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Beyond the Bitcoin bubble

nytimes.com

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Re: Beyond the Bitcoin bubble

#11

Post by arcticfox »

sethgecko wrote: post #9
hesdeadjim wrote: post #2

I am personally hoping we can survive the speculation craze and reach a point where we can use the block chain technology in revolutionary (or even evolutionary) ways. Since it’s tax time I can’t help but feel that the true long term danger to block chain technology isn’t draconian government regulation, it’s the IRS. For example I have a transaction earlier this year where I purchased some software for $15 BTC equiv…

> Since it’s tax time I can’t help but feel that the true long term danger to block chain technology isn’t draconian government regulation, it’s the IRS. Sorry but no, one country's tax authority is not a long term danger to block chain.

The tax authority behind the world's reserve currency? I don't think they'll do anything or even need to, but if they wanted to, they absolutely could.

Re: Beyond the Bitcoin bubble

#12

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

I think there is a glaring omission in the structure of the internet as dicusssed in this piece: the underlying hardware and supply chains that physically construct the internet, which I will term InternetZero.

InternetZero relies on humongous-scale manufacturing with minuscule margins, which in turn relies on massive natural resource extraction, transportation, and refinement. Even the integrated circuit - ubiquitous in contemporary computing - could have taken many more years than it did to hit the scene if not for NASA’s shoveling piles of money into ICs for the Apollo 11 lunar lander.

The “new code” that the article calls for at the end is a start, but is still just one small facet of a very centralized, controlled, and arguably corrupted system.

Re: Beyond the Bitcoin bubble

#13

Post by hesdeadjim »

sethgecko wrote: post #9
hesdeadjim wrote: post #2

I am personally hoping we can survive the speculation craze and reach a point where we can use the block chain technology in revolutionary (or even evolutionary) ways. Since it’s tax time I can’t help but feel that the true long term danger to block chain technology isn’t draconian government regulation, it’s the IRS. For example I have a transaction earlier this year where I purchased some software for $15 BTC equiv…

> Since it’s tax time I can’t help but feel that the true long term danger to block chain technology isn’t draconian government regulation, it’s the IRS. Sorry but no, one country's tax authority is not a long term danger to block chain.

Unfortunately this one country is a leader in tech and has millions of people with the disposable income to actually use the block chain. I am not myopically focused on the US, but to say that it won’t hurt block chain adoption is willful ignorance.

Re: Beyond the Bitcoin bubble

#14

Post by brndnmtthws »

Is anyone else tired of hearing the word 'bubble' applied to everything? Whether we're talking about tech stocks, chicken futures, tulips, or Bitcoin, it's become a really tired and meaningless term. You can't know if an asset is in a 'bubble' until long after the bubble has burst. Bitcoin is far from having burst, so this article and all those that came before it offer nothing new or insightful.

Please, let's move past the name calling. Calling something a bubble does not make it so.

Re: Beyond the Bitcoin bubble

#15

Post by aaron-lebo »

chrisco255 wrote: post #10
decentralised wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not seeing the whole picture and don't understand the goal of the "coin" in a "blockchain". I would strongly urge you to do some research so that you can make up your mind from a place of knowledge instead. http://github.com/jpantunes/awesome-cryptoeconomics

This. I don't think a lot of people grasp that cryptocurrency is more than just a distributed ledger. It's as much of an economic innovation as a technical one.

Nobody fails to grasp the possibilities of these currencies, what they disagree with is utility to hype value. When people throw out "you don't get this" as an argument against skepticism, it sounds naive and a little insulting.

This quote was in that NYT "Everyone's Getting Rich.." article:

The tone turns somber. “Sometimes I think about what would happen to the future if a bomb went off at one of our meetings,” Mr. Buttram said. Mr. Hummer said, “A bomb would set back civilization for years.”

There's too much of that exaggerated thinking.

Re: Beyond the Bitcoin bubble

#16

Post by notahacker »

gizmo385 wrote: post #4
vthallam wrote: post #3

This was a necessary phase. Mass adoption couldn't have been achieved without the exponential price rise of various cryptocurrency tokens. There would not have been media coverage of this proportion, had it not been for the gains. People now talk cryptocurrency, read more about the underlying technology and accept that it will positively affect the industry in the upcoming future. I hope the market stabilizes and som…

> People now talk cryptocurrency, read more about the underlying technology and accept that it will positively affect the industry in the upcoming future. Do they really though? I don't hear anyone outside of people who have actively bought into the cryptocurrency hype saying that it is going to have a positive affect on the industry. I hear a lot of people saying things like "it's a bubble" or that "the rules these…

To be fair, there are people at financial services companies and blue chip multinationals running blockchain projects.

