This article seems like enough to say, "Let's call a top right here and now"
Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency
151–160 of 222 posts
Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency
#152Bitcoin is not remotely usable as a currency now. The fees are incredible, the confirmation times ridiculous. We need to move on to something more modern like Ethereum, Stellar Lumens, etc. immediately. Asking the current 1 mb blocksize version of Bitcoin to be a currency is like Goldman Sachs writing a report saying they want to run their website on Intel 486 processors. They mention Zimbabwe moving to it as an alte…
> We need to move on to something more modern like Ethereum, Stellar Lumens, etc.
Those don't fix the fundamental problem of scaling a blockchain. Raiblocks is the only big one that I'm aware of which tries to address this.
I kept seeing things about third world countries using it and thought it was simply due to old-timers (in Bitcoin time that means 3-4 years ago) not realising that the block congestion and resulting fees had snuck up on them. They are even further from reality because most of them are "holding" Bitcoin rather than trying to use it. The authors of the article are clearly looking Bitcoin as what it was, or what it was designed for, rather than what it has become.
Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency
#153Bitcoin is not remotely usable as a currency now. The fees are incredible, the confirmation times ridiculous. We need to move on to something more modern like Ethereum, Stellar Lumens, etc. immediately. Asking the current 1 mb blocksize version of Bitcoin to be a currency is like Goldman Sachs writing a report saying they want to run their website on Intel 486 processors. They mention Zimbabwe moving to it as an alte…
>We need to move on to something more modern like Ethereum, Stellar Lumens, etc. All other chains will face the same cost-of-scaling problem as Bitcoin as they grow. No one has yet developed a public consensus mechanism proven to provide the same security as PoW with the requisite order of magnitude higher scalability and lower costs. Unless some technological breakthroughs are made on that subject, they'll all hit t…
There's a big difference regarding stellar, though: allowing global and fast payments is their goal from the start (not that I presume they will succeed in this).
This article explain their vision the best, I think: https://www.stellar.org/blog/why-design-matters/
Although not stated as clearly, the rest of their blog shows that from the beginning, through their will of "banking the unbanked", their primary focus is to be usable as a payment system.
One can expect they will decide on roadmap being more inclined toward scalability of microtransactions than a crypto seeing itself as a store of value (is that the case for bitcoin? I hear "store of value" a lot around it, but I don't know if it's an "official" vision).
Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am struggling to see how cryptocurrencies would have any tangible advantage over US Dollars in developing nations. Remember that in many of these countries, most people don't have smart phones, and there's a lot of people who don't even have phones. Electricity and internet connections are intermittent at best. Good luck convincing Cambodian street hawkers that your magic internet money is better than a good old fa…
Indeed. It also requires considerable levels of technical literacy to use, maintain, and properly secure blockchain tokens, and even with all that people regularly have their bitcoins stolen or irreparably lost.
I love how Fiat Money was designed to be impossible to use for illegal purposes, and there is no way to steal it. I mean really, if there were a way for it to be used in that way, surely your argument would be pointless, but luckily we know that the more middlemen we introduce between us and another party, the more affordable the transaction will become.
Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is deception in your comment too: - You are misreading your charts. The real-world median txn fee is far from $1.50... it's $13: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-median_transact... - A real-world txn is on average 500 bytes, not 250. - Although you can have multiple recipients/outputs in a single txn ("batch transactions"), it is not used very often. I computed not too long ago 2.6 outputs on averag…
>The real-world median txn fee is far from $1.50... it's $13: The site you quote is showing the median transaction fee of each block. That's not what I stated: "The median fee for a typical transaction in the past week" >- A real-world txn is on average 500 bytes, not 250. What's your source? https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/ indicates 225. It seems like you're using a source that assumes two UTXO inputs, which would res…
My 338 byte, 2-input 1-output (no change) transaction, paying 88 satoshi per byte, $5 at time of sending, has been stuck in the mempool for nearly 2 weeks now. With some luck, it may get processed in the next month.
Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing your argument is that no one is arguing about these philosophical ideas of intrinsic value. People are just saying: 'if people didn't use gold as money anymore because they lost faith in it, the gold would still be useful (ie as in jewlery, circuit boards, etc).' I mean I could do you one better with this type of argumentation and say 'your idea is wrong because all ideas are social constructs, so all are e…
You could do one better but that would be missing the point. The claim was that gold have intrinsic value and bitcoin doesn't. But to the extent of discussing intrinsic value in economical terms then bitcoin does too. In other words you can't both have your cake and eat it. Either both bitcoin and gold has intrinsic value in economical terms or none of them have in philosophical terms.
That's not true.
Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency
#157Bitcoin is the best, the exchange of its value is the problem, exchanges will need to do better.
Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, there is its physical essence. Cryptocurrencies are a bit like a DVD vs a movie on Netflix. Everyone is starting a new cryptocurrency nowadays, whereas opening a gold mine is an entirely different matter.
You can start as many cryptos currencies as you want you won't be able to get the price of a bitcoin. You can't because they aren't bitcoin. It's not at all like Netflix or a DVD.
All you're saying there is that BTC has first-mover advantage. That can disappear overnight.
Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency
#159If you think bitcoin would make a good currency, ask yourself what happens if you have any debts, lease or mortgage denominated in bitcoin. At least hyperinflation wipes out debts, in hyperdeflation some people become millionaires and others owe millions based on whether you had positive or negative money at the start.
Exactly. Ask people in Italy or Greece whose banks made them take out mortgages in Euro.
Iceland is the better example - during the boom years they were offered loans in Euro instead of their national currency. Then after the crash when their own currency was devalued in respect to the Euro, they were left with repayments they could not possibly service.
Re: Goldman Sachs Report Explores Use of Bitcoin as Currency
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can start as many cryptos currencies as you want you won't be able to get the price of a bitcoin. You can't because they aren't bitcoin. It's not at all like Netflix or a DVD.
All you're saying there is that BTC has first-mover advantage. That can disappear overnight.
Exactly. And also, the investment in ASICs etc is not the same as opening a gold-mine. An ASIC can mine Litecoin or Bitcoin whichever is profitable, a gold-mine cannot start extracting petrol when that is more profitable. That's the intrinsic value of gold.