Hi Cryptovestor,
I enjoy your videos. I appreciate the fact that you aren't just pumping coins, you are making up your own mind and do so while trying to be honest.
I don't agree with a couple of your points though. And for the record 65% of my crypto portfolio is in Bitcoin and 3% in RaiBlocks.
The lightning network is not going to be an answer to Bitcoins scaling issues. I got around to looking into it a few days ago and was bitterly disappointed. Opening up channels of commerce that are only useful over repeated transactions is not worth the hassle imo. And I'm coo-coo over cryptocurrency. I'm one of the guys that goes out of his way to transact via bitcoin.
Scalability and adoption are a little bit like the chicken and the egg. You can't talk about one without the other. I believe that if Bitcoin scaled more gracefully it would be being adopted that much more quickly.
Which makes RaiBlocks an interesting alternative. If it doesn't do what it claims it can do, and I clicked on this video expecting you to tell me it doesn't, then it will be worthless. But IF it does then my gut feeling is that Litecoin and Bitcoin could be relegated to Silver and Gold 2.0. The reason why RaiBlocks was around so long unnoticed was because people assumed Bitcoin would be the answer. The optimism around the lightning network has shaken my confidence though and opened the door for alternatives.
Also I feel you slipped and missed the point when you said if speed and scalability were the only issues then we have PayPal. There's a reason people are interested in conducting transactions with cryptocurrencies instead of a government issued and controlled currency.
Maybe not unlike the reason you are interested in using Steemit instead of YouTube?
Thanks again for the thoughtful videos and insight.
Wait, you don't think lightning will fix bitcoin, but still own 65% bitcoin? Does not compute. If you don't believe in Lightning, you don't believe in Bitcoin. To be clear, neither do I.
Bitcoin and litecoin are not stores of value, by definition. They're not digital gold and silver. A store of value must first be used as a widespread currency and build a history of purchasing power stability (this is the adoption phase, not random mass purchasing by laymen who heard about it from their cousin's nephew, despite prohibitively high fees destroying any utility the network may provide), or there is no value for it to store. If you're not on the lightning bandwagon, abandon bitcoin for something with an actual future while it's still priced in 5 figures.
I think the basic idea of lightning network is in and out between 2 accounts, but this can be generalized to much more, even if there is no transaction between to btc addresses. This is just a record of some transaction that is then sent to the blockchain. It's like if you sent btc to a A address, that send the same amount to the B address that finally send your btc to the receiver address. Then all transaction that have used the virtual A/B addresses goes to the blockchain. Note that A and B addresses can be used as sender/receiver, and the blockchain has just to receive the sum of these transaction. So you just send btc to someone, he receives it instantly thanks to lightning network, and ultimatly the blockchain record it. No idea of what you see about your address on the blockchain, maybe some transaction labeled as lightning.
So, yes, it is a scalability solution, this plus bigger blocks, maybe to handle all information about the transaction of a lightning network (that have to be recorded) will make BTC the more powerful crypto by far. Just add smart contract and you have a beast that no one can beat ...
I'm not a blind BTC believer, just realistic, my favourite crypto that I hodl wathever is LTC (just saying to be clear).