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Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

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Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#121

Post by comboy »

GW150914 wrote: post #113
comboy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this context, it's much harder to protect gold from the government (if it decides it wants to take it away). Plus buying stuff online is more tricky. I could envision alternative reality though, where there are companies specializing in providing tokens that have 100% coverage in gold. You would need to trust them and their software, but some trust is always involved. The problem is those would be an easy target w…

If the government wants your gold or private key, they’re going to get it. How long are you going to hold out against their proverbial $5 rubber hose? Solitary confinement? Mundane legal threats?

How does it know you have one? You can use brain wallet[1], you can use trezor with multiple passphrases. You can give up some of your bitcoins and if you manage your wallets properly then no one can prove you have some more.

1. Don't use brain wallets, unless you really understand security

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#122

Post by gammateam »

Nursie wrote: post #115
gammateam wrote: post #111

First, use in commerce peaked when transaction fees went too high in 2017, and consumers didn't try the shitty user experience again okay, temporary problem the payment processor's user experience kind of sucks and the network didn't help that better UX and lightning network will help with that. There are also some BIPs regarding signing transactions differently, as well as smaller transactions coming. This year, 201…

> better UX and lightning network will help with that. Lightning appears to be a bit of a joke - routing payments is almost impossible, lots of attempts seem to fail, and there also appear to be requirements like keeping a node up constantly.

yeah I read and repeated all of that stuff without investigating too, at one point.

they aren't fundamental flaws to the concept. just like with tcp/ip packets, routing will improve with robustness of the network. I saw a couple of work in progress efforts to address the full node requirements.

they'll be growing pains but bitcoin is interesting because the protocol doesn't go away, even as the payment processing companies themselves run out of money. so a different company or group of efforts will implement it with merchants when its better.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#123

Post by adiusmus »

sgeisler wrote: post #101
adiusmus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another fork of bitcoin. So not actually bitcoin but still bitcoin at the same time. This appears to be an issue with cryptos. Nothing stops another fork later. It’s like people find a problem with a currency and start printing money in another one. I can see blockchain currency being useful when it is backed by something solid. But right now it’s still just wasted electricity. Eg MasterCard and friends could easily…

> Another fork of bitcoin. That's factually wrong. Lightning is a protocol on top of Bitcoin (like HTTP is built on TCP) and not a fork. It has a different set of trade offs: transactions on it are instant, but one should only store small amounts on it (like what you would carry in your purse) since your money on it can be stolen if you are offline for too long (and you did not pay someone to monitor the network for…

Different Lightning.

So have a look at this: https://chat.lbtc.io/topic/37-faq/

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#124

Post by lisper »

bobthepanda wrote: post #112
deevolution wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe its a generational thing, but i have no clue how i would go about buying/trading gold and i dont think anyone in my friend group does either. Bitcoin is far more accessible.

You can literally go to a gold dealer shop; it's like forex for gold. Even in my moderately sized American city there are twenty that show up in Google Maps within a twenty minute drive. And you buy gold and it's physically in your possession; verifying it is easy, and the best part is you can verify it at some other gold dealer if you're super paranoid. With BTC, you have to find a trusted exchange and a trusted wal…

> verifying it is easy

Actually, it's not. It's nearly impossible to non-destructively distinguish gold from tungsten wrapped in gold.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#125

Post by betterunix2 »

sneak wrote: post #97
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…

> A currency with no mechanism for monetary policy is not going to be adopted. ...except that bitcoin has been adopted, just not widely. Your basic premise is false.

Bitcoin has only been around for a decade, and for most of that time its adoption was driven more by ideological support by libertarians and anarchists than by technical or economic advantages. After ideological reasons the next biggest driver was misunderstanding of its technical features by people who thought they were getting anonymity. Even ignoring the criminals and ideologically-driven adopters, you do not really have large-scale acceptance, because most businesses that claim to accept Bitcoin are only doing so via services that immediately convert the payments to fiat currencies (i.e. these supposed "adopters" are really accepting fiat currency and have no particular desire to receive, use, or hold Bitcoin).

