Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Bitcoin a Scam?

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 106 posts

Re: Is Bitcoin a Scam?

#21

Post by habosa »

magma1983 wrote: post #14
nikivi wrote: post #5

Not a scam, just bad tech. If you compare it to say https://nano.org It's understandable though, it was first and drives on the network effects and its name ever since.

betamax was better tech than vhs. it's adoption that counts.

Bitcoin has basically no adoption among people who use cryptocurrency for non-speculative purposes. Privacy-focused coins (Monero, etc) or coins with faster/better ledgers (Ethereum) are much more popular.

There was a time when Bitcoin was a promising digital currency! I had some back then, around 2010. This is not that.

Re: Is Bitcoin a Scam?

#22

Post by geraldbauer »

A little reminder - How to Buy Bitcoin (The CO₂-Friendly Way):

1. Take one $50 bill, five $10 bills, or ten $5 bills (I wouldn't recommend change - stay with paper money).

2. Go to the bathroom.

3. Lift the lid of the loo.

4. Throw money in.

5. Flush down water.

Congrats! You just purchased $50 worth of Bitcoin - without fucking the planet!

-- Trolly McTrollface

Find more best of crypto (bitcoin) quotes @ https://github.com/openblockchains/crypto-quotes

Re: Is Bitcoin a Scam?

#23

Post by knuthsat »

nikivi wrote: post #5

Not a scam, just bad tech. If you compare it to say https://nano.org It's understandable though, it was first and drives on the network effects and its name ever since.

Well, Bitcoin is a research project.

Bitcoin to finally become cash equivalent needs to be untraceable, the transactions shouldn't have known inputs and outputs and energy efficient.

AFAIK, a lot of people that worked on Bitcoin found solutions to most problems and some of those solutions were reused in other currencies.

Re: Is Bitcoin a Scam?

#24

Post by stuaxo »

- Proof of work is inherently wasteful.

- The ever expanding blockchain is wasteful (in storage, computation, network).

- Having every transaction recorded forever is the opposite of anonymity ("pseudonymous" - come on!).

- The energy usage is insane.

- The throughput is way too slow.

While there may be an anonymous digital currency that doesn't use a lot of energy, it probably has to be based on something other than proof of work and blockchain.

The people that say this is a bit like a pyramid scheme may be onto something.

Bitcoins biggest threat may be the decriminalization of drugs, as that is the only use beyond hoarding "HODL"ing right now.

Re: Is Bitcoin a Scam?

#25

Post by jeltz »

octocop wrote: post #12
imtringued wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moderate CPI inflation is necessary for a productive economy. Fiat currency also has the nice property of being able to be used as money (payment for goods and services). So no, a well managed fiat currency can be extremely useful.

I like the way you used moderate. There is a reason that you did, and I think that is one of the reasons that bitcoin is thriving.

But we have moderate inflation in most countries so I do not see you point.

Re: Is Bitcoin a Scam?

#27

Post by thecupisblue »

It's a tech prototype that enabled large-scale gambling.

It was an idea for a monetary revolution that got sidetracked by those with large enough capital. You can barely buy bitcoin without an ID and a credit card these days except if you wanna do it insecurely via transacting with an unknown party that contains bitcoins via cash.

Why do people evangelize it that much?

1. They want the monetary gains.

2. They are deep into sunk cost fallacy.

3. It fuels their ego by letting them think they understand the topics of distributed computing, encryption and global monetary politics at the same time while.

4 and the rarest. They understand it and are still super delusional about its potential.

Re: Is Bitcoin a Scam?

#28

Post by chill1 »

If you have the time, listen to the audio (~25 minutes) embedded in the article. There are reasonable concerns that naive and unsophisticated ("retail") investors will be harmed by cryptocurrencies. However to make the jump to "[the government should ban or regulate it into oblivion]" - this demonstrates an absolute disregard for the rest of the world which does not enjoy the same level of access to the financial tools available to citizens in wealthy nations. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are an experiment. An experiment that is going to continue regardless of any regulations that governments attempt to control it.

There is real innovation here, but there are also many scams. It's up to the individual to take responsibility for their own finances. Or outsource that responsibility to companies and institutions in their own locality.

Re: Is Bitcoin a Scam?

#29

Post by nivenkos »

stuaxo wrote: post #24

- Proof of work is inherently wasteful. - The ever expanding blockchain is wasteful (in storage, computation, network). - Having every transaction recorded forever is the opposite of anonymity ("pseudonymous" - come on!). - The energy usage is insane. - The throughput is way too slow. While there may be an anonymous digital currency that doesn't use a lot of energy, it probably has to be based on something other than…

Yeah, the first and last points are the worst IMO. The others could be worked around maybe, but as long as it takes 3+ hours to carry out a transaction, and the resource requirements for partaking in the network are ever-increasing, I just can't see it ever scaling to be usable.

Re: Is Bitcoin a Scam?

#30

Post by bitcoindrugs »

1) I have cash and want drugs

2) I go on localbitcoins.com and buy bitcoins from an "independent miner"

3) I use the bitcoins to order drugs from Tor

4) The seller now has bitcoins, but would prefer cash

5) The seller goes on localbitcoins.com, pretends to be a small independent miner and sells their bitcoin for cash

I'm happy (I got drugs for my cash), the seller is happy (they got cash for their drugs), localbitcoins.com is very happy (they made a cut on both bitcoin transactions).

It's an excellent business model, but I don't understand how localbitcoins and it's ilk are able to stay online.

Post reply on HN