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Bitcoin is none of the things it was supposed to be

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Re: Bitcoin is none of the things it was supposed to be

#21

Post by sf_rob »

pc2g4d wrote: post #14

The high transaction fees are forcing Bitcoin in this direction. If buying a hamburger cost you $30 in fees on top of the $6 burger, you'd stop using dollars for everyday purchases, too. Seems we're stuck in this situation so long as the block size remains where it is. That artificially reduces the supply of transactions, forcing the price up. No matter how many miners there are competing for those transaction fees,…

In theory segwit and offchain settlement layers (namely Lightning) can/will speed things up/reduce fees without raising the block limit. FWIW I think that they should have done both.

Re: Bitcoin is none of the things it was supposed to be

#22

Post by [deleted] »

pc2g4d wrote: post #14

The high transaction fees are forcing Bitcoin in this direction. If buying a hamburger cost you $30 in fees on top of the $6 burger, you'd stop using dollars for everyday purchases, too. Seems we're stuck in this situation so long as the block size remains where it is. That artificially reduces the supply of transactions, forcing the price up. No matter how many miners there are competing for those transaction fees,…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin is none of the things it was supposed to be

#23

Post by lumberjack »

As we learn more about cryptocurrencies, more evolved altcoins will emerge, with much more sophisticated economics.

As it is, none of the developers of cryptocurrencies really understand economics and the majority of them believe in heterodox economic ideas that are probably wrong.

But currently people are just trying to get rich. At this point in time I'm more bullish about GNU Taler. It is not a cryptocurrency but it shares some of the objectives.

Re: Bitcoin is none of the things it was supposed to be

#24

Post by MBCook »

rossdavidh wrote: post #20

Allow me to make a farfetched analogy: Bitcoin is like Obamacare. Obamacare wasn't made perfect the first time; this is normal. The way you fix issues with complex legislation, is you have it passed by significant members of both parties, so that you can revisit it the next year and fix things. But, with no trust between parties, the Dems had to get everything right in one go, when they had both houses and the White…

The problem I see with that analogy is that Obamacare has been actively undermined at every step by the Tepublican party.

Nothing like that is happening to Bitcoin.

I think this was all inevitable. How could you make a new currency and not expect all the people who take advantage of monetary systems to move in? I’m not sure it’s preventable.

Re: Bitcoin is none of the things it was supposed to be

#25

Post by colorint »

_red wrote: post #13
curuinor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, then, exactly is the difference between your scenario and Coinbase being the bank?

Coinbase can't print money.

Banks can't print money either, and this isn't some "ackshually it's the Mint" thing: banks have the power to create debt. But this isn't special, because you and I also have the power to create debt. What makes a bank special is that debt is its business (so most of its operation concerns the management of debt), and much of its debt can be called on demand, and so we call banks' debts to us demand deposits.

Fractional reserve is just a particular kind of regulation placed on banks' creation of debt, and it usually isn't the most important one. The practical limit of banks is that they have to be able to extinguish their debts (which we call withdrawal), including being able to transfer them to other banks in exchange for cash (which we call clearing), at the whim of the creditors (you and me).

The problems with banks are the problems with debt generally, but that's much trickier than some glib remarks about monetary policy.

Re: Bitcoin is none of the things it was supposed to be

#26

Post by ng12 »

jhiska wrote: post #11

It's not Wall Street's fault or whatever boogie man's fault that the Bitcoin tech doesn't actually work as some idealistic libertarian creator imagined it would; the fault is in Bitcoin's design itself. Even if the price wasn't fluctuating like crazy it simply doesn't work well as a currency due to technical limitations (eg, the time and cost it takes to process a transaction in the real world has always been impract…

I feel like it's a parable about lofty libertarian ideals -- everything's peachy until there's large sums of money involved. Bitcoin is fixable but now there's a financial incentive for never fixing it.

Re: Bitcoin is none of the things it was supposed to be

#27

Post by agorabinary »

Responding to problems with this article as they appear:

1. Coinbase buckling is a failure of a web application grappling with unprecedented load. Not with bitcoin.

2. The dark web mostly uses Monero, which would not exist without Bitcoin coming along first. Also the notion of a $65 fee on a $250 tx is ridiculous, not to mention a 24 hour wait time.

3. The existence of exchanges and dark web websites that allow you to convert fiat to bitcoin and facilitate trades (middlemen as the authors calls them) is a failure of Bitcoin? Building a centralized exchange/facilitator will ALWAYS come before a decentralized alternative because decentralized apps are hard.

4. Applications that provide immeasurable convenience at the cost of a little privacy and security are an inevitable step in the road towards a better system. This is the equivalent of RMS bemoaning the existence of Ubuntu because it uses a few propriety programs, when whatever free distro he recommends is straight out of 1992

5. "retains none of the exciting features"? Rapidly increasing prices does not remove the most innovative features (smart contracts, off-chain transactions, etc) of the crypto world. It accelerates them if anything by providing the capital to finance their development

Feel free to attack Bitcoin for its shortcomings, but don't act like things could have easily gone differently. Bitcoin still has tremendous potential for privacy, security, and everyday use --- if you get past the clickbait headlines.

Re: Bitcoin is none of the things it was supposed to be

#28

Post by tylersmith »

pkulak wrote: post #18
pc2g4d wrote: post #14

The high transaction fees are forcing Bitcoin in this direction. If buying a hamburger cost you $30 in fees on top of the $6 burger, you'd stop using dollars for everyday purchases, too. Seems we're stuck in this situation so long as the block size remains where it is. That artificially reduces the supply of transactions, forcing the price up. No matter how many miners there are competing for those transaction fees,…

No one who owns BTC wants it used for transactions. They want it to be an investment and go up forever, so they'll never go with a fork that allows it. It's like home owners in a neighborhood locking out new construction so their own homes raise in value.

That's a pretty broad generalization. Many of us work very hard to make Bitcoin usable for day-to-day transactions.

Re: Bitcoin is none of the things it was supposed to be

#29

Post by [deleted] »

curuinor wrote: post #10
coryl wrote: post #3

The author seems to expect that the changes created by cryptocurrency should be visible immediately. It is a lack of patience, and lack of understanding that changing deeply rooted systems and behaviors takes time. People have never managed software where if you lost your "password", your money was gone forever. They never had to keep a 12-24 word recovery phrase. They've never sent money to addresses that look like…

What, then, exactly is the difference between your scenario and Coinbase being the bank?

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin is none of the things it was supposed to be

#30

Post by pat2man »

caycep wrote: post #16

I am by no means an expert in any of these things - but philosophically was bitcoin written w/ the expectation that an individual is inherently good, and running smack into the reality that individuals are inherently focused on their own self interest?

Bitcoin was actually built under the assumption that you couldn't trust anyone else. You store your own money with your own private key.
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