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Bitcoin is a disaster

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Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#411

Post by gruez »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #400
cambalache wrote: post #304

I agree with most of the points raised by the author but as a Venezuelan Bitcoin is a godsend. If you live abroad and want to send remittances to your friends and family it can be pretty easy in a normal country , with wire transfers,western union and so on. If your family lives in Venezuela your options are extremely more limited. These are some of the options Venezuelans have had to use: 1. Ask the money to be sent…

Personal experience: not only bitcoin was the only practical way I was able to receive funds in Russia from an Indonesian client, it was cheaper than just one leg of converting Indonesian currency (to USD). Think of it. Buying bitcoin, sending and selling resulted being cheaper than just buying USD. The spread was that much lower. (It was in a relatively static price period in summer 2016) And regular banks just didn…

>And PayPal was somehow banning the client for some reason.

Maybe the russian was on OFAC's sanctioned entities list? (only half joking)

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#412

Post by arthurcolle »

tshaddox wrote: post #129
addicted wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. It’s treated as an investment vehicle. And the reason behind that is obvious. Something whose value may double in a month or whose value may halve within weeks is a terrible currency. If I expect it’s value to increase then I would be a fool to spend it. If I expect it’s value to drop I would be a fool to accept it. Cryptocurrencies are anything but currencies.

Isn’t it impossible for the market value to change without both a buyer and a seller?

This is solved on the vendor and the buyer side by using "acceptable thresholds of difference" that can be specified with a configuration file. For example, Coinbase Commerce uses this mechanism.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#413

Post by harwoodleon »

Barrin92 wrote: post #3

>The scarcity of block chain space has led people to re-invent every last feature of the banks they thought they were going to be escaping. This is a pretty funny point because every time I go on twitter and see people talk about crypto, what they're essentially having is a discussion about public policy, and often they seem to try to reinvent institutions that already exist without even knowing it. From market-maker…

There’s a problem with this argument.

The middlemen are being created again yes, but they are being replaced with mostly open-sourced software solutions like smart contacts and auditable ledgers. Bitcoin started the party, but the other projects are now finding their feet with technology that uses open consensus as the basis for open, functional, opt-in systems.

Look at Gitcoin, this would not have been possible without the Bitcoin project gaining traction.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#415

Post by viraptor »

zik wrote: post #378
viraptor wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like how it's illegal to carry too much cash Which country is that? It's not illegal anywhere I know of.

Cash transactions over 10,000 lakh are illegal in India [1]. Spain, France and Greece have all recently introduced limits [2]. Germany [3] has tried to introduce similar limits but have failed (so far). Australia's introducing a limit soon [4]. [1] https://babatax.com/cash-transaction-limit-in-india-cash-pay... [2] https://wolfstreet.com/2017/01/28/europe-limits-on-cash-tran... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2…

Sure, there are limits of non-tax-traceable payments in a few places. The part that surprised me was literally "carry too much cash" which is not quite the same thing.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#416

Post by bconnorwhite »

Most of the criticisms in this thread seem to be missing that Bitcoin is only layer 1. Bitcoin isn't Visa or cash - its gold. Rather than shipping gold across the Atlantic, large institutions will settle in a few minutes in Bitcoin. L2/L3/L4 solutions (built into Apple Pay, etc.) will allow for instant payments for coffee, allow for privacy similar to physical cash, etc.

Before this is possible, the price has to stabilize. Just takes time to go from $0.1 to $10M per coin. Once Bitcoin has eaten all the "store of value" value & only appreciates at the rate new wealth is created, L2/L3/L4 solutions will go mainstream.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#417

Post by knorker »

Yup. I mean thank you, Captain Obvious.

Are you surprised that people are inventing the institutions that people have already invented?

I really, REALLY don't understand how cryptocurrency people think these institutions were created in the first place. It's as if they think they were invented by accident the first time, and if they just restart it from scratch then they won't get invented again.

No... they were invented on purpose. How do you not understand that?

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#419

Post by sollewitt »

sunshinerag wrote: post #176
pvg wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent was 'actual digital cash', the result was 'instrument for speculation, money laundering and other fraud' which is entirely dependent on actual real money (and its institutions). Whether one finds that ironic or not is a matter of taste but it's clearly not exactly what the goal of "digital cash" was supposed to be.

Dollar is still the king of money laundering. Regulatory support, shoddy bank regulations makes it a smooth experience of money launderers and mafia with USD.

So even for one of the things Bitcoin is actually good for - moving money "surreptitiously" - it's less good at than real dollars?

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#420

Post by rualca »

wongarsu wrote: post #232
rualca wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use Bitcoin where ever possible, so your opening claim is wrong. Just because a random guy barters bitcoins for goods/services, that by no means implies that bitcoin is anything close to money. There is a very specific definition of what money is, and bitcoin's volatility alone rules it completely out.

It's not one guy bartering, it's a lot of services offering it as a payment option, treating it effectively like a foreign currency with a different set of payment providers

> It's not one guy bartering

It takes two to barter.

> treating it effectively like a foreign currency

They really aren't. They accept bitcoins in exchange for goods/services, just like we see in any barter system.

Calling bitcoins "foreign currency" is just a desperate attempt to hide the obvious consequences of it's volatility, which eliminates it's role as money, not only as a store of value but also as unit of account.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money

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