The basic premise of Bitcoin as a currency has always been questionable. With each passing year the premise has become more questionable -- there is the extreme volatility, the enormous energy tax, the inability of anyone to respond to liquidity or credit crunches (and the deflationary nature that encourages such problems) and the ever unclear driver of BTC demand (why would I want a BTC payment, especially when I need to make certain legally-mandated payments that are only payable in my nation's fiat currency?).

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#126

Post by yread »

deevolution wrote: post #90
bobthepanda wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what advantage does it have over gold? Advantages of gold vs. Bitcoin: - gold is pretty easy to find, not that hard to buy for the average consumer; BTC is anything but - gold is physical in form and securing it is not hard; BTC is not physical, exchanges get hacked with losses to accounts, in the event of a natural disaster or some event where power generation and internet is lost you lose access to BTC. (So…

Maybe its a generational thing, but i have no clue how i would go about buying/trading gold and i dont think anyone in my friend group does either. Bitcoin is far more accessible.

Friend of mine had like 3 kgs of silver. He bought it at UBS - first wandering in asking about buying silver got him some strange looks (he looks like a programmer) but when he said how much silver he needs clerks became more friendly. He stored it in an old plastic supermarket bag in his clothes closet.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#127

Post by adiusmus »

sgeisler wrote: post #101
adiusmus wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another fork of bitcoin. So not actually bitcoin but still bitcoin at the same time. This appears to be an issue with cryptos. Nothing stops another fork later. It’s like people find a problem with a currency and start printing money in another one. I can see blockchain currency being useful when it is backed by something solid. But right now it’s still just wasted electricity. Eg MasterCard and friends could easily…

> Another fork of bitcoin. That's factually wrong. Lightning is a protocol on top of Bitcoin (like HTTP is built on TCP) and not a fork. It has a different set of trade offs: transactions on it are instant, but one should only store small amounts on it (like what you would carry in your purse) since your money on it can be stolen if you are offline for too long (and you did not pay someone to monitor the network for…

And having money stolen from my wallet because I haven’t logged in recently is NOT useful for a currency.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#128

Post by pg_bot »

grubles wrote: post #83
socrates1998 wrote: post #70

It sounds weird, but I think a big part of Bitcoin's, and other crypto's value, isn't in the day to day ability to use it to buy and sell things, it's the inability of the government to devalue it. This isn't as big a problem in many richer countries with relatively stable currencies, but I sure as hell would prefer Bitcoin to anything the Venezuelan government or the Argentinian government would issue. The kinks are…

You hit the nail on the head. Hodling is, in some cases, the best use case for Bitcoin.

There is a reason why an investor that holds a security until it is worthless is called a "bag holder". It makes no sense to "invest" in any currency when you can own productive assets instead. If you are concerned about the government seizing your assets, I would suggest emigrating to a country that respects private property rights. Countries that undergo hyperinflation are fairly rare, and the citizens of those countries tend to not tolerate it for very long. (Research dollarization of Ecuador and Zimbabwe)

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#129

Post by detaro »

adiusmus wrote: post #123
sgeisler wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another fork of bitcoin. That's factually wrong. Lightning is a protocol on top of Bitcoin (like HTTP is built on TCP) and not a fork. It has a different set of trade offs: transactions on it are instant, but one should only store small amounts on it (like what you would carry in your purse) since your money on it can be stolen if you are offline for too long (and you did not pay someone to monitor the network for…

Different Lightning. So have a look at this: https://chat.lbtc.io/topic/37-faq/

What makes you think that's what the post you replied to talked about?

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#130

Post by blattimwind »

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…

> but when it’s not congested, they’re much lower than credit card systems are for normal businesses.

It's extremely americanocentric to assume All Of The World either uses credit cards or x-gen Kriegerands.

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