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Bitcoin is a disaster

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Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#771

Post by ignoramous »

bigphishy wrote: post #766
cesarb wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Brazil, we have that since last month. The new money transfer system (Pix) allows anyone to send money to a key, which can be a person's CPF (the tax ID number nearly everyone has), a phone number, an email, or a randomly-generated number. These all map to a bank account (you can also use Pix to send directly to a bank account number); the directory with these mappings is kept by the Brazilian Central Bank, a…

Fascinating, this is the first time I've heard of Pix. Can you own the private key? Can you create an account without having a bank account?

Can't talk for Pix, but UPI, a similar system implemented by Indian banks, wouldn't accept "private keys" or not having a bank account. No international payments either.

UPI is more like venmo on steroids, but it is no crypto-currency replacement.

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

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#772

Post by bluedaulphin »

1-6 wrote: post #438
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…

Why aren’t there any mention of highly popular alt-coins like Litecoin? It’s less volatile for real use as a fiat alternative and transaction speeds are a lot faster because of the low service fee to speed things up. I kinda regretted keeping funds in Litecoin but it was one of the first to fix Bitcoin’s shortcomings.

Hey guys, y’all seem to know what y’all are talking about.

Please give me a min of yalls time.

My boss has been talking up Bitcoin SV to me for the past 2 years and he watches hours upon hours of podcast and YouTube videos (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOqZWfHm-gzDyMoDGmPCJbBhg...) that playlist is what he showed me that he watched. Anyways, he sort has convinced me.. I’ve done a little research but I’m not familiar with it as y’all seem to be. Is there any hope in BSV? my avg is 169.xx and I just wonder if this thing he told me about BSV being the only one that can “scale up” or whatever that is.. anyway any comments/tips are appreciated. Happy New Year!

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#773

Post by arcticbull »

jcrubino wrote: post #768
firekvz wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

read my answer, it's pretty well explained there

You are all missing the the trend over the last 7 years for bitcoin is to create a digital asset that is a store of wealth. To say bitcoin is a payments system in the sense of cash is to miss the executed tech roadmap where cheap one off transactions is a secondary concern (not bitcoin core's). Listen Saylor talk about MicroStrategy's investment in bitcoin. He is very clear that is a store of wealth and appreciating…

They haven’t changed Bitcoin a single bit since 2008. Saylor sounds like he got taken by the Bitcoin euphoria.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#774

Post by freewilly1040 »

bigphishy wrote: post #762
freewilly1040 wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In payments the 99% case where everyone acts in good faith and no one makes a mistake is the easy part. It's when eg the seller refuses to send the phone that the extra overhead of the traditional payment system comes into play.

Establishing trust between seller and buyer is not a new problem. The same scenario that you described could be had with mailing checks, physical cash etc. wherever there is not a trusted escrow service. Ironically, blockchain technology is the first technology that actually solves the age old problem of how to establish trust within a truestless system. imho Bitcoin is a novel implementation of open-source technolog…

My critique is not about greed. My critique is about crypto proponents claiming it does things it doesn’t do.

The GP complains about the overhead and data collection of traditional solutions, implying it’s a bunch of unnecessary cruft. In fact it’s to comply with local laws and protect the consumer and merchant from fraud. GP used Bitcoin to get around this hassle, renouncing any rights in the event of a dispute.

Now, maybe that’s a win, but it’s a much more nuanced and less generalized win than is put forth by crypto proponents.

Notice also the goalpost move of declaring Bitcoin a win over mailing cash. Ok, have you ever done that in your life? I have not been involved in mailed cash transactions aside from receiving $5 from my grandma in the mail 20 years ago.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#775

Post by xapata »

stale2002 wrote: post #770
xapata wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, I'm not familiar with how widespread cryptocurrency usage is for international exchange with Venezuela. I do know that they keep tight control over traditional foreign currency exchange via public markets.

> I do know that they keep tight control I was talking about how much control they have over the internet. The fact of the matter is, that even the most authoritarian countries out there, are simply are unable to have a 100% perfect authoritarian control over their internet, as of today. Despite the many motivations that current authoritarian countries have for definitely wanting to control their internet, right now,…

I don't think the aim is to have 100% control, but just enough. I'll admit I didn't read closely, but I have read a few news articles about some government or another temporarily shutting down internet access during a protest. I'd expect Venezuela could do something similar if they felt like it. They seem perfectly happy letting their citizenry go without basic staples, I'm sure they'd be fine turning off internet for a while.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#776

Post by yunesj »

imtringued wrote: post #448
yunesj wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That’s incorrect. When you buy something with bitcoin, even if it is priced in bitcoin, the IRS considers it a sale or exchange of a capital asset and you have to report the transaction on your return.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#777

Post by xapata »

dsterry wrote: post #706
jt2190 wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the inability to control inflation is a “feature” of BTC, not a “bug”. I strongly suspect that this will eventually make BTC too rare for owners to trade very often, and not practical as a day-to-day currency.

There's no theoretical limit to it's divisibility. The total supply is known ahead of time but the world will never run out of Bitcoin to transact.

The comment describes a liquidity crisis, when the market clams up and price begins to fluctuate wildly. It's not that things aren't tradeable, but that very few people want to.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#778

Post by lawrenceyan »

firekvz wrote: post #590
LatteLazy wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Bitcoin adoption in venezuela is Absolutely fake/nonexistant Bitcoin is only used as a bridge for exchange VES:USD a.k.a money laundering from corruption and drugs, with some remittances transactions caught in the middle of those laundry waves. there is absolutely 0 adoption for bitcoin in Venezuela, Im a bitcoin enthusiast since 2011 and I hold bitcoin and I live in Caracas (capital) and move around all tech communi…

How do you deal with the ongoing devaluation of the bolivar currently?

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#779

Post by xapata »

cyphertruck wrote: post #734
xapata wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your post disgusts me I'm happy to hear reasons to change my mind. What's disgusting?

I can’t see the flagged post, so don’t attack me here, I’m just going to explain the bitcoiner view. Your presumption that inflation is good and that bitcoin needs to be able to support whatever “social policies” governments decide is antithetical to the purpose of bitcoin. Bitcoin was created to escape currency debasement because it is how the people are impoverished. Currency debasement is the engine that creates w…

> currency debasement ... is how the people are impoverished

I agree that's the heart of the Bitcoin thesis, but I am convinced the evidence does not support that claim. In fact, quite the opposite. Much of the original Bitcoin discussion had its roots in von Mises' theories and beliefs, one of which was the rejection of empiricism. It's tough to fruitfully discuss a topic when the conversants disagree over epistemology. We can try nonetheless.

> Currency debasement ... creates wealth inequality.

I see it the other way. The government can print money and distribute it uniformly, such as with this year's CARES act (which is about as uniform as one can ask for in this political climate).

Regardless of government policy for how it distributes newly created currency, inflation is fundamentally beneficial for debtors and bad for creditors. Are "the people" predominantly creditors or debtors?

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#780

Post by paraschopra »

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…

A currency is a commodity whose utility is in being a medium of exchange.
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