It seems like a protocol change to enforce a minimum transaction value would make sense. There is a 'dust' limit, but I believe that's just relay policy; and by default, it's only like 546 sats or something like that. If UTXO's were instead forced by consensus rules to represent a more reasonably useful value (in sats), it seems like that would a) add more disincentive for spammers to create a bunch of otherwise useless UTXOs; and b) the otherwise useless UTXOs that do get created would make useful sats that much more scarce... all without having to judge what is spam and what isn't. I assume I'm missing something, though, because this seems like such an obvious mitigation to me; but that I never see discussed.

This is great! But, bitcoin as a payment method being better for the merchant than fiat payment rails is only half of bitcoin's thesis as a better payment method... and until the other half is realized (i.e. the merchant splits those benefits with the customer), then the novelty is destined to wear off and die.

🔥

Hmmm... looks like it still might only be working for purchases of potato chips? 😁

I'm loving how concise this newsfeed npub is.

In all seriousness, I don't think fractional reserve banking is inherently bad. Though, I seriously question if the current lack of informed consent on the part of depositors renders the practice de facto unethical - the wide availability of disingenuous booklets of fine print notwithstanding.

DEEP THOUGHTS: Was the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" a psy-op designed to condition the general public not to question fractional reserve banking as anything other than just necessary and normal bank behavior? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPkJH6BT7dM #asknostr

In other news: https://www.newsweek.com/federal-reserve-faces-transaction-delays-issues-services-affected-11613563

anything that came after AskJeeves is an abomination. 🤣