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Bitcoin hits $10,000

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Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#341

Post by albertgoeswoof »

Retric wrote: post #33
narrator wrote: post #4

7 years ago: The first bitcoin article on HN with comments! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1532670 One of the posters says the feds will shut it down. I also thought this too. This remains one of the most enduring mysteries of Bitcoin to me. Why has the government taken such a hands off approach?

Because it's awesome from a government standpoint with every single transaction being public it's very easy to track. Various proposals to generate anonymity have been created, but with the sky high transaction costs none of them are currently viable.

If this was true it would be quite naive, given there are now cryptocurrencies with anonymous transactions out there (e.g. Monero, zcash etc.), which could completely replace bitcoin - or at the very least are easy to transact with.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#342

Post by albertgoeswoof »

pault wrote: post #256
Lerc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the $10,000 mark was a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. There were a number of people early in the year saying $10,000 by the end. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here. Last few bubbles had phases of * hey, bitcoin is going up * Bitcoin is going way up, This rate seems unsustainable. * OK, this is fucking crazy now. (this lasts about a day) * I'd say we're in the late stages of the seco…

Seriously? It was $6000 a month ago... to me this is firmly in the fucking crazy stage. It feels a lot like the last run up to $1,100 before the 80% drop (I cashed out at $1,000 just before the pop by dumb luck, but failed to buy back in).

or it could go to 100k, or 1mn in 6 months time. It's impossible to predict.

The crazy thing is that the intrinsic value of bitcoin has gone down recently (ie. you can't really use it for payments now), and yet the price still goes up. If BTC really is going to become an alternate value store to Gold, this makes total sense.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#343

Post by posedge »

wallace_f wrote: post #112

Can someone explain to me why bitcoin should be priced so high relative to other cryptocurrencies? The conspiracy theorist in me wants to say that the best way to undermine trust in cryptocurrencies is to create market turmoil. This would not just undermine trust in cryptocurrency, but serve to embolden the Fed's 'Price Stability' justification.

First mover advantage. The Bitcoin paper and idea are world famous and while nowadays everyone has read/heard and is talking about Bitcoin, almost no one knows about other cryptocurrencies. Also I suppose the community is much larger and there are more miners.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#344

Post by Fjolsvith »

lokedhs wrote: post #326
drcross wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>On the other hand I could create 21M cryptocoins on a blockchain (calling them Bitcoin2 or even just Bitcoin if it pleases). I can make them function identically, similarly or more efficiently than Bitcoin. I can create a new blockchain (network) or put these coins on an existing blockchain (say the Ethereum blockchain). How much would you pay for all 21M Bitcoin? How much would you pay me to create you 21M Bitcoin2…

"Econ 101: The price of a currency is based on people's trust in that currency." Right, but how many people really trust Bitcoin? And by trust, I mean trust that it will retain its value for the foreseeable future. I have trust that the Euro will retain its value, so I feel confident pricing my product and services using it. On the other hand you'd be crazy to price anything in Bitcoin. No one has trust in Bitcoin as…

> On the other hand you'd be crazy to price anything in Bitcoin.

Why? It was easy to add Cryptocurrency as a purchasing option for the online store for my shed business. My buildings are priced in dollars, but people can use crypto to pay and the crypto value is pegged at the current rate of trade on an exchange.

Bonus: I can use the crypto to go buy materials - never have to convert it to dollars.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#345

Post by 3pt14159 »

lokedhs wrote: post #328
3pt14159 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I'm not. Major cities are Toronto, NYC, Chicago, Tokyo, etc. Not Vilnius, Ottawa, or Brussels.

Brussels is the centre of power in the EU. I have nothing against Toronto, but just because its population is higher doesn't really award it the status of being more "major".

