Billionaire Mike Novogratz says 10% of his money is in Bitcoin and Ether • Hacker News Board

Re: Billionaire Mike Novogratz says 10% of his money is in Bitcoin and Ether

#111

Post by akvadrako » Fri, Apr 21, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

robbiep wrote: post #71

bergie wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my neighborhood there are bars that accept Bitcoin. I've paid several dinners with my Android BTC wallet. Quite convenient in a city where you usually can only pay with cash...

Quick question - from someone who hasn't looked at bitcion since it was between 10c and $5 - since your transaction doesn't clear until the block propagates how they handle double spends?

The same way that restaurants make sure you pay instead of just leaving the building. It's mostly just not worth the hassle to save a few bucks.

Re: Billionaire Mike Novogratz says 10% of his money is in Bitcoin and Ether

#112

Post by loceng » Fri, Apr 21, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

atemerev wrote: post #5

Not a billionaire, but also trying to keep some percentage of my net worth in cryptocurrencies. Worked great so far. 10% seems to be about right. (I have much more trust in blockchain than in government retirement schemes).

Is this for the speculation of the value increasing, or tied to another reason? You're of course aware of the potential value increase and how that benefits you?

Re: Billionaire Mike Novogratz says 10% of his money is in Bitcoin and Ether

#113

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 21, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

to_bpr wrote: post #19

kolbe wrote: post #9

Has anyone noticed the disparity between how many articles get written about btc's price, and how little gets written about its real-life uses and benefits?

I feel like we're beyond pretending Bitcoin has said uses and benefits and have accepted its status as a technical commodity/investment instrument. It could be because of the barriers to entry, even perceived barriers to entry, or barriers to said use that it's not actually being used for its intended "purpose", admittedly.

[deleted]

Re: Billionaire Mike Novogratz says 10% of his money is in Bitcoin and Ether

#114

Post by zanny » Fri, Apr 21, 2017, 4:58 PM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #105

jeremyt wrote: post #79

The people in this thread hating on crypto are missing the point. Complaining that you can't go into CVS and buy something with Bitcoin right now is like complaining that all you can do with the Internet is send "electronic mail", which nobody reads, in 1990, or like complaining that Facebook is nothing but a glorified campus directory in 2006. The truth is, you can't buy things with Bitcoin at CVS because the techno…

> The truth is, you can't buy things with Bitcoin at CVS because the technology isn't there yet ... In a couple of years, the addition of the lightning network on top of the Bitcoin network will enable you to buy things at CVS. That's awfully optimistic. Occasionally I drop in on Bitcoin forums/subreddits to amuse myself, and what I've seen for the last year+ is a deadlocked stalemate with the Segwit/BU/LN/no change…

Considering the price its trading at, that is probably what people want.

Bitcoin is crypto gold. It has been valued by markets as cryptogold for 5+ years. Nobody wants to turn it into crypto money now, because that would destroy the valuation for its scarcity and clunkiness.

The alogirthms for cryptomoney are going to be different, and the fact nobody has written a compelling implementation yet (ie, can handle preposterous transaction volume, huge networks, maintain consistent inflation to incentivize maximum velocity so it can work as a money (unlike btc), and avoids costing billions in proof of work mining to maintain) hasn't taken off yet.

Re: Billionaire Mike Novogratz says 10% of his money is in Bitcoin and Ether

#115

Post by martinrue » Fri, Apr 21, 2017, 5:08 PM UTC

I'm surprised there's no mention of Dash in the comments yet. Having spent some time researching different crypto currency technologies with regards to becoming a better, decentralised payment network, Dash is (in my opinion) a far better Bitcoin.

It's also the first example of a functioning DAO. The organisation is funded entirely by the blockchain (new blocks reward the miner, the master nodes, and fund a treasury). It has a second network of 'master nodes', which are collateralised and incentivised to provide security and additional features to the network, including Instant Send (really fast confirmations).

The most impressive thing is that it's already positioned to make decisions about future changes by way of master node voting, so it doesn't suffer from the same issues Bitcoin does currently, where proposed changes have no means to be agreed and actioned quickly.

I'm really impressed with Dash and I hope it gets more attention.

Re: Billionaire Mike Novogratz says 10% of his money is in Bitcoin and Ether

#116

Post by Analemma_ » Fri, Apr 21, 2017, 5:08 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #114

Analemma_ wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth is, you can't buy things with Bitcoin at CVS because the technology isn't there yet ... In a couple of years, the addition of the lightning network on top of the Bitcoin network will enable you to buy things at CVS. That's awfully optimistic. Occasionally I drop in on Bitcoin forums/subreddits to amuse myself, and what I've seen for the last year+ is a deadlocked stalemate with the Segwit/BU/LN/no change…

Considering the price its trading at, that is probably what people want . Bitcoin is crypto gold. It has been valued by markets as cryptogold for 5+ years. Nobody wants to turn it into crypto money now, because that would destroy the valuation for its scarcity and clunkiness. The alogirthms for cryptomoney are going to be different, and the fact nobody has written a compelling implementation yet (ie, can handle prepo…

I actually completely agree with you. I didn't want to say it out loud, but I do agree that the way Bitcoin is hyped to outsiders (as the future of currency transactions, independent from governments and banks) is very different from how Bitcoin holders actually think about it and use it (as an asset to be pumped-and-dumped). Bitcoin defenders tend to get very upset when you point this out though.

