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Bitcoin breaks above $20k

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Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#261

Post by abstrct »

anonymousDan wrote: post #239
drcross wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DAO rollback made them untrustable for me. You do you but a key required feature of my cryptocurrency should be sovereignty.

I hear this criticism a lot. And I don't disagree with it fundamentally, but I would be interested to hear how its advocates justify the decision. How do the Ethereum founders attempt to rebut it? Are there any good counterarguments?

I'll preface the following by saying I fundamentally disagreed with rolling back the DAO as the entire purpose of these networks is immutability and their trustless nature.

The reasons for it, even on their own, all make a lot of sense:

- Ethereum has always wanted to move to Proof of Stake, a move that would have been impossible if 25% of the networks funds were suddenly in the hands of a nefarious actor.

- The DAO was intended to seed development into projects that would benefit ethereum and the blockchain space as a whole. It was an incredible amount of capital that was all intended to help evolve the network. Losing all this capital and momentum would have been detrimental to that goal.

- The DAO was arguably an unlicensed security and losing the funds of that many investors would have been a problem for many who had a hand in building it. By returning investments, they basically made this a non-issue.

So again, do I agree with the choice? Absolutely not, you should not proclaim "code is law!" until it's inconvenient for you. Did they have a choice? No, the roll-back was inevitable as soon as the DAO contract was deployed.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#262

Post by ogogmad »

a1369209993 wrote: post #249
spurgu wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You got it the wrong way round. Deflation means when prices are dropping. The price of computers has fallen over time predictably and exponentially, and yet that hasn't stopped people from buying them. The Keynesian argument against deflation is that it disincentivizes people from spending money as they expect prices to drop. This disincentive hasn't prevented the computer industry from being a huge success. The fact that you know that if you wait some time you can get a faster and cheaper computer doesn't prevent you ad infinitum from buying computers.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#263

Post by Lammy »

_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…

> how the technology can be useful for society

I think it's important to separate Bitcoin itself from the general concept of blockchains as a new type of data structure. Personally I think the real benefits to society will be had by applying Bitcoin's concepts to brand new unrelated things, and hopefully Bitcoin mindshare can help spark that creativity in people. To me, someone saying "The Blockchain" is like someone saying "The Linked-List". They're not thinking about it generically yet.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#264

Post by proverbialbunny »

jayd16 wrote: post #114
arithma wrote: post #87

Just a question, isn't all criticism against bitcoin applicable to gold? Money/Currency/Value in general can't be reduced or derived from first principles. You always have to take into account human nature, economic activity, and most unfortunately: psychology. So all criticism about how bitcoin inherently being pointless, sounds like off-tune. I want good reasons to/NOT-to buy in. First-world country citizens kind o…

>Just a question, isn't all criticism against bitcoin applicable to gold? Gold fluctuates a lot less. Its hard to swallow "ok ok bitcoin is useless but it can still be a stable currency/safe asset" when the price is booming and crashing every year.

Fluctuation has to do with volume. (eg, penny stock) In the 1700s the stock market looked a lot like bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#265

Post by JoshTko »

mrlala wrote: post #90
JoshTko wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the single most important use case that most people miss. Bitcoin doesn't need to do anything else.

Sigh. I 100% understand what you are saying but I also 100% disagree with it. This is all greed with no substance. Wealthy people and those who desire to be wealthy are doing everything they can to arbitrarily prop up something which does not really have value. And they seem to be winning- which is everything that is wrong with the world right now.

Definitely 100% about greed. The core thesis of "will the price go up" is dependent on if greedy people will continue to be greedy.

All of human history (and perhaps biology) has always been about continually trying to accumulate more even at expense of others. Bitcoin doesn't detract or contribute to this human nature.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#266

Post by NoOneNew »

_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…

While I do agree that crypto needs to step away from the current "investment vehicle" mentality and be treated more like a "currency"... I'm still lost how yet another currency is going to help society. Im not trying to be an ass, I'm being serious on figuring this out. I constantly see this argument with no real logic other than trying to essentially use Marxist ideals of "redistribution of wealth" to a disenfranchised demographic. Yet trying to distribute a computer based/useful currency to folks that dont have running water let alone electricity also confuses me. Tag on that the current distribution of bitcoin is in the realm of 30% of users own some 90% of bitcoin wealth. That's a pretty shitty interpretation of redistribution of wealth. In truth, it pretty much follows the realized implementation of Marxism throughout history, "everyone needs to redistribute wealth to me and my friends and away from the people who already have it".

Just saying "this will help the poor because they have nothing" over and over with no real plan, let alone action, doesn't make it true.

One guy I argued with once told me about him donating his bitcoins to buy pizzas for people who needed it. Which, cool. That's awesome. But the donation argument makes it sound like people dont donate dollars or euros. Or even like theres some grand mechanism that makes bitcoin better than traditional currencies... even though crypto gets converted to traditional currency so it can become useful.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#267

Post by Daishiman »

filipmix wrote: post #256
_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…

> It's kinda sad that the pricing or market capitalization is the only thing that is being talked about in the "cryptocurrency community" Clearly price is a big topic of conversation. Nothing wrong with that. But you are very incorrect if you believe that is the only topic of conversation. Perhaps using /r/Bitcoin is not a valid sample size. In my day job, I'm neck deep in blockchain and cryptocurrency use cases - an…

Can you cite those use cases?

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#268

Post by SCUSKU »

cryptica wrote: post #253
nostrademons wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is representative of a bigger problem within the developed world: the top problem on many people's mind is "Other people have money and I don't." This manifests in a lot of other areas as well: stock market speculation, people asking for government handouts, folks looking for get-rich-quick startup ideas, glorification of the "side hustle", etc. And I think the root cause of that is that productivity gro…

Yes it's musical chairs; through monetary policy, reserve banks keep pulling out chairs and thus inflating the value of remaining chairs... Then they'll claim that this is all to prevent global warming. All this is actually starting to make me doubt global warming. The banks certainly never gave a damn about global warming before. Do I think that people in power suddenly became more altruistic over the past few years…

I'm not sure I follow your logic here. You're saying that central banks are keeping interest rates low in order to prevent global warming? Generally speaking, I would assume low interest rates = higher economic activity = increased CO2 emissions; not the other way around.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#269

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

federicobond wrote: post #233
ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost always at least between 3 addresses, 1 green to 2 reds. Is it because exchanges take a percentage of each transaction?

Most transactions will have two outputs. One is the actual destination and the other is change that goes back to the spender wallet. There is nothing unusual going on here.

The description says change is described as yellow nodes though, also all three addresses are different

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#270

Post by pdpi »

NoOneNew wrote: post #266
_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…

While I do agree that crypto needs to step away from the current "investment vehicle" mentality and be treated more like a "currency"... I'm still lost how yet another currency is going to help society. Im not trying to be an ass, I'm being serious on figuring this out. I constantly see this argument with no real logic other than trying to essentially use Marxist ideals of "redistribution of wealth" to a disenfranchi…

> Just saying "this will help the poor because they have nothing" over and over with no real plan, let alone action, doesn't make it true.

I used to work at a bitcoin company, and we had large user communities in countries where the local currency was subject to very high inflation, and access to stabler currencies (like dollars or euros) was severely limited. We were actually helping proper deal with real problems, and we were proud of it.

Then the investment-tool-for-rich-white-kids mentality took over. :(

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