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Bitcoin Gold Hit by Double Spend Attack, Exchanges Lose Millions

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Re: Bitcoin Gold Hit by Double Spend Attack, Exchanges Lose Millions

#501

Post by dragonwriter »

actsasbuffoon wrote: post #463
dragonwriter wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Association with or interest in a different (crypto or not) currency, leading to wanting to shake faith in the target currency. Hostility toward a community in which the target currency is particularly popular. “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

If you had a strong interest in Ethereum (for example), then I think you’d want to avoid the wholesale destruction of Bitcoin. If the biggest crypto currency fails, it’ll probably send shockwaves through out the entire crypto currency market. Mind you, I say this as a crypto currency outsider.

> If you had a strong interest in Ethereum (for example), then I think you’d want to avoid the wholesale destruction of Bitcoin. If the biggest crypto currency fails, it’ll probably send shockwaves through out the entire crypto currency market.

That's true as long as cryptocurrency itself is seen as fringe; it's less true if cryptocurrency becomes generally accepted.

Of course, a nation-state or other actor interested in preserving the role of fiat and keeping cryptocurrency on the fringes is also a possibility.

Re: Bitcoin Gold Hit by Double Spend Attack, Exchanges Lose Millions

#502

Post by this_user »

optimuspaul wrote: post #489
cheschire wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb is a service, where bitcoin is a commodity. I don't mean to imply you are wrong. I simply mean that there may be an even more interesting parallel out there where a commodity is no longer being used in its originally intended way which may support bitcoin's evolution of purpose.

How is bitcoin a commodity? I think you give it too much credit to elevate it to that status.

It's structure and behaviour much more resembles a commodity than it does any other asset class; it is basically digital gold. The CFTC agrees and considers itself the responsible regulator.

Re: Bitcoin Gold Hit by Double Spend Attack, Exchanges Lose Millions

#503

Post by wpietri »

brownbat wrote: post #423
wpietri wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like saying you can't buy anything with gold. Credit and debit cards are just a way of shifting dollars around. Bitcoin is more a commodity than a currency. Yes, you can convert gold or oil to dollars and buy things, but you can't walk into a store and give them some gold flake or a quart of Texas crude in exchange for a candy bar.

> Credit and debit cards are just a way of shifting dollars around A credit card is shifting a line of credit, an intangible promise to pay, a form of trust, that happens to be denominated in dollars. We can pretend it's just a balance of dollars, even though it technically isn't, because it makes conversations easier, and in practical fact that's how it appears to work. But that's just a shorthand. We can use the sa…

It did not. He gave them dollars, not a quart of crude. That he might have a side deal with somebody else to trade beanie babies for dollars does not make beanie babies a currency.

Bitcoin is not a currency. Plenty of other things are true currencies, so there's no fallacy here.

Re: Bitcoin Gold Hit by Double Spend Attack, Exchanges Lose Millions

#504

Post by wpietri »

hapnin wrote: post #368
wpietri wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's definitely not proof of real economic utility. How many bets happen in Las Vegas every day? But economically, they're negative-sum events exploiting cognitive weaknesses.

Use as a currency was the point I was addressing. Bitcoin has been a working network for 9 years with 300,000,000 plus transactions. It's a useful currency.

Gambling has way more transactions. LIBOR options have more transactions. Any actively traded stock has more transactions. None of those things are currency.

Even prominent Bitcoin advocates agree it's not effective as a currency: http://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system/

Re: Bitcoin Gold Hit by Double Spend Attack, Exchanges Lose Millions

#505

Post by wpietri »

conanbatt wrote: post #371
wpietri wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's definitely not proof of real economic utility. How many bets happen in Las Vegas every day? But economically, they're negative-sum events exploiting cognitive weaknesses.

They are not negative sum, because they provide entertainment. Also, all systems that pay taxes are negative sum as well! Utility is not measured in money.

They mainly provide addiction. Go to a casino sometime and look around. Do those people look like they're entertained? The slot machine zombies barely look human anymore.

You're also wrong about taxes. Consider my local taqueria. They buy raw materials and create value by making ready-to-eat food just when people are hungry. They receive cash in exchange, a portion of which they pay in taxes to fund the infrastructure their business depends upon.

That is positive sum for all participants. It has to be. If taxes tipped it into the negative sum category, they'd eventually close down.

