Ending Bitcoin Support • Hacker News Board

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#321

Post by darethas » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:55 PM UTC

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.

It's more likely that technological advances in mining techniques allow us to extract the millions of tons of gold closer to the upper mantle.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#322

Post by regularhackerer » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:56 PM UTC

vec wrote: post #18

For what it's worth, we just spent two weeks trying and failing to get Stripe's Bitcoin integration working on our site. The short version is that Stripe guaranteed a USD BTC exchange rate for an hour, after which they would automatically cancel the transaction. Given that most transactions now take well over an hour to be verified on the blockchain, that means basically every transaction fails.

I just used the bitcoin stripe thing couple days ago. Time limit was indeed quite scary: they had a timer on the side running with something like 15 minutes to go until you need to request a new temporary address. Mine ran out but luckily it was still accepted.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#323

Post by emodendroket » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:56 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #247

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider aluminium. At one point it was more expensive than gold (due to mining+refining challenges). When those were overcome the cost plummeted to it's current "cheap" level. Personally, I think a better comparison is to the diamond trade. Through a series of machinations (price fixing, artificial supply constraint, marketing) diamonds are deeply overvalued if you consider just the fundamentals of them - aka they'r…

But only a one-way retail value. No diamond dealer will give you anything close to their retail price, when you try to sell them diamonds.

I always wonder about this when I see films where criminals mastermind a plan to steal diamonds.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#324

Post by stale2002 » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:56 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.

Dirt also has intrinsic value.

If you don't have enough dirt, then you can't grow food and everyone dies.

But why is dirt not valuable? Well, that's because the supply of dirt vastly outstrips demand.

The same could happen for gold.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#325

Post by Jommi » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:57 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #216

egeozcan wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think the story would end for gold, if it became unpopular and the exchanges closed? You can sell your gold bar, and you can sell your private key. I see them as the same and no, I don't own Bitcoins.

> You can sell your gold bar, and you can sell your private key. I see them as the same and no, I don't own Bitcoins. If there's no support network for your bitcoins, their value is 0, exactly. Even if you assume people stop caring for shiny imputrescible metals, its intrinsic property (of being shiny and imputrescible) pretty much ensures there will always be some demand for gold, and thus it will keep a non-zero pr…

But what does it matter which one has a larger "intrinsic value"? Both prices are determined more by speculation and group consciousness.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#326

Post by Chirael » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:57 PM UTC

undoware wrote: post #227

A lot of the chatter in this post is about the underlying value of Bitcoin (and blockchain currency generally) as an asset class. I keep telling folks: yes, it absolutely does have value apart from sentiment; holding a blockchain currency gives you access to all the infrastructure built on that product -- regardless of whether that infrastructure is for exchange, or storage, or smart contracts, or whatever. It follow…

Yes, some of the "dark web" marketplaces are starting to accept Monero now in addition to Bitcoin, for the reason you mentioned. I looked into buying Stellar but it was surprisingly difficult to buy, and the Stellar Desktop client was just confusing. I love Stellar conceptually but am not sure it's a good "investment" (if it was hard for me to buy/use I'm thinking it will be hard for others, too).

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#327

Post by viach » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:57 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #78

opportune wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or lead

Lead is useful. Even gold is somewhat useful. Bitcoin is an asset that’s neither productive (stocks, bonds, land) nor useful (oil, wheat, lead). That’s quite unusual.

You can buy Bitcoin worth 50k USD in one country, cross the border and sell it in another, with no documents required . This is useful for a subset of people .

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#328

Post by sydd » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:57 PM UTC

garmaine wrote: post #264

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…

Use bitcoin with lightning.

Money is serious business, why would anyone rely on a network that was released days ago? Also it defeats the main guarantee of Bitcoin - that everything can be trusted.

Bitcoin would have had a great future if the big guys werent so greedy and sacrifised a little of their wealth for the benefit of the whole community. Since they refused to do so (=refusing any attempt to make BTC transfers faster and cheaper) the network is choking itself (=it takes days for a transaction to be confirmed, it costs >$30) and the community is thorn between altcoins.

We will see how this will play out, but my hunch is that we will see a huge market collapse and a "restart" by one of the emerging altcoins that solves the issues that came up with Bitcoin.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#329

Post by fanzhang » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:58 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #271

freeone3000 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: mo…

Has either of the above ever happened historically, not counting jumps of just 1 person?

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#330

Post by marshray » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 8:59 PM UTC

nerfhammer wrote: post #261

CPLX wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold has "real" demand though in jewelry. It's distributed and longstanding and it has utility. People wear it and use it in real life and value it and wish to keep it in order to look at it and possess it. That's as tangible as anything else. Nobody would say that there's no demand for musical instruments, or baseballs, because they are optional parts of life that aren't food or shelter. Gold has intrinsic value in…

the modifier "intrinsic" doesn't add anything though. "people intrinsically like" --> "people like"; "gold is intrinsically valued" --> "gold is valued". "intrinsic" seems to imply an innate persistence despite not being able to justify such innateness, just empirical persistence. It just implies things that are arguably not justifiable needlessly. gold has been persistently valuable. The universe doesn't give it an…

'Intrinsic' here means that the property of the object remains even if people's preferences and culture change. Gold's utility for electronic applications is a fundamental property of the number of atoms in its nucleus, whereas there have been cultures that had it readily available yet didn't find it particularly desirable for jewelry.