Bitcoin Is Dead, Long Live Bitcoin

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 15, 2016, 7:50 PM UTC

nickbauman wrote: post #79

snowwrestler wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem however is that a nation's currency is arguably the primary source of it's sovereignty. The reverse is also true--any significant currency creates sovereignty by elevating the power of those with the greatest influence over that currency. In the case of Bitcoin, the "core" developers, in addition to the highest-volume miners, have been elevated to the sovereign position. Rather than a distributed statel…

Exactly this. Humans have complex social structures. Notice, too, how the sorts of animals humans domesticate are animals with a strong social hierarchy. This is key: to control the lot, you must subjugate the leader. Famously, Zebras were never domesticated because they lack this hierarchy.

Post by datamingle » Fri, Jan 15, 2016, 7:52 PM UTC

pcmaffey wrote: post #119

blhack wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.coinbase.com/

Thanks, looks good. Next question for my adoption is: I want to shop anywhere online. Do they have a browser extension that can (1) handle payment processing anywhere and (2) convert my bitcoin to cash for vendors that don't accept bitcoin.

Post by wmf » Fri, Jan 15, 2016, 8:01 PM UTC

Anonobread wrote: post #46

Block size isn't a free parameter. The team behind btcd, a Bitcoin full node written in Go, made the following observations about block size [1]: 1. a 32 MB block, when filled with simple P2PKH transactions, can hold approximately 167,000 transactions, which, assuming a block is mined every 10 minutes, translates to approximately 270 tps 2. a single machine acting as a full node takes approximately 10 minutes to veri…

Post by kobayashi » Fri, Jan 15, 2016, 8:07 PM UTC

supster wrote: post #57

slg wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with an economics background, I'm surprised you think the biggest problem is the statelessness of Bitcoin. The biggest economic problem to me has always been an unintelligent control of the money supply. You can criticize some of the actions that many central banks do to manipulate the economy, but I have a hard time buying the answer to bad management is no management.

The money supply is fixed to 21 million. Fortunately, the coins are basically infinitely divisible, so as the coins become more valuable (assuming over the long run that coins are used for larger and larger amounts of commerce rather than speculation), small transactions simply happen at smaller units. In other words the system is steadily deflationary instead of the highly volatile inflationary system we currently h…

Post by CyberDildonics » Fri, Jan 15, 2016, 8:17 PM UTC

Freak_NL wrote: post #115

dragontamer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly however, is the rent-seeking by BTC enthusiasts. BTC hoarders don't "deserve" any more wealth than later adopters, and yet wish to create wealth from nothingness and basically a giant Ponzi scheme. At least with stocks and companies, the stock actually means something: typically a vote for the board, or access to a dividend.

It seems strange to consider a currency as a viable alternative for other currencies, when a sizeable chunk of the total available sum of it is owned by a single person or group simply because they came up with the system, and another large part is in the hands of speculators. There is nothing fair about a currency that is so volatile in value by design and is essentially speculative in nature. It is sad to see that…