281–290 of 348 posts
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> Yes, bitcoin mining would be worse. Provably worse. ... and exponentially worse as time goes on (by design).
... and exponentially worse as time goes on (by design). Only for people who don't understand the design. Google "bitcoin difficulty".
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I don't own any bitcoins, but felt like pointing a couple of things out. Whatever shreds of interest your bank gives you will be way, way less than the inflation you're experiencing. In other words, your money's purchasing power keeps decreasing even if you're getting some interest on it, ie. you're losing your wealth. Bitcoin doesn't experience inflation like that, so it should be a better store of value than your f…
There are no grounds to say that BTC should be a superior store of value. Aside from its very public history of being an absolutely abysmal store of value, it also has no central bank tending its value, as fiat currencies do, and no substantial trade denominated in it, which is what gives fiat currencies value in forex markets. It is solely a speculative vehicle. It sucks at commerce and it sucks at investment. Bitco…
You're talking about something different now. Namely the effects of all the speculation, and for example governments figuring out if Bitcoin poses enough of a threat to them that they need to make it illegal, and so on. Will they shut it down? Will they not? Will they first make some money with it, and then shut it down?
The point is that the wild fluctuations in Bitcoin's price you see are not proof that it's not a good store of value. It could well be, after stabilizing, if it ever does.
A good store of value is something that could serve as a good medium of exchange too, like gold for example. Gold was used as money for ages, exactly because its characteristics made it suitable for that. It can't be printed by pressing a button somewhere, it's divisible, durable, and so on.
Bitcoin has some of the same characteristics, and that's why it might well become a widely used medium of exchange. I bet something like it will.
Central banks are not actually helping you. If you have a sound currency, it can't be printed, and central banks can't meddle with it.
You see, printing a currency devalues it. If the pool of currency in circulation grows faster than the pool of wealth it can be exchanged for, then the currency loses some of its value relative to the wealth available.
>> Bitcoin's sole value as a currency lies in its ease of use as a back-end for transactions.
Fiat currencies' sole value lies in the fact that governments force us to pay taxes in them. Otherwise we'd all be using a sound currency instead, because it would be in our self-interest to do so.
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> Yes, bitcoin mining would be worse. Provably worse. ... and exponentially worse as time goes on (by design).
Computation complexity and power consumption do not necessary correlate with emerging technology. If anything, power consumption could decrease.
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I actually responded to that above if you look. You ignored it when you went off about the credit card thing. Here is my response. "How would I know? A company can seem fine and turn into a scam quickly. I could use an escrow service but then I'd have to arrange that for every purchase when currently I can have it handled for me automatically." >You can now complain all day about Bitcoin not having a chargeback mecha…
Or I could just keep using my credit card and not have to worry. It's starting to get hilarious... Yes. If you want to use a credit card then please, by all means, use a credit card. And in addition you may use Bitcoin in scenarios where it works well (e.g. to transfer money to people you know), for ecommerce through services like Bitpay, or just retain it as your favorite strawman... ;-)
Offloading the issue of converting it to something usable to them? This only makes sense if you already have a bunch of bitcoin and makes no sense for the receiver.
>for ecommerce through services like Bitpay
Which doesn't fix the charge back or scam problems. Scammers can use Bitpay too.
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Or I could just keep using my credit card and not have to worry. It's starting to get hilarious... Yes. If you want to use a credit card then please, by all means, use a credit card. And in addition you may use Bitcoin in scenarios where it works well (e.g. to transfer money to people you know), for ecommerce through services like Bitpay, or just retain it as your favorite strawman... ;-)
>to transfer money to people you know Offloading the issue of converting it to something usable to them? This only makes sense if you already have a bunch of bitcoin and makes no sense for the receiver. >for ecommerce through services like Bitpay Which doesn't fix the charge back or scam problems. Scammers can use Bitpay too.
Have a nice day! :-)
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>to transfer money to people you know Offloading the issue of converting it to something usable to them? This only makes sense if you already have a bunch of bitcoin and makes no sense for the receiver. >for ecommerce through services like Bitpay Which doesn't fix the charge back or scam problems. Scammers can use Bitpay too.
So, favorite strawman it is. Have a nice day! :-)
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> Yes, bitcoin mining would be worse. Provably worse. ... and exponentially worse as time goes on (by design).
... and exponentially worse as time goes on (by design). Only for people who don't understand the design. Google "bitcoin difficulty".
> Only for people who don't understand the design.
Personal attacks all the way because your pet golden hammer was attacked. Always the same result.
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You buy shares in GLD ETF which holds physical gold for you. The risk is that SPDR collapses or get their assets stolen. You can also buy gold futures on the futures/commodity exchange which is a contract that specifies the other party has to deliver gold to you in the future. The risk is that the financial system collapses and the broker/clearing broker cannot uphold the contract anymore. So it depends on your inten…
> I think you're better off hoarding canned tuna, vodka and guns; Epic :)
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This isn't better. It encourages savers to be reckless in their choice of bank, and thus banks to be reckless in their lending policies, because the profits of risky loans are privatised while the losses are socialised. The ultimate loser is everybody, because the cycle of bank bailouts can only be sustained by printing money, devaluing everyone's savings and damaging the economy by degrading economic signals. You mi…
Devaluing savings is good for society. Savings are fundamentally antidemocratic; unconstrained savings inevitably result in the capture of economic output by a rentier class, destroying productivity and entrenching a permanent aristocracy.
Not really surprising. 2014 was meant to be the year of bitcoin and it flopped as far as the general public was concerned. Bitcoin picked up some more merchants but they almost universally saw disappointing sales or dramatic drop offs(Overstock the poster child which at one point was claiming serious expectations of $15-20m in bitcoin sales ended up with a 5th of the lower end of their claim). Mining companies are cl…
> 2014 was meant to be the year of bitcoin
You obviously base this off price alone. If you look at startups based around bitcoin or the blockchain, if you consider that regulatory clarity has or is being provided by most major economies, if you look at transaction volume, feature developement etc then 2014 was a good year for bitcoin.
>Mining companies are closing left, right, and centre, and bitcoin exchanges are shutting down for more profitable ventures.
One cloud mining service (CEX.io) has suspened cloud mining operations. What other mining companies have closed? The hashrate has fallen recently but if lots of mining companies(as you suggest) have closed we would have expected a much larger drop.
As for exchanges shutting to pursue other more profitable ventures, this is 1 exchange (Vault of Satoshi) not a huge exchange by anyones metrics. You said exchanges (plural) which others?
>Unlike the previous bubbles this one was in full sight of the general public with constant media coverage. It's gone to $1000 had most people(in western nations) learn about it and respond almost unanimously with 'Meh'.
The general public may have, investors and people that understand tech have not responded in that way at all. If you asked the general public about the internet in 1990 they would have said meh!, those same people now bank online, shop online and communicate online. Do they care about the internet? No, but at the same time could they bare to be parted from facebook?
Bitcoin will become widely used and adopted, whether consumers know they are using it or not is another matter.