Why $EPIC is #morebitcointhanBTC
It's not as crazy as it sounds, here's why. Join the debate at @BTC_vs_EpicCash on Telegram
Telegram link: @BTC_vs_EpicCash
Attack Surfaces / Control Vectors
Government
Licensure of Mining Facilities - BTC lost 54% of its hashrate overnight when Beijing decided to ban mining. EPIC mining is much more geographically distributed.
Import/Export Restrictions - What would happen if China decided to deny exports of geopolitically strategic SHA256 mining equipment to certain countries? EPIC is mined on ordinary commodity hardware including CPUs from AMD, Apple, Nvidia, and Samsung (48%) as well as standard GPUs from AMD and Nvidia. The availability of suitable hardware to mine EPIC can never be throttled by a single nation.
Lightning Node Licenses - Operators of lightning nodes are arguably providing banking services for which they need to be licensed. EPIC scales on L1 and has enough capacity for high volume use, so there is no need for this type of L2.
AML Franchise Death Risk - Regulators have a strict zero tolerance policy when it comes to observance of AML / CFT laws, and prudent fiduciaries must err on the side of caution. Thus, we see lightning node operators such as Strike requiring KYC. EPIC separates the sins of the owners of coins from the coins themselves, eliminating this crucial regulatory vulnerability and barrier to institutional adoption found in BTC.
Political Consensus Layer Control - When the US government decided that the Silk Road coins were Kosher again, they became untainted so Tim Draper could buy them. Last year, when the US DOJ attacked Bitmex, suddenly all BTC held there was deemed ‘high risk’, negatively impacting the transferability of assets of all customers on the platform, irrespective of whether the user actually did anything wrong.
Taxation on Unrealized Gains - A discussion of whether special 80% tax rates for crypto are appropriate shows which way the wind is blowing. This is trivial to implement with an observable ledger + users who store coins with third party custodians. EPIC held directly by individuals presents a different game theory for predatory adversaries of all stripes.
Brand
Mixed Feelings - “Bitcoin” is a loaded term, and while many love it, there are also many whose perception has been influenced by the decade of FUD.
Extensibility - Epicenter, Epicentric, Epicentral, etc.
Pre-Existing Positive Meaning - The word “epic” has pre-existing meaning to the positive, and no one feels extremely negative about it.
Conflicts of Interest
Protocol Development - Blockstream has a direct financial incentive to cripple L1 capacity, to drive demand for its captive L2’s Liquid and Lightning. Both are centralized solutions that require trust and permission and are antithetical to true Bitcoin.
Consensus
Supplementary Off-Chain Consensus Layer - In EPIC, when the network nodes indicate that coins are valid, they are. In BTC, each coin must be individually checked against an opaque, political “tainted coins database” to assure that it can be safely used. What is a tainted coin, anyway? How much “taint” is acceptable? Who decides? Who watches the watchers?
Culture
(Toxic) Maximalism - In preaching ever more fervently to the already-converted choir, proselytizers are increasingly radicalized, which alienates those who don’t agree with us 100% on everything. Max Keiser ripping up Federal Reserve Notes and screaming is amusing theater, but that type of behavior is polarizing. EPIC endeavors to be welcoming to different demographics.
Centralization
Mining Hardware Production - Eliminates Chinese ASIC oligopoly bottleneck since commodity hardware can mine.
Mining Facility Operation - Mining at home scale is viable, unlike BTC.
Resource Requirements - EPIC requires only 2gb on disk, BTC requires 355gb.
Demographics
Concentrated Ownership - 95% of BTC is owned by 2% of addresses. If the world moves to a Bitcoin Standard based on BTC, a small number of people become very wealthy, and large numbers become poorer. EPIC had the fairest launch in crypto history and is already mined in 101 countries. When mobile mining comes online, 7.1b new users become accessible - free - to EPIC, whereas BTC must market and sell to them in a traditional producer-wholesaler-retailer model that imposes a lot more friction and costs.
Gamers Excluded - EPIC can be mined by 1.7b gamers, BTC cannot.
Gini Coefficient - Should BTC become the world’s money, then a handful of already-rich people become the new plutocracy. 90% of coins are already mined, and mining is not open to normal people. EPIC is only 60% emitted, leaving 7 million coins on the table for regular folks to earn through fair proof of work mining.
Second Chance - BTC is an opportunity to go back in time for those who missed the BTC boat.
Diversification
“Bitcoin” is first and foremost a scarcity paradigm - 21 million. BTC is that “Bitcoin song” on a CD-ROM, and EPIC is that same song on a DVD. EPIC makes sense for a holder of BTC as a hedge against technological risk (see future-proofing section). Ask yourself, is the bet on video adoption, or on whether the Betamax or VHS format will win out?
