Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#351

Post by mywittyname » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

vanderreeah wrote: post #76

Slaul wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can, it's confusing but there is Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, and soon to be another one Bitcoin Segwit2x or some such. Each of these other "versions" of bitcoin were created by a fork. As far as I know, when a fork happens you get an equal number of "new coin" as you have original coin. Seemingly creating value out of nothing.

Ah I missed the different name. Thanks for the clarification. I was thinking of comments I've seen before where people say that if you have 100 bitcoins you'll have a hard time converting them to (e.g.) $700k cash.

My understanding is that most exchanges won't allow you to move more than $10k/day or so out of your account. So, if you use three separate exchanges, it might take you a month to liquidate the entire stake.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#352

Post by SilasX » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #226

tudorconstantin wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin's value is given by the trust people put in it. Just like with the fiat currencies as a matter of fact, because I don't know of any of them to be backed by anything else than trust. Of course, the US dollar has the whole US economy and the biggest army in the world as its plus, but it also has its minuses: the US treasury can and does print as many as it wants, in the detriment of ALL USD holders. Bitcoin's p…

>Bitcoin's value is given by the trust people put in it. Just like with the fiat currencies as a matter of fact Except fiat currencies also have that fiat behind them that gives them value. If you want to do business with the US government, you do it in USD. If you are one of the millions employed by the US government, you are paid in USD. If you manipulate USD, you have to answer to the US government. Those things a…

>If you want to do business with the US government, you do it in USD.

If you want to do business with drug vendors over the internet, you do it in BTC.

(Altnerately: If you want to donate to Wikileaks...)

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#353

Post by tom_mellior » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 6:14 PM UTC

feedjoelpie wrote: post #132

tom_mellior wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (e.g. Monero, Ethereum) have replaced most of its usecases I use Bitcoin from time to time to order food and buy other stuff online (sometimes through gift cards bought with Bitcoin). It's tough enough to find sites that accept Bitcoin, but I don't think I've ever seen one that accepted Monero or Ethereum. Maybe Litecoin a few years back. I admit that I haven't searched, but I would have expected a correlation with…

I think you're confusing the present state of cryptocurrency as being its conclusion. Yes, Bitcoin was the first mover, and Bitcoin has the most buy-in. But cryptocurrency in general does not have global buy-in as a way to buy and sell stuff. A) Barriers to initially acquiring crypto coins remain a bit high. B) Expense of transactions remains way too high, C) Transactions are way too slow, and D) For Bitcoin in parti…

> I think you're confusing the present state of cryptocurrency as being its conclusion.

I think you didn't read the context. My post was concerning actual, current use cases, not speculations about a hypothetical "conclusion".

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#354

Post by mywittyname » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 6:14 PM UTC

kgwgk wrote: post #247

kibrad wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"whether Bitcoin is basically a pyramid scheme set to crash massively, or something huge that will continue climbing" --- you can say the same thing about regular money

Regular money doesn’t climb.

Sure it does. The USD has surged in value in the past few years. It's gone up like 20% against most other major world currencies in the past five years.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#355

Post by SippinLean » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 6:15 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #349

SippinLean wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you said still falls quite short of a literal pyramid scheme, which has a pretty specific definition. There is no central organization to recruit new members. People that buy bitcoin receive a real, usable product. Every person holding bitcoin profits when the price goes up. This is all in stark contrast to a true pyramid. The way specific ICOs are structured, I could see an argument for some kind of pyramid; bu…

Well, there are two components to a pyramid scheme: 1. returns to early investors are generated by contributions from new investors. 2. Each new investor attempts to recruit two or more new investors. The "profits" for existing investors are paid with money from new investors. So it checks the first requirement to be a pyramid scheme. Now, this isn't explicit , but people still understand that the more BTC investors,…

There are many more components to a pyramid scheme, you've purposefully left out the ones that clearly don't apply to bitcoin and gone with a definition that is too broad to fit.

Further, your first component leaves out the necessity of a purposefully fraudulent bad actor to redistribute the new investors' "investments" to old investors, instead of investing them. This is clearly impossible with a distributed ledger. Returns (and losses) to all investors, new or old, are equally distributed.

Your second part is clearly much too broad, in a pyramid scheme new members are promised a share of the money taken from every additional member that they recruit.

