Ver defrauded the bitcoin community in 2 ways
- As someone who claims to be a Bitcoin original gangster and to understand Bitcoin, it is ridiculous to emphasize that the most important feature for Bitcoin is the speed of transactions (we know that unforgeable costliness is the key feature of Bitcoin, don't we?). Thus, his support of Bitcoin Unlimited, Bitcoin XT and later on Bitcoin Cash was probably an attempt (together with Bitmain and Jihan Wu) to corner the Bitcoin mining market, thus massively decreasing (or destroying) Bitcoin's security.
- Later he offensively tried to confuse investors by claiming that BCH was the "real Bitcoin", e.g. by using the domain bitcoin.com to promote the shitcoin BCH. Many BTC investors and users thought that this site was an authoritative source for Bitcoin. And people were mislead on this site so that they believed to buy BTC when, in fact, they were buying BCH.
Additionally he was caught in countless lies, and his behaviour is erratic, childish and he seems to have zero self-control (
The points I made are (currently) not frauds by law, so he won't be punished for that. I dislike him being punished for tax-fraud or tax-evasion, but it's a bit ironic.
Yes, and BTC was and still is p2p. Everybody can use it meaning that no intermediary is necessary. That doesn’t mean that I need to pay a coffee within the BTC blockchain (that's similar to using a Concorde to get to the next baker around the corner). These unimportant and small-scale transaction can easily be done via second layers as is done for Fiat with Visa or during the gold standard with banknotes as a second layer for gold.
I am sure you know of the blockchain trilemma: you can't achieve all of the 3 important goals of Decentralization, Scalability and Security within the blockchain itself. And as I consider security the most important one (fiat severely lacks security, but offers scalability) I'd delegate scalability to second layers.
Am I a BTC maxi?
Not in a normative way, meaning that I am not saying BTC should or must be the one and only one crypto coin or currency. I try to look at the world as it is. So in a descriptive way, I'd say yes: the currency market is a "the winner takes it all - market". Within fiat currency the USD is the clear winner (all fiat currencies stay alive through governmental force). Within precious metals, gold is the clear winner. Within crypto coins and for the function of a currency Btc has zero serious contenders. If you look at the value of BCH, Dash (I was a fan, once), Monero, etc in a relation to BTC, they have all fallen for years, and if you look at the value of transactions of BTC compared to other cryptocoins this relation is even way more tilted towards BTC. I expect this trend to continue.
Second layer of Bitcoin is only convenient If you use a custodian (eg wallet of Satoshi for lightning). They probably Limit the use in time you really News it (eg wallet of Satoshi IS Not available in the US-playstore). Almost all LN liquidity comes from big sources.
BTC will collapse under its own weight, especially when normal plebs (funds below 5000$) want to withdraw IT from Exchanges and have to pay 100$ in fees and more.