Bitcoins - about to hit $5,000 per coin today!

[gib]

Announcement from Google here:

https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/announcing-agents-to-payments-ap2-protocol

Google's Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) combines programmable payments via modern blockchains like Sui with open protocols like A2A and MCP that are enjoying rapid growth. It's the perfect substrate for real-world agentic commerce." - Sam Blackshear, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder at Mysten Labs.

As I have always said, we will see many chains compete and be used for smart contracts. But in terms of base-layer of money, as opposed to smart contracting protocols, we will see all fiat gravitate to BTC.

[gib]

Last comment - this protocol is going to be great for micropayments for AI / internet. These payments will accumulate in total digitized economic value. And that value, when stored or combined in larger chunks, will be stored and benchmarked in BTC. Imagine hundreds of thousands of micro specks of gold, all eventually being combined and stored into a gold coin as the analogue example. Its an excellent development to see. We have sovereign wealth funds, countries, ETFs, and BTC treasury company at the top end, and micropayments a the bottom, and USD stable coins coming, all with beautiful funnel into BTC over time. Once whale BTC selling eases and the balance rotates into BTC positive demand, we will see a beautiful positive short squeeze momentum cycle that feeds on itself. Anyone who acts now, will be very very pleased with themselves when looking back at their actions they take now...

[obsidian]

I would say, Eth maxies should be concerned any time a better/faster smart contract platform gets created - especially one from a major tech player.

Just being faster or running on more powerful hardware doesn’t automatically make a blockchain “better.” Ethereum’s main mission is to be decentralized, permissionless, and neutral — not to chase raw throughput. That’s why Ethereum is designed so validators can run on modest hardware, letting as many people as possible participate in securing the network.

Yes, 32 ETH isn’t pocket change, but compared to corporate giants like Google or major staking services, an individual validator is still “the little guy.”

If Ethereum’s only goal was speed, it could just scale like Solana — which requires enterprise-level servers and a 10G internet connection — but then it would lose decentralization.

BTC Maxis should understand this trade-off well. The block size war that led to the Bitcoin Cash fork was fought over the exact same principle: decentralization over raw speed. Google could build the fastest “blockchain” on Earth — but it would just be a centralized database, subject to censorship and control.

[Flexacon]

Google could build the fastest “blockchain” on Earth — but it would just be a centralized database, subject to censorship and control.

The GCUL dev lead thinks he can build the database and then later focus on making it decentralized. Pure comedy.

The guy or his marketing team is should be fired for uttering such drivel.

[Flexacon]

You are pretty much right with this comment. You are confusing the BTC as base layer. BTC will be the primary unit of value which all economic value is measured in, and benchmarked to. Including on GCUL. But you are right, GCUL is closed (and by the way not decentralized L1). I also know someone kind of on this project at Google with a similar background to the guy you mention- I wonder if its the same guy! I'll ask him.

I would say, Eth maxies should be concerned any time a better/faster smart contract platform gets created - especially one from a major tech player. Time will tell. Google do have a record of failure with new projects, but this one they are well placed for. I am a Google shareholder, so would be please to see them succeed.

Google cloud have a great team and they will rack up a lot of wins with their partnerships, but GCUL just aint it. There are a whole bunch of very similar database/L1 projects which will have first mover advantage anyway.

[Hulkotron]

I heard there was a rate cut.

What moves do the getbigger investment sharks suggest?