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A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

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Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#381

Post by UK-AL »

SeanLuke wrote: post #272
jljljl wrote: post #264

Just out of curiosity: Has anyone throughly debunked the deflation argument against Bitcoin? Even the Bitcoin wiki seems fairly uncertain that deflation will not be a problem with Bitcoin. I still struggle with how a fixed money supply vs. a steadily growing economy does not lead to deflation, and (eventually) hoarding.

Quite to the contrary: I am fairly convinced deflation and currency speculation will be the end of Bitcoin, because there is no central authority which can stop it from happening.

There needs to be a feedback loop in cyptocurrencies. They look at the value of the coins on a exchange, the adjusts the amount of money generated to keep inflation at a constant 1% or 2% or whatever.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#382

Post by bitcoin-truth »

GhotiFish wrote: post #239
pathy wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there's no need to convert them. Have you tried paying your taxes in Bitcoin? The IRS (or regional equivalent) is not going to accept bitcoin any time soon and they will want you to pay taxes on, for example, profits. There is a need to convert, don't believe otherwise.

Out of curiosity, are people seriously using bitcoin stocks as a bank? Or are they just investing part of their money in bitcoin and hoping it goes somewhere? This requirement of conversion only makes sense if people are fully and completely invested. I would be shocked if there were such people at this stage.

There are indeed people at this stage.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#383

Post by [deleted] »

yabatopia wrote: post #235
GhotiFish wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

?? Bitcoins are a currency, there's no need to convert them. It's just happening now because some people want into this environment.

The problem right now is that Bitcoin is not (used as) a currency. A currency facilitates the exchange of services of goods. Bitcoin now is more like a plot of land in the middle of London, or gold a few years ago. You buy bitcoins to hold and speculate, not to spend and pay your purchases with it. The resurrection of Bitcoin as as currency after the bubble will be a very interesting transition to watch and it's not…

[deleted]

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#384

Post by phaemon »

fat0wl wrote: post #309
skinnycow wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any chance of you giving it a rest? We get it. You think Bitcoin and Bitcoiners are stupid. You passed Intro to Econ in college. You've drawn completely arbitrary lines in the sand and given nothing to justify them but emotional appeal. You, like many others, seem to waltz into every thread thinking that you've just independently come up with the fatal flaw of Bitcoin as it chugs along it's third year of exi…

Also if you want to be more interactive than your peers, will you answer a scenario for me? Now, I am actually asking for your opinion on this, not being a smart-ass. Ready? Let's go. If we had a bunch of "units" of something we have 1 each and there are 10 total. We use them to buy melons and each 1 is roughly valued as 1 melon. Then people see the success our new system is having and want to use our units to buy me…

> Is every unit now worth 4 melons now just because someone sold one for 4 melons to an outside trader?

Well, yes. That's why currencies increase in value, because they're in demand. That's why the value of the pound or dollar or whatever goes up and down.

> If I go to the store where I used to buy a melon for 1 unit and tell them now that I think I deserve 4 melons for a unit, what will they say?

Who knows? They might refuse to sell at that price. They might see that if they don't sell to you, you're likely to import melons more cheaply than you can buy them locally.

The storeowner should react by buying melons in bulk using his units and then selling them to you more cheaply than you can import them yourself. Bitcoin is not unlike this. It's the same. Things are worth what people are willing to pay for them.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#386

Post by bitcoin-truth »

stevewilhelm wrote: post #101
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 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.

I tried doing this on MtGox with a buy limit price of 1$. I didn't get any bitcoin :(

I do have a friend with 900btc though: I told him I was in the market for a dollar, and he just gave it to me, no questions asked. I wonder where he got it from?

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#387

Post by bitcoin-truth »

mindstab wrote: post #149
stevewilhelm wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eBay, Amazon, and IRS don't need Bitcoins, they can set any exchange rate they want. If enough goods and service providers followed suit, current speculators would have to take a hilarious loss to buy anything.

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…

Wait, you can't use logic when it comes to money!

What are you, Satoshi Nakamoto?

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#388

Post by psionski »

ceol wrote: post #310
dcc1 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember when computers used to take whole rooms and apparently "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." and "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." Now iam replying to this from a phone Just saying technologies improve over time, bitcoin is a very interesting mix of technologies, probably the most exciting thing to come along since email, web, bittorent and social ne…

The most exciting thing since the web? Really? It's an interesting technology, but let's not forget Foursquare launched the same year and has had more of an impact on business, and Instagram launched a year after and has had more of an impact on the general population.

Foursquare? Yeah, right... and Instagram is basically imgur with filters... Compared to peer-to-peer money, your examples aren't very good.

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#389

Post by psionski »

mrb wrote: post #355
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…

"why not just use dollars" Simple: as a merchant, I really like Bitcoin because it reduces fraud to absolutely zero for me (transactions are irreversible)!

Also, if you're selling stuff on the Internet, you can finally accept payments from countries that didn't receive Visa's "blessing".

Re: A Prediction: Bitcoin Is Doomed to Fail

#390

Post by zamalek »

The main problem with cryptocurrencies, as I see it today, is that there is no motivation to spend it. Inflation actually has a very important purpose - it keeps the currency liquid, if you hoard money you lose money. From the Average Joe's inflation might seem like a bad thing but the truth is what worth is a currency is nobody is willing to exchange it? "Money" is a lay-mans term that isn't really used by professionals within the economic industries; in nearly all cases it is referred to as "liquid". Liquids are supposed to flow and it is a very important feature of currency.

The current hyperdeflation is encouraging people to hoard their bitcoins; which means that they are behaving a lot more like a commodity - and there-in lies the problem: they are deluding people. Not only do they have the word "coin" in their name but they also fall under the category of "cryptocurrency".

The problem is that people are so firm in their belief that inflation is one way for a government to screw them; that they will change their argument (no, it's a commodity vs. no, it's a currency) depending on which argument you present to them.

What we need a cryptocurrency that penalizes hoarding; or at the very least in some way encourages spending (or exchanging).

Let's say that hypothetically I don't know what I am talking about; and that hypothetically bitcoin becomes a universal currency as many would have it (all other currencies are abolished). Now consider the hypothetical scenario where you are selling property and have a family to feed at home. You spend your day showing people properties and nobody buys - why? Because their currency will be worth a lot more tomorrow than the fixed asset you are offering. The economy will collapse.

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