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Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

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Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#81

Post by imaginenore »

thinkMOAR wrote: post #25
Laforet wrote: post #12

And what is the point? Does the price prove that bitcoin has not failed? To me, bitcoin died sometime in 2013 when mining became hopelessly centralised, breaking the economic and security models Satoshi had set forth. The bitcoin thereafter has been a soulness Frankenstein animated by a mixture of ego, greed, and hubris. I don't want to make any predictions, but when the crash comes it will be over before you knew it…

"Does the price prove that bitcoin has not failed?" Does the price of a painting determine it is a good painting? Afaik not.

It proves it's a desired one. Which is a very important quality for a currency.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#82

Post by ckastner »

Udik wrote: post #73
aedron wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So annoying to see triumphant declarations of victory of bitcoin, based solely on the price increasing. Speaking as a bitcoin owner and proponent, there is zero (actually negative) market uptake of bitcoin as a payment platform (which I happen to believe is bitcoin's primary use case). This is because no work has gone into scaling up transaction throughput, which has predictably suffered as a result of increased main…

> there is zero (actually negative) market uptake of bitcoin as a payment platform ... This is because no work has gone into scaling up transaction throughput No, or only partly so. The other, more fundamental reason why bitcoin will never be a payment platform, is that it doesn't behave as a currency, but as a commodity. The hard limit on the number of bitcoin is both the guarantee of its value and what makes it an…

Initially I perceived Bitcoin to be a payment platform, but I too now believe that it now behaves more like a commodity.

Which is odd, because without any other utility, what's the point in choosing this commodity over others?

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#83

Post by knocte »

ship_it wrote: post #64
paxpelus wrote: post #59

Many people on HN are so negative in bitcoin that it seems that they are focused on the tree instead of the forest. This technology can solve the main problem human society faces and this is corruption. Human greed is what keeps bitcoin alive but this is not a bug, it is a feature.

To be honest, Bitcoin in no way does solve corruption. Actually, Bitcoin in current state can only increase corruption in society by giving a sense of anonymity. Political corruption on other hand, might be solved through it, but thats the case we are left to see.

Maybe the OP refers to corruption as two political/financial practices: QE and fractional reserve banking.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#84

Post by legulere »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #43

The reality is that bitcoin has the first mover advantage. Any other virtual currency has a big mountain to climb to catch up to it. 100 years from now bitcoin will be around since there is no one entity that defines it and control it. What the community has shown is that they are willing to adapt to the situation. Right now bitcoin has problems but as time moves the code will be modified. What's happening now is tha…

Both the Chinese miners as well as the Bitcoin Client developers have near absolute control over Bitcoin. They decide how the code is getting changed. At least for the miners the motivation is clear: monetary profit (bitcoin is not money). And the only way to keep up the profit is through speculation.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#85

Post by lawlessone »

ftw45 wrote: post #70

No, it didn't die and it won't die anytime soon. But dollars, Euro's and all other physical currencies are about to die(soon). Why? Because just like the change from gold and silver coins to almost worthless nickel, this type of currency creates a whole new universe of possibilities. With nickel and paper money, banks can create as much cash as they like, it's virtual value, not real. Crypto currency is just like tha…

>But dollars, Euro's and all other physical currencies are about to die(soon).

Yeah, your type have been saying that a long time.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#86

Post by lawlessone »

knocte wrote: post #83
ship_it wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, Bitcoin in no way does solve corruption. Actually, Bitcoin in current state can only increase corruption in society by giving a sense of anonymity. Political corruption on other hand, might be solved through it, but thats the case we are left to see.

Maybe the OP refers to corruption as two political/financial practices: QE and fractional reserve banking.

>QE and fractional reserve banking.

