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One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

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Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#61

Post by enobrev »

kasperni wrote: post #58

One bitcoin transaction already now uses as much energy as your house in a week. I really have trouble seeing how this can scale in the long run? https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ywbbpm/bitcoin-mi... Bitcoin - The new coal

This has been my issue from the start. I generally feel like I've missed a boat I certainly could have gotten on to early enough, But it's so terribly wasteful, I have a hard time supporting the thing at all. Admittedly I don't follow the subject very closely, but I haven't seen this argument mentioned nearly enough.

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#62

Post by bduerst »

joshribakoff wrote: post #56
apthnz wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, most Bitcoin transactions take ~10mins to get confirmed, so I'm not sure the current infrastructure would work for retail. Admittedly I don't know what would need to be changed to speed up transaction confirmations to the point where you could use it in retail situations.

Casinos & arcades sort of solve this problem. You walk & buy tokens, then use these tokens to spend, which can then be cashed back out when you're done. Also credit card transactions can be reversed up to months later, so in the grand scheme of things 10 minutes is not so bad, if big retail outlets wanted to make it work they could.

Except the majority of customers don't want to pre-purchase gift cards to shop at a retailer, but instead want to spend as soon as they make the decision to purchase.

Likewise, the frequency of chargebacks is so low it doesn't justify waiting up to 10 minutes to buy something for every purchase.

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#63

Post by allenz »

komali2 wrote: post #36
nnfy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you trying to scare them? Just explain to them that it is high risk. But there is a strong potential future for btc, and in spite of all the fear mongering, BTC has so far come back from every crash. You're not just throwing away money if you spend a couple hundred of your otherwise disposable income on some btc. Buying at any point in the past would have yielded a payoff today.

Can people elaborate why they are downvoting this? I hold a similar opinion - as long as your other investment instruments are intelligently diversified and filled-out, why not spend a small % on bitcoin? As nnfy has said, any amount in the past would have yielded payoff today. "But a crash!" is not an argument alone. Every single other investment instrument I'm aware of has had a crash.

Investing in Bitcoin to diversify is fine. Buying Bitcoin because it's been rising? That's the definition of speculation. Most people are not qualified to be speculators because they are insufficiently critical. It's easy to imagine potential, and difficult to gauge risk. See also "most investors lose money".

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#64

Post by rb808 »

purephase wrote: post #7

As someone not invested in any of this at all, its fascinating to watch as people jump in completely oblivious to risk involved. I've listened to friends and family discuss investing "only $100" or "only $1000" for fractional amounts of bitcoin with the idea that they're sure fire bets for making money. I feel a bit like a rube sitting it out on the sidelines (and they're chastising me for not acting) as the price ke…

Its still early days. 100k new users is nothing. Still 99% of the population do not have BTC accounts. Once you get everyone buying then you can say its a bubble, until then there is more room to go up!

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#66

Post by berberous »

rb808 wrote: post #64
purephase wrote: post #7

As someone not invested in any of this at all, its fascinating to watch as people jump in completely oblivious to risk involved. I've listened to friends and family discuss investing "only $100" or "only $1000" for fractional amounts of bitcoin with the idea that they're sure fire bets for making money. I feel a bit like a rube sitting it out on the sidelines (and they're chastising me for not acting) as the price ke…

Its still early days. 100k new users is nothing. Still 99% of the population do not have BTC accounts. Once you get everyone buying then you can say its a bubble, until then there is more room to go up!

My nearly 70 year old mother, technophobe and risk averse to a fault (e.g., had much of her retirement portfolio since'09 out of equities), finally asked me the other day if she should buy some Bitcoin.

Yes, if cryptocurrencies prove to be a real revolution the way the Internet was, there's plenty of upside left. If not, though, I'm not sure there's too many greater fools left if my mother's almost there.

As they say, you know it's time to sell when shoeshine boys give you stock tips...

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#67

Post by joshribakoff »

bduerst wrote: post #62
joshribakoff wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Casinos & arcades sort of solve this problem. You walk & buy tokens, then use these tokens to spend, which can then be cashed back out when you're done. Also credit card transactions can be reversed up to months later, so in the grand scheme of things 10 minutes is not so bad, if big retail outlets wanted to make it work they could.

Except the majority of customers don't want to pre-purchase gift cards to shop at a retailer, but instead want to spend as soon as they make the decision to purchase. Likewise, the frequency of chargebacks is so low it doesn't justify waiting up to 10 minutes to buy something for every purchase.

If both the shopper & retail store are using the same BTC exchange, or exchanges that trust each other, the exchange can just move the coins internally, which is instant. Retail outlets could also share information about scammers & create a blacklist of who not to trust, and then just accept the small amount of risk. Like you said, credit cards also have this problem but the frequency of chargebacks is low enough that retail stores do not require you to wait months before leaving the store with your goods. Even accepting cash entails the possibility of fraud. But these are good points you've made. I don't think demand is high enough that we'll see BTC go mainstream for retail, but if demand were to be high enough there are ways to make it work without waiting 10 minutes, but these would rely on exchanges & mutually trusted 3rd party agencies, which you could argue defeats the purpose of using BTC in the first place since its not decentralized but you'd still get the benefits of there being a fixed amount of BTC. People could also budget their monthly spending & transfer it ahead of time into an exchange. People already do this with checking/savings accounts, keeping some funds in checking for when they want to shop.

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#68

Post by dabockster »

purephase wrote: post #7

As someone not invested in any of this at all, its fascinating to watch as people jump in completely oblivious to risk involved. I've listened to friends and family discuss investing "only $100" or "only $1000" for fractional amounts of bitcoin with the idea that they're sure fire bets for making money. I feel a bit like a rube sitting it out on the sidelines (and they're chastising me for not acting) as the price ke…

I think the alarm bells were in the alts, not Bitcoin itself. The crypto community used to use alts as a way of testing out new transaction processing concepts (Proof of Stake, new mining algorithms to stop ASIC abuse, etc). Now, we seem to be testing out these new techniques on Bitcoin itself through the various forks that have occurred in recent months.

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#69

Post by Sangermaine »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #59
saas_co_de wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gambling is gambling. if you want to gamble for fun then by all means enjoy yourself. but don't pretend it is an "investment."

But not all gambling is "gambling": Insurance is gambling, for example. Picking mutual funds and ETFs for your retirement plan is gambling. "Gambling" has connotations of immoral behaviour, especially in zero-sum or always-lose scenarios like poker and casinos. I don't think it's fair to describe educated and informed investment or buy-ins with words like that. I think "risky venture" is a less loaded, more neutral,…

>"Gambling" has connotations of immoral behaviour, especially in zero-sum or always-lose scenarios like poker and casinos. I don't think it's fair to describe educated and informed investment or buy-ins with words like that. I think "risky venture" is a less loaded, more neutral, term to describe it instead.

This is not a repeat from every bubble ever. This time it's different!

Re: One of the Biggest Bitcoin Exchanges Just Added 100,000 Users in a Single Day

#70

Post by synicalx »

I'm curious and I can't work out how to phrase this as a Google search, so I'm hoping someone smarter than me can answer this:

At the moment we refer to BTC as being worth $xUSD, but without another currency to compare it to, is it worth anything? Or is it just not designed to be used in isolation?

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