Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#131

Post by arcticbull » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:35 PM UTC

safog wrote: post #92

arcticbull wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that’s not a problem though, it’s a feature.

Tell that to the Iranians or to the people in Venezuela. Countries can be mis managed, currencies can be mis managed, people can be targeted (financial sanctions), traditional financial services are just not available in a lot of places. To top it off, It's Gold vs BTC for store of value and Gold has many, many downsides as well that we just chose to ignore because it's a shiny metal and has been in use longer.

This is another classic misunderstanding.

The problem those folks have isn’t bad currency it’s bad government. You can’t solve that by allowing people to violate sanctions suddenly.

Remember, sanctions are what’s preventing these folks from trading internationally and sanctions are what’s preventing these folks from using USD. That doesn’t go away in a Bitcoin world. Amazon isn’t going to deploy stealth C-130s to airdrop in their prime packages if they pay with Bitcoin.

When the government has failed your currency is the least of your problems, and once you change the government your currency returns to normalcy.

Allowing the transfer of value in violation of sanctions has allowed North Korea to accumulate billions of dollars of crypto to fund their nuclear weapons programs. The livelihood of the average citizen changes not at all, but the largesse of the rogue state increases.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#132

Post by seibelj » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:36 PM UTC

mdoms wrote: post #118

seibelj wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I build a geothermal plant in a place where no one needs power, and use it only to mine bitcoin, then only renewable energy is used, nothing is added to the climate. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/13/how-iceland-be... Using excess hydro power (china) or renewables like geothermal doesn't hurt the planet. Most bitcoin is mined using marginal energy that would be wasted otherwise. It has to be, as mi…

Geothermal is neither renewable nor zero-carbon.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/geothermal/geothermal-faqs

> First, it's clean. Energy can be extracted without burning a fossil fuel such as coal, gas, or oil. Geothermal fields produce only about one-sixth of the carbon dioxide that a relatively clean natural-gas-fueled power plant produces, and very little if any, of the nitrous oxide or sulfur-bearing gases. Binary plants, which are closed cycle operations, release essentially no emissions.

> WHY IS GEOTHERMAL ENERGY A RENEWABLE RESOURCE?

> Answer: Because its source is the almost unlimited amount of heat generated by the Earth's core. Even in geothermal areas dependent on a reservoir of hot water, the volume taken out can be reinjected, making it a sustainable energy source.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#133

Post by kainaloo » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #110

lawn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naturally you don't verify the blockchain yourself, but use a light wallet that uses very little data. And you don't use BTC as the fees are way too expensive. This is what people are doing in Venezuela for example.

OK but are there any secure BTC or alt coin wallets (even light wallets) that will work on feature phones or SMS? Very few people in in remote villages can afford even the most basic Android smartphone. What incentive would they have to switch from M-PESA (or Alipay/wechatpay in Asia) that is already secure, cheap and widely accepted. Cryptocurrency is a fascinating technology and social experiment but so far has no…

allowing millions of people to actually own something for the first time ever.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#134

Post by modeless » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:38 PM UTC

wavepruner wrote: post #108

crumbshot wrote: post #29

Bitcoin and other compute-intensive cryptocurrencies should be banned or taxed so heavily that it's financially infeasible to use them. The amount of energy being wasted (reportedly more than seven nuclear power plants worth) on what is essentially an unproductive project is quite absurd. In a world where we should all be increasingly concerned about the looming climate catastrophe, it's wholly irresponsible for Bitc…

The most important use-case for Bitcoin is the separation of money and state. As in, taking the place of USD as the worlds reserve currency. It does not need to be used to settle every little transaction for this, but rather used as a base layer for institutions. I know you are unlikely to see this use-case as plausible, but that is why so many people are buying Bitcoin right now. For this use case, the amount of ene…

> the energy and human lives spent on war to maintain dominance

This is a really important point that I want to emphasize. Maintaining the value and scarcity of a fiat currency such as the dollar requires strong law enforcement and ultimately, for a global reserve currency, dominating military power. Bitcoin mining is a rounding error compared to the peacetime US defense budget, let alone all the externalities associated with militaries and war.

This is still a big if, but if the function of establishing a scarce digital global reserve currency can be done by an algorithm without relying on law enforcement or militaries, at a fraction of the cost, that is a huge win for the world.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#135

Post by cloudinshape » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:38 PM UTC

hahaxdxd123 wrote: post #63

anotheraccount9 wrote: post #13

Cryptocurrency is still a misunderstood concept for many ppl in the financial world. As use and integration increases, btc will likely stabilise. Meanwhile, we get interesting volatility.

Like what? What economic value do cryptocurrencies provide over our traditional banking system? - being deflationary is not a feature, it's a bug. An inflationary currency incentivises you to invest it, otherwise you lose real purchasing power. With a deflationary currency, you can just stuff it anywhere and see gains. You steal from tomorrow. As the material wealth of the world increases, our money supply should inc…

> An inflationary currency incentivises you to invest it, otherwise you lose real purchasing power. With a deflationary currency, you can just stuff it anywhere and see gains. You steal from tomorrow. As the material wealth of the world increases, our money supply should increase to match.

