The first Bitcoin post on HN • Hacker News Board

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#41

Post by Joeri » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 4:22 PM UTC

sentenza wrote: post #33

cs702 wrote: post #7

That four-year-old submission has just two comments: one expressing doubt, one expressing optimism. Interestingly, despite growing worldwide adoption of Bitcoin, comments about it on HN continue to be more or less evenly split between doubters and optimists. And I wouldn't be surprised if comments to this submission are evenly split between those same two camps. No amount of evidence or reasoning seems to persuade ei…

But it is not that black and white, is it? While it is quite clear that Bitcoin has "value" as long as people are willing to trade it (i.e., indefinitely), there is still no reason to assume that it will ever stop having these extreme fluctuations. To the contrary, I'd say that, as time progresses, we observe Bitcoin having the same problems that the gold standard had, mixed with an additional proneness to speculatio…

The value of a currency lies entirely in the perception of that value. I don't consider bitcoin different from a traditional currency, except that its rate of production is known in advance. It will keep having value because by now enough people think it does.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#42

Post by sidcool » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 4:23 PM UTC

If the vice president of ReThink DB could be wrong, I have all the liberty to make 100s of mistakes

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#43

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 4:23 PM UTC

kamjam wrote: post #13

techprotocol wrote: post #6

How many people had the slightest clue that books would be replaced by Kindles, CDs by iPODs, tablets selling as much as laptops. The comments show that people underestimated the impact bitcoin would make. I still believe its just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Bitcoin.

Technically true, but we still have the governments to weigh in and try to crush this. Unless they can monetize from BitCoin, they will find a way to kill it - blaming it on funding organized crime and terrorism. "Real world" currency is just too important for them to loose control of it.

I've actually changed from thinking "financial services law will destroy this" to "this will become like the War On Drugs: ubiquitous illegality, especially evasion of exchange controls, witholding taxes, and foreign income reporting requirements".

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#44

Post by singold » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 4:23 PM UTC

I hope, chaostheory doesn't have something related to Tor hidden services posted anywhere on the internet :P

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#45

Post by pinaceae » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 4:24 PM UTC

and let's revisit this discussion 5 years from now.

right now there is so much fluctutation within BC it might as well be tulips. maybe it will become a stable currency, maybe it won't.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#46

Post by j_s » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 4:24 PM UTC

galapago wrote: post #36

astrodust wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? What's not to like? As far as a hosted shared drive goes, Dropbox does a great job.

You need to install propietary software to use it.

I use Dropbox as a glorified large email attachment distribution system, touching only the web interface.

Edit: obviously not clear enough, I'll try again: Is it true that 'You need to install propietary software to use it'? No.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#47

Post by coherentpony » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 4:24 PM UTC

mtrimpe wrote: post #34

baby wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it looks like a spam comment.

Not really: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=ram1024

His comments seem entirely reasonable to me. Why are they all grey?

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#48

Post by soneca » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 4:27 PM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #7

That four-year-old submission has just two comments: one expressing doubt, one expressing optimism. Interestingly, despite growing worldwide adoption of Bitcoin, comments about it on HN continue to be more or less evenly split between doubters and optimists. And I wouldn't be surprised if comments to this submission are evenly split between those same two camps. No amount of evidence or reasoning seems to persuade ei…

But is noteworthy that there was no all-negative comment, or a hater one.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#49

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 4:28 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #31

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#50

Post by alskdjfhg » Tue, Nov 19, 2013, 4:29 PM UTC

kamjam wrote: post #13

techprotocol wrote: post #6

How many people had the slightest clue that books would be replaced by Kindles, CDs by iPODs, tablets selling as much as laptops. The comments show that people underestimated the impact bitcoin would make. I still believe its just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Bitcoin.

Technically true, but we still have the governments to weigh in and try to crush this. Unless they can monetize from BitCoin, they will find a way to kill it - blaming it on funding organized crime and terrorism. "Real world" currency is just too important for them to loose control of it.

Yesterday's congressional hearing made me surer than ever that bitcoin is actually an FBI/ CIA/ NSA/ whoever -made honeypot.

Think about it. Bitcoin is robust enough that it could have only been developed with the resources offered by a government, the currency records all transaction histories, and we still have absolutely no idea of who this Satoshi Nakamoto guy is, assuming he's not some government taskforce. Didn't it strike anybody as odd that the same congress and government that normally takes an extreme luddite stance was so enthusiastic about Bitcoin? They can hardly wrap their heads around things like Google Glass and net neutrality, and yet they're absolutely pandering over Bitcoin.

Something isn't right here.