I haven't posted a BCH chart in a while as BTC leads the market.
However I've always seen BCH behaving like a fractal and it's really a question of how big is the next fractal going to be?
I like what I see thus far. I still believe in a 2018 bull run for BTC and the crypto market. However maybe it will peak in 19. Don't know, the move up is pretty fast, faster than the down trend. Could take 2-4 months. Which means we still may bear a bear market for a few more months.
The lightning network is garbage and blockstream crippled BTC by limiting the blocksize.
It will take 38 years to load 7 billion LN channels.
Nodes are susceptible to regulation as money changers., can go offline, and could clog the mempool when they do.
There are many more technical problems with the lightning network, but I brought up a few basics. That and Segwit removes witness data and nodes only verify that 1 node did the work to prove the transaction happened, but then no other node can validate it... Segwit coins aren't exactly bitcoins either.
I see it this way if I may make an analogy.
The American government was designed so that the citizen, the individual would be the master of the government.
This leads to some fundamental ideas on what makes the master a master and a slave a slave.
I'll pull this from an economic genius, solomon.
You see, whoever has the most gold is king. The king lends his gold to his slaves in order to get more gold through usury. With that in mind consider this solomon proverb.
Chapter 22 verse 7
The rich rule over the poor and the borrower is slave to the lender.
Now I'm not a book buff and I haven't read that book either. However I learned of that proverb and you know what, economics laws just don't change. It's as true today as it was then.
Gold is the money of kings
Silver is the money of nobles
Barter is the money of peasants
Debt is the money of slaves.
Did you know, peasants had a lot of free time and vacation time, because even then the ruling party knew to keep the masses happy to keep their power. They had a lot of free time when the fields didn't need tending.
Anyways lets get back to the point... The point is the government cannot tax the master, directly or in his income or property.
That is exactly what kings do. They are "God", they own all the land, and thus you're the peasant slave that must pay taxes to the kings collectors, the nobles, who in turn pay the king.
Direct taxes are against the constitution for good reason. It's the basis of the individual being the master and the government the slave.
In 1913 the government was changed to such an extent that no longer were we living in a country called America, home of the free. It became a totally different state that just happens to be called America as well.
This is where I make my connection to BCH and BTC.
They were based on the same technology.
However BTC changed the fundamental economics of consensus by adding another layer on top of bitcoin. Also by adding segwit.
Now you have economic incentive that is direct competition with securing the network.
Much like direct taxes like the income tax eviscerates the constitution to such an extent that the Income tax payer is the slave, and no longer the master of his government.
He works for the state, and the state gains power over him economically and limits his options.
Let me ask you this, if you don't know of all the options that could exist, the options you didn't know were taken away. Are you free, or are you slave? Would you know the difference?
The lightning network completely eviscerates the laws of bitcoin. It changes economic incentives and there is no way of telling just how it will affect the network.
It may destroy the incentive to secure the network by displacing fees, and you may find a much weaker coin supporting a settlement layer that has no true security of it's own. It's security is based on bitcoins hash-rate security. Yet it competes with it's own security.........