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Bitcoin is a disaster

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Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#621

Post by cambalache »

firekvz wrote: post #547
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…

Another fellow Venezuelan here, this guy points are actually wrong and he's just using the momentum to prove some point related to bitcoin that is not true Before hand, I would like people to know that the current VES:USD rates are the following: - Official rate: 1.107.198,58 per each USD [1] - Unofficial rate: 1.027.812,89 per each USD [2] So now, The way that remittances work in Venezuela is pretty simple, let’s sa…

For people unaware OP sounds suspiciously close to a Maduro bot. If you dont believe me, ask a Venezuelan friend of yours (regretfully it is a big diaspora now) or go to a place like r/vzla and ask around.

Venezuelans in Colombia getting remitances in WU : http://sunoticia.com/inicio/a-grandes-sacrificios-e-irregula...

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#622

Post by _wp3r »

everfree wrote: post #553
rebelos wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Funny thing is bitcoin is only a small technology that will hurt the fiat system, there are more such disruptive technologies on the way but governments are far too stupid to see the writing on the wall. Examples?

I'm not the person you're responding to, but smart contracts will be disruptive to the finance industry. Why settle a contract in court when a computer can make a free, automatic, final deliberation based on software rules that both parties agreed to?

Because you only end up in court when the humans that agreed to the contract no longer agree on the contract.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#623

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #605
thegjp210 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the past 110 years Russian currency depreciated against USD at a something like trillion times.

It's a safe bet that it'll continue the trend (with some occasional and not too long lapses of stae slowish decline), and actually bitcoin is a rather safe bet against rouble. After all, it's not backed by Putin's government!

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#624

Post by chii »

bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #382
tomphoolery wrote: post #319

I think the biggest failure of Bitcoin is that it was marketed as a "currency" and ended up becoming a commodity. Bitcoin isn't something you use to spend wealth, it's used to hold wealth. Unlike a stock, however, whose value is based on what price people are willing to pay for it, Bitcoin's value is determined by its scarcity. Sound familiar? That's why I hate the term "cryptocurrency". It has a lie baked right into…

The thing is, for the vast majority of civilized human history, currencies have been commodities. Cryptocommodity does have a nice ring to it, though.

cryptogold?

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#625

Post by ineedasername »

yunesj wrote: post #501
ineedasername wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Many, or even most people, believe that money must be controlled by the government for the economy to function. "Sound money" is money whose supply cannot be controlled by the government. Some further reading: * https://fee.org/articles/what-do-we-mean-by-sound-money/ * https://mises.org/library/principle-sound-money * https://www.aier.org/pertinent_category/sound-money-project/

Thanks, a good explanation. And I don't think money has an inherent need to be government controlled in order to be stable either. (Though I do see some benefits)

But I think it's relevant to split hairs a bit and say that "sound" often has the sense of "firm" or "solid/reliable", but that is not an inherent property of non-governmental currencies that can be controlled by groups that are no more beholden to users of the currency than governments. (Consider Facebook's attempt at creating a currency as an example)

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#626

Post by gruez »

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #585
gruez wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Assuming 2,500 transactions per block, you will need ~970 days to just open a lightning channel for each US citizen (assuming 350 million citizens and no other Bitcoin transactions). >Due to his limitation the Lightning Network is unsuited for any large scale use outside of exchanges. But do we need to onboard everyone everyone in a year? It's like saying the internet will never scale because modem manufacturers can…

I'm mostly guessing at this because I'm not very familiar with Lightning Network, but I think they'd need to be closed out periodically as well in order to settle up? Plus, I think you'd ideally want an account with each vendor that you deal with, not just one account, otherwise I think the channel would probably need to be managed by some central authority who manages the accounting between you and whoever you're ke…

>I'm mostly guessing at this because I'm not very familiar with Lightning Network, but I think they'd need to be closed out periodically as well in order to settle up?

AFAIK they can be kept open indefinitely.

