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The Meaning of Bitcoin

maraoz.com

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Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#51

Post by abetusk »

floundy wrote: post #45
abetusk wrote: post #9

This is a very welcome counterpoint to a lot of the cryptocurrency hate that tends to be promoted. I think this is more along the lines of a "strong man" argument for cryptocurrency.

>This is a very welcome counterpoint The article contains no real information, in fact can't even support its own title because apparently stablecoins are more attractive to those living in high inflation environments than Bitcoin. The reader is left with no more information about "The Meaning of Bitcoin" than they entered with. No attempt is made to inform the reader about how cryptocurrency solves inflation or any…

From the article:

> In December 2001, Argentine President Fernando de la Rua imposed an ATM withdrawal limit of $250 per week.

> I sometimes read from people in developed countries, offended by bitcoin’s carbon emissions or by the huge amount of scams in the crypto space. ... To really get crypto, you have to have been fucked by some third party with power over your money. Be it a government, a bank, a business, or an ex-employer, it will come.

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#52

Post by throwaway22032 »

righthand wrote: post #14
throwaway22032 wrote: post #6

The author describes precisely my reason for being interested in Bitcoin. Things which other people seem to readily accept, such as ATM's having limits, the nature of card payments being inherently asymmetric, the middlemen, "know your customer", etc. All of that stuff just seems insane to me. It's as if someone were standing at my door, telling me that I can't take more than seven items out of my house per day, aski…

How does crypto solve any of that if its future is just more regulation pressing it into the molds of already established systems? I can’t pay my moving guy in crypto, I have to convert it to cash and all that “protection” is easily surmountable.

The problem that Bitcoin aimed to solve was that cash cannot be transferred online. The headline of the whitepaper - "a peer to peer electronic cash system".

You can transfer cash in person by handing someone coins or notes. It might be illegal in some jurisdictions to do that for high amounts or certain items, but it is at least physically possible i.e. permissionless.

Bitcoin is that, but online.

The regulations you are describing affect what are essentially financial institutions operating on top of the system.

The act of sending Bitcoin is permissionless by design.

That's it, that's all it is. Nothing more, nothing less.

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#53

Post by pavlov »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #35
pavlov wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money isn’t like your house. It’s like the roads and other infrastructure that connects your house to other places. You can’t drive at 100mph on the wrong side of the road. You can’t mess with the plumbing and electricity in ways that would affect the grid, even if you do it on your own property. There are of course places in the world that are so empty or so undeveloped that you can make your own rules off-grid. But…

I can transact with people who choose to use it and convert to fiat currency when needed. I have been doing this for over ten years now. It works. What's the problem? Are you saying that me merely using Bitcoin endangers others and is akin to driving into oncoming traffic? edit: Sure, driving into oncoming traffic is bad. So let's criminalize and punish that, rather than banning vehicles because I could drive on the…

If you do it on your own, it’s like living off-grid and driving your off-road vehicle at whatever speed you like. Go right ahead, nobody is stopping you.

The problem with crypto is where it interacts with the financial system. The exchanges are hives of scum and villainy. Criminals use it for money laundering and ransomware. That’s the part where you do need to follow the existing rules and laws, whether you like them or not.

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#54

Post by floundy »

abetusk wrote: post #51
floundy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is a very welcome counterpoint The article contains no real information, in fact can't even support its own title because apparently stablecoins are more attractive to those living in high inflation environments than Bitcoin. The reader is left with no more information about "The Meaning of Bitcoin" than they entered with. No attempt is made to inform the reader about how cryptocurrency solves inflation or any…

From the article: > In December 2001, Argentine President Fernando de la Rua imposed an ATM withdrawal limit of $250 per week. > I sometimes read from people in developed countries, offended by bitcoin’s carbon emissions or by the huge amount of scams in the crypto space. ... To really get crypto, you have to have been fucked by some third party with power over your money. Be it a government, a bank, a business, or a…

Okay, and next month the Argentine president could impose a withdrawal limit or complete block on accessing crypto exchanges (which most people will be unable to circumvent), apply strict individual and business criminal penalties on bypassing these and trading crypto P2P, and even set up honeypots to arrest those trying to trade and cash out crypto in-person.

