Altcoins have a long tradition in the Bitcoin community, but they tend to cause a contentious divide among those who think they’re useful and those who think they’re all scams.One side of the argument, articulated by the Satoshi Nakamoto Institute’s Daniel Krawisz, is that altcoins have no chance of success and distract possible users from Bitcoin, while the other side, articulated by many Ethereum supporters, believe platforms such as Bitcoin and Ethereum can work together.Johnny Dilley, who runs strategy at Blockstream, was recently asked for his thoughts on altcoins during an interview on The Crypto Show.Dilley believes the vast majority of altcoins are scams, and he also thinks Bitcoin developers are not threatened by the existence of these alternative cryptocurrencies.The incentive for altcoin speculators to promote uncertainty in the Bitcoin community was also discussed.The Vast Majority of Altcoins Are Scams When first asked about altcoins, Dilley echoed recent statements made by Monero developer Riccardo Spagni and stated, “I continue to believe that the vast majority of altcoins are scams.

They provide no functionality whatsoever, or the functionality they could provide could very easily be implemented via a sidechain.” A sidechain is an alternative blockchain to Bitcoin that uses the same Bitcoin currency through a pegging mechanism.The idea is to allow developers to experiment with completely new blockchains without having to bootstrap a new currency network (altcoin).Bitcoin Hivemind and Rootstock are two examples of sidechains currently in development.Blockstream has handled the vast majority of the development work for sidechains up to this point.Dilley went on to discuss the security concerns associated with altcoins.Critics often point to low network hashrates and alternative consensus models as potential risks of these alternatives to Bitcoin.Dilley added, “If you’re going to fall back to [a weaker security model], you might as well be piggybacking off Bitcoin via sidechains.” Bitcoin Developers Not Threatened by Altcoins In terms of whether altcoins are a threat to Bitcoin, Dilley said: “I don’t think the Bitcoin developers ‒ they’re not doing things from a perceived competitive perspective.

Their perspective is: ‘I have this awesome piece of technology, and I want to be able to help develop it and bring it more into what I think is interesting to build on top of this.’ So no, I don’t think it’s from a perceived threat of any of the altcoins.” In the past, many altcoins have marketed themselves with some sort of comparative advantage to Bitcoin.For example, some altcoins have touted faster confirmation times; others claim to offer privacy enhancements.For the most part, Bitcoin developers have focused on implementing their own innovations rather than responding to what’s going on with the altcoin market.Although Bitcoin developers may not view altcoins as serious threats, Zcash CEO and longtime cypherpunk Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn recently warned the Bitcoin community to not become too complacent in the push for Bitcoin.Does Uncertainty in Bitcoin Fuel Altcoins?There has been some uncertainty in the Bitcoin market recently due to the ongoing scaling debate.Dilley was asked on The Crypto Show whether he thinks this uncertainty has led to some Bitcoin holders fleeing into altcoins.

At first, Dilley responded, “I think there’s some serious, perverse incentives [for altcoin holders to cause uncertainty for Bitcoin], and that’s a broader topic.” Dilley went on to explain that there are definitely some members of the Bitcoin community who would seize on the opportunity to attack if they saw an opportunity to increase their return on an altcoin speculation.The head of strategy at Blockstream pointed to the large number of scams in the Bitcoin ecosystem over the past few years as a way to explain that there is no shortage of nefarious actors in the space.buy litecoin by credit cardIn addition to altcoin promoters, Mastering Bitcoin author Andreas Antonopoulos has noted the likelihood of attacks from various government agencies.cramer on bitcoinOnline Bitcoin discussions have turned into schoolyard-esque yelling matches over the past year, but it’s unclear how much of the divisiveness in the community has been organic.bitcoin book epub

There are plenty of incentives for a variety of different types of non-Bitcoin users to throw gasoline on the fire.Britons go to the polls on June 8 to choose their next government. gives incumbent Conservative Party an 83 percent chance of retaining power, with Theresa May continuing to serve as Prime Minister, a position she has held since July 2016.A victory for May’s Conservatives is a victory for the enemies of free and private speech.bitcoin penny stocksThe party’s manifesto, and Theresa May’s ideology and track-record, have made that clear.bitcointalk altcoin miningAs Home Secretary, Theresa May introduced the Investigatory Powers Act, described as the “most extreme surveillance law ever passed in a democracy”.bitcoin mit mastercardThis act compels internet companies to keep a file on their users’ activities, and introduces bulk warrants.

