Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

barrons.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 362 posts

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#171

Post by andirk »

legutierr wrote: post #148
britneybitch wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To change the algorithm, all three of miners, users, and nodes would have to agree to the change. If there is any disagreement, the network continues running under current consensus rules. In fact, a majority of miners did try to strongarm a fork 5 years ago, and they failed, because the users did not agree. There was even been a book written about it. https://www.amazon.com/Blocksize-War-controls-Bitcoins-proto... I…

While the block reward remains high in USD terms, I think you’re right with regards to the power balance. But if the reward falls low enough—which very well might happen, if the price of Bitcoin stagnates and if transaction fees stay low—then there won’t be enough miners to secure the network without some kind of change to the algorithm. The Bitcoin Cash fork happened when prices were rising and the inflation rate wa…

Isn't it that the less miners, the lower the difficulty therefore each miner that continues to mine will win the block reward more often because of less competition?

The security issue with less miners is the whole 51% attack, but even with a substantial drop in miners, it would still mean the attacker would need many thousands of nodes. Seems like that kind of energy and spend would be more profitable mining.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#172

Post by Nursie »

TheDudeMan wrote: post #155
aaronwalker wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. There are ongoing developments in Decentralized Finance and Identity Networks on Ethereum that are reinventing more parts of the current financial system, as well as the shift to proof-of-stake that is making Ethereum more scalable and efficient. I focus on Ethereum just because it's the center of innovation in crypto nowadays. Bitcoin has only incrementally changed its software throughout the years and only ga…

Ethereum is not decentralized. Decentralization is the most important thing in a blockchain. The sooner everyone realizes that, the sooner we can start building momentum on the chains that are viable.

Bitcoin is not decentralised, a couple of pools account for the majority of hashpower.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#173

Post by kybernetikos »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #9

If I were a bank, I'd stay far away from any non-bitcoin cryptos that I'm not an issuer of. Why would I want to own a coin that someone else is able to freely devalue, in addition to conventional currencies? On the other hand, if I were a bank, bitcoin presents a compelling argument. The supply is finite. Disclaimer: I don't own any crypto or bitcoin.

I'd stay away from BTC too, its poor environmental effects invite regulation and they have no plan to pay for chain security in a way that scales as issuance drops off.

If you like the "limited supply" thing (I don't) you might be interested to know that other chains exist that can even have negative issuance, and while there is a plan to eventually stop issuing BTC, right now the supply of BTC is actually increasing (1.72% at the moment i think).

Ultimately if you want people to hold your cryptocurrency as a store of value rather than spend it, and you are using an expensive means like POW to secure the chain, then its going to be difficult to pay for securing the chain just with transaction fees, calling the whole "limited supply" thing into question.

If you don't have issuance then the cost of securing the chain for all the people with value on the chain is an externality bourne entirely by those making transactions. Unless you have a plan to keep demand for transacting extremely high then the chain is unsustainable.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#174

Post by int_19h »

aaronwalker wrote: post #137
root_axis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin already went mainstream; everyone who cares has heard all about bitcoin for years now, it's permeated pop culture, referenced in TV, movies, music, even superbowl ads - we've reached peak bitcoin saturation. The problem for cryptocurrencies is that that they just aren't very useful to the masses, thus the vision of "mainstream" as imagined with desktop PCs will never happen for bitcoin - what we have today is…

There's a difference between being known by the mainstream and being used by the mainstream. Bitcoin is the former, but not yet the latter. It appears that Bitcoin's main use case is as a long-term store of value (like Gold, but digital). It will be very helpful to have a currency that anyone can use without one country's central bank controlling it, and with Bitcoin's strong network effects, its only a matter of tim…

Thing is, if someone needs a store of value that's not controlled by the bank, gold is already there - and, for most people, it being physical is actually an advantage (easier to secure in a way that they can understand and verify).

Then again, most people who hold crypto today, do so in third-party wallets on platforms like Coinbase. At which point the "gold equivalent" would be to buy gold certificates from your bank of choice.

Thus, the only practical value proposition of Bitcoin is that it can do long-distance transactions outside of the established bank network and its regulations. I'm not saying that dodging regulations is always a bad thing, but regardless of that it's a very niche use case by definition, never mainstream.

The reason why it is so popular outside of that niche is speculation. Which is also why we're seeing those wild swings - if the current price was anything resembling its real utility, it would be a great deal more stable.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#175

Post by Ekaros »

ww520 wrote: post #66
givemeethekeys wrote: post #9

If I were a bank, I'd stay far away from any non-bitcoin cryptos that I'm not an issuer of. Why would I want to own a coin that someone else is able to freely devalue, in addition to conventional currencies? On the other hand, if I were a bank, bitcoin presents a compelling argument. The supply is finite. Disclaimer: I don't own any crypto or bitcoin.

> if I were a bank, bitcoin presents a compelling argument. Banks don't make money by owning assets. That's not their business model.