You don't understand the WHY of those gains.

A deflationary environment is the only real environment, that is why central banks are set up to fight deflation, because deflation is the natural order of things.

And in that real environment, gains in productivity are only possible because of savings, people invest not because of fear, the investments takes place because people truly believe the business proposals will produce VALUE, and hence REAL GAINS, which necessitates that people be not drowning in debt. That is why an inflationary system is a bubble system, it cannot be sustained on its own. It is a perpetual motion machine, or tries to be anyways.

Society has made a lot of progress, but the price has been an unprecedented amount of debt. In essence, we've mortgage the future, and at some point those bills will be paid either by will of by force.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#136

Post by kainaloo » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:39 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #24

domatic1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Bitcoin is the best performance asset class.

Square outperformed Bitcoin by a wide margin trough to peak in 2020. Tesla vastly outperformed. Tesla is up 15X since the summer of 2019.

tesla or square is not an asset class

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#137

Post by alwillis » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

crumbshot wrote: post #29

Bitcoin and other compute-intensive cryptocurrencies should be banned or taxed so heavily that it's financially infeasible to use them. The amount of energy being wasted (reportedly more than seven nuclear power plants worth) on what is essentially an unproductive project is quite absurd. In a world where we should all be increasingly concerned about the looming climate catastrophe, it's wholly irresponsible for Bitc…

Actually, is helping to reduce the carbon footprint of natural gas and oil producers: https://www.coindesk.com/energy-giant-equinor-to-cut-gas-fla...

All of the excess gas and oil that's currently wasted but goes into the atmosphere is starting to be used for Bitcoin mining:https://cointelegraph.com/news/oil-companies-will-dominate-b...

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#138

Post by brian_cloutier » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:46 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #112

brian_cloutier wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit $6 is very expensive when compared to credit card fees, but Bitcoin is the only way I know of sending someone in a different country $10k for just a $6 fee. It would still be $6 if you sent $1M.

There’s plenty of ways. Consider TransferWise. They generally charge 0.8% for USD-CAD and 0% for USD-INR. Pretty cheap. InteractiveBrokers allows you to exchange at market rates on the multi trillion dollar forex market for 2/10ths of a basis point ($20 per million). You’re also leaving out two steps in your calculus that really tilt the scales. You’re not paid in Bitcoin and your recipient cannot spent Bitcoin, ther…

I have used Bitcoin to send money internationally. I did not spend any money on turning my dollars into bitcoin, because I already had bitcoin. I did not pay $90 in electricity costs, it seems a little silly to bring the block reward up. You already have a good argument for what you're trying to say, you don't need to pretend that a cost others pay is a cost the transaction sender pays. As far as I know the recipients of my transactions did not pay any fees to convert the bitcoin back into their local currencies, because they were fine with holding on to it as Bitcoin.

I am not trying to say that Bitcoin solves every problem. I agree with you that there are many problems it does not solve. The $399 number is disingenuous though, you're ignoring that there are situations where bitcoin really does have lower fees than the alternatives.

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#139

Post by arcticbull » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

kainaloo wrote: post #136

arcticbull wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Square outperformed Bitcoin by a wide margin trough to peak in 2020. Tesla vastly outperformed. Tesla is up 15X since the summer of 2019.

tesla or square is not an asset class

Bitcoin isn’t an asset class

Re: Bitcoin Price Hits All-Time High of $19,786, Topping 2017 Record

#140

Post by gruez » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #112

brian_cloutier wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit $6 is very expensive when compared to credit card fees, but Bitcoin is the only way I know of sending someone in a different country $10k for just a $6 fee. It would still be $6 if you sent $1M.

There’s plenty of ways. Consider TransferWise. They generally charge 0.8% for USD-CAD and 0% for USD-INR. Pretty cheap. InteractiveBrokers allows you to exchange at market rates on the multi trillion dollar forex market for 2/10ths of a basis point ($20 per million). You’re also leaving out two steps in your calculus that really tilt the scales. You’re not paid in Bitcoin and your recipient cannot spent Bitcoin, ther…

>InteractiveBrokers allows you to exchange at market rates on the multi trillion dollar forex market for 2/10ths of a basis point ($20 per million).

but that only covers conversion, right? Or does IB also allow you to send to arbitrary accounts?

>therefore you need to pay a 1-2% fee at origin [...] and a 1-2% fee at destination.

That's only if you use the managed exchange service. If use the trading interface (ie. placing bids/asks manually), it's much lower. eg. 0.5% for coinbase pro[1], 0.25% for gemini activetrader[2]

[1] https://help.coinbase.com/en/pro/trading-and-funding/trading...

[2] https://gemini.com/fees/activetrader-fee-schedule#section-ac...