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Ending Bitcoin Support

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Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#271

Post by JumpCrisscross »

freeone3000 wrote: post #148
avenoir wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With South Korea trying to regulate anonymous trading on Korean exchanges, makes me wonder how long we have before regulations become more widespread. And if this happens do you think privacy coins even stand a chance?

Well, the problem with regulating anonymous transactions is you don't know who's doing them.

> the problem with regulating anonymous transactions is you don't know who's doing them

Every government has departments of agents adept at tracing cash transactions. Bitcoin offers the advantage of total transactional transparency.

Shady wallet? Trace back until you find a known wallet. An exchange, vendor, et cetera. Subpoena, find their counterparty, rinse and repeat. Best case: you find your guy. Consolation: money laundering charges against the schmuck who didn't keep books and records.

Arrest someone who conducted a fraud, Ponzi scheme, ransomware scam or terrorist financing? If they did it with cash, the money is gone. If they did it with Bitoin, you have the option of tracing forward and seizing the funds the moment they hit a known wallet.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#272

Post by davmar »

prostoalex wrote: post #141
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…

One side effect is that stores of value tend to have smaller and more expensive infrastructures than media of exchange. People are hoarding, so there are fewer transactions. Miners still need to pay the bills somehow, so transaction fees are likely to increase. With fewer transactions the price discovery mechanisms, i.e. exchanges, are now somewhat illusory due to thin trading volume (not like BTC exchanges were the…

your assertions about fees is exactly backwards. if there are fewer transactions, the fees go down. each block has a finite number of transactions it can include, so to get yours included you attach a fee. therefore, increased demand increases the fees and visa-versa.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#273

Post by ezekg »

beaker52 wrote: post #230

It's nice to see they're still interested in payment-oriented tech in this area, such as Lightning and OmiseGO. Another one to watch out for is RaiBlocks. Currently has a functioning net, featuring instant, fee-less transactions. The thing that's really impressing me about RaiBlocks is the community that's around it - so much community dev effort going into payment adapters and services. People are already accepting…

No, Rai does not have a functioning network as it currently stands. Nodes consistently become out of sync with the rest of the network, which has caused a lot of drama because the exchanges that list Rai had to shut down deposit/withdrawals for weeks. It's only recently that most of those exchanges were able to enable deposit/withdrawals by implementing a workaround provided by the Rai team. But it's far from stable and there is not yet a permanent solution to the Node issues. Even their wallet has consistent sync issues, resulting in the Node getting stuck to the point of having to download a snapshot of the network to be able to get caught up.

But, with all that said, I have yet to find a cryptocurrency that left me more impressed than Rai has. My first transaction took 2 seconds to appear in my wallet.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#274

Post by rwcarlsen »

nwah1 wrote: post #263
koheripbal wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't know what use-case remains for Bitcoin. If you have large value transactions you'd probably choose something with privacy like Monero, and if you want something cheap and fast, maybe Bitcoin Cash. In both use-cases, you have a few competing alternatives. In no circumstance is Bitcoin preferable to one of the mature alternatives. ...and if no one is using it as a transaction medium, then acting as a s…

Your comment amounts to "I don't know why anyone would use X when they can use these other two things that are fundamentally the same."

His entire comment is about the differences between BTC and Monero and Bitcoin Cash that make the latter two more desirable. Not sure how your interpretation is remotely accurate.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#275

Post by seanmcdirmid »

emodendroket wrote: post #174
EnFinlay wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading your comment finally made it click to me why cryptocurrencies (specifically Bitcoin) are distinct from a gold bar or other non-currency stores of value. A gold bar is going to remain a gold bar forever, people's perception of its value will change even though the supply will remain mostly steady, but it will stay a gold bar no matter what. Bitcoin may change in value based on perception, it's supply will rema…

To be fair, people could also stop thinking gold is worth much. Maybe a modern-day alchemist finally figures out the formula. I don't know. Probably far less likely than the Bitcoin scenarios though.

Or we start mining exponentially more of it on asteroids. After all, more than 90% of the Earth’s gold has been mined since 1848.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#276

Post by lawn »

peterkelly wrote: post #237
colordrops wrote: post #94

I've said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating. Bitcoin is capable of handling high transaction volume with low fees. The BCH fork was created to support this case. The BTC chain's devs mostly work for Blockstream, who's business model is to create layer 2 payment solutions, so it's in their interest to choke off the main chain. And it looks like they are succeeding.

All BCH did was increase the block size limit from 1mb to 8mb. It solves the scalability problems in the short term, but will run into exactly the same issues a year or two from now. Then it'll be 32mb blocks, then 128mb, then 1Gb. An O(n) approach won't work in the long term.

Yet nobody quantifies what long term is.

Forgoing a solution that works temporarily, even if only for a year or two, isn't very bright if the alternative is this. Bitcoin is quickly loosing the network effect, the only thing it has going for it vs other altcoins.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#277

Post by RickS »

nwah1 wrote: post #263
koheripbal wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't know what use-case remains for Bitcoin. If you have large value transactions you'd probably choose something with privacy like Monero, and if you want something cheap and fast, maybe Bitcoin Cash. In both use-cases, you have a few competing alternatives. In no circumstance is Bitcoin preferable to one of the mature alternatives. ...and if no one is using it as a transaction medium, then acting as a s…

Your comment amounts to "I don't know why anyone would use X when they can use these other two things that are fundamentally the same."

They're "fundamentally the same" in the way that handing you $5 now is "fundamentally the same" as mailing you $5 in 3 to 5 days. They're the same in a lot of ways, but different in a way that is a dealbreaker for transactions that are impacted by time.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#278

Post by Chriky »

nwah1 wrote: post #263
koheripbal wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't know what use-case remains for Bitcoin. If you have large value transactions you'd probably choose something with privacy like Monero, and if you want something cheap and fast, maybe Bitcoin Cash. In both use-cases, you have a few competing alternatives. In no circumstance is Bitcoin preferable to one of the mature alternatives. ...and if no one is using it as a transaction medium, then acting as a s…

Your comment amounts to "I don't know why anyone would use X when they can use these other two things that are fundamentally the same."

Fundamentally the same... except for the differences that were pointed out.

I don't understand the point of your comment

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#279

Post by PeterisP »

oculusthrift wrote: post #255
aaroninsf wrote: post #212

The difference between gold and cryptocurrencies is that gold is something that doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. Simulated gold is not actual gold, in other words. They are under current conventions interchangeable, but the context that allows that is contingent.

actually if people started not viewing gold as a store of value but just as a raw material like aluminum it’s price would tank.

The price of gold could significantly decrease, that's for sure, but even purely as a material it still would be reasonably valuable, significantly more valuable than silver. It has a price floor; bitcoin does not.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#280

Post by wmf »

freeone3000 wrote: post #148
avenoir wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With South Korea trying to regulate anonymous trading on Korean exchanges, makes me wonder how long we have before regulations become more widespread. And if this happens do you think privacy coins even stand a chance?

Well, the problem with regulating anonymous transactions is you don't know who's doing them.

That's not a problem at all; just ban them. For example, I would predict that Coinbase and Gemini will never support Monero or ZCash.
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