Expedia Starts Accepting Bitcoin for Hotel Bookings • Hacker News Board

Re: Expedia Starts Accepting Bitcoin for Hotel Bookings

#101

Post by gnaritas » Thu, Jun 12, 2014, 3:23 PM UTC

natrius wrote: post #80

gnaritas wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The current limitations on divisibility are easy to change in the future. Not true. > 21 million is arbitrary and meaningless. Also not true. Changing either of those things requires a hard fork of the network and a majority consensus among the miners globally which is in no way "easy to do".

It's easy to do if it will increase miner wealth, which a more useful currency will do. Disagree with that all you want. My point is that it's possible. Speculating about the likelihood of it succeeding doesn't seem worthwhile to me.

Call it easy all you like, you're still incorrect.

Re: Expedia Starts Accepting Bitcoin for Hotel Bookings

#102

Post by oleganza » Fri, Jun 13, 2014, 12:03 PM UTC

jwcooper wrote: post #52

oleganza wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone asks the same question. It does not matter if Coinbase or Expedia "sits" on BTC they receive. As long as there are people willing to sit on them, the price is going to stay the same. The price/liquidity of BTC depends not on who exactly sits on BTC, but on number of hands that own it. More hands -> more demand -> higher price and liquidity. See also this quote from Rothbard: http://blog.oleganza.com/post/433…

Unless their employees, partners (hosting, etc) get paid in BTC, it actually does matter if they "sit" on the BTC they receive. Many businesses and people still require to get paid in USD (EUR, etc) in order to do business. This may not always be this way, but as of today it is.

How does it matter for seller of BTC? Once you sold it, it can be owned by anyone, how is it your concern?

What's important is how many people own it. Not who exactly owns it. Today Coinbase/Bitstamp are doing good business by connecting people who want to buy BTC and sell BTC. As more people will get paid in BTC, more transfers will go directly from customer to employee without exchange intermediaries. But the real adoption does not depend on amount of transfers. That's secondary. Real adoption of money as money is in how many people hold it at every single moment of time. More people -> more demand -> more liquidity -> more value -> more trust.

Re: Expedia Starts Accepting Bitcoin for Hotel Bookings

#103

Post by stevehawk » Fri, Jun 13, 2014, 12:44 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #58

stevehawk wrote: post #11

Has there been much talk about how stores using Bitcoin reduces the anonymity of Bitcoin by tying IDs in the transaction of acquiring that coin to the person that ultimately uses it? I'm sure the uber nerds were already aware of this but has it been brought up enough that the general community thinks this through? One booking on Expedia and you've revealed any possible Silk Road or other curious transaction you've ev…

True anonymity is not a feature or a design goal of Bitcoin. It's pseudonymous, so it's better than a credit card and worse than cash. A lot of care must be taken to keep yourself anonymous on the Bitcoin network, and anyone who cares about that certainly shouldn't be buying airline tickets with Bitcoin unless they have completely disjoint wallets.

Thanks, I should have worded my post better to say that it's not anonymous but that this reduces it.

Re: Expedia Starts Accepting Bitcoin for Hotel Bookings

#104

Post by Karunamon » Thu, Jun 19, 2014, 8:25 PM UTC

psykovsky wrote: post #37

Karunamon wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the number of BTC users will always be limited Mmh.. mathematically true, but practically? First consider that block awards will continue being generated until roughly the year 2100 and probably up to another half decade on top of that. Empires have crumbled in less time.. Secondly, remember that 1BTC is divisible down to 8 decimal places. There's no reason that .00000001BTC (aka 1 Satoshi) couldn't become the base u…

There will never be even 21 million of BTC. Pretty close to 21M, but it won't get there. Also, 99,99% of block rewards will be distributed before 2040. The next 60 years till 2100 blocks will only reward a few satoshis each, except for transaction fees.

There will never be even 21 million of BTC.

Why not? As I understand the algorithm, the decay rate of block awards is pretty much a constant, understood thing.