Bitcoin breaks above $20k • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#241

Post by HenryKissinger » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:02 PM UTC

bitobserver wrote: post #172

_sm6n wrote: post #94

It's kinda sad that the pricing or market capitalization is the only thing that is being talked about in the "cryptocurrency community", instead of focussing on how the technology can be useful for society. Like for example if you look at /r/Bitcoin, there's a sidebar with "Submit text/link NOT about price", yet virtually every post is about price, even if just indirectly (Paypal joins the cryptocurrency bandwagon an…

I get the impression that 99% of those invested in crypto just want their investment to perform well, and could care less about any project specifics.

Right. I couldn't care less if my stock transactions are processed by a computer algorithm, a group of cybernetically enhanced punk goblins in a vault below the Stock Exchange building, or intergalactic aliens. As long as it's processed.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#242

Post by jdhn » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:02 PM UTC

_sm6n wrote: post #94

It's kinda sad that the pricing or market capitalization is the only thing that is being talked about in the "cryptocurrency community", instead of focussing on how the technology can be useful for society. Like for example if you look at /r/Bitcoin, there's a sidebar with "Submit text/link NOT about price", yet virtually every post is about price, even if just indirectly (Paypal joins the cryptocurrency bandwagon an…

/r/bitcoin is basically one giant pump and dump subreddit. Every now and then there are helpful threads that talk about actual progress being made in terms of the Bitcoin protocol/protocols that live on top of it (Lightning), but they're never really upvoted that much and don't spark a lot of conversation.

That being said, I think that major Bitcoin forums like /r/bitcoin serve a good purpose because it acts as a containment board for people who just want to talk about the price.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#243

Post by three_seagrass » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:03 PM UTC

ryanlol wrote: post #199

three_seagrass wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A decade latter and it's still a hobby currency. Price is not a sole indicator of faith in a currency.

There are vast amounts of professional drug dealers making their living from transactions using this “hobby currency”.

Are you up to speed on the dark net markets?

Most have closed. The last one in use, Empire, had an exit scam this summer. Before that, Wall Street Market was taken over by feds and used as a honey pot - where they used traced bitcoin transactions to arrest dealers/people involved.

Any drug dealers still doing online trading prefer Monero, and even then, I would still say that using a currency solely to buy drugs online is the definition of hobby money.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#244

Post by Acrobatic_Road » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

isuckatcoding wrote: post #48

But why...? > When this [rally to near $20,000] happened in 2017, there was a real lack of products for the new converts to experience, whereas today there are endless uses, protocols, services across farming, lending, standard trading, etc Is this really true though? My first instinct isn’t at all to go to blockchain/cryptocurrency for farming.

Yield farming, not actual farming lol

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#245

Post by saurik » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

mplewis wrote: post #221

wjdp wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would there be "change" in a Bitcoin transaction? Is this: send me £10 in BTC but actually send me £15 in case the price changes and I'll send you back the difference.

In Bitcoin, reusing an address gives folks who watch the blockchain information about whose money this is and what they use it for. Let's say you have $20 in your address, and you want to spend $10 on candy bars. A common pattern of use is to spend all $20: $10 goes to the candy bar company, and $10 goes to a new address you just created. This helps obfuscate how much money you actually have.

It isn't just about obfuscation: even if you always send money back to your own address that ends up being a round-trip on your own money as "change". And "in your address" also doesn't help the mental model here because addresses only have money by summing up all of the outputs that are spendable by the associated key, which leads to the change question in the first place (as you definitely can spend part of your money).

The analogy I would use is that Bitcoin exists in your wallet as like a bag of gold nuggets. To do a Bitcoin transactions is to take a pile of gold nuggets, melt them together, and then pour off a handful of new piles that you let cool back into nuggets. These nuggets are inherently of awkward value units as, if nothing else, the price of gold keeps changing. So you aren't going to have a set of nuggets that ever correctly maps to "price of hamburger". What you do with the resulting nuggets is up to you, but the total amount of gold in the input nuggets and the total amount of gold in the output nuggets has to be the same. This inherently will lead to most transactions involving creating an output nugget that is "change" (all the gold left over from the input nuggets that I wasn't actively intending to use).

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#246

Post by duderific » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:08 PM UTC

TechBro8615 wrote: post #175

alex_young wrote: post #169

I see lots of comments suggesting that BTC is a constant store of value and that it is rising in USD terms because of ‘money printing’. If that was the case, wouldn’t we see inflation in USD prices for a basket of goods? Isn’t inflation very close to zero? Others say they are sick of talking about BTC price and would rather focus on its utility. This makes sense, but for the same reason above it cannot happen since o…

I don’t know what the actual CPI says. But as a person on the street, I definitely see inflation everywhere I go. It’s especially obvious to me as I spent a few years out of the country and came back to much higher prices. Everything is significantly more expensive than it was five years ago.

The CPI is gamed to keep people from panicking, and to ensure that the government doesn't have to increase social security payments too much, as they're tied to official CPI numbers.

Another way inflation is "hidden" is in things like product packaging. Look at how jars of spaghetti sauce, cereal boxes, packages of coffee etc. are shrinking. You pay the same price for fewer goods.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#247

Post by mrits » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

joshuakelly wrote: post #105

Let's pay tribute to the very first Hacker News thread about Bitcoin back in May, 2009 with this classic comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852 > Well this is an exceptionally cute idea, but there is absolutely no way that anyone is going to have any faith in this currency.

Since there is still widespread doubt I wouldn't put it in the same category as the early iPhone critics or even Facebook is the next Myspace crowd.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#248

Post by game_the0ry » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:10 PM UTC

_hdap wrote: post #15

I am NOT a fan of Bitcoin, but... Watch a real-time visualization of the global Bitcoin transaction flow, as it is happening right now: https://dailyblockchain.github.io/ Each square is a bitcoin address (like a cryptographic public key) Each graph component is a transaction. The components appear as transactions are broadcast into the bitcoin P2P network (but before they are verified and committed to the blockchain)…

It looks like cells of an organism multiplying.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#249

Post by a1369209993 » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

spurgu wrote: post #158

rodiger wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation is good for currencies / anything that's meant to be used.

One exception to this that pops to mind is computers, which have gradually gotten cheaper. Even though you always get a better one if you wait, it hasn't deterred consumers.

That's not a exception; in fact it's probably the most blatant supporting evidence available for "Inflation is good for [...] anything that's meant to be used.". Computers have been undergoing borderline hyperinflation (factor of two every year-and-a-half or so) for decades, and this is extremely good for anyone who wants to use a computer.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#250

Post by fidelramos » Wed, Dec 16, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #38

tectonic wrote: post #2

What's the carbon footprint of BTC like these days? Has any progress been made on mitigating this fundamental design issue?

> Has any progress been made The carbon footprint is funded by the block reward which is halved every 4 years until it dwindles to nothing. Progress is slow, but inexorable.

Not just the block reward, Bitcoin miners also receive the sum of the fees of the transactions included on each block. The idea with the progressively diminishing block reward is that transaction fees will represent a larger share of miners profits as time passes.