Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ending Bitcoin Support

stripe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

491–500 of 659 posts

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#491

Post by stevenwoo »

hyprCoin wrote: post #307
stevenwoo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a recent bit on NPR (Planet Money?) where they interviewed young people in Seoul - they had so little faith in their ability to earn a living and save money by working a regular job in Korea they were putting all their savings into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and hoping to hit the jackpot. It was alarming.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/73... > Low-income South Koreans are finding it harder and harder to rise to the middle or high-income classes through their own efforts and abilities, a recent study shows. Just two out of every ten households saw their economic status rise through increased income and assets over a three-year period, the findings indicate. Crypto provides an alternative econ…

I wonder if young folks in the same situation in America are doing the same thing.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#492

Post by uncletammy »

tuna-piano wrote: post #480
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…

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”...

Bitcoin's strategy is exactly that. And it would be a GREAT strategy if there was something about Bitcoin that made it the best "digital gold" available.

Sadly, the only property it shares with gold is that it's hard to move. In fact, Bitcoin Cash is functionally identical to Bitcoin and it's easy to move.

That's ignoring the hundreds of other digital currencies not named Bitcoin which make a better "digital gold".

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#493

Post by [deleted] »

clarkmoody wrote: post #309
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 isn't functioning correctly Please unpack this statement. Which part of the Bitcoin system is functioning incorrectly?

[deleted]

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#494

Post by giblaz »

tempestn wrote: post #369
koheripbal wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so simple. You only need one exchange, anywhere in the world, that will exchange Monero for non-banned cryptos, and the market will flow freely.

Except that any exchange trafficking in an illegal coin could be banned as well, and so your transactions with that exchange in other coins (in order to convert to or from Monero) would be traceable and illegal.

What about coins forked from Monero?

What about other privacy coins?

Are certain cryptographic algorithms going to be banned when used in a cryptocurrency?

These are all loopholes they'd have to tie up if they want to go down that rabbit hole. It will cost them millions of dollars and man hours to stop it. You're baiting the government to play a neverending and increasingly complex game of whack of a mole. It seems like a beyond awful use of tax dollars to me. We cannot let our government get sucked down the black hole of trying to regulate the unregulatable. They need to come up with solutions to co-exist with it, not outright ban it. That will be a disaster in the making on par with the war on drugs.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#495

Post by hateduser2 »

Goladus wrote: post #170
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…

> Lots of assets have value without people buying things with them. Gold, houses, stocks, etc. That value is predicated on the notion that they're worth something to the holder apart from their market price. Gold can be used for jewelry and electronics manufacturing. In that sense it is a natural resource. Stocks are shares in a company that runs a business or multiple businesses that could be profitable. Companies h…

And what is jewelry’s worth? What is fine arts worth? What is fiat currency worth? The world is chock full of goods with no inherent value. None. Fine art is worth a lot BECAUSE it is worth a lot.

Kim kardashian is famous for being famous. It’s clear the world is not utilitarian.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#496

Post by dmoy »

tuna-piano wrote: post #480
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…

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”...

Gold has value because it's shiny, doesn't oxidize, is malleable enough to easily form conspicuous jewelry, is much rarer than base mining elements, and is not cheap to extract.

The not oxidizing and rarity are key. E.g. platinum is also not cheap.

Aluminium is close but it's orders of magnitude more common, and still oxidizes a little.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#497

Post by uncletammy »

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…

> I honestly don't know what use-case remains for Bitcoin.

There's a great use case in suckering honest people into holding your bags using the promise of instant wealth.

EDIT: Added quote

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#498

Post by bradleyjg »

viach wrote: post #487
bradleyjg wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure exactly what you mean by no documents required. You need to find some way to get money to the seller when you are in country A and the buyer needs to the same for you in country B. There is no reason that same pair of transactions could not have occurred with British bonds.

I mean one of the main cryptocurrencies attraction points - it's unregulated and you can move money cross borders freely. And guys from localbitcoin don't ask many questions. There are other ways also, I suspect.

They aren't unregulated. All the laws apply to them. They just are new enough so that governments haven't gotten up to speed in enforcing the laws with respect to them yet. But there's no reason whatsoever to believe that they won't eventually come up to speed or that somehow their nature will render those enforcement efforts impossible.

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#499

Post by stephen_g »

skywhopper wrote: post #484

I'd just like to gripe a bit about the use of "fiat currency" as an antonym of "cryptocurrency". Bitcoin may not be similar in all respects to typical government-issued money, but it is far more similar to fiat currency than to hard currency: its supply is artificially controlled, and Bitcoin itself has no intrinsic value. Bitcoin is administered by a de facto government in the form of the miners that run the network…

Bitcoin isn't like real money though. Take the US dollar - whatever happens, something like 300 million people and tens of millions of companies will still need to pay taxes in that currency. That's a big baseline demand, before you even consider the goods and services available in the economy that can be bought with US dollars.

Whereas everybody trading bitcoin or accepting it as a payment method could switch to a different cryptocurrency tomorrow...

Re: Ending Bitcoin Support

#500

Post by hluch »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #368
jrs95 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, Monero functions basically the same way cash does in this scenario. Most cryptocurrencirs do not, though.

Money launderers are usually caught because they're already under investigation. Others become apparent when lifestyle and reported income disagree. When thinking about what the government might do in a specific situation involving cryptocurrency, I've found it helps to replace "Bitcoin" with "cash". "I tumbled Bitcoin" becomes "I laundered cash." "I got paid Bitcoin for my car" becomes "I have unexplainable cash bec…

Less than 2% of "money laundering" is ever caught. That's despite the enormous time, money, and loss of dignity and privacy burdens, which are overwhelmingly borne by people with no connection to crime whatsoever. "Anti money laundering" is a parasite on humanity. They should let it drop to 0% and not bother with any of it: they doubtless keep lying to themselves that they are doing something worthwhile; they are not.
Post reply on HN