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

Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

711–720 of 830 posts

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#711

Post by wwtrv »

phamilton wrote: post #631
bluecalm wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is stunning to me. Wire transfers are free and fast in my country. I mean maybe some banks charge some people like 10c per transfer but they are mostly free. They are also very common way to transfer money to friends, paying someone, moving money around accounts etc.

A wire transfer is not the same as an ACH transfer. I can send you money for free via ACH, but it takes a few days to clear. A wire transfer is a realtime transfer between banks. The only time I've used it was while buying a house. I've never done a wire transfer under $20k.

Well in the EU we have SEPA transfwr which are ussually free and close to instant between an increaskng number of banks.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#712

Post by usehackernews »

futuretaint wrote: post #405
aphextron wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My opinion of Bitcoin will change when it stops using more electricity than entire countries, for something Visa can do for comparatively nothing. To be fair, Bitcoin does not do what Visa does. Visa uses trust in existing institutions to accomplish transactions. Bitcoin mining creates trust out of electricity. And trust is a valuable resource, no different than any other form of value creation.

I've read that most mining pools are consolidating now, and if they control a majority of computing power it leaves Bitcoin vulnerable to attack. Or what about the hard fork ? My skepticism is not w/ the tech (which is great) its with Bitcoin adoption by non-tech people who have no protection via regulation.

Yes, mining pools are aggregating. None are at 51%. But, the risk is bad actors, not the mining pools. Hypothetically, if a mining pool had 51% hash rate, why in the world would they tank the price of the asset their entire business is based on - They would lose hundreds of millions, if not Billions of value.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#713

Post by usehackernews »

osrec wrote: post #278
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're just passing money around, why do we need a separate currency at all? Stablecoins already exist, but they're not popular because all of the speculative value has been removed. Bitcoin's real invention was censorship resistance, by incentivizing distributed miners to arrive at consensus about transactions in a way that no single miner could control. Sadly, that same distributed incentive is responsible for Bi…

I think BTC energy consumption is a major issue, as is speed and capacity. I'm actually not sure what real problem BTC is actually solving currently! Also, I don't quite understand your first question. Care to elaborate?

If you’re not sure what real problem bitcoin is solving then you are living in a bubble.

30% of the world unbanked. Bitcoin provides a way for them to store their money.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#714

Post by usehackernews »

akra wrote: post #693
d--b wrote: post #549

For those who are surprised by this: Bitcoin has shifted in the mind of investors from a currency to an “asset class”. What this means is that to investors it is more like gold than dollars. Gold’s value is not linked with its usage in the industry or jewelry. Holding gold doesn’t yield interest. its value comes mostly from people scared of devaluation. While the interest rates are still low and the economy is not do…

This. There is a wide wealth inequality gap and a lot of excess savings that even at close to zero interest rates people don't know how to invest it. IMO this says a lot about our technological progress rate; which despite what many here might believe has been declining and bar a few outliers has been mostly evolutionary barely keeping pace with the world's increased population growth. Its like the low hanging fruit…

It’s not just your opinion, we are in a technological productivity stagnation and have been for years.

https://youtu.be/_93CXTt2K7c - There is an associated research paper on this Ted talk.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#715

Post by osrec »

usehackernews wrote: post #713
osrec wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think BTC energy consumption is a major issue, as is speed and capacity. I'm actually not sure what real problem BTC is actually solving currently! Also, I don't quite understand your first question. Care to elaborate?

If you’re not sure what real problem bitcoin is solving then you are living in a bubble. 30% of the world unbanked. Bitcoin provides a way for them to store their money.

If they're unbanked, how do they buy bitcoin? You can't just hand over notes for bitcoin in that many places, can you?

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#716

Post by adhoc32 »

jcranmer wrote: post #393
adhoc32 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop calling it Ponzi. A Ponzi scheme is a well defined scam with structural hierarchy. People lower in the hierarchy are obliged to pay the upper level money in order to stay in the game. They also try to recruit others in order to get paid themselves. Bitcoin is traded in the free market just like a stock. You are not calling Apple stock a Ponzi scheme because some people bought at 1$ a piece am I right?

You're referring to a pyramid scheme, not a Ponzi scheme. (Enough people mix the two up that the Wikipedia pages on both articles have sections on the differences between pyramid and Ponzi schemes). Ponzi schemes are where you pay investors using the contributions of new entrants, so investors only make money so long as new entrants are joining. It's not exactly a new tradition for people to be referring to financial…

That is correct, my mistake. Anyway, Bitcoin is neither of them.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#717

Post by IgorPartola »

BrissyCoder wrote: post #492
IgorPartola wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that pizza you bought in 2013? You could have invested that money into TSLA and it would be worth a heck of a lot more now. Opportunities like that exist today also. Does that make you not want to eat pizza? I bought BTC at $20. I sold at $1000. When I sold I had something like 1.95 BTC (had a bit of it stolen from poorly secured exchanges, lost some trying my hand at bot trading). Still happy with it becaus…

What's your thinking w.r.t XLM?

It’s a solid and usable cryptocurrency that is developing good strategic partnerships. Currently Ukraine is exploring it as its official cryptocurrency, as I understand. Nano is another good one but seems much more obscure.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#718

Post by nadahalli »

atweiden wrote: post #644
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but is the practical use of that ability worth destroying the planet for?

Do you remember the pictures from the early Covid lockdowns — of the Himalayas becoming visible in parts of India for the first time in decades? City streets deathly quiet everywhere. This is what actually saves the environment: less human economic activity. Bitcoin contains the built-in incentive to keep you put in place, without engaging in any economic activity. It does so on a massive scale, without sickening peo…

This is deflation, and turns out everyone hates deflation. Just to be clear, I am with you here.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#719

Post by whoanow »

imtringued wrote: post #669
whoanow wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If bitcoins price continues to rise, miners will be greatly incentivized to further decrease power costs. I hope this leads to innovation in clean power tech, especially in developing nations.

>If bitcoins price continues to rise, miners will be greatly incentivized to further decrease power costs. That's not how bitcoin works. The price of bitcoin is the budget you can spend on mining a single coin. If the price is higher, you can afford to run more miners. If the cost of electricity goes down, you can afford to run more miners. If the efficiency goes up, you can afford to run more miners. Running more mi…

Miners are motivated by profit, if your cost of electricity is lower, your profit is higher. I’m not sure why you are trying to obfuscate that simple fact.

Re: Bitcoin surpasses $50K as major companies jump into crypto

#720

Post by lugorrr »

blueblisters wrote: post #621
banachtarski wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.bitcoin.com/reddit-post-reporting-teslas-bitcoi... Title: Reddit Post Reporting Tesla's Bitcoin Purchase From a Month Ago Was a Hoax Reportedly, the person claiming to be a Tesla insider with intel on the bitcoin purchase was actually some political science major college student tripping on acid. Crazy how so many people ate this story up.

The post itself was a prank but the purchase is very real. It was self-reported by Tesla I believe.

It was reported, yes. See page 23 here. [1]

[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000156459021...

Post reply on HN