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Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

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Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#161

Post by lokedhs »

drcross wrote: post #127
lokedhs wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the greater problem that the total market cap of bitcoin is always going to be 22 million? In other words, the single bitcoin I own will always be worth 1/22M of the entire market cap, regardless of how much it's used. And I only own one. There are lost of people out there who owns thousands of bitcoins. 1000 bitcoins is 1/22k of the entire market cap. How could this be sustainable?

If you had 1000 coins in 2010 that cost you 100 dollars, you don't think you're already going to sell out? People can only sell their coins once, and then they are distributed to many, many people.

As another commenter said, the problem is that bitcoin can't devalue. Inflation is what drives people to spend their money rather than sitting on it, waiting for it to increase in value.

I certainly have no intention of spending my bitcoin. Not because I don't have anything to spend it on, but because if it becomes more popular, then by definition it will have to increase in value by a huge number. Unless of course it collapses before then.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#162

Post by lokedhs »

tete wrote: post #28
lokedhs wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the greater problem that the total market cap of bitcoin is always going to be 22 million? In other words, the single bitcoin I own will always be worth 1/22M of the entire market cap, regardless of how much it's used. And I only own one. There are lost of people out there who owns thousands of bitcoins. 1000 bitcoins is 1/22k of the entire market cap. How could this be sustainable?

Compare this with the global economy. The number of Bitcoin users is still increasing, so the wealth is distributing. If you compare that with the global economy, the wealth is accumulating at a single point. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/Share_of_weal... I do however agree that's a problem. I also think that gold and precious metals are doing good, despite being (currently, essentially) limited.

In the global economy, resources are not constant. Every time you do some work, you add value to the system.

The problem is that with bitcoin, the total amount of currency is fixed, which means that when value is added to the system, you the value of the bitcoin has to increase.

You might think that not having inflation sounds like a great idea, but the problem is that unless the total amount of currency increases to match the value of the system you will not end up with zero inflation, you'll end up with deflation.

Deflation is really bad, because it encourages people to sit on their cash instead of spending it, and an economy without spending means that more value is not added to the system.

Of course, I am arguing against people who I have heard who suggests that bitcoin is all we need and it can take over all currencies in the world. That seems more or less impossible based on what I just said.

Perhaps cryptocurrency is the future of finance, I have no opinion on that, but if it is, I don't see that it would be bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#163

Post by dcchambers »

Bitcoin, as it was originally envisioned, IS dead. It's not a replacement for cash. It's prohibitively expensive to use for regular transactions. It's also a colossal waste of energy. It's become similar to stocks/ETFs...something people trade/speculate on/gamble with to try and get rich.

When I had bitcoin first explained to me in ~2011 I was told that it would save us all from the evil that are banks, transaction fees, and the government. Six years later, bitcoin has made a few people very, very wealthy, but us laymen still can't use it as a cash replacement and the people with decision making power in the Bitcoin community are not interested in ever letting that happen.

It was a fun experiment, but it failed its primary goal.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#164

Post by lern_too_spel »

al452 wrote: post #141
speedplane wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most uses of blockchain I see have been put forward by very large companies... but large companies are the least likely to benefit. Blockchain gives you a decentralized source of trust. Large companies (e.g., banks, governments, etc.) specialize in providing a centralized source of trust. I'd think that small banks/financial institutions would benefit far more than large companies. They can confidently share data wit…

You miss the point about trust. The trust issue that blockchain addresses for big banks is not "I'm worried you're a scam that will disappear with all my money". It's "I'm worried that you've not got every single number exactly right and there will diaagreements". Hence it takes 2-3 days in the US to settle a simple financial trade, to allow for multiple batch reconciliations to verify that the information that each…

Or both parties could update a shared non-distributed database.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#165

Post by rowyourboat »

matt-attack wrote: post #33
scarlac wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your OS. For Chrome on macOS, it'll show a chrome-styled square box with an icon and a piece of text in the upper right hand corner, kinda like macOS notifications (but they look nothing like it). In general, web notifications (can) work the same way they do on your smart phone. They can arrive from an active tab as well as from a background service. Safari (on macOS) will use the native macOS notification…

But in either case the browser has to be running I’m assuming? Seems kinda flawed.

That depends on the browser implementation. The protocol does not require the user to have the site open.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#166

Post by al452 »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #164
al452 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You miss the point about trust. The trust issue that blockchain addresses for big banks is not "I'm worried you're a scam that will disappear with all my money". It's "I'm worried that you've not got every single number exactly right and there will diaagreements". Hence it takes 2-3 days in the US to settle a simple financial trade, to allow for multiple batch reconciliations to verify that the information that each…

Or both parties could update a shared non-distributed database.

