441–450 of 530 posts
Isn’t the whole idea of decentralized digital currency systems to eliminate intermediaries, maximize privacy and reduce transaction costs? The visa network stands to lose the most, get seriously disrupted, more they are scrambling to stay relevant and frame this as a value added service.
I have very little long term faith in BTC at this point. It is effectively centralized, has limited capacity, outrageous fees when the network is busy, and then there are growing concerns over environmental impact...but I'm still holding on to my stash as the growing institutional momentum over the last year or so seems like it might have a significant positive influence on price, before BTC is eventually abandoned.…
I won't go into details but there is absolutely no way Bitcoin will go to $100k and stay there. Once it reaches that level the bubble will finally pop and we will get see lots of tears.
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> both things that can disappear overnight I understand what you mean and it's true in theory, but could never happen in reality. Even if a lot of the world stops believing in Bitcoin and the price tanks, there will always be at least two people interested in trading it with each other. If those two people run one node each, they can make it happen. Bitcoin can no longer disappear overnight. It was true in the beginn…
> Bitcoin can no longer disappear overnight. It was true in the beginning, but the network and mind-share is too big now. This is what they said about the housing market in 2008. The question isn't whether bitcoin would operate at least 1 transaction, it's whether it is usable as a stable store of value or a large useful network. > The market seems to value a independent and censorship proof currency differently than…
- completely ephemeral feelings
- the size of its network
And that both of those can disappear overnight.
Now you're changing the argument to if Bitcoin can be used for "a stable store of value" and if it's a "large useful network".
Then no, Bitcoin is currently not stable, it's pretty easy to see if you look at the fluctuation of the price. And yes, it is a useful, large network currently live in a production environment today. Sure, it has lots of problems, but since people are using it, we can consider it useful (at least to the people using it), otherwise people wouldn't use it.
The housing market in 2008 is hardly relevant to Bitcoin, as that market is controlled by larger entities that has power to decide things, ultimately the government. Bitcoin doesn't work like that, but I'm sure you're familiar with how Bitcoin works already, otherwise why would you discuss about it here?
The second argument you made was that "You can use Bitcoin to get around government sanctions" is the most "solid thing" you can say about Bitcoin, and that it's not exactly "high praise". The market clearly disagrees with you here, but then you think that it's more about "morals" than "financials". I agree with you here, but I say it's morally a good praise to be able to get around any restriction, especially since that was one of the original goals with Bitcoin. That Bitcoin set that as a goal, and still is achieving it after many years of attempts of being taken down, shows that the value the market assigns to Bitcoin is much closer to reality than what you think is the value of Bitcoin.
Overall, you are discussing in bad faith it seems. You're not interested in learning a new perspective, you're interested in converting others into your perspective, so unfortunately this conversation is not very fruitful. Take care.
The number of people commenting who completely misunderstand Bitcoin and crypto is astounding. Bitcoin will never be used directly for payments, it's a value store. Immutable deflationary digital gold. I wrote it off for years too because it was too slow and the fees were too expensive. That was the dream they had, but they couldn't realize it at the base layer. I was still walking around last year believing that's t…
This is an amazingly cynical take. I mean, I wish you all the luck in the world in your attempt to get rich, but you're making a bet that the global economy is going to collapse, in part aided by a pandemic, and rather than doing anything to help, the world's wealthy are going to opt out of using their wealth to help anyone in favor of hoarding bit patterns on hard drives in their dragon caves. I don't think I want t…
JP Morgan is on board, now advising their investors to join in (and the bank behind Coinbase)
Fidelity is on board
Morgan Stanley is on board
Visa, MasterCard
AMEX has been using crypto to get best possible currency exchange rates for a couple years
Coinbase has a healthy relationship with the SEC and is about to get their banking charter approved for their own direct FDIC insurance, as well as IPO soon
Getting money out is NOT hard.
This is not a meme.
The number of people commenting who completely misunderstand Bitcoin and crypto is astounding. Bitcoin will never be used directly for payments, it's a value store. Immutable deflationary digital gold. I wrote it off for years too because it was too slow and the fees were too expensive. That was the dream they had, but they couldn't realize it at the base layer. I was still walking around last year believing that's t…
- Boom/bust cycles means you’re at high risk of not being able to withdraw without losing most of your value - There’s no regulation of reserves in other more tangible values behind the currency - Bitcoin has no value to others not holding Bitcoin. Gold and art still has value to others not holding it. That is, I’d be willing to buy gold or art at a certain price for their practical or esthetical use, not just as an investment scheme. This puts a more solid barrier for how low the price of these assets can go. - The future regulation of cryptocurrencies is highly uncertain. Just look at India. I have no doubt that other countries will follow. Most likely there will be regulations requiring reserves behind cryptocurrencies. There’s not much reason to think that governments will be cool with printing money with zero reserves in the long term just because they’re printed by algorithms. It’s not allowed for banks, why should cryptocurrencies be treated differently?
Bitcoin is a high-risk high-reward investment scheme. A pretty good one so far. Nothing wrong with that. It’s absolutely not a store of value.
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> As an investment? A very solid choice. What’s the thesis?
Bank of America had this[1] to say: “No good reason to own BTC unless you see prices going up. .. it is not tied to inflation, and remains exceptionally volatile, making it impractical as a store of wealth or payments mechanism. As such, the main.. argument for holding Bitcoin is.. sheer price appreciation” I haven't found a reason in favor of owning btc other than "number go up". [1] https://twitter.com/carlquintani…
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The anti-BTC sentiment on HN puzzles me. There is no intelligent critique. The doubts that are endlessly repeated here have been addressed in detail, and are available online. Scaling and transaction throughput, energy consumption, state attacks, protocol weakness and lack of backing have all been responded to, to a sufficiently satisfactory degree.
The core issue I've seen that goes unanswered is what problem does BTC solve? The answers I've seen so far are: 1. Avoiding Venezuelan hyper-inflation - it is a use-case, but doesn't really apply to the United States for example. 2. Store of value - volatility is way too high and there are much better alternatives (Treasury bonds) 3. Evading capital controls - it is a use-case, but not really applicable to most citiz…
In a similar way, BTC will evolve. It arguable already has. All the money flowing into cryptocurrencies and the crypto tech stack drives more and more competition (and yes - also corruption and bad behaviour) and some of it will be meaningful. Just like some tech startups were/are scams, some are kind of useless but harmless and a few changed the world. I personally don't know what problem(s) crypto will solve, but I can see that the technology summons a lot of creative energy. Creative energy that gets empowered through capital and channeled through competition will eventually produce breakthroughs somewhere. Let mankind's creativity run wild and let yourself surprise by the unexpected outcomes!
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Visa would be providing 0 value if it exposed these drawbacks of Bitcoin's transaction network to users. Making cheap, fast transactions with fraud protections is exactly what a company like Visa has to offer.
So Bitcoin, without the Bitcoin. Brilliant, why didn’t anyone think of this before.
Bitcoin is an asset that tends to appreciate. Why would I use it as payment? Lastly, is it considered legal tender? What is the meaning of legal tender if one can use Bitcoin everywhere usd is accepted?
Because you will die if you don't spend it on some food. There is more to life than to grow your wealth.