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Cryptonomicon: Among the Bitcoin maximalists

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Re: Cryptonomicon: Among the Bitcoin maximalists

#81

Post by igorkraw »

once_inc wrote: post #25
Animats wrote: post #21

That's a great read. What's striking, in his description of the conference, is the total lack of any connection to real world activity. None of these people seem to be trying to get enough Bitcoin together to build a steel mill or a wafer fab or a smartphone factory or, indeed, any kind of startup that does something. Bitcoin is expected to somehow generate wealth without actually doing anything that generates revenu…

There are actually quite a few companies doing things with bitcoin that generate revenue. Bitcoin isn't supposed to make you money; it's supposed to be money. Dollars on their own don't generate revenue, nor is gold locked in a safe. Bitcoin has qualities that make it better than fiat and better than gold, at the cost of an established history. Perhaps the author just spoke to the wrong people, didn't get the fundame…

Show me one company that "does things with bitcoin" that

1. does things which aren't already solved for cheaper using standard finance (for example, splitwise makes splitting bills easier, there are disposable credit card solutions, within crypto multi-sig accounts for the masses could be one idea) 2. is not just enabling other people to do something with crypto or building out the "doing something with crypto" capabilities (i.e., the product is used to do what real finance does - facilitate and simplify services and manufacturing of goods. Not trading, not infrastructure for trading, not derivatives, not loans...) 3. Is profitable or generates organic revenue (i.e., has customers actually using their product and paying them for it)

Alternatively, show me one company or freelancer denominating their prices in bitcoin, without tying it to the dollar indirectly.

Re: Cryptonomicon: Among the Bitcoin maximalists

#82

Post by ephbit »

horsawlarway wrote: post #78
mardifoufs wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean only point in it's history? I agree that bitcoin is mostly good for drugs but it's still being used for that as we speak. Some markets are starting to only take Monero, sure, but you can still get around with just BTC. Silk road wasn't the last dn market or even the best, not even close.

The primary use is now speculation - full stop.

The distinction between store of value and speculation is rather fuzzy IMO.

Is putting money into gold for savings (because an actual savings bank account currently not only loses money in real but even in nominal terms) speculation as well?

Re: Cryptonomicon: Among the Bitcoin maximalists

#83

Post by AniseAbyss »

ypeterholmes wrote: post #67
Animats wrote: post #21

That's a great read. What's striking, in his description of the conference, is the total lack of any connection to real world activity. None of these people seem to be trying to get enough Bitcoin together to build a steel mill or a wafer fab or a smartphone factory or, indeed, any kind of startup that does something. Bitcoin is expected to somehow generate wealth without actually doing anything that generates revenu…

Counterpoint- this was yet another tired critique of Bitcoin. How many of these smug, superficial boomer oriented rants must we endure? It's easy to attend conferences and mock people. Meanwhile BTC is playing a meaningful role in the realpolitik you mention, and quickly integrating into the entire banking system. You say BTC has no connection to the real world, as if the Canadian truckers didn't just get their accou…

How many rants from young people do we have to endure? You're not going to start the revolution you will become a boring boomer like all the generations before you.

The crux is that you are cashing out your bitcoin for £€$ to buy things in a store.

Re: Cryptonomicon: Among the Bitcoin maximalists

#84

Post by ephbit »

igorkraw wrote: post #81
once_inc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are actually quite a few companies doing things with bitcoin that generate revenue. Bitcoin isn't supposed to make you money; it's supposed to be money. Dollars on their own don't generate revenue, nor is gold locked in a safe. Bitcoin has qualities that make it better than fiat and better than gold, at the cost of an established history. Perhaps the author just spoke to the wrong people, didn't get the fundame…

Show me one company that "does things with bitcoin" that 1. does things which aren't already solved for cheaper using standard finance (for example, splitwise makes splitting bills easier, there are disposable credit card solutions, within crypto multi-sig accounts for the masses could be one idea) 2. is not just enabling other people to do something with crypto or building out the "doing something with crypto" capab…

> 3. Is profitable or generates organic revenue (i.e., has customers actually using their product and paying them for it)

Does an e-mail provider accepting payment in bitcoin count?

