Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Bitcoin will fail

meaningofstuff.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 43 posts

Re: Why Bitcoin will fail

#31

Post by 0x445442 »

noncoml wrote: post #23
proofofanalysis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin, being a form of wealth, can give you all the things you just described. That it has no value during an apocalyptic scenario, does not mean it does not have value in the non-apocalyptic times.

You cannot call it wealth to describe its value. You are just saying that the value of it is in itself. Which is what I am supporting as well. In order for me to exchange it for goods, as you described, there must be someone who has the goods and is willing to exchange them for bitcoin. There is no real reason for someone to do so. It is not an apocalyptic scenario. That’s what 90% if the population fight for, day in…

For a small fee you can buy anything with BTC via Bitpay Visa.

Just curious, do you think paper currencies have intrinsic value?

Re: Why Bitcoin will fail

#32

Post by proofofanalysis »

noncoml wrote: post #29
proofofanalysis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are throwing away the possibility that there is an intrinsic value in Bitcoin, more related to socio-economic-political concerns, than survival. There is not only one domain in life.

Ok, cool. We are getting somewhere now. What does Bitcoin offer in that perspective?

An incorruptible ledger resistant to the control of any individual, corporation, or state. Bitcoin may fail in its implementation of this goal. The future is still to be determined.

Bitcoin's underlying technology creates the possibility of decentralized governance, starting with currency, which is the connecting link between actors in societies based on economy.

Why such a future might be beneficial to mankind is that banking and finance being controlled by a few has led to errors with systemic consequences.

See the 2008 financial crisis and hyperinflation in Venezuela and Zimbabwe. See the seizure of funds by governments from individuals in Greek and Cyprus, scenarios where many of the affected did not write their own doom (others wrote it for them).

Re: Why Bitcoin will fail

#33

Post by matthewbauer »

rewtraw wrote: post #15
matthewbauer wrote: post #10

Has anyone tried to “peg” a cryptocurrency to USD? That seems like an ideal thing to have... Somehow change reward size based on exchange rate. That is increase supply when above 1:1 and decrease when below.

MakerDAO just launched its stablecoin, DAI. It maintains stability by a complex system of smart contracts and CDPs. The problem is much more difficult than simply increasing/decreasing supply. https://makerdao.com/

Looks interesting! The trusted oracle part seems concerning as a single point of failure but I suppose it’s necessary.

Re: Why Bitcoin will fail

#34

Post by loblollyboy »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #27
neals wrote: post #14

I've been putting up over 200 of my btc in various loans for over 15 months now. I do this on Bitfinex. It's a double blind loan and can only be used by the receiving party for margin trading. That party has to have maintain a certain reserve to be able to allow an automated stop-loss. This system is fully automated and I've gotten some interesting rates on btc that would otherwise just have been idle.

200 BTC * $15k/BTC = $3,000,000 You have $3m of BTC?

200 of

Re: Why Bitcoin will fail

#35

Post by dworrad »

0x445442 wrote: post #31
noncoml wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot call it wealth to describe its value. You are just saying that the value of it is in itself. Which is what I am supporting as well. In order for me to exchange it for goods, as you described, there must be someone who has the goods and is willing to exchange them for bitcoin. There is no real reason for someone to do so. It is not an apocalyptic scenario. That’s what 90% if the population fight for, day in…

For a small fee you can buy anything with BTC via Bitpay Visa. Just curious, do you think paper currencies have intrinsic value?

Very true. Ask Venezuela or Argentina if they trust the value of their fiat currency.

Re: Why Bitcoin will fail

#36

Post by Lncn »

proofofanalysis wrote: post #32
noncoml wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, cool. We are getting somewhere now. What does Bitcoin offer in that perspective?