But then there are also people in financial services companies and blue chip multinationals running projects as vaguely defined as "cloud" or "big data" and as specifically niche as "graph databases" and "deep learning-based object classification" without get-rich-quick schemes and libertarian antieconomics attached to their hype.

Re: Beyond the Bitcoin bubble

#17

Post by acdha »

vthallam wrote: post #3

This was a necessary phase. Mass adoption couldn't have been achieved without the exponential price rise of various cryptocurrency tokens. There would not have been media coverage of this proportion, had it not been for the gains. People now talk cryptocurrency, read more about the underlying technology and accept that it will positively affect the industry in the upcoming future. I hope the market stabilizes and som…

> Mass adoption couldn't have been achieved without the exponential price rise of various cryptocurrency tokens.

Has mass adoption really happened? Yes, speculation is in the news but compare that to the frequency with which you hear anyone talk about using Bitcoin instead of cash or a credit card: the bubble inflating has actually reduced those already low numbers since it's driven transaction costs through the roof (which has been a reason for major sellers to stop accepting it) and the deflationary design strongly incentivizes hoarding if you can avoid making a purchase.

This matters a lot because most normal people are learning about it at the top of a bubble. Those speculative dreams won't end well and based on past performance there's a very high likelihood that some of them are going to lose even more money because the exchange they're using won't let them cash out quickly enough on a downturn. That seems more likely to sour them on the entire concept since, unlike earlier cycles like the .com bubble, there's no fundamental draw for most people beyond the chance to get rich quick.

Re: Beyond the Bitcoin bubble

#18

Post by bennyg »

hesdeadjim wrote: post #13
sethgecko wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since it’s tax time I can’t help but feel that the true long term danger to block chain technology isn’t draconian government regulation, it’s the IRS. Sorry but no, one country's tax authority is not a long term danger to block chain.

Unfortunately this one country is a leader in tech and has millions of people with the disposable income to actually use the block chain. I am not myopically focused on the US, but to say that it won’t hurt block chain adoption is willful ignorance.

Might hurt blockchain adoption in the US, but there is much more than BTC out there. There are specific chains that many Asian companies are adopting for use that will proliferate and generally stay out of American news. There's a lot happening in the crypto space beyond BTC/ETH/LTC.

Adoption may still not take off, but it won't be because of the IRS.

Re: Beyond the Bitcoin bubble

#19

Post by nabla9 »

decentralised wrote: post #6
nabla9 wrote: post #5

I hope the technology matures beyond 'blockchain' and marketing drops the 'coin' moniker and the gold rush dies down. Cryptographically verified distributed log files should have negligible hype value and be hidden part of the infrastructure. I predict that 10 years from now normal relational databases have infrastructure for shared, authenticated and verified rows and columns and we laugh at the ICO era.

You are not seeing the whole picture and don't understand the goal of the "coin" in a "blockchain". I would strongly urge you to do some research so that you can make up your mind from a place of knowledge instead. http://github.com/jpantunes/awesome-cryptoeconomics

Coins are just the last part of long trend of financialization with somewhat different technological implementation. You take an underlying asset and you create financial instrument that enables more efficient trading and valuation in the marketplace.

I understand blockchain and cryptoeconomic angle better than I understand the current system and I suspect that it's the same with you. When I talk to people who understand current finance systems, including clearing and settlement I think my own enthusiasm is party based on my own ignorance of what already exists.

Re: Beyond the Bitcoin bubble

#20

Post by nacho2sweet »

brndnmtthws wrote: post #14

Is anyone else tired of hearing the word 'bubble' applied to everything? Whether we're talking about tech stocks, chicken futures, tulips, or Bitcoin, it's become a really tired and meaningless term. You can't know if an asset is in a 'bubble' until long after the bubble has burst. Bitcoin is far from having burst, so this article and all those that came before it offer nothing new or insightful. Please, let's move p…

No I am not tired of keeping my uniformed friends scared and their money safe.
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