Being important or good at one thing doesn’t make you a major city. It’s that you’re not known for one thing that makes you important. NYC has software, banking, media, art, culture, dining, etc. DC or Brussels just has one thing: political power.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#346

Post by Fjolsvith »

BorisMelnik wrote: post #321
RexetBlell wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't you replicate gold? What is gold? It's some elementary particles (like quarks) arranged in a certain way that we all agree are valuable. We could easily agree that some other arrangement is valuable (such as Aluminum).

good point...also what happens if we start digging on Mars, or some other planet and find 1000 tons of gold?

I am certain that asteroid mining will happen sooner and be far more profitable.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#347

Post by keymone »

pellucide wrote: post #315
keymone wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTC is what the distributed consensus says BTC is. You can’t fake that without pouring billions into building up mining infrastructure to organize a 51% attack and even then the distributed consensus will simply fork around your amazing achievement of successfully doing a single double spend? So yeah, BTC is definitely not like gold, it’s way better.

how exactly does this happen. This has to involve protocol change or is there something in bitcoin protocol that forks around a chain when a double spend is detected. And how exactly is a double spend detected ?

Diuble spend is detected when a longer chain is published to contest the currently accepted chain with orphan depth of more than 5-6. This is huge deal and will decimate butcoin valuation for sure, but just as with acceptance of segwit and hardforks around protocol bugs in the past - there can be agreement made to deploy a version of bitcoin software to hardcode which chain is valid.

Not saying this is easy but when the project is attacked like that, there will be some action.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#348

Post by Fjolsvith »

orcasauce wrote: post #334
keymone wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTC is what the distributed consensus says BTC is. You can’t fake that without pouring billions into building up mining infrastructure to organize a 51% attack and even then the distributed consensus will simply fork around your amazing achievement of successfully doing a single double spend? So yeah, BTC is definitely not like gold, it’s way better.

How is BTC better than gold? What can I do with a bitcoin? It's just data. It's still a fiat currency. Gold is specifically not a fiat currency because it has real world applications. I will agree cryptocurrencies are better than other forms of fiat currency in that there is a definitive quantity, similar to a non-fiat currency, but it's intrinsic value is in the trust others will accept it in exchange for something…

> Suppose a solar flare destroyed all existing digital equipment.

Suppose someone invents a way to turn lead into gold?

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#349

Post by 0bsidian »

dang wrote: post #332
0bsidian wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me try to make the case for why Bitcoin could be a useful beyond greed. 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 see the utility in a censorship-resistant digital medium to store wealth. To me, this latter use case has much, much more potential to serve the…

Please stop posting repetitive comments to Hacker News. At this point you're spamming and that's totally not ok.

Is it considered spam because of its substance or because it's repeated verbatim?

E.g. if I take the same exact comment but paraphrase it every time I post it, would that be ok?

The reason I ask is because I see a few accounts post the same tired criticism of bitcoin over and over and see no reprisal for spam.

I would be interested in understanding what the objective rule here is, since I checked the guidelines and could not find references to comment spam definition.

Thanks.

Re: Bitcoin hits $10,000

#350

Post by keymone »

orcasauce wrote: post #334
keymone wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTC is what the distributed consensus says BTC is. You can’t fake that without pouring billions into building up mining infrastructure to organize a 51% attack and even then the distributed consensus will simply fork around your amazing achievement of successfully doing a single double spend? So yeah, BTC is definitely not like gold, it’s way better.

How is BTC better than gold? What can I do with a bitcoin? It's just data. It's still a fiat currency. Gold is specifically not a fiat currency because it has real world applications. I will agree cryptocurrencies are better than other forms of fiat currency in that there is a definitive quantity, similar to a non-fiat currency, but it's intrinsic value is in the trust others will accept it in exchange for something…

Bitcoin is better than gold because in virtually all aspects

- it’s scarce by design, not by our belief in inability to find more of it on this planet or some asteroid

- it’s mobile, transporting gold is pain in the ass

- it’s secure, securing a little piece of paper is easier than deposit of gold

- it’s divisible, sividing gold into nanograms is not practical

- it has transaction platform built in

As for practical application of gold - it’s not where gold’s value is derived from.

And what if an asteroid hits the earth and we are all dead?

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