751–760 of 910 posts
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Borrowers pay more than lenders. You get a cut of those fees as interest. There's risk there of course, but it isn't magic money or a ponzi.
So the borrowing costs must be quite high to warrant that revenue.
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I’m talking about currency not appreciating commodities, assets or investment. The US dollar, and the currencies of most western nations, is/are in fact controlled and inflate at a targeted rate.
When I think about inflation, I think about the purchasing power of money for the basket of goods I'm likely to purchase. I'm less interested in theoretical or academic concepts like the rate of growth of M2 or the velocity of money. Preserving purchasing power over time is my priority.
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“People fear what they don't understand and hate what they can't conquer.” Bitcoin itself may end up being worthless or being a fortune. The block-chain technology is the revolutionary part that is here to stay and will only continue to grow in the future.
Don't invest in what you don't understand is the #1 rule of investing. If you jump off the deep end without knowing what's at the bottom, you are at a high risk of losing what you put in. New technology always comes with this risk. That's kind of why most don't touch crypto - its far too technically complex for them to even comprehend the risks. If you've followed crypto and blockchain for long enough though, you rea…
blockchain is more than a distributed database. in a distributed database someone is still in charge and can make decisions unilaterally about how the data is altered.
in blockchain you have a bunch of entities that can transact with each other with zero trust and without the need of a central authority. that is the truly innovative aspect of the blockchain and what sets it apart.
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Full disclosure: I own about $11 worth of bitcoin if I round up a bit, so this might be biased. The most convincing "point" of bitcoin I've heard is to accomodate transfer of large sums of money across borders, quickly, with minimal transaction costs and oversight. Everyone here can afford the fee to transact 8 billion dollars worth of bitcoin. And settlement happens in seconds to a couple minutes. That's appealing t…
I've never understood this argument. Moving large amounts of one currency between countries isn't expensive or slow (relative to how quickly you typically need to do this). Assuming you are allowed to do it at all. Oversight is a different story, but there aren't many legitimate reasons to want to do that (probably none that aren't problematic). There are, of course, a ton of illegitimate reasons but that's a differe…
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Full disclosure: I own about $11 worth of bitcoin if I round up a bit, so this might be biased. The most convincing "point" of bitcoin I've heard is to accomodate transfer of large sums of money across borders, quickly, with minimal transaction costs and oversight. Everyone here can afford the fee to transact 8 billion dollars worth of bitcoin. And settlement happens in seconds to a couple minutes. That's appealing t…
People who want to move millions or billions of dollars around don't care about a $30 wire fee. What they do care about is recourse in the case of fraud or mistakes, which Bitcoin by design does not give you. Moving large amount of money without government interference, however, is certainly a feature of Bitcoin that fiat currency usually doesn't have. And there are some (though perhaps not many?) non-shady reasons w…
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I think the more productive sentiment would be to try and have a more in depth discussion about Ethereum instead of attacking HN ad-hominem. So, as someone who doesn't know much about crypto aside from "it's bitcoin!", please tell me, what advantage do stablecoins/Ethereum provide that fixes the problems presented with bitcoin? I actually want to learn more. I would be interested to know about the volatility specific…
Stablecoins are a way to use the Ethereum network (or another blockchain) to send value that is pegged to the US dollar. There are a lot of stablecoins now (USDC, DAI, USDT) and they have various mechanisms for staying pegged to the dollar, some more effective than others. Using stablecoins allows you the advantages of the Ethereum network (interoperability with ethereum loan platforms and other smart contracts) with…
That being said, there's work being done to lower that and competing blockchains are coming up, that support the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) or at the very least supporting Solidity (which in turn compiles to EVM assembly).
There's a amazing fintech ecosystem being created in Ethereum, with decentralized exchanges, trustable oracles, DAOs, etc. It's definitely worth the look.
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I don't think you still get it. Do you?
Honestly, I think you really do not get it. Why would the loss of ability to mine lead to a price increase of Bitcoin? The mining efforts are driven by the price, not viceversa. I am certain you are familiar with it for a long time, but the way you put the problem kind of points out you are missing something.
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When I was mining Bitcoin when it was possible, maybe you were in diapers. Your response is so typical: "you don't get it." In fact, I do get it, and you don't. Educate yourself, because exposing your ignorance publicly!
While I agree with your sentiment, saying „maybe you were in diapers“ makes your argument look weak.
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Bitcoin is used as a speculative investment today only because it is so underpriced. Once its value stabilizes, its use in day to day transactions will grow. > Should also note that MasterCard crypto transactions almost certainly won’t be settled on the blockchain. And neither are USD transactions. In fact, USD doesn't even have a blockchain! The great thing with Bitcoin is once you want to cash out your Bitcoin, you…
False. It will never be a mainstream medium of exchange because its block size can only handle 10 transactions per second. It will be a reserve asset, used to back actual payment systems. And eventually other newer technologies will supplant it, as long as there are “synthetic bitcoins” that can be on that new network, crypto collateralized. If that new network launches as a sidechain though, then free unstaked BTC w…
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Markets only exist within the context of a political system. They are just a tool to reach a certain policy outcome. The idea of using the free market to replace poor governance is laughable. It's the opposite. You have to set the right policies and incentives and only then will the free market show its true beauty. Markets fail or succeed because of improper or proper governance. It's like a genetic/ML algorithm tha…
Suppose you've got two political systems each vying for legitimacy. They each have their own currency, and their own set of policy outcomes. Is it so laughable that whichever one achieves the best results for its users will be the one to establish both market and political dominance? Is letting such a competition play out via the value of their respective currencies any better than traditional means of resolving this…
not unrelated is the disk storage the block chain will eventually require, now ZFS and storage density arms races make sense