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Ask HN: How many of you believe in Bitcoin and why?

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Re: Ask HN: How many of you believe in Bitcoin and why?

#31

Post by akhmatova »

Canada wrote: post #10

I believe in Bitcoin. Specifically, in the sense that the concept of digital money it created is never going to go away now that it's out. It will have the staying power in human life precious metals, paper currency, bank deposits, stocks and bonds. It will exist as long as the internet exists, long after you, me, and everyone on this forum is dead and gone. If you think it's a scam and going to collapse then don't h…

Besides that fact that this statement is simply untrue because the government of El Salvador has backed Bitcoin, it is not logical.

When people say that they mean, you know -- large, stable, democratic governments. Which El Salvador (and the CAR et al) are essentially the opposite of.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you believe in Bitcoin and why?

#32

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

csomar wrote: post #6

> I don't believe in Bitcoin because it is a scam. This is a part where I can't agree. A scam assumes someone is profiting on purpose. Bitcoin supply is largely diluted now though some early adopters made big, this was mostly by chance. That is, unless you think Nakamoto is still hiding for the big pay-off. > Bitcoin is a digital currency that has no intrinsic value There is no such thing as "intrinsic value". The va…

Right — if it was going to crash, wouldn't it have done so the last... 40 times it crashed?

Re: Ask HN: How many of you believe in Bitcoin and why?

#33

Post by I_DRINK_KOOLAID »

It's really interesting that an asset which should only prompt the question: "Will it go up or down?" generates the question "Do you believe?" instead.

The secular parts of the country are completely exposed to such phenomenons, because in reality they aren't really secular, they just substitued one religion for another.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you believe in Bitcoin and why?

#34

Post by smackeyacky »

redox99 wrote: post #29
smackeyacky wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crypto part is fine, not that I can claim to understand it. The trustless model where the paper insists that irreversible transactions are the only acceptable form of financial settlement is hubris and ignorance.

> the paper insists that irreversible transactions are the only acceptable form of financial settlement The paper never insists that irreversible transactions are the ONLY acceptable form of financial settlement. In fact it says "the system [financial institutions] works well enough for most transactions". It points out that there is NO electronic system that allows no reversible transactions, as you can with cash. T…

Maybe short sighted. But given the current state of crypto currencies and the culture surrounding them, it seems an entirely fair assessment. That crypto currencies are designed to eschew third parties is a defining feature that attracts people who don't care to be scrutinised.

Mostly, those people are looking to bypass the law.

Crypto currencies encourage illegal activity by design. The paper sets that out, in plain sight in the introduction.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you believe in Bitcoin and why?

#36

Post by foobarbaz33 »

I myself am not into bit coin. but.... I don't think you articulated any arguments against it.

> it is a scam.

How so?

> Bitcoin is a digital currency that has no intrinsic value

Fiat currency has no intrinsic value either. Aside from precious metal coins.

> not backed by any government, which means that it can be used to finance terrorism or other illegal activities.

Illegal activity is older than bitcoin. It can be and is financed with government fiat currencies.

Unless you just mean the convenience of using banking systems.

> creating a self-reinforcing upward spiral that is unsustainable and will eventually collapse.

I agree here. The value of bitcoin is based entirely on more people wanting to buy-in. But this is not much different than any other commodity/currency hybrid such as gold.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you believe in Bitcoin and why?

#37

Post by redox99 »

smackeyacky wrote: post #34
redox99 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the paper insists that irreversible transactions are the only acceptable form of financial settlement The paper never insists that irreversible transactions are the ONLY acceptable form of financial settlement. In fact it says "the system [financial institutions] works well enough for most transactions". It points out that there is NO electronic system that allows no reversible transactions, as you can with cash. T…

Maybe short sighted. But given the current state of crypto currencies and the culture surrounding them, it seems an entirely fair assessment. That crypto currencies are designed to eschew third parties is a defining feature that attracts people who don't care to be scrutinised. Mostly, those people are looking to bypass the law. Crypto currencies encourage illegal activity by design. The paper sets that out, in plain…

What you're saying boils down to the age old discussion regarding privacy, "nothing to hide", etc that has been discussed a million times. I suggest searching for previous discussions regarding this.

