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Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

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Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#131

Post by pjscott »

feral wrote: post #67
niggler wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came across this last night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fvSYT7vhQY ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5459304 ) The phrase that really resonated with me was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fvSYT7vhQY#t=404s : "When a few get something for nothing, at some point in a zero-sum game most will get nothing for something". That point may not happen anytime soon, but I think that's a very legitimate concern.

That phrase isn't even logically valid. But lets say we accept its argument anyway, is it really applicable here? Would you really argue that the creation of a new cryptocurrency is a zero-sum event? Couldn't it instead be the case that enormous new wealth is created due to the existence of a new payment infrastructure, and that the people who get something are capturing some of this new wealth? I'm not saying Bitcoi…

The situation is analogous to a mint for a traditional currency: it costs money to print money, and so some people are getting paid just to maintain the currency. That's fine, though, because they're creating economic value for the users of that currency.

It's similar for the people who "get something for nothing" by mining bitcoins: they're getting paid for making the proof-of-work chain function correctly, and for distributing the initial bitcoin supply in a way that's not based on some central authority handing out bitcoins.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#132

Post by dragontamer »

rishimoko wrote: post #124
dragontamer wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is preventing me from converting my USD into Euros or Yen? I can choose whichever Government / Central bank fits me the best.

> I can choose whichever Government / Central bank fits me the best. Bitcoin actually provides a new choice: government or no-government. People that want government/cb currency are free to choose it. People that want no-government money can choose Bitcoin.

Or... you know... Gold. That other currency that has transcended governments?

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#133

Post by jeffasinger »

waffle_ss wrote: post #47
cs702 wrote: post #35

As usual on HN, any submission about Bitcoin is met with concerned comments about its high volatility, present impracticality as a currency, disadvantages versus precious metals, current concentration of transactions in a single exchange (MtGox), potential for market manipulation by governments and/or speculators, etc. This is analogous to being present at the creation of the World Wide Web, but instead of getting ex…

There are some real concerns with Bitcoin. For example, I was going to write an app that accepts Bitcoins as payment. However, the problem is that the amount of time it takes for a transaction to become "verified," i.e. be part of the official block chain, can take up to 10 minutes. What am I supposed to present to the user during this time? Am I supposed to tell them that their payment may or may not have been accep…

As soon as your bitcoin node receives the signed transaction (should be seconds), approve the transaction, but listen for other spends of those same coins. After a few seconds, the cost of double spending those coins would be basically the same as the reward for mining a block, so it's unlikely that someone would defraud you for something worth less than ~$2,000.

There's almost nothing you could be selling online that couldn't be reversed within an hour or so of the sale in the relatively rare cases of fraud, with the possibly exception of wire transfers of cash.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#135

Post by alyx »

Is nobody else here bothered by the following statement?

It's on the first page, last sentence of the original paper on Bitcoins...

"The system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU power than any cooperating group of attacker nodes." [1]

[1] http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#136

Post by anologwintermut »

cs702 wrote: post #35

As usual on HN, any submission about Bitcoin is met with concerned comments about its high volatility, present impracticality as a currency, disadvantages versus precious metals, current concentration of transactions in a single exchange (MtGox), potential for market manipulation by governments and/or speculators, etc. This is analogous to being present at the creation of the World Wide Web, but instead of getting ex…

Doubts about volatility are a correct response to claims about monetary valuations. If, on the other hand, the response was given to "Bitcoin surpasses Dinner's club card in transaction volume," then it might well be off base.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#138

Post by waterlesscloud »

patmcc wrote: post #129
waterlesscloud wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Arrives instantly" Which is faster than any credit card gives money to a merchant. As is a one hour final confirmation.

Credit card companies do confirmation in seconds - the fact that the actual money isn't moved for a month isn't as important as the fact that it will show up, with high certainty.

I think there's some confusion here over what 'confirmation' means in this context.

What Coinbase (and other bitcoin payment processors) offer is instant confirmation that the customer has the funds available and that the payment is allocated to you. This is all a credit card is 'confirming' for you in seconds as well. It's the same thing. "Payment is available and is coming your way".

What's different is that Coinbase is saying that within an hour, the funds are 'confirmed' as yours. They are available to you in your wallet. You can do with them as you will. You literally have money in the bank.

Now, converting those funds to USD and having them show up in your bank account takes a few days, but that's the legacy banking system that's at fault there.

If you want to spend the Bitcoins at Bitcoins, however, you have only to wait an hour.

The difference between waiting a month for your money and waiting an hour is absolutely tremendous. The fact that our business ecosystem has evolved to work with the delay doesn't mean that removing the delay is not desirable.

Removing that economic friction is revolutionary. It can facilitate new business models and accelerate the pace of commerce. That's the real importance of Bitcoin, or of whatever cryptocurrencies follow on after it.

They reduce friction and increase economic velocity.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#139

Post by jlogsdon »

cadetzero wrote: post #100
blocktuw wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is excellent. Any explanation to accompany the graph? How about a link to the source?

Source, on the whole, is http://bitcoincharts.com/ You can break down all the numbers yourself. You can also get a giant history table of all buy/sells with times from either bitcoinity or bitcoin charts, I forget which.

http://bitcoinity.org/markets is the place I watch. The table on the right is aggregated buys/sells, so if you see something like "200 for 90.00" it could be 20 people buying/selling 10 coins, not 1 doing 200.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#140

Post by cookiecaper »

dragontamer wrote: post #132
rishimoko wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can choose whichever Government / Central bank fits me the best. Bitcoin actually provides a new choice: government or no-government. People that want government/cb currency are free to choose it. People that want no-government money can choose Bitcoin.

Or... you know... Gold. That other currency that has transcended governments?

Gold is not really practical for modern commerce without first converting it into an alternate currency (passthroughs in dollars, for instance) or trusting a third-party. Bitcoin can be traded really easily, no conversion or trusted intermediary (unless you count the btc swarm) necessary.
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