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U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

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Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#291

Post by nybble41 »

ianai wrote: post #287
sirspacey wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious - what forcing function will create this collapse in a decade? It appears the “greater fool” + deflationary currency creates a sustainable feedback loop for rebound.

Why would anybody continue operating nodes once all the pre-programmed bitcoins are minted? It's currently minted over 18 million and the max is a little over 21 million. It rewards its miners with new btc every so often. If it loses miners then transactions take longer to complete. Paraphrasing from this: https://www.quora.com/What-if-everyone-stop-mining-Bitcoin If the main developers decide, no, we can mint more c…

> Why would anybody continue operating nodes once all the pre-programmed bitcoins are minted?

There are two parts to the reward for mining a block: newly minted bitcoins, which follow a fixed distribution and decrease over time (halving every four years), and transactions fees. The intent is that as the supply of new bitcoins decreases the transaction fees will make up the difference to sustain a reasonable level of competition among miners even with no new bitcoins entering circulation.

> If it loses miners then transactions take longer to complete.

Only in the short term. As long as the loss isn't too sudden, over time the difficulty will adjust until one block is once again being solved every ten minutes on average. (There is some risk from sudden reductions in the hash rate, as the adjustment takes some time—and that time is measured in blocks mined at the higher, unadjusted difficulty.)

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#292

Post by nybble41 »

kcb wrote: post #143
frockington1 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will the government know whos door to kick down? Your wallet doesn't have a physical address.... unless you're hoarding your money on an exchange

At some point you're going to have to exchange your crypto for physical goods.

> At some point you're going to have to exchange your crypto for physical goods.

Or digital goods (services). Which you can do without providing any real-world identification.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#293

Post by jeremyjh »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #284
jeremyjh wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staying ahead of - or keeping pace with - inflation is actually a primary purpose of investments and why many people invest in stable bond and money market funds.

Until the creation of the Fed and the destruction of gold money holding your money was how you maintained value. Investing was to grow your wealth. We are now forced to invest to maintain value and for most it is a losing proposition. If your investments cant beat inflation every year you are losing value. By saying that investment is how you maintain value you are saying that the dollar is a bad store of value. Stab…

None of that changes what crypto is. Another property of good money is performing transactions in a few seconds and being accepted by local markets for goods and services.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#294

Post by kcb »

nybble41 wrote: post #292
kcb wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point you're going to have to exchange your crypto for physical goods.

> At some point you're going to have to exchange your crypto for physical goods. Or digital goods (services). Which you can do without providing any real-world identification.

Good luck eating digital goods.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#295

Post by nybble41 »

kcb wrote: post #294
nybble41 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point you're going to have to exchange your crypto for physical goods. Or digital goods (services). Which you can do without providing any real-world identification.

Good luck eating digital goods.

That would be an issue if you only had crypto. It does not in any way negate the fact that there are ways to employ crypto profitably which do not require exposing your real-world identity.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#296

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

cmiles74 wrote: post #101
mantenpanther wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is anchored in physics and math. And used by millions without western privileges.

US currency is backed by the government, a mortgage is backed by property. In my opinion, "physics and math" do not provide the same kind of underlying value as a government or real estate.

Then why has no government currency ever been perpetually valuable?

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#297

Post by aaaaaaaaata »

Hoasi wrote: post #205
aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the poor have wanted to switch to the Internet? After all, it required expensive custom hardware, and know-how. What changed? Have you considered it's just really early days ?

> Have you considered it's just really early days? How many years do early days last?

Well, once again, using the Internet as a very easy to reach example....decades?

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#298

Post by johndevor »

lr4444lr wrote: post #105
johndevor wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you hear about fiat currencies.

You can pay your taxes, fines, and court ordered debts with fiat currency. It's arguably THE MOST stable thing in a functioning society above pure barter.

> It's arguably THE MOST stable thing in a functioning society above pure barter.

Fiat currencies crash all the time. I believe the latest to collapse was Lebanon's currency.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#299

Post by webmaven »

sowbug wrote: post #156
AlexandrB wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? Most other assets represent ownership of... something. A company, a commodity, property. Cryptocurrency is closest to either a fiat currency without the government backing that typically tries to stabilize those. Or to more exotic and abstract financia…

> human sentiment - a very fickle input Ordinary accounting principles already have a concept for this: goodwill. If a business's valuation exceeds the net of its tangible assets minus liabilities, then that intangible asset is called goodwill. Goodwill is neither a strange concept nor inapplicable to virtual currencies/assets. Instagram's value as a business entity (yes, I know it's owned by Meta) clearly exceeds th…

> A competitor could duplicate everything Instagram does, but the competitor wouldn't be as valuable as Instagram.

You left out IP other than source code, specifically all the User Generated Content they have.

Re: U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

#300

Post by acdha »

aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #93
l-lousy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s the argument, why move to a whole new currency if it’s more of the same problems with fewer safeguards for the non technical and no way to get lost items back?

Why would the poor have wanted to switch to the Internet? After all, it required expensive custom hardware, and know-how. What changed? Have you considered it's just really early days ?

> Why would the poor have wanted to switch to the Internet?

Look at the history and this is easily answered: it let them do things better/easier/cheaper. That could be shopping, accessing government services, dealing with companies, finding a job, seeking educational material, entertainment, dating, connecting with friends and family (email was a pretty sweet alternative to long distance phone calls), etc. The internet picked up sharply as computers came down in price and people tried even cheaper options like WebTV because there was so much demand, and that started happening very quickly.

In contrast, cryptocurrency had much lower barriers to entry but despite having at least twice as many years by that point it has very little non-speculative usage because it doesn’t do anything most people care about. Even being a cheaper PayPal/Venmo would be an improvement.

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