

And is it true that a single Bitcoin transaction consumes enough electricity to power three average sized homes for 72 hours?!
If so, how is such a resource intensive system of currency sustainable?
It seems utterly wasteful to me that buying a pizza with Bitcoin would require dozens or even hundreds of times more energy than was required for the pizza itself.

I'm not a naysayer against digital currencies, I just don't see how any system can fix problems that are predominantly psychological or 'spiritual' in nature.

thanks for this- great insight 🙂

Hi Andreas, bitcoin is dropping like crazy. Do u have some advice?

Oneweb and SpaceX …

SUBSTRATUM

The loss of net-neutrality is bad for all crypto currencies as it relegates them to criminal activity that got them off the ground, not general retail and customer usage. If the world's internet starts blocking peer 2 peer, then it's the end for Bitcoin even if you can reconcile the blockchain over longer timelines.

Did anybody else notice, the Internet bigwigs started messing with his bandwidth when he started talking about it…

I really enjoy all the coverage you do about bitcoin and the other ALTs. Please continue with educating the public about our space and I am true believer that block chain technology will change the world. Whats your thoughts about the new EOS block chain that is suppose to outperform ETH.

Substratum has the solution!

Is always a plesure listen to you Andreas. Big fan here.
You are the ultimate crypto guru in the entire world and we thank you for your awesome job.

The funny part is Trump and his administration removing "Net Neutrality" is like Trump removing "The Federal Reserve." Anybody believing The Obama Regime was protecting The Internet by calling their censorship of it "Net Neutrality" has been an easy dupe. Have you not noticed the amount of censorship at YouTube, Google, Facebook and Twitter multiplying over the last 2 years? The Internet just got an upgrade. Thanks, Mr. President!

Less govt, less regulation, more competition. Bad business model to start jacking prices up or blocking customers. That drives them away.

Andreas, would love to have you on The Bad Crypto Podcast! You should check them out.

Please comment on SUBSTRATUM…….sounds like a possible answer

Brilliantly said. Thank you.

Without government regulations creating cartels, we would have hundreds or thousands of internet providers and a real free market, so this topic of net neutrality wouldn't be a problem because we would have real competition.

I'd like to sing praises again about Substratum. A decentralized application anyone can use anywhere in the world seemlessly without the need for special software. And the SUB token is on a tear as you can imagine!!

So will it thrive more people to using blockchain solutions?

I really hope this centralization will backfire and just accelerate the decentralization of networks.
But the first few years it will segregate internet users: the ones who do know how to use VPN and crypto currency and the ones who don’t. This digital illiteracy will thrive a wedge between those groups.

did you purposely make this low quality — show people what they can expect in the future. 😛 — seriously though, thank you for all of your hard work. You're a great tech profit that I've looked up to for a long time.

Andreas I'm curious why you mention monopolies and centralization of ISPs yet don't seem to mention the root problem: monopolies granted to ISPs by government in the first place.

Hi Andreas, 1st & 2nd payment done in the south of france at international pizza & Burger have a look on facebook please.

Why are you ok with off chain and replace by fee? It's becoming a federated coin which will then have lightning hubs and bitcoin was never a federated coin. The On chain with zero-conf is what kept bitcoin censorship resistant, trustless and permissionless!

How are u saying government controlling the internet is a good thing ? Net neutrality is s total scam. It is literally government control

Net neutrality would not fix the competition issues. THAT is a local municipality issue . Sorry you are not well informed on this subject.

A lot of folks do not understand the difference between the internet and the Web (Spying technologies from UK / US Government). The Web is not the internet, and you can use the internet without the Web. Actually, Internet 2.0 was already made by the Navy (Tor onion). However, we programmed innocent weak folks (Including PhD students) via psychological warfare systems to believe The Darknet =Tor onion instead of the Internet 2.0. Finally, the government wants to censure the web(Cyberbrainwashing their own citizens to go dying via fake wars) because they can't control the flow of information from VPN technologies . To be honest, I believe that the web(centralized network) will be dead pretty soon. The answer will be internet 3.0 (Meshnet)….. Trust me 🙂

Wasn't the 2015 net neutrality legislation only due to come into effect in January 2018 anyway? Now it will just never come into effect.

Substratum (sub) is the answer