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Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

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Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#51

Post by cortesoft »

keymone wrote: post #16
wycs wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, money works pretty well. Bitcoin is not 10x better. Maybe 0.1x. Bitcoin is not even useful for illicit transactions anymore.

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…

Yes, there are risks with banks, central banks, and government backed currencies. These risks are well known and commonly hedged against, which is why currency trading is a thing.

Bitcoin also has risks; it could also collapse, have security vulnerabilities, you could lose access to your keys or if you choose to use an exchange it could be compromised or seized by authorities.

Now, it is true that the risks are different than for other currencies, but you can’t just act like bitcoin doesn’t have risks or that they are a priori less risky than other currencies.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#52

Post by osrec »

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…

It is by definition deflationary due to its restricted supply. This would not be so much of a problem at the moment, if it wasn't for the fact that people started treating it as an asset in its own right, rather than an experimental medium of exchange. Most people have lost sight of the fact that it is the first iteration of a series of experiments to create a decentralised mechanism of value transfer. It wasn't going to be right the first time round.

Sometimes I feel that criticising Bitcoin for it's failures is like criticising Edison based on his first attempt at inventing the light bulb!

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#53

Post by forgotmypw »

osrec wrote: post #52
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…

It is by definition deflationary due to its restricted supply. This would not be so much of a problem at the moment, if it wasn't for the fact that people started treating it as an asset in its own right, rather than an experimental medium of exchange. Most people have lost sight of the fact that it is the first iteration of a series of experiments to create a decentralised mechanism of value transfer. It wasn't goin…

I think of Bit<oin as the MS-DOS of e1e<troni< <urren<ies.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#54

Post by cortesoft »

glup wrote: post #19
BonesJustice wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over time, power always consolidates amongst a privileged few. That’s pretty much a universal constant. It doesn’t really matter what the unit of power is, be it dollars, hash rate, or political capital.

Unless the privileged few choose to build institutions to limit the accumulation of capital or power, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society . To call it a universal constant is a convenient abdication of responsibility.

Right, but that group was formed well over 100 years ago, and power and wealth has still concentrated. The argument isn’t that every person will try to accumulate power, but that it will be accumulated by some group.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#55

Post by ttul »

When I was starting a BTC ASIC company (don’t worry - it failed to attract investment) in 2011, one of the things that always spooked investors was the slide showing transaction volume. Even in those early days, one had to really stretch one’s imagination to believe that Bitcoin could one day take over from Visa/MasterCard as a payment method of choice.

But we did understand its value as an alternative store of wealth, and potentially as a way to transfer money across borders more cheaply. I think the former utility has been somewhat dented by the steady drop in value since its peak. And the latter isn’t really all that amazing of a value prop when you consider that regular old PayPal isn’t that expensive and the set of situations in which it does not work is really small.

Not to mention that SWIFT is really ancient but also works well and can be endlessly improved...

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#56

Post by beaner »

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.

We're a pretty long way off, I'm sorry. Bitcoin is more popular than ever. The payments network (Lightning) being built on top of the financial sovereignty base layer is just getting started.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#57

Post by DoofusOfDeath »

err4nt wrote: post #3
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.

A failed experiment to me would be one that wasn't able to run its full course, or from which no information can be gleaned. Bitcoin has run for a long time, we have gleaned a ton of useful information - as far as experiments are concerned this seems like it went bigger and better than expected, so it should be a very GOOD experiment!

Rather than questioning if the experiment failed, perhaps we should question if recent participants considered it an experiment in the first place.

I.e., I don't think most bitcoin miners / companies / investors saw this as a knowledge-gathering exercise.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#58

Post by shawnz »

jeromegv wrote: post #37
Tim_cas wrote: post #22

How Google is entering the crypto space is https://blog.usejournal.com/google-entering-the-blockchain-s... very telling. Bitcoin is not going away. Get over it.

Crypto space doesn't necessarily mean Bitcoin, could be another better technology that eventually becomes mainstream.

And when someone claims that they support Bitcoin or see a future for Bitcoin, chances are they too are talking about cryptocurrencies in general and not specifically Bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#59

Post by pjc50 »

comboy wrote: post #31
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…

Currency that is guaranteed to be deflationary sure has its problems. But taking ideology and using it for every day stuff aside, why wouldn't you want to own some?

... why would you?
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