An incorruptible ledger resistant to the control of any individual, corporation, or state. Bitcoin may fail in its implementation of this goal. The future is still to be determined. Bitcoin's underlying technology creates the possibility of decentralized governance, starting with currency, which is the connecting link between actors in societies based on economy. Why such a future might be beneficial to mankind is th…

I think you're conflating the value of a block chain with the value of bitcoin.

Why is bitcoin more valuable in this regard than any other altcoin?

Re: Why Bitcoin will fail

#37

Post by chrisco255 »

Lncn wrote: post #36
proofofanalysis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An incorruptible ledger resistant to the control of any individual, corporation, or state. Bitcoin may fail in its implementation of this goal. The future is still to be determined. Bitcoin's underlying technology creates the possibility of decentralized governance, starting with currency, which is the connecting link between actors in societies based on economy. Why such a future might be beneficial to mankind is th…

I think you're conflating the value of a block chain with the value of bitcoin. Why is bitcoin more valuable in this regard than any other altcoin?

Because it being the first successful implementation...it has 9 years of history at this point. It has proven itself resilient to hacks, ddos, Chinese bans, threats of regulation, exchange scandals, and bad press, and yet the protocol just keeps humming along. It being the first, all other cryptos are traded in terms of BTC. The network effect, and the mind share of BTC are substantial at this point. BTC has one largely fixable problem: it doesn't scale. Lightning network tests prove that it can if a second layer is added. Once this rolls out, the game will change.

Re: Why Bitcoin will fail

#38

Post by mercer »

ascom wrote: post #13
yathern wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there is Tether - which is pegged to USD - and somewhat controversial for reasons I don't fully understand.

The controversy is that it is unclear whether every Tether is backed by real USD. See: Tether's TOS, Bitfinex's banking issues, etc.

I found this article on the matter very interesting: https://medium.com/@untetheredbtc/how-the-tether-usdt-distri...

Re: Why Bitcoin will fail

#39

Post by berberous »

matthewbauer wrote: post #33
rewtraw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MakerDAO just launched its stablecoin, DAI. It maintains stability by a complex system of smart contracts and CDPs. The problem is much more difficult than simply increasing/decreasing supply. https://makerdao.com/

Looks interesting! The trusted oracle part seems concerning as a single point of failure but I suppose it’s necessary.

There's also BaseCoin, another attempt at a "stable coin" with prominent investors:

https://www.coindesk.com/basecoin-revealed-a16z-metastable-s...

Re: Why Bitcoin will fail

#40

Post by imtringued »

proofofanalysis wrote: post #16
noncoml wrote: post #11

Bitcoin looks like a ponzi scheme to me as there is no value to a Bitcoin other than that of itself. Currencies used to represent the gold stored by each government. These days currency represent the trust that the system that uses the currency, will trade goods for it. However we had to go through the gold equivalent to get here. Bitcoin doesn’t represent anything and has nothing to back it up.

Bitcoin's value is connected to the costs to continuously mine it and consequently keep the blockchain intact and secure. These costs include electricity, mining equipment, personnel, and warehousing. As with normal equity valuation, these costs would be transparent, allowing for valuation to take place. Since Bitcoin is decentralized and its "employees", or miners, are disparate; costs are not known. This informatio…

>Bitcoin's value is connected to the costs to continuously mine it and consequently keep the blockchain intact and secure.

That's wrong. Bitcoin isn't worth $X because miners are expending $X resources to obtain it. Miners are expending $X because people are buying bitcoin for $X.

Imagine a lottery where the reward is an ounce of gold which is worth $1200. A ticket costs $10. There is a guaranteed winner at the end of the lottery. When the lottery ends a random ticket will be selected and the owner gets the gold. Buying more tickets increases your chance of winning. Therefore participants will try to buy slightly less than $1200 worth of tickets. If the price of gold rises to $2400 people will buy twice as many tickets.

The block reward for mining is decreasing on a regular basis. Resources spent on mining will decrease because of lack of profitablity. If bitcoins value is dependent on mining then why isn't it decreasing with every year?

Post reply on HN