Re: Bitcoin Gold Hit by Double Spend Attack, Exchanges Lose Millions

#506

Post by [deleted] »

DennisP wrote: post #480
IncRnd wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a cautionary note - you are describing the future in the present tense.

"In three months"...there's a chance that a problem will be found by the people doing formal verification, but otherwise there don't seem to be any potential roadblocks. Client implementation is very simple, partly because most of the protocol is implemented by a smart contract, which is already done. Ethereum does a hard-fork upgrade a couple times a year.

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin Gold Hit by Double Spend Attack, Exchanges Lose Millions

#507

Post by notahacker »

JackFr wrote: post #461
wpietri wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's definitely not proof of real economic utility. How many bets happen in Las Vegas every day? But economically, they're negative-sum events exploiting cognitive weaknesses.

Not (necessarily) true. Expected value is not the only thing to consider. Higher moments matter. Insurance typically has negative expected value but it’s rational to buy it (in conjunction with owning the insured object) to reduce one’s variance. Gambling will increase the variance of one’s portfolio at the cost of expected value, which can be rational depending on one’s situation.

An awful lot of casino gambling involves series of small stakes bets on low payout options which don't even meaningfully increase upside portfolio variance over time after the house edge has been taken out. Might still be rational from a utilitarian perspective if one really, really enjoys card games of course, but not from a portfolio allocation perspective.

Apart from weird edge cases where an actor needs to double their money overnight to return to solvency in order to have a chance of benefiting from an income stream in future, there aren't many cases where it makes sense from a portfolio allocation basis given the existence of non-negative expectation bets in other markets with a wide range of possible variances. The insurance and investment management industries are built on the principle that economic rationality works in exactly the opposite way to gambling: that inherent value exists in reducing risk.

Re: Bitcoin Gold Hit by Double Spend Attack, Exchanges Lose Millions

#508

Post by wpietri »

dnautics wrote: post #387
wpietri wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the split you draw between people looking at Bitcoin-the-real-thing and people adoring the machinery is an excellent one. If you look at the original paper, it's pretty clear that Bitcoin was meant to be peer-to-peer electronic cash: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf In practice, it has failed at this aim. I don't think that was necessarily so; plenty of things start out rough and become more useful over time.…

In practice, Airbnb has failed at its aim of providing airbed style accommodations for conference goers.

They have succeeded wildly in providing accommodation for conference-goers. The last conference I went to many people were staying in AirBnBs and even coordinating to share them.

They succeeded by expanding the mechanism to support actual discovered user needs. Which is what Bitcoin signally failed to do.

Re: Bitcoin Gold Hit by Double Spend Attack, Exchanges Lose Millions

#509

Post by wpietri »

notahacker wrote: post #507
JackFr wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not (necessarily) true. Expected value is not the only thing to consider. Higher moments matter. Insurance typically has negative expected value but it’s rational to buy it (in conjunction with owning the insured object) to reduce one’s variance. Gambling will increase the variance of one’s portfolio at the cost of expected value, which can be rational depending on one’s situation.

An awful lot of casino gambling involves series of small stakes bets on low payout options which don't even meaningfully increase upside portfolio variance over time after the house edge has been taken out. Might still be rational from a utilitarian perspective if one really, really enjoys card games of course, but not from a portfolio allocation perspective. Apart from weird edge cases where an actor needs to double…

Exactly. Thank you.

Re: Bitcoin Gold Hit by Double Spend Attack, Exchanges Lose Millions

#510

Post by wpietri »

nicky0 wrote: post #383
wpietri wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the split you draw between people looking at Bitcoin-the-real-thing and people adoring the machinery is an excellent one. If you look at the original paper, it's pretty clear that Bitcoin was meant to be peer-to-peer electronic cash: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf In practice, it has failed at this aim. I don't think that was necessarily so; plenty of things start out rough and become more useful over time.…

How would you change the machinery?

Personally, I wouldn't. Most people don't want digital cash for the same reasons they don't use real cash: your risk of theft is higher, it's not as convenient to use, transactions can't be reversed, and you lose a lot of buyer protections.

I use technology to solve problems for people. The few niches Bitcoin has found (e.g., speculation, money laundering, ransoms, light drug crime) are not really what I would call solving problems for people.

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