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Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

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Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#81

Post by andy_ppp »

MBCook wrote: post #64
andy_ppp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it’s a store of value like a rolex or a pot of gold. Except much more fungible. And it increases in value relatively every time new “real” money is created. I don’t agree that it’s just for illegal transactions.

It's not just for illegal activity, it just seems like that's a huge percentage of its current use. Not unlike Tor, sadly. It may be more fungible at the moment, but is it anywhere near as safe? Gold goes up and down but nowhere near to the degree we've seen with bitcoin. Add a minimum it's useful in manufacturing so even if the price crash there would still be people to buy it. Rolexes are useful, they have an intri…

Does the FUD you just wrote invalidate the utility I suggested? If, maybe, someday etc. Bitcoin could be worthless. This is very true but money, of any kind, is only worth what people believe it’s worth.

And in case you didn’t know, cash is also used for illegal activity...

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#82

Post by MBCook »

drizzzler wrote: post #65
MBCook wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't make them wrong. I find the idea of crypto currency, especially bitcoin, very interesting. I just have a very hard time seeing how it's actually useful. It can't handle very many transactions per minute. And the thing that supposed to make it so great is that no one controls it. But if bitcoin becomes really important then people will want to control a lot of the mining power. Pretty soon you end up with a gr…

>I just have a very hard time seeing how it's actually useful Why is it so hard to see? Whenever you send money somewhere electronically, a middleman takes a cut. With Bitcoin there is no middleman. It's that easy.

How many money transfers do Visa or Amex handle per day? The Federal Reserve? What about Western Union?

Is bitcoin capable of doing 50% of that? 10%? 1%?

I know people have just decided to expand the block size but what's a realistic limit on how many transactions can be done per hour? Is that enough for real widespread use?

I can certainly see uses but I worry that he can never get big enough to truly matter. Or if it does that a government or large private entity could easily try to take it over through force of computing power.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#83

Post by CapitalistCartr »

an_account wrote: post #62
xutopia wrote: post #36

I see so many people dissing the technology and rehashing old arguments. You shouldn't consider Bitcoin as a currency but as a better form of Gold. Like gold it has a limited amount available: ~180k tons of gold and eventually 21 million bitcoins. Like gold it is a good store of value (especially as more people are dropping their gold to purchase BTC). Unlike Gold you can send it to someone else online and that means…

Many people buy gold for “post apocalypse” scenarios. How well is the bitcoin network going to work in the post apocalypse?

Many people buy shovels to clear snow. How well will general purpose shovels work after a blizzard?

Product 1 has use A (in this case Apocalypse Insurance), and product 2 doesn't because its meant for another scenario.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#84

Post by tehlike »

chenster wrote: post #28
mrep wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin does seem to be the best payment technology for online illegal transactions. Albeit, one could argue those shouldn't be 'real' in the first place.

Monero could be a better choice as it is completely untraceable.

yeah, i am planning to invest/speculate in it. along with zcash/dash/etc.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#85

Post by joelrunyon »

moronicalox wrote: post #54
joelrunyon wrote: post #44

I'm curious what the naming conventions are going to be to transact bitcoin on a regular (offline) basis. Are you going to say 1/10 bitcoin or will that have a name? One thing I haven't seen anyone talk about is the language to make bitcoin more accessible. No other currency (that I know of) has 1 unit as the MAX unit to transact (at such a high value) with no smaller denominations. If Bitcoin really DOES end up at 1…

It does have a name. You're talking about mBTC and bits https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Units

This all seems way more complicated than "buck", "quarter", "dime", etc?

Maybe I'm just not used to it yet - maybe they're just use the first part? "san", "deca", "mil"

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#86

Post by ikeboy »

drizzzler wrote: post #76

It's funny how thick HNers are about Bitcoin. I believe it's evidence of the sort of passive conservatism of the tech community. Bitcoin is some utopian shit, the decentralized technology dream that has a ton of traction, yet many of you just can't seem to get behind it. Is it because YC is an ultra capitalistic investment fund and Bitcoin is just too anarchist for its fanboys? For all the people out there saying, "I…

I've used it and noticed how miners will only include your transaction in a reasonable length of time if you pay a fee, and even that is artificially low due to the subsidy.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#87

Post by brownbat »

Temasik wrote: post #7

Bitcoin have no real world use case

The global remittance market transferred more than half a trillion dollars last year, typically at exorbitant, near monopolistic rents.[0]

How big of an industry are electronic payments? Anyone have a guess? I couldn't even find a number I was confident was a reasonable approximation. Unfathomably large.

A unit of exchange as volatile as BTC is not an obvious ideal in the US. But what about in Venezuela, compared to local currency? What's the value of an asset that holds or appreciates, or even bounces around wildly in value in comparison to a currency with triple digit inflation? If all it does is put a stop to the grossest malfeasance by the dozen worst central banks in the world, how would we calculate that as a value?

It's reasonable to believe that BTC isn't the ideal solution for any of these, but with the established markets, even if it is destined to just take over a minority 1% of those sectors, then it's currently far undervalued. If it has a shot at preventing governments from causing mass starvation by printing money and passing it to cronies,[1] then it's a net win for humanity.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/aug/18/g...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1gUR8wM5vA

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#88

Post by cyphunk »

johnwheeler wrote: post #56

It's 100% bubble. It could go up to $6,000, $50,000, or even $1M. It's not localized like tulips, and it's connected to the internet, so the universe of people available to fuel the speculation is enormous. That the Chinese are highly speculative is what's mainly driving the current price. It has no intrinsic value. It's like gold in that it's not a productive asset. It doesn't yield anything like stocks or bonds. Th…

the china essentialist argument was debunked once CN regulators forced CN exchanges to institute a know-your-customer policy. Result, the bots they used to fluff their order books had to go. You can see this difference from that day onward very clearly in exchange trade volume comparison: https://data.bitcoinity.org/markets/volume/2y?c=e&t=b

actaul trade from china is similar or smaller to that in the EU at the moment

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#89

Post by cheez »

drizzzler wrote: post #76

It's funny how thick HNers are about Bitcoin. I believe it's evidence of the sort of passive conservatism of the tech community. Bitcoin is some utopian shit, the decentralized technology dream that has a ton of traction, yet many of you just can't seem to get behind it. Is it because YC is an ultra capitalistic investment fund and Bitcoin is just too anarchist for its fanboys? For all the people out there saying, "I…

Except anyone can figure out where my money comes from and where it goes. No thanks!

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#90

Post by mixedCase »

an_account wrote: post #62
xutopia wrote: post #36

I see so many people dissing the technology and rehashing old arguments. You shouldn't consider Bitcoin as a currency but as a better form of Gold. Like gold it has a limited amount available: ~180k tons of gold and eventually 21 million bitcoins. Like gold it is a good store of value (especially as more people are dropping their gold to purchase BTC). Unlike Gold you can send it to someone else online and that means…

Many people buy gold for “post apocalypse” scenarios. How well is the bitcoin network going to work in the post apocalypse?

In a true, real post apocalyptic world, you can't eat gold, you can't have sex with it, it will not cure your sickness nor will it feed your vices; therefore, it has little to no value.
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