What Bitcoin’s White Paper Got Right, Wrong and What We Still Don’t Know (2018)

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #71

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you view it as a savings technology then it's the best one that's ever been created Bitcoin is a terrible savings vehicle for the same reason cash in checking accounts or collectibles are: there is no basis for its value. Baseless assets other than gold have been numerously proposed, usually about once every generation in every cultural sphere going back to Republican Roman times, but unvaryingly fall out of fav…

Your explanation doesn't make it clearer to me. It looks like you're missing a step between no basis in value and being a terrible savings vehicle. As a saver, I don't care about the basis, I care that the money doesn't get too discounted with time, and I care about the risk. What am I missing?

Post by tromp » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #77

slickrick216 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ The question then is whether 7 tx/sec really is sufficient to support broad global adoption, even if it's just for savings. Dollars and physical gold have no such limits.” Yes they do, it takes even longer to move physical dollars or gold around and depending on where and who you are sending them too it might be impossible. Sure in some mainstream cases you can send the digital derivative of gold and dollars to som…

Their latency is high but they are massively parallel. There's no practical limit on global throughput. To get low latency on dollars/gold you have to go with centralized digital representations, but Bitcoin has to do the same to get more than 7 tx/sec. I might still be a fan if that were the only option, but with other blockchains eliminating this restriction I have a hard time seeing the long-term value proposition…

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:44 PM UTC

kneel wrote: post #83

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Otherwise it's just numbers hopping around anonymously on a ledger That’s tax evasion. I know it’s chic to be callous about tax fraud in some cryptocurrency circles. But the same has been true of cash, art and bearer bonds for centuries.

It's not tax evasion if the hops are non taxable events, and the privacy of wallets enable anyone to deny it. This is why Bitcoin is an existential threat to government power. I personally think it's empowering and great for the individual, however if you tend towards more statist views then this would seem like anarchy.

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

UncleDiaz12 wrote: post #60

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what bank in the world would charge only $23.46 for transferring $166 M? I have never paid for a wire. I’ve also overseen multibillion-dollar wires for which there were zero transfer fees. If you send and receive wires, get a bank account that doesn’t charge for them. (This is almost every account at e.g. Fidelity or First Republic.) Consumer accounts usually optimise for a different basket of needs than large inst…

Are you serious? I have sent multiple international wires over the years and money always goes missing either from the sending/receiving fees, or the intermediary bank in New York takes a small cut. Maybe if you have an account with billions of $$$ then you get a special deal, but us normies have to pay.

Post by gamblor956 » Sat, Oct 31, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

nomad543 wrote: post #16

egypturnash wrote: post #6

Has anyone actually found a use for cryptocurrency and/or the blockchain yet that is not "burn a shit-ton of power on arguing over units of cryptocurrency are worth anything"?

Anything you can do with fiat currencies, you can do with crypto. It's going to be huge.