Re: Billionaire Mike Novogratz says 10% of his money is in Bitcoin and Ether

#117

Post by nugget » Fri, Apr 21, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

jeremyt wrote: post #88

nugget wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't doubt the underlying blockchain technology will continue to scale but my question has always been the lock-in effect of Bitcoin and other existing crypto-currencies versus new entrants. As the major banks, payment processors, and clearing houses look into moving in this direction it's clear they are going to roll their own solutions.

Well, I guess that's great. It's a free market, and the best option will win, but a blockchain isn't a blockchain unless you have enough distributed hashing power behind it to ensure that no one entity or small groups of entities has control over the network. I'm still puzzled as to how banks think they're going to do this.

> to ensure that no one entity or small groups of entities has control over the network.

Why is this necessarily a problem? I think the hard forks in both BTC and ETH have shown that there is an inherent "appeals" process no matter what. Seems like you can separate the appeals process from the underlying settlement and record keeping technology. New blockchain providers just need to represent what the ultimate appeals process is for each implementation (instead of hashing power, could easily be any of a dozen other ideas, including recourse to the existing judicial system which has what I'd call a net-neutral set of advantages and disadvantages).

Re: Billionaire Mike Novogratz says 10% of his money is in Bitcoin and Ether

#118

Post by jeremyt » Fri, Apr 21, 2017, 5:22 PM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #116

zanny wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the price its trading at, that is probably what people want . Bitcoin is crypto gold. It has been valued by markets as cryptogold for 5+ years. Nobody wants to turn it into crypto money now, because that would destroy the valuation for its scarcity and clunkiness. The alogirthms for cryptomoney are going to be different, and the fact nobody has written a compelling implementation yet (ie, can handle prepo…

I actually completely agree with you. I didn't want to say it out loud, but I do agree that the way Bitcoin is hyped to outsiders (as the future of currency transactions, independent from governments and banks) is very different from how Bitcoin holders actually think about it and use it (as an asset to be pumped-and-dumped). Bitcoin defenders tend to get very upset when you point this out though.

Whenever I look at anti-Bitcoin arguments, it mostly just boils down to the fact that they don't really know Bitcoin all that well.

There's absolutely no reason why digital gold can't be extremely liquid. There's no reason why increasing the valuation of bitcoin itself is going to do away with the digital gold market (raise your hand if you hold gold and would be super upset if it went up 100x).

The complaints about stagnation and the fact that the community is having political difficulties etc is true. But I also remember some years ago when twitter couldn't even keep its servers running and everyone was writing it off as a technology that couldn't scale.

Even if the naysayers are right and and Bitcoin never becomes anything but digital gold and a way to send money between different countries, then the market cap still has like 50x to go.

Finally, I'll only accept arguments that Bitcoin can't become the next digital currency from people who thoroughly understand the lightning network. If you actually understand how Bitcoin is structured, there's no way it could ever scale to the point where every transaction is written to the block chain.

That's why we are creating the lightning network, which is essentially a VISA prepaid credit card system on top of Bitcoin. You can contribute a certain amount to your lightning account and then make unlimited purchases, instantly and it practically zero cost all month and then settle with one transaction to the blockchain. All of this is secure and trustless.

The only thing standing between the lightning network and what we have now is a fix for malleable transactions which is held up because of a political dispute.

The nature of the dispute is unimportant, mostly due to the fact that the rebels have tried to do a hard fork attack over the last month and have failed, proving Bitcoin to be decentralized enough (and it will get more decentralized as it gets larger). The opposition, at this point, can't win and can only delay. At some point, incentives will ensure that they have to go along with the fix, and then it's Bitcoin 10,000.

I'm invested in Bitcoin for the long-term and have no interest in pumping and dumping. To date, I haven't sold any Bitcoin, and I have high six figures worth.

I'm more bullish on Bitcoin than I have been on anything, and I would openly welcome any legitimate arguments that convinced me otherwise, but I haven't heard anything yet that can't easily be explained by a misunderstanding of the underlying technology.

Re: Billionaire Mike Novogratz says 10% of his money is in Bitcoin and Ether

#119

Post by baby » Fri, Apr 21, 2017, 5:26 PM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #82

jeremyt wrote: post #79

The people in this thread hating on crypto are missing the point. Complaining that you can't go into CVS and buy something with Bitcoin right now is like complaining that all you can do with the Internet is send "electronic mail", which nobody reads, in 1990, or like complaining that Facebook is nothing but a glorified campus directory in 2006. The truth is, you can't buy things with Bitcoin at CVS because the techno…

You can't go into CVS and buy things with gold either.

Pretty sure that if you ask the cashier to exchange your gold nugget with a toothbrush you will have no problem proceeding with the transaction.

Re: Billionaire Mike Novogratz says 10% of his money is in Bitcoin and Ether

#120

Post by chc » Fri, Apr 21, 2017, 5:29 PM UTC

srssays wrote: post #107

chc wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the event of a societal collapse so great that no money is usable, it's pretty hard to imagine people caring about Bitcoin. There might not even be power in this weird Mad Max scenario. They'd probably want to barter for goods.

Societal collapse doesn't have to mean going back to the stone age, it could mean e.g. the Iranian revolution. Or for a contemporary example: the Syrian civil war. Even Spain was a dictatorship until 1975. Everybody should consider the possibility that their society will collapse, even if they choose to do nothing about it.

My point is that there are a lot of things that seem like they'd be better to have in case of societal collapse than an Internet currency with no intrinsic value that you'd have to educate most of your (possibly former) compatriots about just to have a chance of them letting you use it.