>Plus, I think you'd ideally want an account with each vendor that you deal with, not just one account, otherwise I think the channel would probably need to be managed by some central authority who manages the accounting between you and whoever you're keeping these side accounts with

The whole point of lightning is that you can use the network to route money between nodes, so you could make payments even if you don't have a channel open with the person you want to make payments with. It's not unlike how international wires work. If you bank with a local credit union in country A and you want to wire money to another local credit union in country B, the wire might bounce between multiple "correspondent banks" eg. credit union A -> big bank A -> big bank B -> credit union B.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#627

Post by masswerk »

Someone wrote: post #491
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…

That a German seller doesn’t charge VAT does not imply that you do not have to pay VAT. You may have to inform your tax office about the purchase, after which it will send you an invoice for VAT (happens for ‘normal’ bank transactions, too.) https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/vat-rules... : “For EU-based companies, VAT is chargeable on most sales and purchases of goods within the EU. In such cases, VA…

It's called "reverse charge". If there is a general tax agreement between your country and the EU, no VAT becomes due at the country of origin (of goods and/or services), but you are supposed to declare the purchase locally and pay local VAT, if applicable. There's also usually a marginal sum, below wich goods and services are free of charge (the sum of it, which includes any postage), about EUR 20.

(Mind that this mechanism requires tax or VAT IDs on both sides of the transactions, which are to be declared.)

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#628

Post by arcticbull »

shawnz wrote: post #617
arcticbull wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, but I believe it's the economic side which is moving slowly, not the technological side. People have been working on improved technologies for cryptocurrencies for a while now but the problem is that none of them have gained the same trust as Bitcoin.

I suspect ETF cash inflows far, far outpace crypto cash inflows.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#629

Post by firekvz »

cambalache wrote: post #621
firekvz wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another fellow Venezuelan here, this guy points are actually wrong and he's just using the momentum to prove some point related to bitcoin that is not true Before hand, I would like people to know that the current VES:USD rates are the following: - Official rate: 1.107.198,58 per each USD [1] - Unofficial rate: 1.027.812,89 per each USD [2] So now, The way that remittances work in Venezuela is pretty simple, let’s sa…

For people unaware OP sounds suspiciously close to a Maduro bot. If you dont believe me, ask a Venezuelan friend of yours (regretfully it is a big diaspora now) or go to a place like r/vzla and ask around. Venezuelans in Colombia getting remitances in WU : http://sunoticia.com/inicio/a-grandes-sacrificios-e-irregula...

Absolutely, go r/vzla so you can find everyone making fun of bitcoin usage in venezuela :), bitcoin is actually a meme there for this sole reason, people outside think bitcoin is used, when is not.

As for OP, had no other options to call me a "maduro bot", when Im clearly stating that localbitcoins is exactly the place where all the maduro corrupt officials clean their drug/stolen money. haha.

Let me remind you that, the venezuelan corrupt goverment LOVES crypto, because it allows them to clean their stolen money. Thats why they are even mining it themselves [1] with free power and stolen bitcoin mining machines [2]

And to finish, you can literally find the westerunion guidelines on how to send money to venezuela [3] where it clearly states that you can receive remittances in any office of "zoom cambios" in venezuelan territory.

[1] https://cointelegraph.com/news/venezuelan-army-starts-mining...

[2] https://news.bitcoin.com/venezuela-seizes-315-bitcoin-mining...

[3] https://www.westernunion.com/ve/en/send-money.html#:~:text=Y....

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#630

Post by ineedasername »

syshum wrote: post #570
ineedasername wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking solely at that criterial, ACH transfers work.

ACH is US Banking only. You can not do Direct person to person transfers, you must go through a US Bank for ACH ACH is also SLOW and painfully insecure relaying on the banking institutions to stop gap the security and its built in slowness to allow for reversals of fraud or error transfers ACH is not a model people should be promoting as good method to do money transfer

Thanks, I didn't know ACH was US only. As for slow, I've had things go through literally instantly, where I make the transaction, login to my bank account, and see it posted. When it's been slow, that always seems to be a factor with the sending entity (like PayPal) not my receiving bank. (Could be bank specific though)
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