She is also personally responsible for the Draft Communications Data Bill, which would extend the bulk collection.Speaking after the London Bridge attacks on Saturday night, May said, “We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed.Yet that is precisely what the internet, and the big companies that provide internet-based services, provide.” Think about that.Of all the possible methods of addressing terrorism, May has opted to shut down free and private speech, even though we have known for years that there is no evidence that restricting free and private speech is an effective counterterrorism measure.The truth is that surveillance has little to do with terrorism.We saw this in the case of America, where politicians always talked about terrorism to justify broad surveillance powers, but leaked NSA documents showed that only a very small minority of cases were related to terrorism.The enemies of civil liberties always use the same rhetoric: they want to take away freedoms from the bad guys.

But it is not possible to remove privacy selectively from bad guys.An attack on privacy is an attack on every member of the British public.May’s extremist ideology is so corrosive because it can apply to all civil liberties.Should bad guys be executed without trial?When a government picks and chooses which citizens get to benefit from legal protections, you’re left with despotism.May’s implication that privacy comes from “the big companies that provide internet-based services” is far from the worst thing she has said, but it shows a basic ignorance of technology.The gold standard in encrypted communications, Signal, is made by a team of five.Witch doctors should not be appointed to direct the National Health Service, and people with fundamental misapprehensions about technology should not make tech policy.The Tory Party’s election manifesto says, “Our starting point is that online rules should reflect those that govern our lives offline”.Well, we can have private conversations in meatspace.

Does May wish to shut this down too?To bug every home?If she wishes to shut down the safe spaces where unwanted ideologies can breed, is she going to shut down mosques as well?This may seem like too extreme a comparison, but it is not; the internet is the forum of civil discourse.A government that promises to remove the safety of such a forum is as near totalitarian as makes no difference.So much for surveillance, let’s look at the Tories’ position on censorship.The manifesto says a Conservative government, “will put a responsibility on industry not to direct users – even unintentionally – to hate speech, pornography, or other sources of harm.We will make clear the responsibility of platforms to enable the reporting of inappropriate, bullying, harmful or illegal content, with take-down on a comply-or-explain basis”, and that it will, “introduce a sanctions regime to ensure compliance, giving regulators the ability to fine or prosecute those companies that fail in their legal duties”.

This approach of putting the onus on technology platforms to block bad content is misguided.Forcing platforms that host user-generated content to self-police adds to their costs, so such a law would make Britain a less appealing place for such companies to do business.It is also futile.The content is always a few clicks away on a different site.(America’s failed Stop Online Piracy Act had the same plan.)The manifesto goes on: “We will continue to push the internet companies to deliver on their commitments to develop technical tools to identify and remove terrorist propaganda”.Subtract the rhetorical appeal to counter-terrorism, and look at what is really being proposed here: the government wants to push for the development of technical tools to censor unwanted ideologies at a click.Since when is it the government’s job to “push” the internet to develop tools for censorship?The Tory manifesto actually addresses this question head-on, saying, “Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to technology and the internet.

We disagree.” This statement only seems less appalling than it really is because we compartmentalize technology as an independent issue.Imagine if they had said, “Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to conversations in the home.We disagree”, “Some people say that it is not for government to regulate what is said in the mosque.We disagree”, or “Some people say that it is not for government to regulate when it comes to freedom of the press.We disagree.” Strip away its science-fiction glamour; the internet is really just another media device.It’s like the Gutenberg press.And I thought we’d agreed a long time ago that it is not the government’s job to regulate the press.The same disturbing failure to understand that the internet is a shinier Gutenberg machine pops up again later in the manifesto: “At a time when the internet is changing the way people obtain their news, we also need to take steps to protect the reliability and objectivity of information that is essential to our democracy and a free and independent press.” This is rather thin on detail, but who is the judge of “reliability and objectivity”?