Those are features.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#87

Post by Laforet »

topmonk wrote: post #45
Laforet wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All right, I will be a bit specific for your benefit: - There is a lot of wash trading going on with several exchanges, some of which has had serious accounting issues since 2016. When they fail, the fallout will be far more spectacular than that of the late MtGOX because many traders are heavily leveraged. - Upcoming Segwit2x hard fork potentially splitting the network. - Uncertainty with China where the majority of…

> - There is a lot of wash trading going on with several exchanges, some of which has had serious accounting issues since 2016. When they fail, the fallout will be far more spectacular than that of the late MtGOX because many traders are heavily leveraged. Hand wavy nonsense. Exchanges have failed before and bitcoin is still going strong. > - Upcoming Segwit2x hard fork potentially splitting the network. There alread…

>Hand wavy nonsense. Exchanges have failed before and bitcoin is still going strong.

The stakes are different this time.

>There already was a hard fork, and the network did split, yet bitcoin is still going strong.

The previous party line is "Hard fork bad, soft fork good". Anyway, we can agree that now everyone is free to start their own fork and it's a good thing for bitcoin^TM.

>The bitcoin difficulty rises and falls with the ability to mine it. If the number of miners go down, the network remains unaffected. What's your point here?

The network recalculates difficulty every 2016 blocks. Assuming regular 10 minute intervals it is updated approximately every 14 days. If the BTC network was to split evenly in the 2X hard fork, then in the worst case it will take 28 days before an adjustment is due. If the split is not 50/50, then the minority chain will need proportionally more time.

In the meantime both chains will be congested due to longer average block interval. That said, both chains will need several months to stabilise as miners move between forks to maximise their profit, as we have already seen with the BCC/BCH split, and that was initiated by a tl;dr A chain split will make the network unusable for weeks if not months.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#88

Post by dreit1 »

ckastner wrote: post #76
dreit1 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because this supposed "law and accountability" led to things like the 2008 financial crisis. Didn't seem like there was much accountability then, so why should I trust that money supply? I know exactly what is going to happen to the bitcoin money supply, it's written in the code. Furthermore, hard forks prove that if you don't like the network, then you can leave and retain value. You can't leave the dollar without g…

> Because this supposed "law and accountability" led to things like the 2008 financial crisis. Didn't seem like there was much accountability then, so why should I trust that money supply? As someone working in the financial industry, the amount of regulations, internal audits, external audits, reporting requirements, etc. that financial institutions have to comply with is truly staggering. Sure, they 2008 financial…

I've hear a lot has changed in terms of regulation since 2008. However we shouldn't compare Mt.Gox to BTC, Gox was a centralized institution, so the failure was with it, not with bitcoin. If the people had held their bitcoin privately, which is arguably the "correct" way to hold bitcoin, they would have been fine.

Bitcoin itself is completely auditable in transparent. The system will behave exactly as the code is written.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#89

Post by Asdfbla »

paxpelus wrote: post #59

Many people on HN are so negative in bitcoin that it seems that they are focused on the tree instead of the forest. This technology can solve the main problem human society faces and this is corruption. Human greed is what keeps bitcoin alive but this is not a bug, it is a feature.

How is bitcoin a good model for humanity? If anything, it strives to do away with the little trust there is left in society and replace it with an antagonistic system where everyone is out to sabotage their peers, only being held back by a (intentionally wasteful) proof-of-work mechanism that enforces compliance with the protocol. That's a dystopic vision for humanity if I've ever seen one. Unnecessary too, since trust-based systems have more or less worked so far.

Not to mention that proof-of-work isn't ecologically sustainable on a larger scale anyway.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#90

Post by TeMPOraL »

dreit1 wrote: post #78
aedron wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So annoying to see triumphant declarations of victory of bitcoin, based solely on the price increasing. Speaking as a bitcoin owner and proponent, there is zero (actually negative) market uptake of bitcoin as a payment platform (which I happen to believe is bitcoin's primary use case). This is because no work has gone into scaling up transaction throughput, which has predictably suffered as a result of increased main…

There is a sense of victory because millions of people view Bitcoin as a good place to park their money over fiat currency. Unfortunately no one runs news stories on the growth of unique addresses in the bitcoin network

Do they now? I feel people still see Bitcoin mostly as a high-risk/high-reward no-barriers-to-entry alternative to the stock market.
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