Re: Cryptonomicon: Among the Bitcoin maximalists

#85

Post by AniseAbyss »

seibelj wrote: post #14
burnoutgal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, classic fascist rhetoric. It's not surprising they point to a woman being independent and expressing her sexuality as the example of "degenerate culture". The "other" (people of colour, women, queers) are producing art that represents our own experiences, which is a threat to their desired white hetero-patriarchal order. Never mind that Mozart wrote a ton of filthy shit. People have been obsessed with sex foreve…

I think the comment about the music is ridiculous, but the broader point about free money causing the gradual degradation of food, housing, standard of living, etc. is not without merit.

My grandfather was born in a shack and he had to share clothes with his brother. The past wasn't a fairytale.

Re: Cryptonomicon: Among the Bitcoin maximalists

#86

Post by ephbit »

kragen wrote: post #49
wmf wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the point of Bitcoin precisely that it naturally becomes more and more valuable? If people want money that doesn't make money they can use stablecoins.

I certainly hope not! That's what the article's author was hoping for, but presumably Bitcoin will reach a long-term stable price level at some point. Maybe it already has, or did two years ago when it was at US$8000, or maybe at some point it will rapidly fall to $0 as investors switch to Ether or Grin or ZCash or whatever is popular ten years from now. Its volatility unfortunately appeals to get-rich-quick speculat…

Agree.

Many people critize bitcoin for its current volatility and entirely neglect that it can totally change in the long-term.

It appears reasonable to me to expect the system dynamic along a pathway towards (possibly) wide adoption to go through various changes. Yes there are probably phases of hype and there's the influence of block reward halvings but there can also be effects in the long-term that stabilize: the more widespread and integrated in various parts of finance and the economy and actual day to day transactions or people's savings bitcoin were to become the more it would dampen volatility.

Why that? Because unlike purely speculative financial transactions, day to day transactions are very much restricted and influenced by and thus coupled to rather constant human needs, so a lot less volatile than the former.

Now don't get me wrong. I know bitcoin can't directly be used to replace cash because of settlement time and transaction fees. But that's why protocols on top like Lightning exist.

Re: Cryptonomicon: Among the Bitcoin maximalists

#87

Post by invaliduser »

ephbit wrote: post #82
horsawlarway wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The primary use is now speculation - full stop.

The distinction between store of value and speculation is rather fuzzy IMO. Is putting money into gold for savings (because an actual savings bank account currently not only loses money in real but even in nominal terms) speculation as well?

Speculation: "investment in stocks, property, etc. in the hope of gain but with the risk of loss." Buying bitcoins seems to match the definition.

You can buy gold as an inflationary hedge, but I don't think people would do that with bitcoin.

Re: Cryptonomicon: Among the Bitcoin maximalists

#88

Post by lupire »

tedunangst wrote: post #63
MR4D wrote: post #4

This is interesting... The linked article is titled "Cryptonomicon", and written by Will Stephenson, and a book with the same title was written by Neal Stephenson. Yet, no mention of Neal or his book in the article. So I wonder where he got the word for his title?

Probably the same place the other Stephenson got it. Crypto + /necro/nomicon = cryptonomicon.

no "necro" here. "nomicon" means "tome".

Re: Cryptonomicon: Among the Bitcoin maximalists

#89

Post by kragen »

horsawlarway wrote: post #71
kragen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it turns out, moving money from one group to another† is pretty useful in modern society. It's really all that money is good for, after all. Some of my comments from the last week and a half about what Bitcoin is good for: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30469595 when your country's central bank suspends electronic cash transfers, suspends the foreign exchange market, limits cash withdrawals, and prohibits th…

I find you utterly un-compelling. And I say that as someone who has literally spent hundreds of bitcoin at one of the ONLY points in bitcoin's history when it was primarily used as a genuine medium of exchange (silk road). Simple example - show me a method of handling reconciliation of fraud/contract dispute for bitcoin that doesn't fall back on the legal systems of those government systems you're so happy to rail ag…

I bet you wish you hadn't spent those hundreds of bitcoin, don't you?

