121–130 of 153 posts
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You can't go into CVS and buy things with gold either.
Pretty sure that if you ask the cashier to exchange your gold nugget with a toothbrush you will have no problem proceeding with the transaction.
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Well, I guess that's great. It's a free market, and the best option will win, but a blockchain isn't a blockchain unless you have enough distributed hashing power behind it to ensure that no one entity or small groups of entities has control over the network. I'm still puzzled as to how banks think they're going to do this.
> to ensure that no one entity or small groups of entities has control over the network. Why is this necessarily a problem? I think the hard forks in both BTC and ETH have shown that there is an inherent "appeals" process no matter what. Seems like you can separate the appeals process from the underlying settlement and record keeping technology. New blockchain providers just need to represent what the ultimate appeal…
The controversy is over which fork gets to be called Bitcoin.
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I actually completely agree with you. I didn't want to say it out loud, but I do agree that the way Bitcoin is hyped to outsiders (as the future of currency transactions, independent from governments and banks) is very different from how Bitcoin holders actually think about it and use it (as an asset to be pumped-and-dumped). Bitcoin defenders tend to get very upset when you point this out though.
Whenever I look at anti-Bitcoin arguments, it mostly just boils down to the fact that they don't really know Bitcoin all that well. There's absolutely no reason why digital gold can't be extremely liquid. There's no reason why increasing the valuation of bitcoin itself is going to do away with the digital gold market (raise your hand if you hold gold and would be super upset if it went up 100x). The complaints about…
I think this part right here is the root of your problem. There was a good quote from Neal Stephenson's most recent book:
“ ... I have to warn you that this is the word—‘politics’—that nerds use whenever they feel impatient about the human realities of any organization.”
Trying to handwave away your opponent's position as "a political dispute" will never get you anywhere. They're all saying the same thing about your position! "If everyone just agreed with me, there'd be no dispute" That's why Bitcoin is in a stalemate, with everybody accusing everybody else of having ulterior motives while they alone are the only noble people whose opinions are purely apolitical.
Thinking that you can create a system where decisions are made purely on their technical merits, and "politics" can be kept out, is the hopeless nerd fantasy that we really have to get over.
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Whenever I look at anti-Bitcoin arguments, it mostly just boils down to the fact that they don't really know Bitcoin all that well. There's absolutely no reason why digital gold can't be extremely liquid. There's no reason why increasing the valuation of bitcoin itself is going to do away with the digital gold market (raise your hand if you hold gold and would be super upset if it went up 100x). The complaints about…
> The only thing standing between the lightning network and what we have now is a fix for malleable transactions which is held up because of a political dispute. I think this part right here is the root of your problem. There was a good quote from Neal Stephenson's most recent book: “ ... I have to warn you that this is the word—‘politics’—that nerds use whenever they feel impatient about the human realities of any o…
The fact that we are at a stalemate right now because of politics is entirely true, and also entirely uninteresting to me. It doesn't matter which side is technically right or wrong, the underlying dispute is ephemeral and eventually something will have to be done, and will. Right now, the incentives are not such to force something to be done, but eventually the incentives will align.
Furthermore, even if I'm incorrect and Bitcoin grinds to a development halt completely, then it's still perfectly suitable to be digital gold and I'll be happy to make my 20-50x return on it based on that.
I don't know who these people you're referring to are who are claiming that Bitcoin is some autonomous system that always makes decisions based on technical merits, but it's not me.
Of course, I have an opinion on the current controversy, and I do think my side is technically right, but that's irrelevant. I also think my side is being political.
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He has a stake in Bitstamp (an exchange) and, from the sound of it, one or two other blockchain companies (he seems to have a close relationship with Joe Lubin, the founder of ConsenSys so they are very likely Ethereum-based startups). The rest is assumed to be invested in the currencies themselves. I was at the panel discussion and he seems wayyyy more excited about Ethereum - I wouldn't be surprised if he held more…
Then he is going to get rekt. As the DAO debacle demonstrated, the attack surface is utterly baroque, and governance is for shite. Buterin literally said "Turing completeness is a red herring". Smartest thing I ever heard him say.
> [Novogratz] recalls that Buterin, ... showed up late, which struck him as shocking -- and a bit ballsy. He figured it was worth paying attention to Buterin. The lesson is to be impolite? I think I saw this in an episode of Silicon Valley.
You can tell Buterin is really smart (and focused) within a few minutes of talking to him about Ethereum. He showed up a few minutes late to an event I helped coordinate. Given his personality, I just assumed he had been off somewhere lost in his thoughts or finishing some critical task; it would never cross my mind that he took the event less seriously or meant to be impolite.
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Can someone explain why it's a good idea to use blockchains for IoT? The example they give is of a smart washer checking to see whether the washer is under warranty when it detects a part is about to fail... but why on Earth would a blockchain be better than any old database maintained by the company? Why on Earth use a distributed ledger?
in theory the block chain can be trusted by both parties whereas the company could modify it or be malicious..... in practice you're correct because acting maliciously would make the company lose customers and potentially get sued
Has anyone noticed the disparity between how many articles get written about btc's price, and how little gets written about its real-life uses and benefits?
That's because Bitcoin is still today too cumbersome to be used for anything other than speculation and drugs. No one goes to the grocery store thinking "gosh, I sure wish I could transfer some money to an exchange, buy some BTC, set up a wallet, transfer the BTC, wait for confirmations, scan a QR code to pay, and wait for confirmations again to pay for my groceries". The only people that want this are early early ad…
That cracked me up, because it sums up much of the Bitcoin experience... but in Australia at least, there's a card (Coinjar Swipe) that you can use to pay with Bitcoin in any store that accepts EFTPOS, which is most Australian stores. (The same card terminals that accept Visa & Mastercard usually accept EFTPOS.) You can even use it to convert Bitcoin to cash as Cash Out at supermarkets.
https://support.coinjar.com/hc/en-us/articles/202202609-Intr...
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> The truth is, you can't buy things with Bitcoin at CVS because the technology isn't there yet ... In a couple of years, the addition of the lightning network on top of the Bitcoin network will enable you to buy things at CVS. That's awfully optimistic. Occasionally I drop in on Bitcoin forums/subreddits to amuse myself, and what I've seen for the last year+ is a deadlocked stalemate with the Segwit/BU/LN/no change…
Considering the price its trading at, that is probably what people want . Bitcoin is crypto gold. It has been valued by markets as cryptogold for 5+ years. Nobody wants to turn it into crypto money now, because that would destroy the valuation for its scarcity and clunkiness. The alogirthms for cryptomoney are going to be different, and the fact nobody has written a compelling implementation yet (ie, can handle prepo…
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That's because Bitcoin is still today too cumbersome to be used for anything other than speculation and drugs. No one goes to the grocery store thinking "gosh, I sure wish I could transfer some money to an exchange, buy some BTC, set up a wallet, transfer the BTC, wait for confirmations, scan a QR code to pay, and wait for confirmations again to pay for my groceries". The only people that want this are early early ad…
I don't think this is accurate. The main use case for Bitcoin seems to be remittances and savings for the rich and middle-class in countries with unstable currencies, not grocery store payments. Compared to USD, it's cumbersome and expensive, but compared to gold or Western Union, it's clearly better.