Ending Bitcoin Support • Hacker News Board

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#471

Post by microtherion » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 10:59 PM UTC

peterjlee wrote: post #215

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…

I agree with the gold comparison. Gold is priced far higher than it's industrial usefulness because it's seen as an value holding asset. The properties that make gold a good value holding asset is: 1. It's rare and supply is limited (holds value in low physical volume) 2. It doesn't decay or rust 3. It's easy to split into smaller pieces or combine into a larger one. Bitcoin is good at all three plus added benefit of…

I'll grant you (2) and (3), but (1) seems more debatable. Even though the overall number of Bitcoins is fixed (By fiat ;-), cryptocurrencies are multiplying like rabbits. Each Bitcoin fork alone creates 21 million potential new coins. New elements, in contrast, are added rarely, and stable new elements seem rather unlikely at this point.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#472

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 10:59 PM UTC

zolthrowaway wrote: post #236

nxsynonym wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a ridiculous example, of course. But it's something. Not to mention the actual real applications that were mentioned above. The point is - crypto-currencies are fairy dust. There is nothing real or tangible about them.

I don't have a horse in this race, but what about pyrite? It has most of the aesthetic properties of gold (which I think everyone agrees is where most of the value comes from), but almost none of the value. Pyrite is a real, physical thing that will not disappear tomorrow. However, it has almost no value. I guess what I am trying to say is that there is a lot more that goes into value than utility. That's why I do no…

> but what about pyrite? It has most of the aesthetic properties of gold

Not really. Pyrite has a vaguely similar color to gold and flakes of it can be easily be visually mistaken for gold in certain contexts, it doesn't generally closely resemble gold, even cosmetically.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#473

Post by thebiglebrewski » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 11:02 PM UTC

fpgaminer wrote: post #373

It is amazing the number of shallow comments shouting doom and gloom over news like this and others (Steam, etc). Must be the end of Bitcoin because transaction fees are too high! And more generally everyone shouting doom and gloom over high transaction fees. Let's stop and think about this critically for once. Transaction fees on Bitcoin are high. And that's somehow a bad thing? By that same logic it's bad that Appl…

I'm sorry, but saying Bitcoin succeeded like the Model S succeeded is an argument that just holds no water to me at all. That makes no sense.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#474

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 11:06 PM UTC

cwkoss wrote: post #465

_7fvc wrote: post #194

Bitcoin isn't like gold. You cannot launder money or evade tax using gold. No need for trust means no trust. We know what "gold standard" means. You can guess what "bitcoin standard" would mean. Those who think bitcoin is an asset storage are delusional.

> You cannot launder money or evade tax using gold. What makes you think that? Trade dirty money for bullion, then trade bullion for cash at a pawn shop - money laundered. Buy gold, after it appreciates trade it for a good without reporting the capital gain - evaded taxes. Or simply accept physical gold in return for labor without reporting or paying taxes.

[deleted]

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#475

Post by guiomie » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 11:12 PM UTC

nvk wrote: post #8

They should have replaced it with Lightning Network, is amazingly fast and cheap and works on top of Bitcoin. I'm running a test node, this stuff really works! > Lightning is a decentralized network using smart contract functionality in the blockchain to enable instant payments across a network of participants. In case you are curious https://lightning.network and another good resource here https://www.reddit.com/r/B…

The documentation is really bad online, could you share a link to help me set up a test node?

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#476

Post by notyourday » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 11:15 PM UTC

ujal wrote: post #453

notyourday wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the claim is that the private data unrelated to bitcoin transactions is being published and verified on a bitcoin blockchain then this is a scam . It is absolutely amazing that the person who wrote this article still has a title of a Senior Editor that claims to write on this topic.

It is possible to hash the data and make that hash part of the transaction [0]. [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.04015

That's not the application, however.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#477

Post by nikcub » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 11:15 PM UTC

hmcdona1 wrote: post #428

eosrei wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW that is the goal of the Lightning Network on Bitcoin: https://lightning.network/

The lightning network will be far less effective than people are hoping. You have to a) pay to open up a channel with each person you wish to use it, and b) each stake capital in that channel for it to be functional. This is useful only in specific scenarios like exchange-to-exchange transfers. Exchanges are going to be very unlikely to ever set up channels to customers. They haven't even implemented segwit yet, ther…

> You have to a) pay to open up a channel with each person you wish to use it

This simply isn't true. You open one channel and then payments are routed over channels to your destination. It's no different to TCP/IP in this way and the reason why that analogy is used a lot in describing the network

Having a one channel single destination can be done with Bitcoin alone and the new timelock transactions - the purpose of lightning is automating these transacations and the routing between channels

Opening a channel in lightning is no different to having a balance in a wallet or a bank account - you don't notice that it is "locked". Channels can also create other channels using channel factories[0]. This all happens under the hood much in the same way somebody accessing YouTube knows little about routing infrastructure.

There really is a lot of FUD about Lightning and they get repeated a lot by people who should know better. There is now a series of simple infographics that explain what Lightning is and how it works so there shouldn't be any more excuses for such simple misinformation being repeated[1][2][3][4][5]

Your specific claim about one channel = one receiver is addressed in [5]

I think the HN audience should go out and try it themselves and read the paper. It's the most eye-opening tech experience i've had since reading the Bitcoin white paper.

If you've been kicking yourself about not getting into Bitcoin early - you have a new opportunity with Lightning now. There are only hundreds of nodes at the moment and only a couple of vendors accepting payments on the testnet and a ton of opportunity to build an entirely new infrastructure around it.

[0] https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/67158/what-are-c...

[1] https://i.imgur.com/L10n4ET.png

[2] https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/what-are...

[3] https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightnin...

[4] https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightnin...

[5] https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoindesigned-prod/media/lightnin...

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#478

Post by VarFarYonder » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 11:17 PM UTC

Operyl wrote: post #413

eosrei wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW that is the goal of the Lightning Network on Bitcoin: https://lightning.network/

I keep seeing this brought up over months and months, but how close are we even to using it? Is the technology a thing yet? Or is it all white papers.

Here is a graph showing the number of lightning network payment channels on the bitcoin mainnet: https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/lightning-network?orgId=1

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#479

Post by make3 » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 11:17 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #187

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…

> it's supply will remain constant after it has all been mined Even this could change if the miners and thought-leaders decide that it should.

I think thought-leaders just might be the cringiest buzzword being thrown around currently

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#480

Post by tuna-piano » Tue, Jan 23, 2018, 11:17 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #49

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 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…

The argument that makes sense to me is that Bitcoin is just “Digital Gold”.

But I don’t really understand why gold has so much value, so maybe it’s not really a good answer. It’s kind of like saying “Maybe Bitcoins will have value for a long time just like this other non-valuable, non-transaction asset that’s had value for a long time”...