Ending Bitcoin Support

Post by makomk » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 7:30 PM UTC

chocolatebunny wrote: post #48

makomk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there was about a month or two when Bitcoin looked more like a store of value than a medium of transaction at any rate. Fees are starting to look increasingly more reasonable now that the insane growth and massive speculation has stopped. (There's reason to suspect that during the worst of that period, a rather large proportion of transactions were to and from Coinbase/GDAX - not helped by the fact they don't b…

I haven't been keeping up with this. What's the bitcoin transaction cost now?

Post by bitoneill » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 7:31 PM UTC

munchbunny wrote: post #55

blueprint wrote: post #30

I don't have any place to criticize at all but this seems pretty short-sighted. The primary criticism is low tps and fees… but that's exactly what lightning was invented to solve (edit: as I now see someone else mentioned)… and it's already working, in testing phase. Isn't it more effort to remove support then add it back again soon than just to wait a few months? So it /seems/ either something else is going on or th…

"In testing phase" is probably not good enough for Stripe to roll out to their customers. I think what they meant was "we're just not seeing enough usage of Bitcoin payments to justify the costs of supporting it." Which is perfectly fair.

Post by pembrook » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 7:31 PM UTC

prostoalex wrote: post #63

moduspol wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What future does an asset have if people don't actually buy stuff with it? Lots of assets have value without people buying things with them. Gold, houses, stocks, etc. The more interesting question is how long Bitcoin will remain top dog merely as a store of value if other cryptocurrencies solve this on-chain / off-chain scaling problem better / faster. There's definitely some amount of value in the name alone, and…

> Gold, houses, stocks, etc. With a caveat that houses and stocks can provide cashflow in terms of rent payments and dividends / option income.

Post by tedunangst » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 7:31 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #57

chocolatebunny wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is definitely acting more like an asset than a medium of exchange, and yeah, I don't see why it would hold any value if it's treated like an asset. But as soon as people realize that then it should go back to being a medium of exchange and then it'll hold value again as an asset? Either way, just because Bitcoin isn't functioning correctly doesn't mean that all cryptocurrencies are not. But I guess at the mom…

Bitcoin is functioning exactly as designed. Satoshi planned for this; it's in the whitepaper. Most people just don't like the idea of Satoshi's endgame vision. But it's working as intended.

Post by serg_chernata » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 7:31 PM UTC

0xcafecafe wrote: post #60

nulagrithom wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What future does an asset have if people don't actually buy stuff with it? I look at it (maybe naively) like a solid gold bar. You're not going to walk in to a convenience store and pay with a bar of solid gold; you might flee the country with one though. Beyond that, I totally agree with your read on the post. Linking the pull request[0] was especially backhanded. It feels like there's some underlying frustration…

Gold as a metal has an inherent value though. If not only for jewelry, it also has important uses in electronics. The value associated with bitcoin seems purely sentimental.