161–170 of 234 posts
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You don't like it because it's possible to lose? Are all of your other physical possessions immune from being lost?
There's a reason people keep their financial assets in a bank or other such institution, rather than cash under the mattress.
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You don't like it because it's possible to lose? Are all of your other physical possessions immune from being lost?
Bitcoin is not a physical possession. My money right now is (mostly) not a physical possession either. It exists as a non-blockchain ledger entry in bank's computer system, and cannot be lost as easily as crypto currency, even if I make a mistake like forgetting my password.
The difference is, you can also self-custody your Bitcoin. Obviously what's in your custody is just a private key; but for all intents and purposes that is self-custody. You are the sole person in control of those coins.
So Bitcoin gives you the choice of how you want to store it. Traditional money does not give you that choice. At a certain point there are physical and practical limits to how much cash you can self-custody (not to mention transport or transfer from one place or person to another).
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Torvalds has apologized for past toxic and the damage it incurred, behavior and has vowed to do better from then on.
Vitalik proposed a theory that the toxicity is a valid and perhaps even necessary defense mechanism. I don't pretend to know whether Vitalik's theory is true, but it certainly seems plausible. And defending linux from bad actors is a herculean task. If Torvald's toxicity helped him in that endeavor, his apology would be a negative development. Interestingly, the Rust community has had incredible success being explici…
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You see no value in having a currency that can't be inflated on a whim by your government? As in, the printing of money that reduces the purchasing power of the money sitting in your bank account. Really?
Bitcoin is not and never can be currency.
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I don't understand your comment. Is there a meaningful difference between having "access to your wallet's funds" and being able to "transact"?
Well the parent claimed they would be rendered penniless. If you're temporarily unable to transact you're not penniless.
> Both sides of the Bitcoin network would carry on working (although if there was an unequal divide, one side might be slowed so much that it became unusable). Let’s imagine this carried on for a few days or weeks before connections were properly restored. At this point we would have two divergent “branches” of the blockchain, which is not allowed. By design, there is no way to merge the branches, and Bitcoin will simply pick whichever of the two branches happens to be the longest. For the unlucky half, all transactions that happened during those days or weeks of network partition would be erased.
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Literally the only way you can profit with real estate is if people keep buying in at higher prices. It's the perfect instantiation of a pyramid scheme. Literally the only way you can profit with stocks is if people keep buying in at higher prices. It's the perfect instantiation of a pyramid scheme.
> Literally the only way you can profit with real estate is if people keep buying in at higher prices. It's the perfect instantiation of a pyramid scheme. Except, of course, if you live in it, rent it out or use it as businesses asset. Good luck doing that with crypto. > Literally the only way you can profit with stocks is if people keep buying in at higher prices. It's the perfect instantiation of a pyramid scheme.…
- Real estate has real-world use cases
- Stocks have real-world use cases
- Bitcoin has real-world use cases
It's meaningless to describe any of these as pyramid schemes because "to profit you must be able to sell at a higher price to someone else". That's true of buying or selling anything.
It's hard not to see the massive influence of Scott Alexander in the way Vitalik presents his ideas and structures his essay. One SSC meme that kept coming up in my mind as I read the essay is that "ideas are soldiers" [1] is certainly in play with the blockchain wars. It's refreshing to see we have leaders in this space that can recognize the bravery of the enemy's soldiers. At least for today!
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Literally the only way you can profit with crypto is if people keep buying in at higher prices. It's the perfect instantiation of a pyramid scheme.
> Literally the only way you can profit with crypto is if people keep buying in at higher prices. It's the perfect instantiation of a pyramid scheme. How does that differ from other commodities trading? The only way to profit in the futures market is to buy low and sell high, too, for instance.
The "and use" phrase is what differentiates commodities from cryptocurrency.
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Vitalik proposed a theory that the toxicity is a valid and perhaps even necessary defense mechanism. I don't pretend to know whether Vitalik's theory is true, but it certainly seems plausible. And defending linux from bad actors is a herculean task. If Torvald's toxicity helped him in that endeavor, his apology would be a negative development. Interestingly, the Rust community has had incredible success being explici…
> Vitalik proposed a theory... That is not at all original to Vitalik. It pre-exists in the bitcoin community and maybe is even older than that.
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> Literally the only way you can profit with real estate is if people keep buying in at higher prices. It's the perfect instantiation of a pyramid scheme. Except, of course, if you live in it, rent it out or use it as businesses asset. Good luck doing that with crypto. > Literally the only way you can profit with stocks is if people keep buying in at higher prices. It's the perfect instantiation of a pyramid scheme.…
Actually you can rent out crypto (to short sellers).