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Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

99bitcoins.com

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Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#171

Post by rensgspzn »

Nursie wrote: post #118
jstanley wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin provides a way for 2 individuals, anywhere in the world, to exchange money without trusting any third party and without asking permission from any third party, and without their transaction being subject to censorship by any third party. That's huge.

For most people, not really. I can send money to anyone I want to, I have no expectation of censorship or interference. The fees are low to zero depending on the exact method, and I don't have to jump through hoops to try to interact with a crypto-currency broker. I have protections, insurance and various forms of reversibility to fall back on if something screws up. For me it's not huge, or even really relevant.

> I can send money to anyone I want to, I have no expectation of censorship or interference.

Except for donations to WikiLeaks. Or if you want to buy weed in one of the many states where it's legal. Or if the recipient's Paypal account has been frozen.

> The fees are low to zero depending on the exact method

Chase bank charged me $25 to send a wire transfer recently. Credit cards and Paypal charge me 3% to 5% when I sell something online.

> and I don't have to jump through hoops

When I sent that wire, I was required to answer slew of questions from a Chase representative including "What is this transaction for?" and "Do you plan to transact with this company again?"

> I have protections, insurance and various forms of reversibility

Perhaps as a buyer, but as a merchant, chargebacks are a nightmare.

> For most people, not really.

Huh. Most people I know detest banks and don't like the idea of handing over complete control of their money to someone else.

There just haven't been any alternatives until now.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#172

Post by dreit1 »

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…

Any bootstrapped currency will have a very high risk premium. That doesn't mean it doesn't behave like a currency

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#173

Post by Nursie »

rensgspzn wrote: post #171
Nursie wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most people, not really. I can send money to anyone I want to, I have no expectation of censorship or interference. The fees are low to zero depending on the exact method, and I don't have to jump through hoops to try to interact with a crypto-currency broker. I have protections, insurance and various forms of reversibility to fall back on if something screws up. For me it's not huge, or even really relevant.

> I can send money to anyone I want to, I have no expectation of censorship or interference. Except for donations to WikiLeaks. Or if you want to buy weed in one of the many states where it's legal. Or if the recipient's Paypal account has been frozen. > The fees are low to zero depending on the exact method Chase bank charged me $25 to send a wire transfer recently. Credit cards and Paypal charge me 3% to 5% when I…

>> Except for donations to WikiLeaks. Or if you want to buy weed in one of the many states where it's legal. Or if the recipient's Paypal account has been frozen.

These are not pressing use-cases for me.

>> When I sent that wire

It appears your banking service is a bad one, I have had none of these problems, even transferring large amounts between countries.

>> Perhaps as a buyer, but as a merchant, chargebacks are a nightmare.

Yet without them, many buyers would have given up buying online by now, chargebacks and buyer protections allow the online marketplace to function.

I think what you might have there is (yet another) criticism of how backwards the US market is.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#174

Post by dang »

rajadigopula wrote: post #124
rajadigopula wrote: post #97

Most analysts from traditional mindset making the mistake of analyzing bitcoin like they do stocks or fiat currency which can rely on a country's economy or political scenarios or a company's decisions to make profits. But, Bitcoin is like anything they have seen before or learnt in their college. Most volatility corresponds to news of it's survival at the moment and due to the reason the market is failing to agree w…

I think some stupid Chinese govt. bot down voted my comment.

This comment breaks the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Please read them and follow them when commenting here.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#175

Post by knocte »

lawlessone wrote: post #86
knocte wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>QE and fractional reserve banking. Those are features.

Nope, those are the main bugs of our current system.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#176

Post by Nullabillity »

aedron wrote: post #24
tobyhinloopen wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I never accept that. Who would?

It's a poor design where a site is allowed to throw up a dialog like that (also goes for the "this site wants to know your location! yes/no"). It should work like the popup blocker, just show a red cross somewhere, that some action was blocked, and if the user wants to, he can go and unblock it. The onus should be on the site owner to tell his user "if you want this additional functionality, please go and enable ".

Please, no. That would just end up with each site having their own annoying modal, instead of having a single place to block all of them.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#177

Post by jcslzr »

SCdF wrote: post #105
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). Are you seriously suggesting that in 10 years there will no longer any physical currencies? Or is soon 50 years? Or 100 years? Can you give a concrete vision for how that would work? > banks can create as much cash as they like, it's virtual value, not real. No they can't? The government can, but not arbitrary banks. > And again you see t…

History has recorded hundreds of currencies that now are worth nothing, the only difference with the US dollar its that is going to be a worldwide event

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#178

Post by dragonwriter »

jcslzr wrote: post #177
SCdF wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But dollars, Euro's and all other physical currencies are about to die(soon). Are you seriously suggesting that in 10 years there will no longer any physical currencies? Or is soon 50 years? Or 100 years? Can you give a concrete vision for how that would work? > banks can create as much cash as they like, it's virtual value, not real. No they can't? The government can, but not arbitrary banks. > And again you see t…

History has recorded hundreds of currencies that now are worth nothing, the only difference with the US dollar its that is going to be a worldwide event

No it probably won't (I mean, it might result from a worldwide event, but it won't likely cause one.)

Most likely, other than being caused by a global catastrophe, is that the center of global finance gradually shifts elsewhere long before the US dollar becomes worthless, and if that ever happens, barely anyone (outside of the US, especially) notices much.

Re: Bitcoin has died 166 times, so far

#179

Post by speedplane »

al452 wrote: post #166
lern_too_spel wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Exactly. Big banks have already dealt with these trust issues through their teams of lawyers, longstanding partnerships, and reputation in the market.

I'm not saying big banks have nothing to gain, they do, but proportionally less than a smaller company that no one knows about. It allows "Bank of Mom & Pop USA" to confidentially do deals with "Little-Town Bank" Shanghai" without going through the mega-banks.

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