61–70 of 77 posts
Nobody actually uses bitcoin for payment. There is more or less the same places where to spend it as there was 4, 5 years ago. And they all have about the same traffic, which is nearly zero. Most people only use it for speculation. This can't end well.
Nobody actually uses bitcoin for payment. There is more or less the same places where to spend it as there was 4, 5 years ago. And they all have about the same traffic, which is nearly zero. Most people only use it for speculation. This can't end well.
I disagree, I use it for booking flights and hotels everytime I travel (e.g. Expedia, Destinia; 9flats, CryptoCribs). Smooth experience, much better than paying with {credit|debit} cards. I also get paid in bitcoin thanks to bitwage. It's easier to get good (figurative) raises this way instead of depending on your boss x-) If you're wondering how the hell I'm so crazy to "bet" my salary on this, check this shower tho…
Is anyone else fatigued by repeating the same arguments over and over forever? If I just state them here once maybe we can talk about new ideas (pro or con, doesn't matter).
1) There are no "real" cryptocurrency transactions
2) It's all speculation
3) There's no intrinsic value
4) Tulips I say, TULIPS!
5) If you can't pay taxes with it, it's not "real money"
6) Governments will shut it down
7) Transactions aren't really private
8) Mining uses more energy than entire nations
9) Nobody will ever spend a deflationary currency
10) It's only useful for drugs, assassinations, gambling and ransoms
11) It doesn't scale, not enough transactions per second, blockchain will get too big
12) It's too volatile to be useful
13) Since the exchange rate keeps rising it's not useful for payments
14) Since I can't buy coffee with it it's not useful
15) Since fees are high it's not useful
16) It's a scam, Ponzi, pyramid
17) The "market cap" is (a) too small to be relevant, (b) evidence of a bubble
18) Will never completely replace gold / national currencies / corporations so there's no value
19) There are a lot of shady exchanges that (a) get hacked, (b) steal customer deposits, (c) are secretly insolvent
20) If the cryptography gets broken / bugs or exploits are discovered and the whole thing goes to zero
Maybe so many new people are just now getting involved that we keep rehashing a decade of stale thinking?
Let's talk about some new ideas!
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I'm going to repeat myself here, but please bear with me if you haven't heard this argument before. I respectfully disagree with the idea that Bitcoin's killer-app is to be used as a currency for transactional purposes. I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwich if you live in the West (or frankly, even most developing nations). On the other hand, I can definitely…
> I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwich if you live in the West I can think of one: if you get paid in Bitcoin, having to buy some GBPs just so you can buy a coffee or a sandwich is a hassle.
Do you think your answer is in the spirit of the question?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree, I use it for booking flights and hotels everytime I travel (e.g. Expedia, Destinia; 9flats, CryptoCribs). Smooth experience, much better than paying with {credit|debit} cards. I also get paid in bitcoin thanks to bitwage. It's easier to get good (figurative) raises this way instead of depending on your boss x-) If you're wondering how the hell I'm so crazy to "bet" my salary on this, check this shower tho…
> Nobody actually uses bitcoin for payment Is anyone else fatigued by repeating the same arguments over and over forever? If I just state them here once maybe we can talk about new ideas (pro or con, doesn't matter). 1) There are no "real" cryptocurrency transactions 2) It's all speculation 3) There's no intrinsic value 4) Tulips I say, TULIPS! 5) If you can't pay taxes with it, it's not "real money" 6) Governments w…
As a random example, mining does use more energy than some nations. Why this may be a good thing in a medium of exchange/value store tends to receive somewhat hand wavy responses. If you have a great answer then it might be helpful to share it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
21M with fractions down to 0.00000000001, so while it's fixed it's also fractionable to a very small number.
I'm not sure if this is the point you were making, but divisibility doesn't make something less scarce, any more than being able to cut a gold brick into nuggets means gold isn't scarce. A single Bitcoin remains exactly as scarce regardless of how it is divided.
Since Bitcoin is divisible down to a small fraction, and you can trade it for whatever price you'd like, it makes more sense to me for the two parties involved in a Bitcoin transaction to take some tiny fraction of a coin and use that as a token to transfer the value from one party to another. You'd convert fiat -> BTC fraction -> fiat almost immediately.