They could, though then there would be more trust issues about who hosts and controls the database. A database of which every participant keeps a copy, and with strong guarantees about consistency between the copies, has pretty obvious attractions.

I am definitely not saying blockchain is the only or even the best way to achieve that! Just that this helps explain its appeal

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#167

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

speedplane wrote: post #63
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…

> What's happening now is that bitcoin is being locked into people's mind as a currency with real value. I'm not certain that's true. Most of the trading in bitcoin is based on speculation that it'll rise in value, and secondly, that'll become more commonplace. Currently, it's not a useful (or usable) form of currency for the vast majority of the planet. So there's no value backing it (yet). The true test is in X man…

Keep in mind that there people growing up now that will think of bitcoin as having true value. Bitcoin will not be a thing that suddenly appeared in the world as it did for us. So they will be more comfortable using it. They will just think of it as another monetary asset. The boom and bust aspect will slowly disappear. One of the problems with it is the lack of things you can buy with it. As more people get used to it as a currency the more goods that will be available for purchase. Then we'll know what the true exchange value of it will be. Right now the value is basically guessing and it's driven by greed and fear. That will change. Chase's CEO might be right that it's a bubble but that does not mean it does not have value. The reality is that we don't know its value as a monetary unit. It might go to a million or crash to 1. No one knows. As the problems with it get ironed out we'll find out.

People forget that the only reason fiat currency has value is because you can always find someone that will exchange it for goods or services. It has no value on its own. It's a believe in people's mind. Bitcoin will have that same trust in time. One big advantage over fiat is that the community is world wide and it's not locked to one country. I can see a country disappearing from the world but by definition bitcoin is a world monetary unit that's slowly embedding itself into the world psychic.

I truthfully believe that in less than 40 years it will as common as the dollar is now. My only fear is that the world's countries will fear it and outlaw it. That doesn't mean it will go away but might slow it down.

BTW, I was a anti bitcoin guy but after a little analysis I've come around.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#168

Post by bykovich2 »

alexasmyths wrote: post #154
fnordsensei wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to disagree. Investments that don't pay dividends are essentially pyramid schemes, as they always require someone to buy them off you in order to realise their value. Stuff that pays dividends can provide you with ROI without you having to shift them on to someone else. However, since we live on a planet with unlimited resources capable of unlimited growth, the theoretical loss of being the "last investor"…

"Investments that don't pay dividends are essentially pyramid schemes" No. 'Dividends' do not matter. The cash going into the companies bank account belongs to the shareholders, and it's reflect in the stock price. When a company gives out $1 in dividends, it's valuation goes down by $1. Technically, dividends don't matter. In reality it's a little different, and dividends mean certain things, mostly about the compan…

> There can be 'unlimited growth' - as long as there is innovation.

How's that work, bud?

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#169

Post by alexasmyths »

bykovich2 wrote: post #168
alexasmyths wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Investments that don't pay dividends are essentially pyramid schemes" No. 'Dividends' do not matter. The cash going into the companies bank account belongs to the shareholders, and it's reflect in the stock price. When a company gives out $1 in dividends, it's valuation goes down by $1. Technically, dividends don't matter. In reality it's a little different, and dividends mean certain things, mostly about the compan…

> There can be 'unlimited growth' - as long as there is innovation. How's that work, bud?

Uhh, look around: almost all economic growth is derived from innovation.

The entire medical industry's growth is based on innovation.

Do you think the medical industry is growing because it's 'digging more resources' out of the ground?

'Cutting more trees'?

The entire financial industry, basically all of high tech.

Education.

Very few sectors depend on 'natural resources' for growth.

And even for some that do, it's minimal.

Most materials are abundant anyhow.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#170

Post by xiaoma »

alexasmyths wrote: post #153
dreit1 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

" because millions of people view Bitcoin as a good place to park their money over fiat currency." This would be very unwise. BTC is highly volatile, and could go to 0 tomorrow. It could could be made useless by the stroke of the pen someone in any big government. Nobody keeps most of their assets in cash. Stocks, Bonds, real estate, a basket of commodities, a basket of currencies - or even a decent long-term-interes…

Stocks and real estate are a reasonable shield against monetary policy, but baskets of currencies, bonds and long-term-interest savings are all extremely vulnerable to inflation.

BTC on the other hand, is deflationary by design.

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