The idea that an overreaching authoritarian government will just sit there scratching their heads and admit defeat to a decentralized database if they truly perceived crypto as a threat is hilarious.

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#55

Post by roenxi »

yaybitcoin wrote: post #5

Argentina may have serious monetary problems, but does the USD? Do we really need financial innovation to move at the "pace of programmers?" Is "bitcoin" really money when you can't use it to buy anything without converting it to money first?

> Argentina may have serious monetary problems, but does the USD?

It is a possibility. The US's debt payments are a similar order of magnitude to their military spending and there is not really a scenario where the principle will get paid back in real terms. And the US's net international investment position is eyewatering. It isn't obvious that the money was well spent in the negative interest rate years, although maybe there has been a lot of capital formation in the US that flew under my radar it is early days yet of positive interest rates.

We're also probing at a big war and there are real questions over what the US will do to USD holdings in the event that risk materialises. We all see what is happening to Russia's assets.

It isn't particularly obvious that the USD is a safer currency in the abstract than the Argentine Peso. Certainly as a foreigner it looks a bit risky. It might also become unreliable for internal use, the debt situation or a political blow up are both ways it could go bad. The situation is something of a spectacle.

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#57

Post by hristov »

maraoz wrote: post #49
hristov wrote: post #43

Ok i do not want to get into the whole argument of usefulness of bitcoin, but I have to repeat something that I have been repeating for many years on this site, on other sites and in real life, and it still does not catch on. Bitcoin is not anonymous! True, the government may need to do some work to find your wallet number, but once they do they will know all transactions you have ever done with that wallet in all of…

where did I imply bitcoin is anonymous?

“ Literally no human, corporation, or government could have stopped what I had just done.”

“ A world where no government or politician can change the rules one random day. A world where financial innovation moves at the pace of programmers, not legislators.”

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#58

Post by CodeMage »

eterpstra wrote: post #33
imabotbeep2937 wrote: post #4

"I've seen people get rich off crypto" and I've seen hundreds of gambling addicts lose their house and put their family on the street when the bet didn't go right. Even when you're talking about serious coins, ignoring the rug pulls. That money comes from somewhere. Who's holding the bag? Crypto people tend to have an infinite dose of "f** you got mine" even if they didn't get theirs.

It's unfortunate that the loudest advocates of crypto in the US and Europe are screeching libertarians and grifters/scammers. They drown out the everyday users in far off places like Argentina and Nigeria that nobody (in the US and Europe) seem to care about.

That's because it's harder to see the forest for the trees when you're out in the woods. Just like the author of this blog post, users in Argentina and Nigeria aren't going to stop and think about the far-reaching problems with crypto if that crypto is helping them with their day-to-day lives.

Re: The Meaning of Bitcoin

#60

Post by psychoslave »

realusername wrote: post #24
eterpstra wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. If you're happy with USD, then use USD. If you are Argentinian (or Venezuelan, or Iraqi, or Zimbabwean) and your currency is getting devalued to nothing and the government is restricting access to your funds and preventing you from holding USD, then Bitcoin or Stablecoins are a pretty good option. The attitude I see a lot (mostly by Americans and Western Europeans) is that "Crypto is not useful to me, therefor it…

> and the government is restricting access to your funds and preventing you from holding USD, then Bitcoin or Stablecoins are a pretty good option. If your government is going as far to prevent you to own USD, they aren't going to view cryptocurrencies any more favorably anyways.

That supposes a government that is not akin to shut down electricity grid arbitrarily and randomly kill people owning material to make computers work out of the grid.

Circumventing policies of a government deemed defective can help on the short terms and narrow perspective, but it won’t fix the fundamental issue.

Currency, be it banker’s bill, digital crytowhatever, are just a marginal side apparatus here.

I’m not an Economist, and I have no idea of what Fernando de la Rua had as insight of outcomes for his decisions. What should have the government tried to stop a precipitating bank run? Would a world where everywhere would follow maraoz economical wishes be a better necessarily a better one?

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