A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail • Hacker News Board

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#281

Post by jljljl » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 2:04 AM UTC

kamjam wrote: post #43

snowwrestler wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and it failed as a currency.

I don't think gold failed as a currency, I could pretty much go anywhere in the world with a bar of gold and exchange it for currency to buy whatever I want. It is still a universal currency, although not an everyday currency.

Exchanging gold for currency doesn't make it a currency. Gold is an asset.

If you brought your gold to different people, they might all quote you different amounts, based on how easily the merchant or exchanger could convert the gold into their own currency.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#282

Post by pbreit » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 2:08 AM UTC

stevewilhelm wrote: post #178

mindstab wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they can sure set them, and then no one would use them. do you not understand money? what are you, the owner of 100btc going to do: a) buy $100usd worth of goods at ebay directly b) cash out at a proper exchange for $100,000usd, then buy $100usb worth of goods on ebay and have $99,900usd left over? or cash out ONE btc for $1000usd, buy $100usd of goods and have $900 usd left over AND 99btc? How do you expect any even…

In any financial exchange, both parties, the buyer and seller, need to come to agreement on a price. Given the fact that current BTC to USD exchange volume is fairly small, it wouldn't take that many large global goods and service providers pegging their BTC/USD exchange rate to cause the speculation market to collapse. Those that recently bought their Bitcoins at $900 would sell below the current high price to reali…

That's complete nonsense. It would take virtually every merchant to partake in your fantasyland to have even a slim chance of convincing bitcoin holders to take massive losses. And only one Silk Road to retain bitcoin's viability.

And you apparently forgot that the total number of bitcoins is severely limited (around 20 million).

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#283

Post by foobarqux » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 2:08 AM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #29

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…

It doesn't seem to do any of these things very well. And in any case none of the uses suggest that the value of a bitcoin should increase substantially.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#284

Post by dwaltrip » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 2:15 AM UTC

rantanplan wrote: post #278

dwaltrip wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only because humans need water to live, and they are the ones performing the valuation. There is nothing "intrinsic" about it. Water has very large demand that is extremely entrenched due to its biological importance. This is unlikely to change, and this confusingly may seem like some sort of intrinsic value. But it isn't. Value is an extrinsic property, meaning it stems purely from entities outside of the objec…

You would have saved a lot of typing if you had just read the definition of "intrinsic value" as a finance term. Basically in your first paragraph you explained why it has intrinsic value. You obviously brought a philosophical argument to an economics debate :P This is EC-101

Haha ok glad we are on the same page now. I was originally responding to a comment about the intrinsic value of gold. How does one apply http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic_value_(finance) to gold? It produces no cash flow or income. This is why I used a philosophical approach :p

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#285

Post by retrogradeorbit » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 2:20 AM UTC

When the NYT runs an article like this, you know it's time to go long bitcoin.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#286

Post by dwaltrip » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 2:23 AM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #174

kdeforche wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you can. You do not necessarily need a confirmation if you are willing to take a small risk (and a vendor accepts risks much bigger than that if he's in business).

Considering the extent to which cigarette vendors around here keep their merchandise locked up, I don't think they're willing to take on a lot of "I hope these bitcoins are legit" risk.

Merchant software can listen to the network for 10 seconds. If no contradicting transactions have been broadcasted, the probability of the bitcoins not being legit is EXTREMELY small. You only need confirmations for large transactions. Zero-conf are completely safe for the large majority of transctions.

Bitcoin-type technology has tons of potential, my friend.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#287

Post by dwaltrip » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 2:27 AM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #119

vasilipupkin wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%

I don't think you understand even if the vendor accepts bitcoins, and even if I bring my laptop I still can't buy anything in under 5 minutes. https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time

This is incorrect, see my post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6812657

Also, nice strawman with the laptop. Ever heard of smartphones?

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#288

Post by jamoes » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 2:30 AM UTC

fiatmoney wrote: post #220

andrewla wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should probably read Graeber's book, though based on what I see here I might find it a bit exhausting. I hear this argument a lot in discussions about bitcoins, and I ask, but have not yet received, a good explanation. Let me ask you if you can summarize the reasoning for why paying taxes in a currency helps a currency? It seems very obvious that the opposite is true -- if you don't have to pay taxes by working in…

"Debt" really is good, especially if you disregard what he writes about >1950 where he messed up a few factual assertions. It's not so much that "paying taxes in a currency helps a currency" - it's that forcing people to pay taxes in a particular currency or go to jail creates demand for that currency, which percolates through the economy (especially if they're concurrently giving it out when they're obliged to pay s…

> forcing people to pay taxes in a particular currency or go to jail creates demand for that currency

This is true. But, I don't think it backs up your original point:

> the sine qua non of "money" is that you can pay taxes with it.

Reworded to non-latin, I believe this is saying that without taxes there can be no money. That just seems completely ludicrous. Sure, taxes increase demand for money, but that is a far stretch from saying money can't exist without taxes.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#289

Post by waps » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 2:33 AM UTC

hnha wrote: post #162

trekky1700 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're valuing everything in dollars, setting your price in dollars, and converting to and from dollars, why not just use dollars. I think this is the leap BitCoin is yet to make. When we no longer have to convert it and compare it to dollars. It has loads of benefits over using the dollar, but a lot of those benefits are lost the second you're having it exchanged. For instance, if I wanted to use bitcoin for cont…

I read a great comment at a local forum earlier along the lines of: No one wants bitcoin, everyone wants ... to exchange their bitcoins for as many dollars as possible.

Exactly. For the moment it's mostly cementing USD's position further.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#290

Post by jakejake » Thu, Nov 28, 2013, 2:34 AM UTC

ratsbane wrote: post #3

I don't know if bitcoin is doomed to fail or not but, the thesis of this article isn't credible. There has never been anything like cryptocurrency in the history of the world and this statement may well not apply: "They will fail, because money that is not issued by governments is always doomed to failure. Money is inevitably a tool of the state."

The authors also seems to lack backbone and hedges his bets with a final sentence. Something to the effect that bitcoin will continue to do well as long as government is not doing well.

Despite the link-bait title, he doesn't seem to want to make a definitive statement.