The Quora post that killed Bitcoins. Please discuss if his arguments are valid. • Hacker News Board

Re: The Quora post that killed Bitcoins. Please discuss if his arguments are valid.

#261

Post by johnny22 » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 7:31 PM UTC

TerraHertz wrote: post #171

I've only recently begun paying attention to Bitcoin, and am still evaluating. Have yet to read the technical details, for instance. So I have nothing to say on the validity of the technology. However I can offer some comments from a political perspective. I find the timing of Bitcoin's appearance rather interesting. Here we are, entering into a whole mess of interconnected monetary crises - * Crisis of confidence in…

you ruined your whole argument with this "* Crisis of legitimacy of the US Federal Reserve Bank. Which is neither federal, or a reserve, or really even a bank. It's actually a cartel of private bankers; many would say a criminal cartel. *"

This ruins everything else you said. You're not telling us anything new, or necessarily true (depending on how you twist the definition of cartel)

Re: The Quora post that killed Bitcoins. Please discuss if his arguments are valid.

#262

Post by weavejester » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 7:34 PM UTC

cheez wrote: post #260

weavejester wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything in the specification that's you think is ambiguous or hard to understand? There's also the source code to bitcoinj, which is a very well-commented implementation of the protocol.

Ok, my question was really as to how they even discover each other but some more perusing of that site shows that they connect to a IRC channel. I thought there was no centralized point-of-failure?

The IRC channel just provides an initial set of peers. There's a hard-coded list of peers it falls back on if the IRC channel fails. I believe there's been some discussion about diversifying the initial peer discovery further.

Re: The Quora post that killed Bitcoins. Please discuss if his arguments are valid.

#263

Post by hippich » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 7:51 PM UTC

Not sure how it killed bitcoins, but while most of authors points are valid, conclusion - is not.

People get in to this "Ponzi schema" exactly for reasons pointed by author - deflation currency, unable to track down, limited supply, free/crazy market value. They look for such currency. Why it could not co-exists with rest fiat, gold, game currencies?

If bitcoins will pass test of time, eventually its exchange rate to major currencies will settle down. But for now when accepting payment in bitcoins in my store I immediately convert these to dollars on mtgox.com, since I do not know will tomorrow exchange rate be +50% or -50% =) and I need to pay my supplier in dollars, not bitcoins.

Re: The Quora post that killed Bitcoins. Please discuss if his arguments are valid.

#264

Post by spot » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 7:57 PM UTC

3am wrote: post #191

spot wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and if you look at the transaction graph for bitcoin it could just as easily be the start of the twitter graph.

He's talking about the amount of currency in circulation, not the aggregate transaction volume. And BitCoin cannot follow the Twitter graph, because the money supply growth is controlled algorithmically. You are incorrectly interpreting the graph (which, to be fair, is a bad analogy).

right it's a bad analogy (apples to oranges) that's what i said.

Re: The Quora post that killed Bitcoins. Please discuss if his arguments are valid.

#265

Post by goebbels » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 8:08 PM UTC

acslater00 wrote: post #148

Hi, I'm Adam, I wrote this answer on Quora. Against my better judgement, I'm going to wade in here and make a couple of clarifying points. 1 - Scam. I regret using the word "scam" in my answer, because I think it overshadows the broader point I was making about Bitcoin's severe structural design flaws. After watching the community react to this debate, I'm pretty confident that the average bitcoin supporter is not in…

a) Have you even analyzed the source code to know whats going on? If not then you should just post directly to clientsfromhell so everyone can get a laugh at ignorant you are. What economic theories have you been studying that take into account for an infinitely divisible currency?

b)Whats the dollar "supposed to be"? To your own admission your opinions are invalid and yet you continue to comment on bitcoins.

Re: The Quora post that killed Bitcoins. Please discuss if his arguments are valid.