As I said in the last post I linked, Bitcoin handles a few billion dollars a year in cross-border remittances, largely to family members in Venezuela; this suggests that it's keeping several million people alive. I hear there are still darknet markets around, too. So there are current uses as a genuine medium of exchange that are very significant.

Do they amount to its primary use? I don't know. I suspect Bitcoin's primary use right now is speculation, and I wish that would settle down, because I'd really appreciate it if the money I get paid in would retain roughly the same value for weeks at a time. But perhaps the primary use of US$100 bills is cocaine trafficking; if so, what does it matter to people who are using them for other things? If the primary use of oxygen were feeding pathogenic bacteria, would you stop using oxygen?

I don't think it's a problem that Bitcoin doesn't contain its own fraud or contract dispute resolution mechanisms. Neither do gold, silver, copper, or greenbacks, and they work pretty well as currencies. Last time I had a dispute about a Bitcoin transaction, I resolved it by negotiating with the person I was disputing with to find a mutually agreeable settlement, which took about an hour; failing that, theoretically I could have resorted to talking to their friends, the Mafia, or, yes, the police, but probably I would have just swallowed my losses and not done business with them again. (In theory I could also have resorted to individual violence, too, which is probably the most common dispute resolution mechanism after simple negotiation.)

You may or may not be aware of this, but commerce is enormously older than states are, perhaps by a factor of ten, and a great deal of it has been conducted throughout history outside the aegis of any shared authority to whom disputes could plausibly be referred. It's true that a good dispute resolution mechanism reduces the risks of commerce, but commerce is often still worthwhile without it. Ask anybody who's worked under the table, been an illegal immigrant, rented a room illegally, or bought drugs on the street.

I'm not railing against government systems in this thread. They have their good points and their bad points. Fundamentally, though, I think history has proven out Lord Acton's maxim that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely; and, because I have seen the devastation corrupt governments can wreak, I do not think that governments should have absolute power.

I especially do not think the US government should have absolute power over Russians, or that the Chinese government should have absolute power over Americans; the history of such arrangements is replete with avoidable famines and intentional genocides.

Re: Cryptonomicon: Among the Bitcoin maximalists

#90

Post by kragen »

DennisP wrote: post #77
toomuchtodo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's your source for "Russia is exploring crypto for transfers if they get knocked off of SWIFT"? I assume you mean cryptocurrencies of some kind, because obviously SWIFT, СПФС, and CIPS all use cryptography, so that would be too obvious to mention. Right now I think Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency with enough trading volume to handle Russia's foreign exchange needs. EDIT: If you're looking for a press release…

Russia doesn't need to resort to Bitcoin, when they can easily use their own SWIFT alternative or China's. China is conveniently friendly with Russia these days, is rapidly expanding CIPS, and would likely welcome the chance to expand it even more. The existence of these alternatives is one reason Russia probably won't be banned from SWIFT in the first place. Archive from The Economist: https://archive.is/CHiiI

It'll be interesting to see how it unfolds. Presumably for Russia to use СПФС or CIPS other countries (or banks?) have to use it too, otherwise they can only pay themselves.

Are there any downsides to making a payment through СПФС rather than SWIFT? For example, are you revealing information to the ФСБ, or exposing yourself to counterparty risk from the Russian government, or making it possible for the Russian government to cut you off from your payees if they want to level economic sanctions against you? A potential upside of Bitcoin in this sort of situation is that it's neutral: nobody can cut off your access to it, everybody can see your transactions (but without names and places), and you're only exposed to counterparty risk for the few minutes until your transaction is confirmed.

But, again, I don't think that'll happen in the next couple of years, and possibly never.

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