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There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

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Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#111

Post by stephen_g »

prawn wrote: post #45
blunte wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The utility of bitcoin depends on your perspective. As a means of value exchange, high fees make it less useful. But as a store of value, high fees matter little.

As an example, wasn't there an $80m transaction the other day, where the fee was $20? I wonder what banks would charge to facilitate that?

In Australia, my bank charges $10.50 for a domestic RTGS (Real-time gross settlement) transfer. That system is only for payments over $100,000 and usually clears within 120 minutes. Not sure what it would cost for an international transfer - the SWIFT fee seems to be a flat $30 - it doesn't specify any maximums but I'm not sure if that still applies when you're talking tens of millions of dollars...

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#112

Post by dubin »

randomsearch wrote: post #95
habosa wrote: post #35

You'll notice the entire Bitcoin community has changed tone. It used to be "this is the currency of the future, down with cash/Visa!" but now you hear "Bitcoin is not a currency, it's a store of value". The wild price swings, slow transactions, high fees, and loq merchant acceptance make it complete garbage as a currency. But as a store of value, none of those arguments apply. It only has to compete with gold bars, w…

How does the volatility not make it a bad store of value?! Surely by definition that is exactly why it is a bad store of value!

“How can Bitcoin be a good store of value if its price is so volatile?” http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/12/can...

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#113

Post by dragonwriter »

habosa wrote: post #35

You'll notice the entire Bitcoin community has changed tone. It used to be "this is the currency of the future, down with cash/Visa!" but now you hear "Bitcoin is not a currency, it's a store of value". The wild price swings, slow transactions, high fees, and loq merchant acceptance make it complete garbage as a currency. But as a store of value, none of those arguments apply. It only has to compete with gold bars, w…

> But as a store of value, none of those arguments apply. It only has to compete with gold bars, which are crappy in their own ways.

There are lots of stores of value besides gold bars and Bitcoin; real estate, business equity, business and government debt instruments,...

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#114

Post by xelxebar »

randomsearch wrote: post #95
habosa wrote: post #35

You'll notice the entire Bitcoin community has changed tone. It used to be "this is the currency of the future, down with cash/Visa!" but now you hear "Bitcoin is not a currency, it's a store of value". The wild price swings, slow transactions, high fees, and loq merchant acceptance make it complete garbage as a currency. But as a store of value, none of those arguments apply. It only has to compete with gold bars, w…

How does the volatility not make it a bad store of value?! Surely by definition that is exactly why it is a bad store of value!

I'm not intimately familiar with BTC prices, but they seem to have lots of high frequency volatility while the low frequency price changes are close to monotonic. If that's the case then it makes sense as a long term store of value.

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#115

Post by jameskegel »

vkou wrote: post #105
habosa wrote: post #35

You'll notice the entire Bitcoin community has changed tone. It used to be "this is the currency of the future, down with cash/Visa!" but now you hear "Bitcoin is not a currency, it's a store of value". The wild price swings, slow transactions, high fees, and loq merchant acceptance make it complete garbage as a currency. But as a store of value, none of those arguments apply. It only has to compete with gold bars, w…

Gold bars don't require the electricity output of a small country to keep running. Although I suppose digging them up also has serious environmental consequences.

One might research the effects of cyanide byproducts from gold mining, and the lives lost harvesting it.

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#116

Post by simonsarris »

habosa wrote: post #35

You'll notice the entire Bitcoin community has changed tone. It used to be "this is the currency of the future, down with cash/Visa!" but now you hear "Bitcoin is not a currency, it's a store of value". The wild price swings, slow transactions, high fees, and loq merchant acceptance make it complete garbage as a currency. But as a store of value, none of those arguments apply. It only has to compete with gold bars, w…

Gold bars are only a store of value if they're in your possession. A gold bar in the hand is worth two in the bush as they say.

To be a good store of value its not enough that it exists and people value it, you have to be able to call upon it when you need it. That's where its back to approximating currency, and where Bitcoin's weakest link seems to be. This is probably just the beginning of the bad news.

King George used to lay claim to every pine in North America, to be called upon when he needed them for ship masts. For some reason or another he couldn't do that anymore. Historical examples abound, if you look for them, and they're not tulips: https://hackernoon.com/the-guns-of-bitcoin-1f779309a718 (disclaimer: I wrote that, which dances around a few historical reasons why bitcoin's value might not be so peachy)

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#117

Post by thevardanian »

canoebuilder wrote: post #109
thevardanian wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. What I'm saying is that it lacks privacy, and therefore is a poor store of value. As for it being a store of value akin to gold? I don't think so. For various reason, even disregarding the historicity, and the physical nature of gold, the primarily reason I think it won't be comparable to gold will be because of the nature of technology. That being the lack of long term, and I'm talking centuries, hell even a f…

a state sanctioned E-Coin system We have these, they're called debit cards, credit cards, paypal, etc. For anything "state-sanctioned," centralized and "trustful" systems are always going to be more efficient, and chosen over less efficient and inferior options. This is why it's hard to see where something like bitcoin would ever find widespread use, it's only good for non-"state-sanctioned" things. If large numbers…

Well yes, but fundamentally it's backed and guaranteed by physical paper bills. So when I say E-Coin I mean a purely digital/mathematical abstraction like Bitcoin, or other Cryptocurrencies.

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#118

Post by jameskegel »

Casseres wrote: post #100
njarboe wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should create a different address for each post on Craigslist. It is pretty easy and prevents this problem. If you have a website and have an address displayed for donations, then you will get multiple donations to the same address. With any one-off just make a new address in your wallet. (I use bitcoin core wallet. Not sure how others work.)

And then later on transfer it to your main wallet and pay another fee, and trust that whomever your first address still isn't paying attention to it, or hope they didn't get their coins from a tainted source?

It’s all the same wallet just a different address, no transfer needed.

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#119

Post by jameskegel »

tehlike wrote: post #76
njarboe wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should create a different address for each post on Craigslist. It is pretty easy and prevents this problem. If you have a website and have an address displayed for donations, then you will get multiple donations to the same address. With any one-off just make a new address in your wallet. (I use bitcoin core wallet. Not sure how others work.)

Monero now supports multi address.

No, you are wrong, Monero has merged in MultiSig which is something unlike what it sounds, it basically means you can now make a wallet where several people hold a piece of a key and a majority agreement is required to spend.

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#120

Post by mproud »

jcranmer wrote: post #97
randomsearch wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the volatility not make it a bad store of value?! Surely by definition that is exactly why it is a bad store of value!

But that would mean it's good for nothing except warming the planet!

It’s really sad that so much power will be wasted on mining Bitcoin.
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