#266

Post by goebbels » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 8:13 PM UTC

achompas wrote: post #160

acslater00 wrote: post #148

Hi, I'm Adam, I wrote this answer on Quora. Against my better judgement, I'm going to wade in here and make a couple of clarifying points. 1 - Scam. I regret using the word "scam" in my answer, because I think it overshadows the broader point I was making about Bitcoin's severe structural design flaws. After watching the community react to this debate, I'm pretty confident that the average bitcoin supporter is not in…

Thanks for posting here and on Quora. As someone with an economics background, it's nice to hear a sane explanation based on fundamental theory. I'm just surprised people aren't considering Bitcoins from a supply-demand standpoint. Why purchase Bitcoins in the long run unless you're laundering money or hiding from the government?

What economic theory accounts for a currency that can be divided infinitely?

Re: The Quora post that killed Bitcoins. Please discuss if his arguments are valid.

#267

Post by sigil » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 8:31 PM UTC

achompas wrote: post #257

sigil wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare those two graphs from say 2006 on. I am mystified that you would look at a graph with a giant, dominant spike, and conclude my point was about the shape before the spike. Edits: To make it clear I'm not arguing with the statement that money supply has tracked GDP fairly well until recently. Or that GDP has trended up exponentially.

Oh I get it: this is one of those "man, the Fed is messing up" rants! Yeah, I won't take part except to say (a) you're sampling 4 years of incredibly volatile economic activity, and (b) the other, uh, 96 years exhibit a pretty strong exponential trend.

> Oh I get it: this is one of those "man, the Fed is messing up" rants!

Imagining a rant, and a classification for the discussion, is not helpful. Your two points (a) and (b) I agree with.

Re: The Quora post that killed Bitcoins. Please discuss if his arguments are valid.

#268

Post by icarus_drowning » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 8:37 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #233

icarus_drowning wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not reasonable. Its just ignoring the privacy/anonymity value of BTC. Again, we can argue about the monetary value as compared to dollars, (especially given the tradeoffs-- i.e., convertibility to established currency, places to spend, etc) but that's real, practical value. You can't simply ignore it.

Sure it's reasonable. I think bitcoins have zero value. I recognize that there may be people out there who are willing to pay real dollars for it right now , but I think that in the long run, no such people will exist. Hence, I place its value at zero.

Bitcoins don't have to be tradable to dollars to represent nonzero value. Their utility is in and of itself valuable. It might not have value to you, but that's different than suggesting that it has no value at all.

Re: The Quora post that killed Bitcoins. Please discuss if his arguments are valid.

#269

Post by icarus_drowning » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 8:39 PM UTC

achompas wrote: post #235

icarus_drowning wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not reasonable. Its just ignoring the privacy/anonymity value of BTC. Again, we can argue about the monetary value as compared to dollars, (especially given the tradeoffs-- i.e., convertibility to established currency, places to spend, etc) but that's real, practical value. You can't simply ignore it.

I couldn't care less about the privacy/anonymity of BTC if the market falls out and my BTC wallet ~ $0. At that point no government will come to my aid because, hey, I invested in something that has no value.

As I mentioned above, Bitcoins value relative to the dollar is irrelevant, because its value is found in its utility. So long as there are goods and services to purchase with Bitcoin (and it seems very difficult for a government to stop such services from existing), the utility of the currency remains valuable, regardless of its exchange rate to the dollar.

EDIT: The fact that government would have a very difficult time shutting down the Bitcoin economy is yet another example of its utility and value.

Re: The Quora post that killed Bitcoins. Please discuss if his arguments are valid.

#270

Post by anamax » Thu, Jun 02, 2011, 8:41 PM UTC

mcantelon wrote: post #220

anamax wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of the value is in their utility as an anonymous currency: try taxing the guy that's paid in Bitcoins. Easy - I collect taxes at the point where physical goods are exchanged for bitcoins or are used to deliver products. If you can't use bitcoins for food, housing, netaccess, or energy....

>Easy - I collect taxes at the point where physical goods are exchanged for bitcoins or are used to deliver products. The state does this, but people already get around this by conducting cash transactions. Bitcoin creates another option for this.

> The state does this, but people already get around this by conducting cash transactions. Bitcoin creates another option for this.

Govts tolerate a certain amount of black market because it costs too much to reduce the black market to 0. However, that toleration goes away when govts are seriously hurting for revenue.