Environmental Footprint
BTC generates large quantities of toxic e-waste annually from disposable single-purpose ASICs that obsolesce quickly. EPIC generates no incremental e-waste footprint because it is mined on commodity hardware that is service for another application anyway and can do non-mining things (web browsing, gaming)
Financial Characteristics
Upside: Law of large numbers
BTC is $1T, EPIC is $10MM - 100,000x smaller. A small allocation to EPIC (10 bps?) as an insurance policy is immaterial to the overall return profile vs a portfolio comprised of 100% BTC in case it doesn’t pan out, yet could provide an incremental return in the case EPIC is successful. This asymmetry is powerful in itself.
Capital Efficiency
It takes 100,000x more money flowing in to move the needle in BTC vs EPIC a corresponding amount.
Correlation
EPIC is uncorrelated to other assets, including BTC, as it is valued by different groups of people for different purposes (medium of exchange vs pure store of value)
Fungibility & Tainted Coins
Fungibility - EPIC eliminates completely the phenomenon of tainted coins. Coins’ ownership history is reset each time they are spent, making them indistinguishable.
Future-Proofing
Canary Network - ECK Chaos Net version of EPIC allows us to trial new features and configurations before integrating them into the core protocol.
Energy Sensitivity - We are actively evaluating Proof of Spacetime as a Nakamoto Consensus-compatible alternative to Proof of Work - the game theory appears to be similar (no free lunch / something from nothing) yet consumes 99% less energy for farming vs. mining.
Multi-Algo - EPIC accommodates any arbitrary number of consensus schemes and they can be hot-swapped on the fly. Switching from SHA256 BTC would be major surgery and a political challenge.
Rust - With enhanced memory safety properties, EPIC may be improved with less scope for the introduction of bugs vs. BTC C++.
Quantum-Ready - We’ve confirmed compatibility with structured-lattice algorithms and can slot them in if/when quantum actually becomes “a thing”.
Network Effects
Barriers to Entry - BTC requires extensive consultation with lawyers about required licenses and ways to stay safe with respect to banking laws. (For example, is a money transmitter license required to run a lightning node? What is the potential liability should a user commit a crime using this node? The scope of these issues is dramatically reduced for EPIC as it is grandfathered in to existing legislation and accumulated understandings.
User Acquisition - EPIC can acquire users at the front end via mining, BTC cannot.
Risk Avoidance
Geopolitical - What would happen if China decided to ban the export of ASICs to certain countries? BTC is exposed and it would become a major issue. If the world depended on EPIC as its “Bitcoin Standard” this risk is eliminated since the hardware is produced globally by many manufacturers.
Liability - When it comes to ‘crime’ on an observable surveillance blockchain such as BTC, there is no such things as a statute of limitations. Laws that may be unclear at the time are retroactively applied later to prosecute users, as Roman Sterlingov discovered based on his activities from 2011, which landed him in prison in 2021.
Regulatory- The attack surface for the EPIC ecosystem is much smaller than that of BTC.
USDT - EUSD avoids dependence on this vulnerable piece of key infrastructure in the BTC complex.
Scalability
Supply Integrity
Fractional Reserve / Rehypothecation - Unlike BTC, where for many ownership of ersatz BTC exposure via an IOU claim on a counterparty is just as good / better than direct coin possession, the same cannot be said for EPIC. The value of EPIC comes first and foremost from its unparalleled utility as a fluid p2p medium of exchange, and secondarily as its ineluctable role as exclusive collateral accepted for the EUSD decentralized self-banking system. An IOU for EPIC doesn’t work, providing a margin of protection for these otherwise-concerning issues.
Technical Considerations
Language - EPIC is in Rust, BTC is in C++
Mimblewimble - The importance of Mimblewimble cannot be overstated. EPIC benefits from a growing gap between its capabilities and those of slow-moving BTC.
Multi-Asset - EPIC is natively configured as a multi-asset ledger, providing Ethereum-style token capabilities (ERC20 style fungible & ERC721/1155 style non fungible).
Throughput
EPIC can currently handle 3x the throughput vs. BTC (1.4MM daily vs 500k).
Utility
Cost - EPIC is cost-effective on L1 for a wider range of use cases than BTC. Immutable micropayments are not possible on BTC, whereas they are on EPIC.
Speed - EPIC is much faster than BTC - use cases requiring faster speed than 10 minutes can be accommodated on EPIC, not so with BTC.
Transparency - BTC sacrifices transparency in order to scale, since users cannot track their transactions on a block explorer.
$EPIC is not just a currency, it is the cornerstone of an entirely new type of decentralized commerce ecosystem that is only possible because of its unique functional properties. Learn more about the Epicenter vision in our Hello World document.
Thank you for caring about the future of Bitcoin, as we do. Whichever form of Bitcoin is right for you, let’s remember what it’s supposed to be about - minimizing the role of intermediaries whom we must place trust.
Come check us out @EpicCash on Telegram.