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Bitcoin is a disaster

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Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#601

Post by arcticbull »

ur-whale wrote: post #341
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…

>western union if you don't mind the usury-level fees

Their fees are surprisingly competitive, take another look. In places where fees are high it usually has to do with risks of doing business in the locale that they have to price in.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#602

Post by arcticbull »

stale2002 wrote: post #571
xapata wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nearly impossible to stop What's nearly impossible to stop? Can't the government simply shut down the internet to stop Bitcoin? Or insert itself as the man in the middle of all network traffic.

No, the government can't "just shut down the internet". If any government did that, then the country would suffer extreme economic damages, if such a policy was maintained for a long time. Your argument would be like if someone were to say "actually, the government can stop all theft, now and forever. All it has to do is launch 1 thousand nukes, start world war 3, and kill off 99% of the population". Like, sure. The…

Have you met North Korea?

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#603

Post by exclusiv »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #165
exclusiv wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of ways. And the banks reconcile the cash movement behind the scenes. As I understand it, in a simple example, if you send $1k to someone. And someone at their bank sends $1k to someone at your bank, there's nothing that the banks need to do other than record it.

That you brought up banking is precisely my point. Imagine if you needed a bank account to give someone $100 cash. Or to spend a few bucks at a street hotdog vendor. Most people take it for granted that they need a bank to do anything, and they don't really consider how powerless they are over their own money. Like how it's illegal to carry too much cash (and it can simply be taken away). And how your bank can impose…

Understood that is a concern for you and some. I hope it gets there. But I'm not sure most people care.

Bitcoin isn't a currency yet. Most people can call up their credit card and get stuff blocked and returned instantly. Debit cards are definitely less of a service in that regard though and shouldn't be used like credit cards.

But the services are valued by most people.

As a currency, and as someone mentioned earlier - it's currently terrible due to it having an unstable valuation.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#604

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

thegjp210 wrote: post #470
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

how much counterparty risk does the rapid price fluctuation result in? Can't imagine pricing a contract in bitcoin, as someone's getting screwed at payment if the BTC/fiat rate has changed during the lifetime of the contract

We just accepted the price of bitcoin in USD at the time the client bought BTC, and I accepted the risks of fluctuating price to myself. I actually gained somewhat, though, way less than if I'd just hold those coins till today. :)

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#605

Post by TheCoelacanth »

thegjp210 wrote: post #470
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

how much counterparty risk does the rapid price fluctuation result in? Can't imagine pricing a contract in bitcoin, as someone's getting screwed at payment if the BTC/fiat rate has changed during the lifetime of the contract

Don't you have a similar problem with Russian currency? From Jun 2014 to Jan 2015, it lost more than half of it's value relative to USD.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#607

Post by arcticbull »

shawnz wrote: post #513
madeofpalk wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and like any emerging tech The problem that everyone else sees is that Bitcoin has been "emerging tech" with all its rough edges for so many years.

Is that wrong? What other new asset class was developed this rapidly?

Think about what other technology is 12 years old you’d call “nascent” - 12 years is an eternity in tech. The iPhone is 12 years old and bears only a passing semblance to what was launched. Bitcoin is practically identical.

The first ETF launched in 1993, and 12 years later they had 400 billion in net asset value - 533 adjusted for inflation. Your argument that the growth is unprecedented is specious.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#608

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

gruez wrote: post #411
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

The banned person was Indonesian. Something something his bank account. (One more reason for me why payment system of the future must be permissionless. Like, you know, bitcoin)

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#609

Post by imtringued »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #298
beaner wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation doesn't need to be measured in many ways, you can view it directly on the m2 money supply chart: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2 Everything else is just a derivative of this. You're measuring the side effects of inflation. If you want the deeper cause, it's here.

Inflation is a loss of value, most directly observed in rising prices. Everything else–money supply, borrowing costs, etc are linked to it, but do not necessarily correlate. The price of a Big Mac is almost certain to be a far better approximation than any of those indicators. This really isn't that complicated.

Inflation is the result of consumer demand outpacing supply. It's effectively a measure of how much work could not be done. From this perspective hyperinflation is just the result of the government demanding exceedingly far more work than the country as a whole can do. Prices adjust upwards until the existing money supply is exactly enough to pay for all the work that can be done.

If you have a lot of unemployment and inflation is low that basically means there is very little work for your people. This is the reason why 2% inflation is a policy goal. You always want there to be just a tiny little bit more work than there are workers. If there is a way to do more work thanks to technology that is increasing productivity it will be done.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#610

Post by toomuchtodo »

jiofih wrote: post #530
giardini wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could use hawala, a value exchange system which has been around for centuries. Fees are reasonable, the system is extremely trustworthy and use is not limited to Muslims.

TransferWise is the tech incarnation of it. I bet they don’t operate in Venezuela due to US trade sanctions.

The TransferWise model is the future of global banking imho (disclosure: I work in the financial infra space). One user account, the ability to hold a variety of currencies simultaneously, and banking info for each currency to plug into financial rails for said currency (routing/acct in US, IBAN in the EU, etc).

Turns out money is just rows in a database and ISO 20022 messages, queued and processed.

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