And more importantly their model is actually build on currency not being finite. Transactions make only so much money. Making loans that is non-finite money scales much higher.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#176

Post by 314 »

fyloraspit wrote: post #124
gerdesj wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I idly played with BTC one evening and I let it mine for about a week or so on a fairly poky PC and got bored of it eventually. I was more interested in Folding@Home. As it turns out I was both right and wrong. That BTC was going to be worth up to $64,000 at one point in time. However, protein folding might save lives. I ditched that PC and didn't copy over the wallet because I'd forgotten about it - it wasn't that i…

I'd love to believe you but this sounds somewhat farfetched given quoted specs. It was very early on that CPU mining was almost useless and even when it was useful it would not have been on a Pentium II

In addition the early reward for mining a block was 50 bitcoins, there was no way to "mint" a smaller number.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#177

Post by nlitened »

throwawayxy1 wrote: post #150

India's 6 year old UPI does 7B transcations per month. Its used by all classes. Crypto is pathetic in comparison

How many transactions per months does UPI support for people who are banned from the system or whose assets are frozen?

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#178

Post by aaronwalker »

root_axis wrote: post #158
aaronwalker wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between being known by the mainstream and being used by the mainstream. Bitcoin is the former, but not yet the latter. It appears that Bitcoin's main use case is as a long-term store of value (like Gold, but digital). It will be very helpful to have a currency that anyone can use without one country's central bank controlling it, and with Bitcoin's strong network effects, its only a matter of tim…

> It appears that Bitcoin's main use case is as a long-term store of value If we grant this for the sake of discussion, bitcoin has been capable of this for more than a decade, the masses aren't interested in this, the only thing they like about bitcoin is the fun of gambling which is the mainstream success I referred to in my previous comment. > It will be very helpful to have a currency that anyone can use without…

> the masses aren't interested in this

Having a store of value is in fact appealing to the masses, especially those with weak national currencies. We know this because the rates of crypto adoption are highest in developing nations, where national currencies are not as strong.

Yes, the possibility of making a lucrative investment is also appealing, and is what's driving most of its current growth, but as BTC settles into its role as store-of-value (which may take 10+ years) it is expected to become less volatile, and adopted for this use case.

> central bank money will always be superior due to its intrinsic connection to the governing authority of the region that mediates the economy

There are two sides to this sword. In wealthy, democratic governments this allows for more control over the economy, boosting it in times of need, but for oppressive regimes it just gives the government more power to act in their own interest.

> * people want their stuff, they don't want bitcoin and have no reason to use it.*

People do not immediately use all of their wealth to consume things, instead they have to store some of it somewhere. This is one of the uses of currencies. In countries with high inflation there is difficulty for people to store any wealth at all in their central bank's currency, and have instead resorted to Gold, USD, and Bitcoin.

> Peak bitcoin is what bitcoin looks like today.

If peak BTC is what it looks like today, then there is no incentive for people to keep pouring money into it, so its value relative to Gold, USD should not increase too much from what it is today.

I believe we are still far away from peak Bitcoin, and that Bitcoin will continue to rise in value in terms of USD over the long run.

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#179

Post by njarboe »

asdff wrote: post #142
monero-xmr wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A year ago TSLA was $368 and today is $120. I don't think we should ban electric cars or think the tech is dead

What in particular does TSLA do that makes it worth more than toyota, honda, and ford combined in market cap?

They produced 20 times more fully electric vehicles than toyota, honda, and ford combined in 2022.

Tesla produced about 1.4 million all electric vehicles in 2022 with a growth rate of about 40%.[1] Toyota:1220 (The BZ4X is the only full electric sold in 2022)[2] Honda: I don't think they sell any all electric cars right now. None on this list[3]. Ford about 65 thousand.[4]

[1]https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/02/tesla-tsla-q4-2022-vehicle-d... [2]https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/toyota-motor-north-... [3]https://electrek.co/2022/10/18/us-electric-vehicle-sales-by-... [4]https://web.archive.org/web/20230109011143/https://www.nytim...

Re: The number of banks willing to do business with the crypto industry is shrinking

#180

Post by int_19h »

DonHopkins wrote: post #71
stephc_int13 wrote: post #56

I have the feeling that this crypto winter is different than the previous ones. I think that we're finally reaching a critical mass of people understanding the nature of the proposition.

It's just like the Scientology Winter. Nobody could stop Scientology until South Park did a series of episodes about them. And South Park recently did a number on NFTs and crypto currencies a year ago: Crypto Curious - SOUTH PARK: POST COVID: THE RETURN OF COVID https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8f-BQFo7lw >Vic Chaos presents a proposal on the potential of selling NFTs to Denny's Applebee's Max customers.

Did that actually stop Scientology? Last I checked, they still have that crazy pinky-swear-it's-not-a-gulag compound, the Sea Org is still around, recruiting via "free stress tests" is still a thing...
Post reply on HN