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The first Bitcoin post on HN

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#281

Post by Nursie »

Houshalter wrote: post #247
Nursie wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> People are voluntarily paying them for their coins because they, for whatever reason, value them. You can say that's silly but it's not like you are being forced to buy bitcoins or anything. I'm saying it would be a bad idea to adopt as a de-facto currency, that's all. >> Isn't the same true for any other finite resource? Everything will deflate/increase in value relative to rest of the economy. Currency isn't and…

>Currency isn't and shouldn't be a resource, it's a medium of exchange. Well why not? A medium of exchange is a resource. There are exchanges and markets for currencies, people speculate on them, etc. They are definitely a resource.

Because we have history to show us it doesn't work very well, screws up the economy, concentrates wealth etc etc.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#282

Post by pfisch »

Nursie wrote: post #277
pfisch wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average credit card processing cost for a retail business where cards are swiped is roughly 1.95% - 2%. The average cost for card-not-present businesses, such as online shops, is roughly 2.30% - 2.50%. However microtransactions cost even more than this and escalate as you have more small transactions. Once you have bitcoins the transaction costs are now 0. Getting USD to bitcoins is obviously hard right now becau…

There are processing fees built into the system, so not it's not 0%. As mining rewards drop these may have to rise in compensation. Most people can't mine, and would have to eat fees. Further to that, BTC is a terrible step backwards for consumers as chargeback is not there. The cost for amazon to introduce consumer protections like this (that may be required by law in some places) is likely to dwarf credit card fees…

What consumer protections are you talking about? Issuing a refund? I'm pretty sure they could issue a refund if they wanted to.

The transaction fees you are talking about are so much smaller than credit card companies they are basically negligible. Also they keep dropping lower.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#283

Post by BrokenPipe »

Mark my words: The US regulators will do to Bitcoin what they have done to the Internet ecommerce, i.e. providing strong incentives like reduced taxes and simplified rules.

There are plenty of new bitcoin merchant and users every day and the USA won't stand while the rest of the world adopts THE next store of value/currency/commodity/new category.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#284

Post by psionski »

ericb wrote: post #210
dasil003 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your first point, but your second point makes no sense. Products are not currency, and talking about inflation/deflation in products does not make sense, unless people buy them as a long-term value-store in which case "assets" might be more appropriate. Except they're still not fungible so they can appreciate or depreciate, but that's not inflation or deflation.

To explain: The fear that often is associated with deflationary currency (like bitcoin) is that no one will spend it, because waiting always gets you a slightly better deal. And if that happens the economy will grind to a halt with everyone waiting to spend. The point of my second statement is that we have examples of cases where even though every month your money buys more, people still do buy things.

That's a pretty irrational fear... If my money grows all the time, why wouldn't I buy stuff? I'm buying most of my Humble Bundles with Bitcoin and it's great - every time you pay less and less and by the time the next Humble Bundle is available my money has recovered itself to more than what I had before... I may have had doubts to buy some of them with another currency, but with Bitcoin it's just a no-brainer. You'll get it all back and more.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#285

Post by Tuna-Fish »

Nursie wrote: post #218
vbuterin wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customer USD -> Customer BTC: 1% + $0.15 (Coinbase) Customer BTC -> Merchant BTC: $0.06 (transaction fees, currently abnormally high due to price spike) Merchant BTC -> Merchant USD: 0.99% (Bitpay) Total: 1.99% + $0.24 Compare: credit cards and Paypal (2.9% + $0.30) So even there it works out fine.

It's hardly the fee-free utopia though is it? And I can already transfer to other individuals for no charge.

The mere possibility of doing it is much more important than the lack of fees.

> And I can already transfer to other individuals for no charge.

Within your own country/a few other countries like it. Transferring money across borders, especially outside the west is quite a bit harder than you'd think.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#286

Post by codebolt »

Steko wrote: post #143
cfinke wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so you'd have bought about 1.3 million bitcoin There weren't even 1.3 million bitcoin in circulation at that point [1]. If you bought every bitcoin, you could have accumulated about 1.1 million BTC for $850. [1] http://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins?timespan=all&sh...

I see claims like this all the time but it's important to realize that the price you can buy a small amount of something is generally the lowest price any seller will take, not a price all sellers will take.

This holds for financial markets, but I can think of several examples where the opposite is true (i.e. bulk buying gets you a better price).

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#287

Post by quantumpotato_ »

aestra wrote: post #153
sliverstorm wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is still no reason to assume that it will ever stop having these extreme fluctuations. Actually I was thinking about this yesterday, and I think if/when goods start to be priced in BTC (not just "fixed USD value converted to current BTC equivalent") that could help anchor the value of BTC.

Except this isn't going to make sense unless my paycheck is in Bitcoin. I'll still have to do the currency conversion in my head because I get paid in USD.

http://coinvoice.com

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#288

Post by TomGullen »

gwern wrote: post #223
TomGullen wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting thanks, what's a good book to read abou it all then?

If you just want some correctives to the popular mythology of Tulipomania, you can start with _Famous First Bubbles_: quick read which demolishes a lot of the platitudes and simplifications, and covers the virus & other issues.

Thanks, have ordered it!

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#289

Post by lukifer »

pfisch wrote: post #282
Nursie wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are processing fees built into the system, so not it's not 0%. As mining rewards drop these may have to rise in compensation. Most people can't mine, and would have to eat fees. Further to that, BTC is a terrible step backwards for consumers as chargeback is not there. The cost for amazon to introduce consumer protections like this (that may be required by law in some places) is likely to dwarf credit card fees…

What consumer protections are you talking about? Issuing a refund? I'm pretty sure they could issue a refund if they wanted to. The transaction fees you are talking about are so much smaller than credit card companies they are basically negligible. Also they keep dropping lower.

They're referring to chargebacks, where Amazon refuses to give you your money back, and so MasterCard does it by force.

The difference with BitCoin is not that you can't have escrow or middlemen, but that the middlemen services can compete, and are optional.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#290

Post by kennethh »

jaxn wrote: post #258
vkou wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can say, with 100% that the USD, and the fed will collapse. Nothing lasts forever - and if anyone argues otherwise, I've got some Roman Denarius to sell them (At twice the price of their gold content). Whether or not this happens in my lifetime, and whether BTC is worth speculating on is another question altogether.

Just because every other currency has been devalued doesn't mean that the USD will. The argument typically goes that the USD must collapse because it isn't backed by anything meaningful. Except that the USD is backed by the largest and most powerful stockpile of weapons ever amassed in the history of the world.

I do not think usd will collapse but it is loosing it value every day. Year on year the Money supply is increasing and that the value of usd is decreasing. The increase in Money the last 12 months is around 8%
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