What Ashlee is Reading

 Well, I did it, I finished reading the Bitcoin Standard. Ok, I sort of finished it. Confession: I skimmed over a large portion of the last chapter, since it was largely repetition of earlier points and glowing praise of why Bitcoin is worth the large amount of energy it uses. I did want to write about one thing that I don't think I mentioned before that was reviewed in this final chapter.  Bitcoin uses a lot of redundancy in its blockchain, which is why it consumes so much power and also why it is so impervious to manipulation. This means that one of the weaknesses in Bitcoin is that it is limited in how many transactions it can handle in a given period of time. Visa and Mastercard handle around 2.000 transactions per second, while Bitcoin can handle around 4. (I think those are the numbers given in the book. In any case, Visa and Mastercard handle much more than Bitcoin can). This means that Bitcoin's blockchain can never take over all transactions. This does not mean that B...

 Chapter 8 Bitcoin as Digital Cash Paying in cash is handy, because it is instantaneous, requires no third party or regulate or guarantee against double spending (you can swipe your card with no money in the bank, but you can't pay with cash the you don't have), there are no transaction fees, cash can't be hacked, and the government can't track or control cash payments. Digital payments are handy because you don't need to actually carry around all your money, do math, worry about having the right change, etc. Bitcoin has most of the best of both of these worlds, although you do pay small fees-it it typically less than the fees you currently pay with sending fiat money, especially if you are sending large amounts over large distances, like to family in other countries. More on this later.  At this point the author explains proof of work, the process by which Bitcoin transactions are recorded on the blockchain. In simplest terms, (the only ones I'm capable of usin...