You would have the benefit of the decentralized network to make completing the transaction much easier, and by using a fraction of a coin you'd remove risk caused by exposure to fluctuations in the value of a whole BTC.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nobody actually uses bitcoin for payment Is anyone else fatigued by repeating the same arguments over and over forever? If I just state them here once maybe we can talk about new ideas (pro or con, doesn't matter). 1) There are no "real" cryptocurrency transactions 2) It's all speculation 3) There's no intrinsic value 4) Tulips I say, TULIPS! 5) If you can't pay taxes with it, it's not "real money" 6) Governments w…
What may be more helpful that a definitive list of arguments is a definitive list of valid responses to those arguments. As a random example, mining does use more energy than some nations. Why this may be a good thing in a medium of exchange/value store tends to receive somewhat hand wavy responses. If you have a great answer then it might be helpful to share it.
It's just that we've been having the identical arguments over and over for nearly ten years now. We're not advancing our understanding by re-hashing the same tired ideas.
Maybe I'll make a page with common responses to these arguments.
To use your example ... it's true that mining cryptocurrencies consumes a lot of energy. So do casinos. So does Facebook and Starbucks. So does manufacturing weapons.
The world's televisions consume a lot of energy.
Bank office buildings and the millions of bank workers who drive to work every day also use a lot of energy.
The question isn't how much energy a thing uses, it's how much value is derived per watt-hour of energy.
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I disagree, I use it for booking flights and hotels everytime I travel (e.g. Expedia, Destinia; 9flats, CryptoCribs). Smooth experience, much better than paying with {credit|debit} cards. I also get paid in bitcoin thanks to bitwage. It's easier to get good (figurative) raises this way instead of depending on your boss x-) If you're wondering how the hell I'm so crazy to "bet" my salary on this, check this shower tho…
> Nobody actually uses bitcoin for payment Is anyone else fatigued by repeating the same arguments over and over forever? If I just state them here once maybe we can talk about new ideas (pro or con, doesn't matter). 1) There are no "real" cryptocurrency transactions 2) It's all speculation 3) There's no intrinsic value 4) Tulips I say, TULIPS! 5) If you can't pay taxes with it, it's not "real money" 6) Governments w…
> 20) If the cryptography gets broken the whole thing goes to zero
I bring it up often here and each time I am met with a similar argument that you are making, but loudly ignoring is different from discussing
It's like going to a doctor and each time saying 'ugh, the tired old cancer conversation..can we just talk about something new?!' until the cancer just kills you
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nobody actually uses bitcoin for payment Is anyone else fatigued by repeating the same arguments over and over forever? If I just state them here once maybe we can talk about new ideas (pro or con, doesn't matter). 1) There are no "real" cryptocurrency transactions 2) It's all speculation 3) There's no intrinsic value 4) Tulips I say, TULIPS! 5) If you can't pay taxes with it, it's not "real money" 6) Governments w…
Can you point me to comprehensive and conclusive discourse on each of these; or even just: > 20) If the cryptography gets broken the whole thing goes to zero I bring it up often here and each time I am met with a similar argument that you are making, but loudly ignoring is different from discussing It's like going to a doctor and each time saying 'ugh, the tired old cancer conversation..can we just talk about somethi…
As for breaking the cryptography, it's been nearly 10 years now, with all the code in the public domain and massive incentives to find a flaw.
That's why some people call Bitcoin "anti-fragile" since it seems to get stronger the more it's attacked.
But of course it's theoretically possible that the NSA / GCHQ / FAPSI will (or has already) broken the cryptography. What happens then? Do miners stop until the flaw is fixed? Do they roll back to before the compromise? Does the blockchain fork into a new, fixed coin?
I guess that's the beauty of financial assets defined by open-source software. Bugs and exploits happen, they get fixed, and we move ahead on a new version.
To people who believe it's not a bubble. Please explain what wasn't priced in yesterday that warranted +17% today.
I'm not really taking a position on whether its a bubble or not, though. My gut says yes, but it also said so back when it was $5 (having risen rapidly from nothing to "break the dollar", then up 5x more pretty quickly).