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Bitcoin is a disaster

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Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#441

Post by AlexCoventry »

LatteLazy wrote: post #408
wpietri wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this from personal experience? And is there any data available to show that it's doing significant volume in Venezuela versus other options?

I'm not OP. I looked and Chainalytics claim Venezuela is world number 3 in bitcoin use. But it's not clear what they're basing that on. My (very limited) understanding is that they can't directly see the country of origin of a bitcoin transaction. So they must be relying on figures from exchanges or apps? https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/venezuela-cryptocurrenc... Does anyone know if you can tell country of origi…

> Does anyone know if you can tell country of origin of a transaction request? Maybe the IP sending the request is public to the network?

In this kind of setting, where the transaction is illicit, you wouldn't go through an exchange, you'd publish the transaction directly to the bitcoin network, and organizations like chainalytics do track the origin IP addresses.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#442

Post by BLKNSLVR »

ashtonkem wrote: post #220
sunshinerag wrote: post #8

I have no idea what he is talking about. I use bitcoin to buy things both onchain and via lightning and the experience is so smooth and much much better than the circa 2017 period when fees were high. Don't keep it on exchange. The real thing that is stopping adoption is countries trying to classify it as a commodity and insist to pay capital gains on every microtransaction. Some countries are backwards (US, UK) than…

> Don't keep it on exchange. This advice has always made me chuckle. It so profoundly misunderstands how non-techies actually think and operate, that I genuinely wonder how it arose. Exchanges exist and are incredibly popular because they're convenient . If you want to convince people to stop doing something that you think is bad, you need to provide a more convenient alternative, otherwise your advice will be ignore…

Or provide the myriad examples of why "Don't keep it on exchange" is good advice[0][1][2]. But it's not up to the advice-giver to do the due diligence.

[0]:https://cryptosec.info/exchange-hacks/

[1]:https://coiniq.com/cryptocurrency-exchange-hacks/

[2]:https://selfkey.org/list-of-cryptocurrency-exchange-hacks/

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#443

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

majewsky wrote: post #390
mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is volatile because it is not yet widely used and the market for is still relatively small. Yes, people are investing to speculate on its price, but they are also investing because it has a fixed supply that cannot be inflated away by governments. Take a look at the U.S. M2 money supply YTD and the DXY and consider what happens next as more wealthy investors begin to recognize this advantage inherent in Bitco…

Wealthy investors are exactly the kind of people who (through lobbying) designed the current financial system.

That's true, how does it relate to what I was saying?

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#444

Post by ZguideZ »

Kaze404 wrote: post #427
bconnorwhite wrote: post #416

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 stab…

It's been 12 years.

12 years is nothing.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#445

Post by ineedasername »

majewsky wrote: post #429
rkagerer wrote: post #324

I bought my smartphone from Hong Kong, in part because I wanted a specific variant that would be more likely to work with open-source ROM's. The seller initially requested payment via Transferwise, who sought crazy amounts of personal information and bullied me into a privacy-hostile customer agreement. Days went by and they still hadn't activated my account. Growing frustrated, I convinced the seller to accept Bitco…

Can we have "cash you can email" that doesn't consume as much electricity as several nation states combined?

Looking solely at that criterial, ACH transfers work.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#446

Post by tluyben2 »

bob33212 wrote: post #404
rkagerer wrote: post #324

I bought my smartphone from Hong Kong, in part because I wanted a specific variant that would be more likely to work with open-source ROM's. The seller initially requested payment via Transferwise, who sought crazy amounts of personal information and bullied me into a privacy-hostile customer agreement. Days went by and they still hadn't activated my account. Growing frustrated, I convinced the seller to accept Bitco…

Western Union is also very useful, but the vast majority of transactions are not made by Western Union because it has tradeoffs that make other things like credit/debit cards and checks a better option. Bitcoin Evangelists are trying to pump up the price by advocating that bitcoin will be the best method of making payments for a huge variety of use cases. I'm not going to call it a pump and dump scam because I think…

WU is very expensive though; btc, if you know what you are doing, does not come close. WU is a horrible but unavoidable evil for millions of workers worldwide. This is one of the cases that should be disrupted.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#447

Post by michaelmrose »

uep wrote: post #353
hombre_fatal wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Coinbase changed the other year, only for US citizens, where a passport is insufficient, you need to prove state residency (i.e. for most people, a driver's license). But one of my points here is that, while I'm sure some people here are chomping at the bit to nail me with a gleeful "see? ironic!", I simply don't have to use Coinbase. I can, for example, exchange Bitcoin locally the same way I can trade USD for…

Are you primarily engaged in illegal actions for your source of income? Your other comments in this thread seem to imply that is the case. No judgement, but if so, I think this is a pertinent piece of information. It is not difficult for most citizens in first world nations to keep and maintain a bank account.

22% of the US doesn't have a bank account. For myself when I lost my house I also ended up owing my bank money for an almost $500 overdraft used to pay the cost of moving bam no bank account and auto denial insofar as opening another account anywhere else.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#448

Post by imtringued »

yunesj wrote: post #160
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.

> No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. ... 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. Nope. I don't buy things in crypto only because of the reporting burden. Every cup of coffee bought with crypto has to be reported on a tax return.

That makes no sense unless you are converting the bitcoin to dollars but then it's not being used as a currency. If it was a currency the business would accept bitcoin directly and thus there would be no need to report it on your tax returns.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#449

Post by ineedasername »

yunesj wrote: post #402

Bitcoin's value prop isn't in its anonymity. Early adopters weren't enthusiastic about bitcoin because they hoped it would end fractional reserve banking or any other financial product. Rather, it was incredible to see the entire financial industry quickly rebuilt on top of sound money. I agree that small transactions and mining can be (and are being) improved, but not for the same reasons. It's silly to blame bitcoi…

I'm not anti-crypto, but I honestly don't know what you mean by "sound money". Could you elaborate?

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#450

Post by marcell »

jpmattia wrote: post #422
yunesj wrote: post #402

Bitcoin's value prop isn't in its anonymity. Early adopters weren't enthusiastic about bitcoin because they hoped it would end fractional reserve banking or any other financial product. Rather, it was incredible to see the entire financial industry quickly rebuilt on top of sound money. I agree that small transactions and mining can be (and are being) improved, but not for the same reasons. It's silly to blame bitcoi…

> Early adopters weren't enthusiastic about bitcoin because they hoped it would end fractional reserve banking Just to amplify your point: There is a weird idea that that monetary multiplication (like fractional-reserve banking) is not possible with bitcoin. However, anytime someone lends bitcoin or shorts it on an exchange, they increase the bitcoin in circulation past the base count of 21 million btc (or however ma…

There is a subtle distinction though. When a bank lends out US dollars, they are effectively creating new money that is treated as “real” money. They don’t technically lend out the deposits. In contrast, crypto lenders can’t create new bitcoin. They need deposits to lend out. The depositer in turn is aware they don’t hold real bitcoin, just a deposit credit at the lender. This is the origin of the crypto mantra “Not your keys, not your crypto.”

It’s true that the “M1” value can increase, but unlike fiat money the distinction is (for now) visible to the user.

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