Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#71

Post by notch656a » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 8:15 PM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #54

camjohnson26 wrote: post #43

For all the hate Bitcoin gets because it’s obviously in a bubble market, can we at least agree that it is an astounding engineering achievement that an anonymous individual and a small group of researchers were able to build a network capable of transacting billions of dollars of value with only 2 service incidents in 14 years? All without any meaningful service costs and no hacking of the network, despite huge incen…

There is a meaningful service cost, it's just paid for by mining. Environmentally there's also a massive cost, one that is not offset by the benefits bitcoin brings - which is primarily financial speculation and scams. Cryptocurrency is probably one of the worst inventions in recent memory.

Quantify the environment cost that has been borne by bitcoin and now compare it to the cost by overheating or cooling houses (except perhaps a few elderly or infants, no one needs a house to stay within 60-80 degree band, you can survive with much less heating/cooling energy usage). Then explain to us how anyone living in a comfortable room temperature heated home that complains about bitcoin isn't a hypocrite, using environmental concerns as propaganda to shame people using computation cycles in some way they deem unfit while simultaneously restraining their outrage for AI training or video games.

This comment is unpopular, because it hits too close to the heart of home for many of you sitting in your comfortable home wasting energy on heat and A/C while complaining about environmental consumption of bitcoin.

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#72

Post by dspillett » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 8:15 PM UTC

oldsecondhand wrote: post #58

camjohnson26 wrote: post #43

For all the hate Bitcoin gets because it’s obviously in a bubble market, can we at least agree that it is an astounding engineering achievement that an anonymous individual and a small group of researchers were able to build a network capable of transacting billions of dollars of value with only 2 service incidents in 14 years? All without any meaningful service costs and no hacking of the network, despite huge incen…

> only 2 service incidents in 14 years Only 2 service incidents if you don't count all the scams and lost wallets.

If you count those, that is no different than blaming traditional banks because your gran was conned out of some money by Bodgit & Scarper Roofing and Driveway Contractors Ltd.

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#73

Post by zitterbewegung » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 8:15 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #43

For all the hate Bitcoin gets because it’s obviously in a bubble market, can we at least agree that it is an astounding engineering achievement that an anonymous individual and a small group of researchers were able to build a network capable of transacting billions of dollars of value with only 2 service incidents in 14 years? All without any meaningful service costs and no hacking of the network, despite huge incen…

I totally agree with you. Distributed ledger technology is amazing .

But, I think bitcoin could do better if it’s services could be split apart.

People use bitcoin to perform transactions , to speculate on its price and to generate value by mining to secure the blockchain.

If these services were more broken apart we would have a better solution but this could be intractable problem. The main problems that people cite such as the ESG impact are big. Many people in bitcoin speculate on the price which introduces problems with people that want to use it for payments. Since we need miners to secure the chain it has a large environmental impact by those miners. And socially it is used to allow people to violate various laws .

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#74

Post by root_axis » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 8:16 PM UTC

cft wrote: post #60

beaconstudios wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a meaningful service cost, it's just paid for by mining. Environmentally there's also a massive cost, one that is not offset by the benefits bitcoin brings - which is primarily financial speculation and scams. Cryptocurrency is probably one of the worst inventions in recent memory.

>Cryptocurrency is probably one of the worst inventions in recent memory. Do you have a source for this fact? It might survive the 50 year old fiat dollar experiment. Until 50 years ago, there has not been a currency that wasn't backed up by something that was beyond the government

Bitcoin subsists on the massive electrical and internet infrastructure that is only possible through government.

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#75

Post by kevinak » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 8:16 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #30

steelstraw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And up x,xxx% the past 5 years. People have short memories. Heck, in 2020 it was only around $9k.

In modern times people want fast results. Bitcoin is not up to this task.

What kind of fast results are you actually looking for? Is sub-second transactions not good enough for the vast majority of applications?

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#76

Post by dane-pgp » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 8:17 PM UTC

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #19

jazzyjackson wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, the Bitcoin Network has been down two times in the past. Once in 2010 for around 9 hours, known as the Value overflow incident where a block contained a transaction that created 184 billion Bitcoins for three different addresses. The network was soft forked to not allow any more than 21 million Bitcoins ever. > And once again in 2013 for 7 hours, known as the March 2013 Chain Fork, where a block that had a lar…

How to get to the 99.98% figure: 9+7=16 hours of downtime since the network started to operate (Jan 3rd, 2009). 4,753 days since then, or 114,072 hours. Uptime: (114,056 / 114,072 * 100) = 99.98% since inception.

For 16 hours to be 0.01% of the total time, bitcoin will have to be 160000 hours old, which is about 6666 days, or 1913 days from today. So on April 5th, 2027 (assuming it has no more downtime before then), bitcoin will be able to claim four-9s of reliability.

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#77

Post by donmezgel » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 8:18 PM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #40

donmezgel wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can one get such stats? Any source for reference?

You could probably parse the Bitcoin Core logs (assuming reorgs are logged) or run a modified Bitcoin node software which explicitly tracks such reorgs.

Since chain reorgs identical to the individual nodes, i assume we cant gather such data..

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#78

Post by matheusmoreira » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 8:19 PM UTC

Guzba wrote: post #36

nightski wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't take one snapshot in time and compare it when the two assets exhibit wildly different volatility characteristics. You are capturing Bitcoin's price when it is down. If we were to do the same thing at the end of the year last year we could say it went up 70% in 2021 (and that was after a big drop from it's ATH) whereas the S&P only went up 26%. See how that isn't the whole story?

> You can't take one snapshot in time and compare it when the two assets exhibit wildly different volatility characteristics. I mean, you certainly can if you're taking the "buy and hold" approach, or hodl amongst the cool kids. It simply points out that buy and hold crypto is not guaranteed to be better than something like SPY, and the excess volatility is maybe not a good thing? The highest possible returns != what…

> Did you sell any bitcoin you owned when up 70% and, if so, have we reached a bottom when it is optimal to buy back in?

This is the ultimate investing question. What signals a top or a bottom? How do I sell just before the price falls and buy just before it climbs back up? Is there even an answer? There must be since there are literal trading bots out there making millions.

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#79

Post by vanusa » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 8:19 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #43

For all the hate Bitcoin gets because it’s obviously in a bubble market, can we at least agree that it is an astounding engineering achievement that an anonymous individual and a small group of researchers were able to build a network capable of transacting billions of dollars of value with only 2 service incidents in 14 years? All without any meaningful service costs and no hacking of the network, despite huge incen…

All without any meaningful service costs

No we can't, because there's no way you can dismiss the climate costs (and the impact on energy prices and chip supply) as not meaningful.

It is this blue-sky pollyanna-ism among crypto advocates which generates much of the "hate" against it, btw.

Re: Is Bitcoin Down or Just Me?

#80

Post by planb » Sat, Jan 08, 2022, 8:19 PM UTC

camjohnson26 wrote: post #43

For all the hate Bitcoin gets because it’s obviously in a bubble market, can we at least agree that it is an astounding engineering achievement that an anonymous individual and a small group of researchers were able to build a network capable of transacting billions of dollars of value with only 2 service incidents in 14 years? All without any meaningful service costs and no hacking of the network, despite huge incen…

Bitcoin is not a central service. That's like saying "email never had service failure"... Still, from a technical perspective it sure is (was) an astounding achievement to create the first widely deployed blockchain.