Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#41

Post by Retric » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 4:31 PM UTC

chrismorgan wrote: post #26

briatx wrote: post #10

It has been clear for a while now that Bitcoin is an inferior payment system for the consumer: * The fees are higher. * The risk to the consumer is higher. * The difficulty of use is higher. * It is accepted at an extremely low amount of vendors and even that is falling. So you really how to wonder why people ever thought consumers would use it en masse.

One of your points is of dubious validity: fees may not be higher. Fees went very high when the network became congested; but when it’s not congested, they’re much lower than credit card systems are for normal businesses. https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/ suggests that right now, what equates to about nine US cents is sufficient for a basic transaction. And if you’re happy to wait an hour, then two cents ought to do you…

Average person pays fees twice. One buying the currency, and a second time at sale. On top of that exchanges have even more fees so, consumers are paying more than just one block chain fee.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#42

Post by keymone » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 4:32 PM UTC

ashelmire wrote: post #25

keymone wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By money you mean what exactly? Anything in a bank account is not money but promise of money that can be taken away without your knowledge. Any specific currency is subject to whim of corresponding central bank. Sure, some are safer than others but still. Even the right to participate is not a given as you can be banned from opening a bank account. Bitcoin is orders of magnitude better money than anything else in eve…

>Bitcoin is orders of magnitude better money than anything else in every aspect except convenience, but it’s getting there. Firstly, if you think money exists for any reason other than convenience, you fundamentally misunderstand why money exists. Its whole purpose is convenience, to make trade easier. Secondly, the points above are more than just convenience. You have no recourse in cases of fraud or crime when it c…

Convenience is a matter of development effort. Things like control over ownership, transparency, censorship and oppression resistance are not, they must be the fundamentals the system is built on.

That Bitcoin is used for shady stuff and is harder to track is a red herring for all 10 years of its existence. Come back when Bitcoin’s usage for said stuff is within order of magnitude of USD’s market share.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#43

Post by jchw » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 4:32 PM UTC

jonny_eh wrote: post #2

When can we call Bitcoin a failed experiment? And don't tell me it was "always about storing value", that's not in the original paper.

Not really. Was the goal of Bitcoin ever to be the successor to paper money? We're here today and Bitcoin is a functional payment network. Not only that, it's a fairly large one, and it has become a household name. I don't really use Bitcoin but I think it's hyperbole to consider it a unilateral failure just because it didn't supercede traditional currency.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#44

Post by oopsman88 » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 4:33 PM UTC

chrismorgan wrote: post #29

ttoinou wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. But don't forget credit cards offer others services, such as charge refund and fraud protection

I am only quibbling on the statement about fees, not the rest.

The point is that credit cards offer very valuable services in exchange for fees. Bitcoin offers nothing for a higher fee.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#45

Post by keymone » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 4:34 PM UTC

telaport wrote: post #38

keymone wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By money you mean what exactly? Anything in a bank account is not money but promise of money that can be taken away without your knowledge. Any specific currency is subject to whim of corresponding central bank. Sure, some are safer than others but still. Even the right to participate is not a given as you can be banned from opening a bank account. Bitcoin is orders of magnitude better money than anything else in eve…

It's becoming clear that people who say what you just said sound more like the loons parroting Sovereign Citizen manifestos than rational individuals who actually understand international monetary policies. Instead of screaming about flags with yellow fringes, and "Am I being detained?", you will be screaming about how POW works and "Is BTC illegal?!". Whether you want to believe it or not, enough people are not havi…

you lost me at ad hominem.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#46

Post by dev_dull » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 4:35 PM UTC

TACIXAT wrote: post #21

A currency with no mechanism for monetary policy is not going to be adopted. Bitcoin is purely deflationary for more reasons than just people losing their keys. For example, a fixed reward split between a growing group of miners will also cause a rising price floor. The miners will not sell for less than their electricity costs, which makes the smaller piece of the block reward they receive have a higher price. So yo…

> For example, a fixed reward split between a growing group of miners will also cause a rising price floor. The miners will not sell for less than their electricity costs

Sure they will. They’ll have to if there are more sellers than buyers. Sellers are poor things at creating “floors” unless they’re in collusion. Bitcoin is famously decentralized so good luck with that.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#47

Post by DennisP » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 4:36 PM UTC

TACIXAT wrote: post #21

A currency with no mechanism for monetary policy is not going to be adopted. Bitcoin is purely deflationary for more reasons than just people losing their keys. For example, a fixed reward split between a growing group of miners will also cause a rising price floor. The miners will not sell for less than their electricity costs, which makes the smaller piece of the block reward they receive have a higher price. So yo…

Bitcoin automatically adjusts the difficulty of mining, targeting ten minutes per block. If the price drops, then some miners will find themselves unprofitable and shut down, blocks will take longer to produce, and the difficulty will drop. Mining effort follows price, not the other way around.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#48

Post by Scaevolus » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 4:37 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #34

TACIXAT wrote: post #21

A currency with no mechanism for monetary policy is not going to be adopted. Bitcoin is purely deflationary for more reasons than just people losing their keys. For example, a fixed reward split between a growing group of miners will also cause a rising price floor. The miners will not sell for less than their electricity costs, which makes the smaller piece of the block reward they receive have a higher price. So yo…

> The miners will not sell for less than their electricity costs, which makes the smaller piece of the block reward they receive have a higher price. That's not how it works. If you spent $100 in electricity and you have an asset that's worth $50, you can either sell it for $50 and only be down $50 on your electricity, or you can not sell it at all and be down $100 on your electricity. Electricity cost of mining does…

More than just power, you have depreciating assets (mining chips, servers, buildings) that are effectively losing money constantly. Operating them at a small loss is better than leaving them idle for a huge loss.

You see similar economics when farmers sell crops at a net loss.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#49

Post by wgerard » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 4:37 PM UTC

wslh wrote: post #40

wgerard wrote: post #30

By no means am I a bitcoin-enthusiast, but I've shared this story before: > We had to send a payment to someone who lives in a commonwealth country - what a pain in the ass that was. For the first time I actually saw a use for bitcoin, but the volatility and my general desire not to run afoul of any weird money laundering laws got the better of me. I do think there's a legitimate case for bitcoin as a means of gettin…

> We had to send a payment to someone who lives in a commonwealth country I use it for that purpose all the time. In general, People in developed countries don't have a clue about how painful and time consuming an international payment can be. Even with credit cards banks put very low limits that are unrealistic for someone who travel often and consume cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud. That is why I think the…

> I use it for that purpose all the time.

Not to dig into your business too much, but: Any weird tax/legal implications around that? I didn't want to dig into it too much (just because often these things are rabbit holes with unclear answers), but I'm really curious about it for the next time we have to send a payment.

> In general, People in developed countries don't have a clue about how painful and time consuming an international payment can be.

I can definitely say I had no idea until I had to do it myself. Trying to figure out how to do a wire transfer to someone in another country was a huge boondoggle (and expensive).

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#50

Post by luckydata » Sun, Aug 26, 2018, 4:39 PM UTC

Scaevolus wrote: post #48

jstanley wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The miners will not sell for less than their electricity costs, which makes the smaller piece of the block reward they receive have a higher price. That's not how it works. If you spent $100 in electricity and you have an asset that's worth $50, you can either sell it for $50 and only be down $50 on your electricity, or you can not sell it at all and be down $100 on your electricity. Electricity cost of mining does…

More than just power, you have depreciating assets (mining chips, servers, buildings) that are effectively losing money constantly. Operating them at a small loss is better than leaving them idle for a huge loss. You see similar economics when farmers sell crops at a net loss.

So slightly negative margins but making it up in volume?