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All You Need to Know About Bitcoin's Rise, from $0.01 to $11,000

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Re: All You Need to Know About Bitcoin's Rise, from $0.01 to $11,000

#81

Post by emodendroket »

bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #40
backtoyoujim wrote: post #26

> , a Nobel laureate in economics, said recently that bitcoin "ought to be outlawed” because it’s designed to evade regulation and "doesn’t serve any socially useful function." A world where if something is not required it is forbidden is not a world that I want any part of Nobel winner or otherwise.

The Nobel prize in Economics isn't a real Alfred Nobel prize as set aside in his 1985 will, either... So you're not the only one :).

For anyone who cares to follow up here's a good article about it: https://www.alternet.org/economy/there-no-nobel-prize-econom...

Re: All You Need to Know About Bitcoin's Rise, from $0.01 to $11,000

#82

Post by MadSudaca »

paulgb wrote: post #70
MadSudaca wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's going to look like a bunch of dudes printed themselves a fortune and then convinced the rest of the world to buy it from them. Just like fiat money.

You can dislike how much fiat the government prints (I do too!), but at least when the government prints money the profit goes towards things that benefit the public (bridges, defense, schools, etc.), some corruption notwithstanding.

I don’t necessarily dislike fiat, I’m just saying that probably the same gender demographics applied to the invention and dissemination of paper money. One example that comes to mind is the Mississippi Bubble. When I read about it most people involved at the beginning were men, but eventually everyone wanted a piece of the action.

Re: All You Need to Know About Bitcoin's Rise, from $0.01 to $11,000

#84

Post by jstanley »

mrep wrote: post #78
StavrosK wrote: post #7

I am really sad that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that ever managed to touch "mainstream" (it's on Steam, it has Stripe support, etc) and we fucked it up so hard that you need a $4 fee just to pay for one thing with it . I was really hoping it would catch on as a medium of exchange, because there's value in being able to pay for things quickly, cheaply and without giving people a bunch of info, but nope. Digita…

It blows my mind that a forum with mostly technically people (hacker news) is constantly awash with blockchain fanatics. Have you people never had a scaling problem? Understanding how well different systems can scale is one of the core competencies required by developers and blockchains are fundamentally designed not to scale because increasing the number of nodes just increases your "trust" in the system.

Right, so what's your alternative? Trust the government to print money at sustainable rates, and trust banks not to steal your money or censor your transactions?

You have to try, even if you know you can't solve all of the problems yet.

Re: All You Need to Know About Bitcoin's Rise, from $0.01 to $11,000

#85

Post by tr4cefl0w »

Joeboy wrote: post #76
tr4cefl0w wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like many, you’re not aware that the Lightning Network is on its way and will solve most of these issues. Moreover, transactions between Segwit-compatible wallets is pretty fast and cheap. I’m kind of tired to hear people complain about the fees while all they have to do is use a different wallet that supports Segwit. Edit: Ah, the downvotes. I was expecting them.

Maybe I don't fully understand it but from what I've gathered, the Lightning Network is a plan to enable people to do transactions outside of the main blockchain and eventually sync them back. It seems to get touted as a magical plan to solve Bitcoin's scaling problems, but unless I'm missing something (which tbf is very possible) it seems more like a plan for bitcoin to abrogate its primary original purpose of handl…

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7h1v54/comment/dqn...

This sums it up pretty well.

Re: All You Need to Know About Bitcoin's Rise, from $0.01 to $11,000

#86

Post by ringaroundthetx »

Joeboy wrote: post #56
Tyrannosaur wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... I totally agree that the transaction fees are much too high. But it doesn't bother me as much as it bothers many people because every time I start getting upset, I remember that VISA's fees are 1.5%, PayPal's fees are 3%; basically everything has transaction fees and the world has not come crashing down on them.

But why would anyone spend days downloading the blockchain, significantly increase their data management and opsec responsibilities and cede their usual consumer rights in order to have the same transaction fees as Paypal? The only reason I can think of is in order to evade various kinds of regulation, but presumably that won't last forever.

Yeah nobody downloads the whole blockchain lmao, 2012 called and wants its argument back

Re: All You Need to Know About Bitcoin's Rise, from $0.01 to $11,000

#87

Post by Joeboy »

ringaroundthetx wrote: post #86
Joeboy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why would anyone spend days downloading the blockchain, significantly increase their data management and opsec responsibilities and cede their usual consumer rights in order to have the same transaction fees as Paypal? The only reason I can think of is in order to evade various kinds of regulation, but presumably that won't last forever.

Yeah nobody downloads the whole blockchain lmao, 2012 called and wants its argument back

Well I tend to assume people are using bitcoin in a decentralized fashion because that was its entire raison d'etre, but it's true that at this point that seems to have fallen by the wayside.

Re: All You Need to Know About Bitcoin's Rise, from $0.01 to $11,000

#88

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

Joeboy wrote: post #76
tr4cefl0w wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like many, you’re not aware that the Lightning Network is on its way and will solve most of these issues. Moreover, transactions between Segwit-compatible wallets is pretty fast and cheap. I’m kind of tired to hear people complain about the fees while all they have to do is use a different wallet that supports Segwit. Edit: Ah, the downvotes. I was expecting them.

Maybe I don't fully understand it but from what I've gathered, the Lightning Network is a plan to enable people to do transactions outside of the main blockchain and eventually sync them back. It seems to get touted as a magical plan to solve Bitcoin's scaling problems, but unless I'm missing something (which tbf is very possible) it seems more like a plan for bitcoin to abrogate its primary original purpose of handl…

Lightning Network seems to me to be a hybrid solution that uses the best of both worlds: the security and stability of the main block chain for the overall holding and occasional transfer of large amounts of wealth between large organizations, while having offchain networks to experiment with different solutions for handling lots of small transactions quickly, while address still bring compatible with the main block chain.

Re: All You Need to Know About Bitcoin's Rise, from $0.01 to $11,000

#89

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

eqmvii wrote: post #10

Something I rarely see discussed is the gender breakdown of bitcoin ownership. I'd be surprised if it wasn't something like 90%+ men mining, trading, and owning bitcoin. If bitcoin really takes over the world, it's going to look like a bunch of dudes printed themselves a fortune and then convinced the rest of the world to buy it from them.

Maybe this is a result of theory that males have a slight bias to tend to like things while females like people relatively more. Or maybe cause of the theory that males tend to be greater risk takers.

(Not saying one sex is better than another, as in different situations, different traits will succeeded. And not saying that all people of a particular sex must take on these traits, but rather only these are tendencies observed in scientific studies.)

Re: All You Need to Know About Bitcoin's Rise, from $0.01 to $11,000

#90

Post by StavrosK »

root_axis wrote: post #55
tr4cefl0w wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like many, you’re not aware that the Lightning Network is on its way and will solve most of these issues. Moreover, transactions between Segwit-compatible wallets is pretty fast and cheap. I’m kind of tired to hear people complain about the fees while all they have to do is use a different wallet that supports Segwit. Edit: Ah, the downvotes. I was expecting them.

So the proposed solution for scaling bitcoin is to avoid use of the blockchain whenever possible.

Sure, why not? The objective is "trustless, scalable, secure", not "using the blockchain at all costs".
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