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Bitcoin breaks above $20k

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Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#281

Post by NoOneNew »

pdpi wrote: post #270
NoOneNew wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Okay... how does bitcoin differ from an unstable traditional currency? Both are subject to high and low swings to inflation and deflation. The one thing bitcoin has not been in its history is stable. This still ends up to being the equivalent to "there are 14 standards, let's make a standard to unify them... there are now 15 standards". Plus, all you described was a currency exchange with an extra step. You could replace bitcoin with rice commodity, wheat futures or Tesla stock and achieve the exact same thing. Again, "redistribute to my pocket" with extra steps.

Look, I'm not trying to be a dick, but bitcoin was sold on the lie that it helps poor people. You're not wrong for wanting to help poor people. But people need to come to the realization that bitcoin has been Theranos-like the whole time. It's a waste of time if you're goal is to help the poor.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#282

Post by Taek »

nostrademons wrote: post #228
_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 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…

Bitcoin's value is fundamentally monetary in nature. Bitcoin itself (less so the cryptocurrency space as a whole) is about financial sovereignty, stable monetary policy, robust uptime guarantees, and resistance to manipulation in the governance.

You are _supposed_ to buy and hold Bitcoin for a long time, because Bitcoin is most important where it gives you an alternative when government money is poor (or even just as a threat to governments that are making monetary decisions - they need to know that their population has a viable alternative if their currency doesn't add enough value).

That necessarily drives a big focus on price.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#283

Post by Siira »

_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…

Bitcoin can’t technically handle casual use. Perhaps the new ethereum will achieve that. The price is the only changing thing about Bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#284

Post by josh_carterPDX »

_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 think this is an important point. So many people compare bitcoin to a regular stock. While there are ways you can compare the two, there aren't as many use cases for stocks as there are with bitcoin. If people would focus on that we could really change the way the underbanked access capital. It could be the thing that tips the scale to build equitable access to capital.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#285

Post by lawn »

ogogmad wrote: post #185

I remember reading that the Lightning network can be attacked by people spamming it with withdrawal requests, resulting in funds being stolen from users. Furthermore, I remember reading that this attack is to some extent not solvable. I need to find a link. [EDIT: I think this might be it: https://decrypt.co/33917/bitcoin-stolen-lightning-network-at... .] I'm pro-Bitcoin, and I own some, but what worries me is whethe…

If you're looking for scaling, look at cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin. On-chain scaling is far from explored, and it's really the only way to solve it properly.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#286

Post by ordinaryradical »

agumonkey wrote: post #113
mrlala wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't think "bitcoin as an inflation resistant storage" is a good theory ?

It doesn't matter if it's priced incorrectly and because of the scale of manipulation being carried out by Tether and probably other large actors cooperating to influence price, btc cannot be priced correctly.

The pricing mechanism for crypto is always going to be screwed by PoW, I think, because it naturally concentrates power into the hands of a few that can coordinate relatively easily.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#287

Post by xur17 »

ackbar03 wrote: post #224
xur17 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth is excitement and hype around price is the lowest common denominator for people interested in cryptocurrency so naturally it would be the most visible topic. Echoing this, I'm involved in several more technical cryptocurrency groups, and there is little reference to the price, even today. Pretty much all of the discussion is around the technology itself, and what it can do.

What can it do exactly though? A lot of talk about decentralization and distributed database and Yada Yada Yada. I'd love to find a good use case for blockchain but so far it's elusive

Cash on the internet. Basically, the ability to send money to someone else without any intermediary, in the same way that you can hand cash to someone else when selling something on craigslist, etc. This is particularly helpful in cases like gift cards where fraud is a problem, and margins are thin, and industries that are blocked by other payment processors [0]. We can argue about whether or not all of the opportunities are a good thing for society or not, but crypto does solve a problem for them.

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/14/business/mastercard-visa-disc...

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#288

Post by 37ef_ced3 »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #269
federicobond wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A Bitcoin owner typically controls many addresses. It is typical to create a new address to receive change. But (apparently) sometimes an address is reused (to receive change), and that's the yellow

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#289

Post by keymone »

ackbar03 wrote: post #224
xur17 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The truth is excitement and hype around price is the lowest common denominator for people interested in cryptocurrency so naturally it would be the most visible topic. Echoing this, I'm involved in several more technical cryptocurrency groups, and there is little reference to the price, even today. Pretty much all of the discussion is around the technology itself, and what it can do.

What can it do exactly though? A lot of talk about decentralization and distributed database and Yada Yada Yada. I'd love to find a good use case for blockchain but so far it's elusive

Bitcoin is the use case for blockchain.

Re: Bitcoin breaks above $20k

#290

Post by Taek »

Daishiman wrote: post #267
filipmix wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

We're using blockchain technology to build a decentralized cloud where users can store data on remote hosts without having to trust them, and without giving up ownership of the data.

The blockchain is a critical part of the infrastructure because the hosts need to be paid for the services they provide, but as untrusted entities we need assurances from them. Also, if you don't have a blockchain in the middle you need something like PayPal in the middle, which is a single point of failure.

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