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The first Bitcoin post on HN

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#81

Post by this_user »

Joeri wrote: post #41
sentenza wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bitcoin is different in that is the purest form of a fiat currency in the sense that it is backed by nothing and thus has no intrinsic value whatsoever. Traditional currencies, on the other hand, are at least fractionally backed by (usually) gold and government bonds which in itself are backed by a government's ability to tax its citizens.

There is also a second problem in that BTC is deflationary by design. Deflation leads to hoarding of currency units while reducing the velocity of money and suffocating the economy. Most people will agree that deflation is the worst thing that can happen to an economy which is why central banks will do everything in their power to avert it. It is hard to imagine how a stable Bitcoin economy could develop under these inherently flawed circumstances.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#83

Post by walden42 »

steven2012 wrote: post #73

Can someone explain how the idea that every single transaction has to be stored in the ledger is scalable? Won't wider adoption mean that the ledger grows even quicker, to the point where it makes using btc harder and harder?

Technology evolves over time as does bitcoin's use. Hard drives are becoming cheaper and cheaper, for example. Bandwidth is also a non-issue, as the typical transaction size is less than a KB.

However, there's also the fact that a typical user doesn't have to download the whole blockchain in order to use bitcoins--they'll be connected to the nodes that do (that are dedicated for that purpose).

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#84

Post by crassus »

vinhboy wrote: post #18

It's really not fair to dig these things up and call people haters for doubting it. I bet the list of failed companies and "haters" who called it accurately is much much bigger. Although I do like the nostalgic value of these posts.

Bitcoin could revolutionize the foundation of the world's economy with a piece of software some guy wrote in a few months. You'd figure that would be the kind of thing that hackers would get excited about, as opposed to social-sharing startups (which are just a replacement for reality TV)

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#85

Post by mike_esspe »

marvin wrote: post #5
lcasela wrote: post #4

>Well this is an exceptionally cute idea, but there is absolutely no way that anyone is going to have any faith in this currency. Hah!

People should be required to place a monetary bet whenever they make a bold claim in public. I think we would see less comments like this one.

It's an idea for a startup.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#86

Post by jeffasinger »

pg wrote: post #75

How much money would you have made if you'd bought $1000 worth of bitcoin on that day?

This was posted in May 2009. On October 5th, 2009, $1 = 1,309.03 BTC [1], so you'd have bought about 1.3 million bitcoin. Which means you'd have over $500M dollars in Bitcoin. I bet that spending $1000 back then would have considerably changed the exchange rate though, and selling $500M now would definitely aversely affect the economy.

1: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/History

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#87

Post by dragonwriter »

this_user wrote: post #81
Joeri wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Bitcoin is different in that is the purest form of a fiat currency in the sense that it is backed by nothing and thus has no intrinsic value whatsoever. Traditional currencies, on the other hand, are at least fractionally backed by (usually) gold and government bonds which in itself are backed by a government's ability to tax its citizens. There is also a second problem in that BTC is deflationary by design. Deflatio…

> Bitcoin is different in that is the purest form of a fiat currency in the sense that it is backed by nothing and thus has no intrinsic value whatsoever.

Well, no, its not; the purest form of fiat currency is a currency backed purely by government fiat (hence the name).

Bitcoin is one of the purest forms of speculative "currency".

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#88

Post by applecore »

pg wrote: post #75

How much money would you have made if you'd bought $1000 worth of bitcoin on that day?

There were no exchanges before 2010.

In late 2009, the most visible seller was NewLibertyStandard[1], who had a unique pricing methodology[2].

You could buy roughly a thousand bitcoins for $1. This was widely considered overcharging.

[1]: http://newlibertystandard.wetpaint.com/page/2009+Exchange+Ra...

[2]: "During 2009 my exchange rate was calculated by dividing $1.00 by the average amount of electricity required to run a computer with high CPU for a year, 1331.5 kWh, multiplied by the the average residential cost of electricity in the United States for the previous year, $0.1136, divided by 12 months divided by the number of bitcoins generated by my computer over the past 30 days."

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#89

Post by easy_rider »

applecore wrote: post #35

Here's the first popular post (with 20+ comments) referencing Bitcoin on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1532670 - Bitcoin P2P Cryptocurrency | 1217 days ago | 24 comments Some other early, popular posts about Bitcoin: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1942708 - Imagine your computer as a wallet full of Bitcoins| 1088 days ago | 36 comments http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1998144 - How to Get Started wi…

I love the comments by illumin8 in that first one. It describes the seemingly only legitimate threat at the moment for the future of BitCoin (long term). I'm suspect that governments are now probably more interested in the 'monitoring' of the system rather than governing. In the case of Silk Road, feds seem to have done their homework when it comes to tracking down the money. But they cracked down SR, and BitCoin dipped slightly, and the crackdown actually seemed to boost confidence in the currency. There are points to be made I think that governing entities would want to keep a system like BC alive (for a while), solely because it would be used as probable platform for money laundering. However if indeed, they are not confident that they can track down on money, or will be able to in the future, they would surely want to shut down BTC as soon as possible. In the age of the war on terrorism, organized crime syndicates and drug cartels. One could think of many reasons to give when opting for that solution.

I might be considered a conspiracy nut: But "decentralized, anonymous, crypto" + "currency" sounds like a contradictio in terminis to me. Especially the "anonymous" part.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#90

Post by mpg33 »

pinaceae wrote: post #45

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.

Hate when people use the tulips comparison. The basic protocol of bitcoin that allows people to send value anywhere in the world and solves the double spend problem must have some value unto itself. I don't know it's worth $0.10, $100, or $1000000 per bitcoin to use the protocol but to compare it to a plant seems kinda ridiculous.
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