Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bitcoin is a disaster

metzdowd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 992 posts

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#131

Post by nwienert »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #101
pvg wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent was 'actual digital cash', the result was 'instrument for speculation, money laundering and other fraud' which is entirely dependent on actual real money (and its institutions). Whether one finds that ironic or not is a matter of taste but it's clearly not exactly what the goal of "digital cash" was supposed to be.

That's just the reality of cash, no less in digital form, so it would be naive to think Bitcoin wouldn't inherit the same uses of USD (speculation, money laundering, fraud). It's just not very damning. Though I'm sure various people in the government/Visa would love to ban USD cash with the same demonization.

Not the reality of cash as cash doesn’t change value like Bitcoin (in either direction), it’s also usually not scarce, and always much easier to use.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#132

Post by seibelj »

rjurney wrote: post #107
hombre_fatal wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, take the upsides of cash (e.g. don't need to open a bank, prove residence, etc.) and now add the ability to exchange it digitally without the pointless gatekeeping of large corporations like Paypal.

Who will be the largest Bitcoin vendor because they are trusted.

But they won’t be the only vendor. There is no license required that gives them a monopoly on bitcoin. If they serve a market segment, great! Others will use something else. Bitcoin is entirely open - it’s a protocol.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#133

Post by rjurney »

tetrisgm wrote: post #7

Well this isn’t new is it? I recall chat from 2015 where people were pointing out that mining is just bad. Even when Ethereum started growing, one of the big arguments quickly became that proof of stake would be a superior approach. I agree. I think the use cases have never materialized. I do believe there’s potential in peer to peer, or at least federated approaches. Email works. Matrix works. Irc works. But I don’t…

What is needed is an AI digital currency where training deep networks for representation learning has a side effect that mints coins without costing a lot of extra resources. Then mining coins is useful and we get more better AI to enslave humanity.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#134

Post by coconut08 »

etimberg wrote: post #98
coconut08 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because you can't use it as a money if you need to pay capital gains on every stick of gum you buy. they should find other ways to collect taxes that doesn't inhibit it.

If you held any other foreign currency you would have to track it like this. For example, I live in Canada and if I bought USD and then spent it over the course of a year in Canada I would be responsible for the capital gain tracked on each expenditure based on the day's exchange rate. It's hard to see how Bitcoin should be any different.

because the goal would be to have bitcoin be an international money, not a national one. i'm not saying people shouldn't pay taxes, i would just suggest that there are better ways to collect it such that it doesn't inhibit progress. as it exists right now it is infeasible to use bitcoin as money day to day and accurately report your taxes.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#135

Post by glitchc »

sunshinerag wrote: post #106
raziel2701 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the 21 million cap is just a line of code no? No reason why if enough people agree to it they could just print more. Or they could fork and print more no? I find it strange that people speak of bitcoin's scarcity as if it were a physical thing.

It isn't as simple as that. Not only have you got to change that line of code, you need to convince all users of bitcoin to run that version of the code including miners. Otherwise you have forked the coin and you might be the only user of it (your version is incompatible with the rest).

You don’t need most to agree. Just the basic majority (50%+).

And of course that’s exactly what the major mining consortiums will do: Collude to increase the limit when it’s reached. After all, the rewards are in the mining, not the transaction fee.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#136

Post by VintageCool »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #101
pvg wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intent was 'actual digital cash', the result was 'instrument for speculation, money laundering and other fraud' which is entirely dependent on actual real money (and its institutions). Whether one finds that ironic or not is a matter of taste but it's clearly not exactly what the goal of "digital cash" was supposed to be.

That's just the reality of cash, no less in digital form, so it would be naive to think Bitcoin wouldn't inherit the same uses of USD (speculation, money laundering, fraud). It's just not very damning. Though I'm sure various people in the government/Visa would love to ban USD cash with the same demonization.

Except that cash in USD is also used as a medium of exchange.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#137

Post by XW013K6 »

When 7.6B people around the world crave 21M of a super-scarce resource that no government can deflate we'll get to $1M+/BTC. Those that continue to dis BTC are invariably those that do not own "enough".

$600 checks on top of $1200 checks and maybe $2000 checks soon. This is devaluation.

Add to this corrupt FDA/Fauci and approvals for BS (Remdeathisvir and Conv-plasma) drugs that do not work, while holding back live-saving MABs (like Leronlimab) that have an outstanding chance of saving 10Ks of lives. The virus is the trigger for BTC to keep your savings in. Anything else is sheer foolishness. Think Caracalla.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#138

Post by im_down_w_otp »

addicted wrote: post #95
hombre_fatal wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the irony. The point is that Bitcoin has introduced an actual "digital cash" currency without institutional/governmental middlemen. That institutions can be built on top of that, and that some people want such institutions, doesn't change the novel utility of finally having a currency that functions like digital cash. It's like saying it's ironic that people use physical USD for anonymous p2p transactions…

No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. It’s treated as an investment vehicle. And the reason behind that is obvious. Something whose value may double in a month or whose value may halve within weeks is a terrible currency. If I expect it’s value to increase then I would be a fool to spend it. If I expect it’s value to drop I would be a fool to accept it. Cryptocurrencies are anything but currencies.

Technically speaking, it's also a terrible investment vehicle for those same reasons. It's a fantastic parlor game of speculation though, where the point is the volatility.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#139

Post by np_tedious »

tryptophan wrote: post #18

> The pseudonymity of coins being owned by the bearer of some > cryptographic key is a failure; People have been eavesdropping and > aggressively analyzing the block chain from day 1. And the block chain > will always be there, it will always be public, and it will always be > subject to further analysis. And we are learning that analysis of that > record is sufficient to destroy any pretense of anonymity or > pseudo…

Coinbase does have Zcash. So they don't seem entirely opposed to privacy coins

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#140

Post by sunshinerag »

xapata wrote: post #36
sunshinerag wrote: post #8

I have no idea what he is talking about. I use bitcoin to buy things both onchain and via lightning and the experience is so smooth and much much better than the circa 2017 period when fees were high. Don't keep it on exchange. The real thing that is stopping adoption is countries trying to classify it as a commodity and insist to pay capital gains on every microtransaction. Some countries are backwards (US, UK) than…

> No VAT on bitcoin transactions Sounds like a defect in the technology to me. A good currency should be able to support the full range of social policies (like VAT). One of the problems of the Euro is not being able to inflate different countries within the Eurozone at different rates. If Bitcoin were ever to become popular for regular transactions within many countries, it'd be a fiscal policy disaster. Pretty soon…

You are confused. There is nothing in Bitcoin that prevents VAT. It's just Germany's policy. Elsewhere they charge VAT on it like any other currency. I have paid VAT on all my bitcoin transactions like any other currency. I am not in Germany.
Post reply on HN