931–940 of 992 posts
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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 fo…
> I'd expect Venezuela could do something similar if they felt like it. And yet, if you look at the real world, and how things exist already, you see that these types of efforts have failed. This is not a hypothetical situation. This is not about stuff that may or may not happen in the future. Instead, you can look at real world situations, that happen right now, in existing countries all around the world, and you wi…
When you say, "lots of people," how many are we talking about? The majority? If so, you'd think the government would just give up trying to have control, it wouldn't be worth the effort.
Remember, we're not talking about trying to have a technology that a few hobbyists can use. The goal is widespread usage, enough that it prevents governments from controlling currency.
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Did you actually try multiple banks? Is the banking ststem really that broken in Indonesia? My experience is that bank fees vary greatly. My (limited) experience with US banks is that they have huge hidden fees and you get really bad currency exchange rates. I'm talking about 8% of funds miraculously disappearing during currency exchange. I don't understand why anybody would bother going via USD. My Austrian bank on…
> My (limited) experience with US banks is that they have huge hidden fees and you get really bad currency exchange rates. I'm talking about 8% of funds miraculously disappearing during currency exchange. I don't understand why anybody would bother going via USD. You need to shop around for a better US bank account. This is not a common thing for us to do so if you pick up a random bank then you’ll be paying close to…
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My point was that the government has control of the internet, and thereby all activity on the internet. > extreme economic damages We're talking about Venezuela, which has had extreme economic damages caused by a government trying to maintain control over its population. It seems that they don't care about damage, only power domestically, not internationally. The comment we're replying to said that Bitcoin is valuabl…
> My point was that the government has control of the internet, and thereby all activity on the internet. Yes, if you're a big enough bully, you have control over many things. However, sometimes the control would imply too much destruction so even the bully chooses not to proceed. This is essentially what is happening right now.
> In more recent years, even the state's hold on the country's financial system has been badly shaken, with the US dollar growing commonplace in day-to-day transactions. In March 2019, Venezuela's entire electric grid collapsed, leaving some regions without power for up to a week. Without electricity, electronic transactions including credit and debit card payments were impossible, and paying cash was futile with even the highest-denomination bolivar notes worth only pennies. So Venezuelans started using the option left: illegal foreign banknotes.
How would they use Bitcoin when electricity is out? Generators only last so long when fuel is rationed.
> the government for the first time allowed a private company to issue bonds in dollars, and by doing so, raise capital outside of government control.
They key word there is "allowed" because that emphasizes the ability to disallow at some point in the future.
People have this sci-fi imagining of megacorps and the collapse of government power. Instead, we have Jack Ma probably afraid for his life, because he insulted the wrong person.
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Did you actually try multiple banks? Is the banking ststem really that broken in Indonesia? My experience is that bank fees vary greatly. My (limited) experience with US banks is that they have huge hidden fees and you get really bad currency exchange rates. I'm talking about 8% of funds miraculously disappearing during currency exchange. I don't understand why anybody would bother going via USD. My Austrian bank on…
> Did you actually try multiple banks? Is the banking ststem really that broken in Indonesia? I like how you consider that opening an account on another bank was both cheaper and easier than using Bitcoin.
I don't know what it's like in Indonesia, hence my question.
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If useful, the US Department of the Treasury can issue a coin or bill with a value of any denomination, including .005 USD, and so is “infinitely divisible”. Bitcoin divisibility is limited, by design, to 0.00000001 BTC (1 Satoshi) Whether this is “enough” is very difficult to answer definitively. If the demand for BTC is greater than the supply, the value of BTC will rise until supply and demand reach equilibrium. I…
> If useful, the US Department of the Treasury can issue a coin or bill with a value of any denomination, including .005 USD, and so is “infinitely divisible”. And how much does that cost? I bet it's more than 5 cents. > Bitcoin divisibility is limited, by design, to 0.00000001 BTC (1 Satoshi) Not by design, that's an implementation details that can easily be changed in the future if 1 sat starts to become valuable e…
The Great Depression.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation#Deflationary_spira...
If you're looking for commodities only, it's easy enough to Google "commodities bubble".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_commodities_boom#Opini...
The problem is that when markets get turbulent, they can suddenly shift to going the other direction. Instead of everyone wanting to buy, suddenly no one wants to be the last one out the door. And with Bitcoin, what authority is going to stop the panic?
> What happened to Gold?
I suppose it depends on which branch of Bitcoin you're on. Are we talking about store of value or medium of exchange?
Soros' comments on gold are helpful.
> “Typically, a self-reinforcing process undergoes orderly corrections in the early stages, and, if it survives them, the bias tends to be reinforced, and is less easily shaken. When the process is advanced, corrections become scarcer and the danger of a climactic reversal greater”.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2010/09/30/gold-as-the...
> The pseudonymity of coins being owned by the bearer of some > cryptographic key is a failure; People have been eavesdropping and > aggressively analyzing the block chain from day 1. And the block chain > will always be there, it will always be public, and it will always be > subject to further analysis. And we are learning that analysis of that > record is sufficient to destroy any pretense of anonymity or > pseudo…
Coinbase does have Zcash. So they don't seem entirely opposed to privacy coins
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How much electricity do you think traditional money printing and transfers consume?
Much less? Bitcoin currently powers almost none of the world’s transactions, yet consumes all that energy. The entire us consumes 75 twh in a year, the same as bitcoin’s global energy use. Of that, the entire commercial sector is about 12 twh. That’s not just banks. That’s every company. Banks alone are surely far less. Maybe 2-3 twh? And the us is 15% of global gdp. So, global finance might consume about 14-32 twh.…
Of course it'd be much better for us to adopt a crypto currency that uses a different algorithm that has even less energy usage. Even without that though I think it could prove to be more efficient than existing financial systems.
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> This is an opinion that Bitcoin advocates throw out every time someone criticizes Bitcoin's ability to be a currency. This 'opinion' comparing Bitcoin properties to Gold appeared before Bitcoin antagonists appeared. It is part of a design.
The white paper is literally titled “A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” and the first line of the abstract states “ A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.” For this purpose it is abjectly poorly suited. Neither the word “gold” nor “store of value” nor anything else of the sort appear…
I have also read an extremely early mailing lists that appeared long before bitcoin started to get derided by critics like you, and guess what, it was those comparisson I'm referring to. And since you started reciting old texts, i'll go for it too.
Gold and Bitcoin are very similar in all their properties regarding use it as a wealth storage and transfer, with two stark differences: unlike Bitcoin, gold can be used to create physical objects. Like, a ring. Unlike gold, Bitcoin can be near-instantly transferred to another person. Everything else is irrelevant. Gold is valued not because it has some inherent value in it, the price depends only on belief that it has value. Same with bitcoin.
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> significant benefit to transferring most of your wealth to a deflationary currency I'm not familiar with any evidence of that claim, despite my economics education. I suppose the best historical corollary would be gold? If so, I think we can agree that almost no one has adopted that practice. Do you think Bitcoin is different enough than gold such that it would motivate different behavior? Let's consider the effect…
> I suppose the best historical corollary would be gold? Not really a good analogy. The difference between gold and other forms of alternative currency, is the ease at which it can be transferred. This whole situation only works, in the case where it is simple and easy to transfer between the deflationary, and non deflationary currency. Obviously, the ease at which it is possible to transfer currency to other people,…
Would you use that card? How does it differ from the scenario you described for Bitcoin?