271–280 of 374 posts
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It was not a ponzi, but MtGox became insolvent through fraud: Mark Karpeles simulated fake transactions with fake coins and fake dollars using his willy bot.
Just how many HN accounts do you have? And why? Insolvency wasn't the question.
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(I can't log into my venaoy HN account at the moment) > Spinning a lack of reversible transactions as being a "Benefit" is disingenuous I argue, through my examples, that reversibility is often not as important as you may think. Another data point: I am a typical American consumer and in 20 years doing probably 5,000+ credit card transactions I have never had to issue a single chargeback at all. So I know for a fact…
Those aren't examples, they're hypothetical stories created purposefully to support bitcoin, and border on No-True-Scotsman (A "true" payment system doesn't need dispute handling, so bitcoin is a true payment system). Pointing out imperfections in credit card insurance doesn't mean bitcoin will work. I'm sorry but even you have to realize this is not even a logical point you're making. Again, you completely missed th…
There is nothing inherent to Bitcoin that prevents an exchange from being operated responsibly and covered/insured just as well as traditional financial institutions.
> Block size can't be increased because bitcoin is decentralized.
It is not trivial, but it can be increased. What you don't understand is that all the merchants all the institutions all the individuals utilizing Bitcoins rely on its proper operation to benefit from it. If they more or less all agree that raising the block size is the obvious way to scale up, then they will agree to raise it.
> Bitcoin can not support more than a couple million users.
False. If the block size is increased, it can scale: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability
I invested $0 in Bitcoin. But a coworker gave me 500 BTC for free in 2010 (I never sold any).
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Yeah, but if you get paid in CAD, it's still a question of when you want to deal with the volatility—point of sale, or point of forex-exchange-during-account-transfer. You still have to deal with timing it right (possibly waiting months) if you want to avoid losing tens of cents on the dollar. And if you're already thinking like that, Bitcoin isn't nearly as scary.
Bullshit. And this is not a matter of opinion or speculation. There is data and history. Take a look: http://imgur.com/FmpI0HY That's the past year. The flat blue line around 0% is CAD vs USD. The crazy red line that's all over the place, swinging by as much as 100% in a matter of weeks, is CAD/BTC.
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No idea why this was down voted. This is a very legitimate comment. When I'm wrongfully charged or sent goods that aren't what's advertised and support doesn't help or reply. A charge back offers the protection a buyer needs.
If you insist on keeping the risk on the seller side then what's wrong with good old Charge On Delivery?
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I'm pretty sure I've seen them in Family Mart and 7&i. http://www.smbc-card.com/prepaid/brand/guide/index.html SMBC apparently has them, too.
Thanks a lot! This will be incredibly helpful to me :-)
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Right, the Argentina straw man. Worst inflation example you can find is the Argentina peso, and it's lost 10% in a year where the bitcoin dropped 63%, and bitcoin's volatility over the same time period has been much, much higher. Even the most mismanaged government manages its currency. No one is managing bitcoin, it's price reflects the volatile market whims of a cryptocurrency backed by nothing but computation and…
Argentina, Venzuela, Russia, Ukraine, Sudan, Belarus... I haven't done the math, but we are probably talking about a couple of hundred million. If they all adopted bitcoin, it would probably become the 5th or 6th currency by people using it in the world. >Even the most mismanaged government manages its currency. Governments don't manage currencies. >No one is managing bitcoin, No one managed gold when all currencies…
You might want to read up on Central Banks. [1]
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The problem with this is that, from the buyer's perspective, the price is almost always the same when using a credit card or alternative. And with a credit card, the buyer gets rewards back, typically 1% or so. So, sadly, using a credit card continues to have more protections, costs less, and has deferred payment. I don't think this is a good thing, just saying. I hold some bitcoins, but I never buy anything with the…
Ok imagine next time you buy flights or concert tickets, instead of invariably paying some $6 credit card surcharge per booking, you are offered the option of booking with bitcoin for a $2 or even no surcharge. I will definately at that stage start looking at paying with bitcoin. Then as a significant proportion of the population (say 20%) starts paying with bitcoin, other online shops like amazon will start seeing t…
In either case, Bitcoin isn't going to take over the world, but whoever can figure out a good way to deal with the problem of how regular people could easily obtain Bitcoin in the first place has a chance to skim some profit in the interim.
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You can specify amounts in USD and get the exact amount back regardless of BTC fluctuations, which seems close to his original premise.
Not that close since to the user it is a BTC payment system.
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Those aren't examples, they're hypothetical stories created purposefully to support bitcoin, and border on No-True-Scotsman (A "true" payment system doesn't need dispute handling, so bitcoin is a true payment system). Pointing out imperfections in credit card insurance doesn't mean bitcoin will work. I'm sorry but even you have to realize this is not even a logical point you're making. Again, you completely missed th…
Coinbase's bitcoins are insured. And Coinbase's dollars are FDIC-insured. There is nothing inherent to Bitcoin that prevents an exchange from being operated responsibly and covered/insured just as well as traditional financial institutions. > Block size can't be increased because bitcoin is decentralized. It is not trivial, but it can be increased. What you don't understand is that all the merchants all the instituti…
Because it's decentralized, Bitcoin suffers from Tragedy of the Commons. The miners, merchants, etc. are all rational actors looking to profit for themselves, even at each other's expense, which is why bitcoin can't get a census to upgrade. You may wish that they will come together under the banner of bitcoin benevolence, but they can't because they're too busy trying to make money off of each other and have competitive alternatives available.
You can't hand wave and say at some point in the far future someone will solve these very real problems for bitcoin, because some very basic economic principles are stopping it right now. Considering you haven't even made a single bitcoin transaction, and didn't even know about the limits until today, you're not really qualified to comment on it.
It's not a technical problem, but a problem with the design and the users - which was exactly what OP's point was to begin with.