Even then, I don't think a technology should be disregarded just because it has some use cases that you disagree with.

Also you vastly overestimate how much crypto is used for "illegal activities". The reality is that it's almost entirely used as an investment, similar to gold.

> Crypto currencies encourage illegal activity by design.

They definitely don't ENCOURAGE illegal activity. You can argue they can maybe facilitate it. It still is much worse than cash for illegal activity in most cases however.

And by the way, just because something is illegal does not mean it's bad. A lot of things that are legal and accepted now were illegal before. And even if you agree with all current laws in your country, remember that there are a lot of other countries, maybe not entirely democratic, with very different and unfair laws.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you believe in Bitcoin and why?

#38

Post by pc2g4d »

beardyw wrote: post #5
pc2g4d wrote: post #2

Bitcoin is a means of transferring value peer-to-peer across the internet. I believe in that. I also am interested in the predictable inflation schedule and limit on issuance---I think it's a nice option to have. Bitcoin is actually pretty unfriendly to terrorist groups because it's a public ledger, making it relatively easy for law enforcement to track. By contrast, being backed by a government doesn't actually make…

> If the Internet had had a payment system built into it from the beginning That's quite an ask. HTTPS only arrived half way through its existence.

Of course, it is counterfactual. I was just trying to illustrate the point that payments would come in very handy for internet infrastructure.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you believe in Bitcoin and why?

#39

Post by smackeyacky »

redox99 wrote: post #37
smackeyacky wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe short sighted. But given the current state of crypto currencies and the culture surrounding them, it seems an entirely fair assessment. That crypto currencies are designed to eschew third parties is a defining feature that attracts people who don't care to be scrutinised. Mostly, those people are looking to bypass the law. Crypto currencies encourage illegal activity by design. The paper sets that out, in plain…

What you're saying boils down to the age old discussion regarding privacy, "nothing to hide", etc that has been discussed a million times. I suggest searching for previous discussions regarding this. Even then, I don't think a technology should be disregarded just because it has some use cases that you disagree with. Also you vastly overestimate how much crypto is used for "illegal activities". The reality is that it…

> They definitely don't ENCOURAGE illegal activity. You can argue they can maybe facilitate it.

This is what I like to call the "sawn-off shotgun" idea. Sure, there might be a legit use for a sawn-off shotgun, but they are never used for that[0].

I would agree that speculation is the most common use for Bitcoin, although I'd more characterise that as rube farming. If you attempted to launch a security with the characteristics of Bitcoin, you'd be in jail. When the music stops, there simply won't be any chairs.

As for disregarding a technology because I don't agree with the use cases, it's perfectly legit to avoid pyramid schemes and greater fool farms for the same reason. The often-cited-but-always-missing good use cases for crypto currencies are such a tiny proportion of what it actually gets used for they become a novelty.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawed-off_shotgun#:~:text=guns....

Re: Ask HN: How many of you believe in Bitcoin and why?

#40

Post by andirk »

csomar wrote: post #6

> I don't believe in Bitcoin because it is a scam. This is a part where I can't agree. A scam assumes someone is profiting on purpose. Bitcoin supply is largely diluted now though some early adopters made big, this was mostly by chance. That is, unless you think Nakamoto is still hiding for the big pay-off. > Bitcoin is a digital currency that has no intrinsic value There is no such thing as "intrinsic value". The va…

One can substitute "bitcoin" for "fiat USD" and _most_ of the arguments against it are also against fiat and any other traded commodity. Bitcoin's shining difference to fiat currency is that it isn't backed by any singular entity. One can see that is good or bad as they choose.
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