111–120 of 431 posts
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400 tons a year is nothing compared to other industrial metals. By comparison, world production of copper is 17 million tonnes per year.
$150 billion a year is nothing?
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This intrinsic value can be mirrored by any cryptocurrency or even just a parallel network of Bitcoin. It is no justification for $1000/coin the way overzealous BTC investors claim.
Any protocol could come along and displace http, or a parallel internet could come along and displace it. But we're going on 22 years now and that's how we're communicating. What if these protocols are not so easily displaced as you imagine?
Bitcoin befuddles experts who analyze it from a narrow perspective, because it is not just a new medium of exchange or a new store of value: it is also a new kind of point-of-sale payment system (one that doesn't require payment processors), a new kind of global financial transfer system (one that doesn't require financial institutions), a new kind of time-stamping certification system (one that doesn't require notar…
Why is this guy an expert? He was an equity analyst for a long-time, but obviously not good enough to get rich. And there are thousands of Wall St. analysts walking around in NYC. I wouldn't even trust their opinion on equities, much less something new. Never read opinion pieces written by journalists.
Bitcoin befuddles experts who analyze it from a narrow perspective, because it is not just a new medium of exchange or a new store of value: it is also a new kind of point-of-sale payment system (one that doesn't require payment processors), a new kind of global financial transfer system (one that doesn't require financial institutions), a new kind of time-stamping certification system (one that doesn't require notar…
Please explain how bitcoin can discern vicarious liability. You're still going to need lawyers. Please explain how a bitcoin blockchain record can testify in court that a copy of a document is authentic. Hint, you're infront of a jury, you have a blockchain hash, and opposing council has a notary public with 40 years of experience, both copies of the document differ, the original cannot be found. Hers has an official…
Here's an imaginary possibility. A hundred and fifty years from now, courtrooms come with computer systems built from scratch and operated by court clerks. Their sole purpose is verifying blockchain records. The jury knows to trust the machine. In fact, the jury instructions tell them to.
None of the jury members have ever seen official documents on physical paper. They only know about paper documents from watching historical fiction movies. In such movies, the possibility that the documents are forged is always a major plot factor.
I think Bitcoin's doomed to fail, but not for the reasons the article suggest. There're ample historical counterexamples of currencies that are not tied to a government. Gold is the most obvious example; if currency was inextricably tied to governments, there would not have been a mad rush to colonize the New World (and extract its gold reserves). In prisons cigarettes frequently serve as currency, as a medium of exc…
If you use a service like BitPay, which most BitCoin merchants too, you declare your price in dollars and the API uses the current exchange rate to convert it to BitCoin, minute-by-minute. The prices float up and down with the currency, so pricing is largely a non-problem. It makes rational sense for merchants to accept BitCoin and to keep some holdings in BitCoin because the price is increasing at such a rapid pace.…
By this logic you should put all your available cash into bitcoins right now. Are you? If not, why not?
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Also, with gold, there is intrinsic value beyond the monetary - jewelry use, or in these moderns days in electronics. That provides a value floor. Bitcoin doesn't have that.
Nope. Gold is used in limited quantities for plating pins in electronics, covering space helmets, and probably a few other things. It's really not that valuable for getting shit done and need a lot of it type of stuff.
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> It may fail as "money" (in a narrow sense) and still succeed as a global platform. I think that was the author's point. For example, Paypal, Amazon or the IRS could announce tomorrow they will accept payment in Bitcoins but peg their BTC/USD exchange rate to one. Speculation would all but stop and Bitcoins would become a transaction platform.
This makes no sense. If, say the IRS, pegged the exchange at 1 what difference does that make? There are not infinite bitcoins and the IRS certainly wouldn't have all of them. People VALUE bitcoins which is why they pay a lot of USD for them.
If enough goods and service providers pegged their BTC/USD exchange rate to one, the initial BTC speculators would take a bath.
But subsequent Bitcoin users would receive the benefit of Bitcoin transaction technology and the benefit of the US government's fiat currency for monetary policy.
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Please explain how bitcoin can discern vicarious liability. You're still going to need lawyers. Please explain how a bitcoin blockchain record can testify in court that a copy of a document is authentic. Hint, you're infront of a jury, you have a blockchain hash, and opposing council has a notary public with 40 years of experience, both copies of the document differ, the original cannot be found. Hers has an official…
For now, you cannot buy a pack of cigarettes with it, but as more vendords accept it, you will have apps on your phone that will let you easily do that. Look, bitcoin is a platform and it is in it's infant stages. But, it has huge potential. Potential does not mean odds of success are 100%
Bitcoin befuddles experts who analyze it from a narrow perspective, because it is not just a new medium of exchange or a new store of value: it is also a new kind of point-of-sale payment system (one that doesn't require payment processors), a new kind of global financial transfer system (one that doesn't require financial institutions), a new kind of time-stamping certification system (one that doesn't require notar…