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Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#111

Post by laurus »

jstanley wrote: post #108
laurus wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't come from either of those things. Yes it does. You have to pay your taxes in U.S. dollars, so people have to use it. That's one of the purposes of taxes: so that the government-issued currency is used.

It's quite obvious that the value of USD comes from much more than the taxes people have to pay. If the only demand for USD was from people paying taxes, it would be worth only a small fraction of what it is actually worth.

The "demand for USD" is really demand for goods and services that are priced in USD. Because everyone living in the U.S. uses USD because that's what we pay taxes in in the U.S., most people in the U.S. offer their goods and services in exchange for it.

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#112

Post by keith_analog »

What would concern me is, for example, if the cost of a transaction grows faster than the price of a given bitcoin in dollars. If that trend would continue for too long, then I suppose my bitcoin could get trapped in the system for an indefinite period of time, that is, from the time I no longer can justify moving the bitcoin because of high transaction fees to the time I can. It seems that this situation suggests a lower bound on the amount that makes sense to store in a bitcoin wallet. I wonder what that lower bound is today.

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#114

Post by BrianGraggg »

puranjay wrote: post #101
thatcat wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say stop storing your spending money as btc, it's an asset not cash. Can you liquidate your 30$ peice of gold in < 4 hours for market value? Probably not.

Yes, a "currency" should be treated as an asset, not cash. The pro-BTC arguments are becoming absolutely inane

Currency A currency in the most specific use of the word refers to money in any form when in actual use or circulation as a medium of exchange, especially circulating banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money (monetary units) in common use, especially in a nation. Under this definition, British pounds, U.S. dollars, and European euros are examples of currency.

Wikipedia

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#115

Post by BrianGraggg »

Shaanie wrote: post #94
thatcat wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say stop storing your spending money as btc, it's an asset not cash. Can you liquidate your 30$ peice of gold in < 4 hours for market value? Probably not.

Indeed, what part of the name "cryptocurrency" would lead someone to believe it to be like cash?

Currency A currency in the most specific use of the word refers to money in any form when in actual use or circulation as a medium of exchange, especially circulating banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money (monetary units) in common use, especially in a nation. Under this definition, British pounds, U.S. dollars, and European euros are examples of currency.

Wikipedia

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#116

Post by ignoramous »

jen729w wrote: post #4

IMHO (because to claim to "know" anything about how this is all going to turn out is to be a fraud), Bitcoin is the proof of concept for this whole crypto thing. It was the first. It was the genesis idea. But good lord, do we think it's the actual solution? What would be the odds? I imagine that Bitcoin will play its part as the public face of the blockchain revolution, but something else - or many other somethings -…

> Bitcoin is not the technically best solution in this incredibly exciting field. It's not even close.

Just curious here: What would you say are technically better solutions than bitcoin?

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#117

Post by WA »

ericsoderstrom wrote: post #45

People now envision bitcoin as 'store of value', and less like an actual currency. I imagine there are many technical and financial reasons why it will never be suitable as a currency. (Deflationary by design, technical limitations on size of blocks leading to slowness of transactions) Does being unsuitable as a currency mean it's also unsuitable as a 'store of value'? The answer to that isn't obvious to me. The valu…

And the store of value vision is built on the idea that it'll be possible to convert BTC into any other currency at any time.

The other way around: If you can't buy most stuff with it (the case right now) and can't convert it into your everyday currency (maybe happens if the exchanges suddenly go down for some reason, even only temporarily), what's the value of Bitcoin?

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#118

Post by dangero »

greg_____ory wrote: post #76

Litecoin is the solution. It was not designed to be a Bitcoin replacement, but rather to handle this exactly.

No it wasn't. It's 99% a copy of Bitcoin with small configuration file differences. It is configured for one order of magnitude more transactions, but it provides no architectural scaling innovations. It's just like Bitcoin -- can only be used at scale as a settlement layer.

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#119

Post by jacobush »

jstanley wrote: post #77
ericsoderstrom wrote: post #45

People now envision bitcoin as 'store of value', and less like an actual currency. I imagine there are many technical and financial reasons why it will never be suitable as a currency. (Deflationary by design, technical limitations on size of blocks leading to slowness of transactions) Does being unsuitable as a currency mean it's also unsuitable as a 'store of value'? The answer to that isn't obvious to me. The valu…

> The value of the US dollar comes in part from our ability to pay taxes with it (and perhaps ultimately from the US military). It doesn't come from either of those things. It only has value because people believe it does, otherwise they would all try to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

And they believe that because a team of police will descend on you if you don't pay your taxes for long enough. You can even get your whole country messed up if you make too much noise about switching oil denominator from USD to something else.

Re: Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale?

#120

Post by etherael »

eterm wrote: post #104
thatcat wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say stop storing your spending money as btc, it's an asset not cash. Can you liquidate your 30$ peice of gold in < 4 hours for market value? Probably not.

"Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" Peer to peer cash. Not "Gold", not "asset", but "Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash".

Bitcoin cash is still that.
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