Simply saying "hey, this could be a good investment" doesn't make something a pyramid scheme, unless Apple is a pyramid because my financial advisor told me and one more client to buy shares of it.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#356

Post by tom_mellior » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 6:17 PM UTC

ForHackernews wrote: post #216

tom_mellior wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a single non-illegal use case that isn't better served by a traditional, centralized database You know how PayPal blocked payments to Wikileaks? (Back when it wasn't yet obviously evil.) That's what traditional, centralized databases can do for you. Note that donations to Wikileaks weren't illegal, governments were just efficient in pressuring PayPal into enforcing rules that didn't even exist officially . Also, tr…

> the possibility of near-instantaneous money transfers. Maybe the possibility . In actual fact, don't bitcoin transaction confirmations sometimes take >24 hours?

Sometimes. You can throw money at the problem, but yes, it's a gamble. It should be all that easier for banks to beat this, but they don't.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#357

Post by em3rgent0rdr » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 6:17 PM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #339

gburt wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without making any judgement on whether it is a useful transactional "currency," I hear this sort of thing a lot, but I don't understand it. Surely either BTC is a good transaction mechanism or it isn't and the rampant increase in value is largely irrelevant. You could convert USD to BTC and buy something while maintaining exactly the same held balance, no?

You're holding two currencies, one loses about 2.5% of its value a year, the other gains about 1500% (some huge factor) of its value in that same period. Which one do you purchase the coffee with? The one that's losing value as you hold it, or the one that's going gangbusters?

This is known as Gresham's Law: Good money drives out bad money. Smart people will trade away their bad money and hold onto their good money when they can.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#358

Post by tom_mellior » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 6:22 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #171

tom_mellior wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (e.g. Monero, Ethereum) have replaced most of its usecases I use Bitcoin from time to time to order food and buy other stuff online (sometimes through gift cards bought with Bitcoin). It's tough enough to find sites that accept Bitcoin, but I don't think I've ever seen one that accepted Monero or Ethereum. Maybe Litecoin a few years back. I admit that I haven't searched, but I would have expected a correlation with…

None of the cryptos that exist today can even function as an effective "buying stuff" currency because they are all deflationary, not just in exchange rates and short term speculation but in how they all mine at fixed / declining rates to finite limits. If its going to be worth more tomorrow, you probably don't want to trade it for something today. The use case for bitcoin is the same use case that makes up 95% of th…

> can even function as an effective "buying stuff" currency because they are all deflationary

Yes. Exactly how US dollars cannot function as effective "buying an iPhone" currency since they are deflationary: In a year, the same amount of dollars will get me a better iPhone, or more iPhones of the same quality.

This super-simplified deflation argument is mostly bullshit, no matter how often it's repeated in economics textbooks. People have needs, and they are fine with fulfilling some needs later, but others they want fulfilled immediately.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#359

Post by weddpros » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 6:23 PM UTC

tixocloud wrote: post #233

weddpros wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think KYC is a problem with digital nomadism. All things administrative become a huge burden when you're travelling full-time, rent a furnished house in a tourist location without utility bills, etc. Some banks are already trying to address such needs, like Monese (which I'm also using).

Thanks for the reference to Monese. What did you have to provide as part of KYC?

Skype-like conversation in front of my passport + a european postal address... Their customer service has been very good.

Re: Bitcoin Surges Past $7,000 to Extend Record Rally

#360

Post by jon_smark » Thu, Nov 02, 2017, 6:23 PM UTC

oldboyFX wrote: post #212

Andrenid wrote: post #2

I consider myself pretty tech-savvy, but I'm still completely lost as to whether Bitcoin is basically a pyramid scheme set to crash massively, or something huge that will continue climbing. I probably should've taken the time to mine some back when my friends were doing it and tried convincing me too. Ah well. (Queue heated comments from both sides. Discussing bitcoin is like bringing up religion AND politics at the…

It's a pyramid scheme in a sense that you depend on others to keep buying the bitcoin. If everyone suddenly lost trust in bitcoin you would lose everything, because technically, it has zero real value. That's why all the "bitcoin enthusiasts" keep hyping it up. They know that once the mania stops, people who didn't cash out will be left holding the bag. Currently, it's nothing more than a speculative asset. You might…

> It's a pyramid scheme in a sense that you depend on others to keep buying the bitcoin.

Please don't use the expression "pyramid scheme" lightly, because there are actual pyramid schemes out there, and we want the expression to keep its power so we can warn people against them.

Bitcoin may be in a bubble, but it's definitely not a pyramid scheme.