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Bitcoin still makes no sense

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Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#151

Post by bingbong123 »

sesuximo wrote: post #112
toolz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bitcoin uses less resources than traditional banking. I think people should stop judging it in a vacuum and instead speak in relative terms. If energy use is a concern then fiat is the greater offender. https://bitcoinist.com/banks-consume-energy-bitcoin/ further crypto would be a much more flexible domain at working towards reducing carbon emission than deeply embedded and slow changing fiat systems

Banks use way less energy per customer

I've walked into many semi-empty downtown brick and mortar banks with 5-10 idle employees, you want to continue paying that "innefficiency tax" in every transaction/loan/wire/credit-card/etc...?

I don't think people really think through the reason there is a 20% tax on financial activity that goes through traditional banking system.

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#152

Post by dralley »

bingbong123 wrote: post #146
dralley wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anyway, the BTC-enthusiast argument to that is "Well, if BTC replace banks, imagine how much money that would save." > That argument holds some ground - think of all the armored cars, shipping containers, and facilities that serve to move and store cash and gold, as well as all the labor involved in maintaining the system. There are very good counterarguments to that as well. The idea that the "banking system" func…

>To begin with, the "banking system" includes an enormous amount of services that Bitcoin doesn't provide (loans, mortgages, securities), and retail banks are part of that as well. This may be a lack of imagination on your part....Many companies already offer loans/mortgages using Bitcoin as collateral (at much lower interest rates than traditional banks). Not having thousands of idle bank employees sitting around in…

I'm not sure you understood the point I was making, which is that you can't get a loan/mortgage from "bitcoin", you have to go to a separate entity that can offer you a loan/mortgage using bitcoin to mediate the transaction. A "bitcoin bank", if you will. The labor requirements are going to be similar either way.

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#153

Post by [deleted] »

dmitriid wrote: post #145
ccortes wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they find a way, they have to. Doesn't mean it is easy. The vast majority of people don't even know about bitcoin or blockchian. But the use case is there and it is vastly superior to what western union and moneygram offer in such countries. I'm not telling you as a bitcoin enthusiast, I'm telling you as someone who uses crypto to send money abroad to my gf. I have friends who do the same because it is fast…

> The vast majority of people don't even know about bitcoin or blockchian And that's the main reason why WU or MoneyGram are vasty more convenient for most people. > I'm telling you as someone who uses crypto to send money abroad to my gf. Because you: - are a technical perso - who knows about bitcoin - can navigate the intricacies of setting up a wallet and buying bitcoin, and then a) - can find a person/org in the…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#154

Post by tim333 »

ridaj wrote: post #136
jimmysong wrote: post #14

Posts like these make it clear to me that the author does not really understand money, not Bitcoin. It's hard to reason about what Bitcoin's advantages are without first considering what the purpose of money is and the analysis from this article is mostly just sniping at the edges about some of the perceived flaws and not the actual usefulness which is the good part of the trade-off. For a better understanding of mon…

That article is interesting, but I have to ask about the conclusion: > Beyond the financial case for Bitcoin, its rise as a non-sovereign store of value will have profound geopolitical consequences. A global, non-inflationary reserve currency will force nation-states to alter their primary funding mechanism from inflation to direct taxation, which is far less politically palatable. Isn't this all backwards? In the pa…

The conclusion seems wrong as you say. Governments still seem perfectly able to print money in spite of bitcoin and gold existing as alternatives.

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#155

Post by wolfretcrap »

bawolff wrote: post #78
commonoddity wrote: post #51

Fiat currency is an agreement of settlement using an inflationary mechanism created at will with no work required to provide value. Bitcoins are an asset created in response to work performed, scaling proportionately with the work required giving it value. It really is that simple and makes perfect sense.

I disagree that bitcoins are made "in response" to work performed. The value of a bitcoin doesn't come from the work performed. Otherwise recently mined bitcoins would be more valuable than early mined bitcoins, due to different hash difficulty level. Anyways, currency is not value. Currency represents value. It is symbol. I feel like confusing the symbol with what it represents is the source of much of the misunders…

Initially minted coins were technically more valuable for the bitcoin network. It's depends on from what perspective you judge this value.

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#156

Post by knocte »

alkonaut wrote: post #144
siwatanejo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The second one is that it makes illegal activities easier, and at a larger scale. It's quite common right now for companies to be coerced pay millions of dollars to anonymous criminals, all enabled with cryptocurrencies. For the vast majority of businesses/individuals, it is governments and banking cartels the ones stealing your money (via inflation and fractional reserve respectively) without recourse. Switching t…

I think if you consider normal (fractional reserve) banking “theft” it’s pretty easy to understand why you’d also consider BitCoin as a positive force. If, on the other hand, you accept contemporary definitions of inflation and consider normal modern monetary systems as being the least bad - then it’s a pretty different picture. These articles invariably attract the gold heads.

> These articles invariably attract the gold heads.

Are you sure? Gold is a massive problem: https://theconversation.com/gold-mining-leaves-deforested-am... (bitcoin fixes this)

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#157

Post by bawolff »

wolfretcrap wrote: post #155
bawolff wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that bitcoins are made "in response" to work performed. The value of a bitcoin doesn't come from the work performed. Otherwise recently mined bitcoins would be more valuable than early mined bitcoins, due to different hash difficulty level. Anyways, currency is not value. Currency represents value. It is symbol. I feel like confusing the symbol with what it represents is the source of much of the misunders…

Initially minted coins were technically more valuable for the bitcoin network. It's depends on from what perspective you judge this value.

That's taking the term "value" severely out of context.

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#158

Post by throw1234651234 »

dralley wrote: post #134
throw1234651234 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to source check you on that. To be honest, I never really looked into it and thought the numbers were sensationalized: "Bitcoin uses as much energy as the whole of Switzerland, a new online tool from the University of Cambridge shows." https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48853230 Anyway, the BTC-enthusiast argument to that is "Well, if BTC replace banks, imagine how much money that would save." That argument ho…

> Anyway, the BTC-enthusiast argument to that is "Well, if BTC replace banks, imagine how much money that would save." > That argument holds some ground - think of all the armored cars, shipping containers, and facilities that serve to move and store cash and gold, as well as all the labor involved in maintaining the system. There are very good counterarguments to that as well. The idea that the "banking system" func…

The problems with ACH is that ACH takes 3 business days. If you want an "immediate" transaction, you do a wire transfer, and pay $30-60 for it, which is a hefty sum. That was one of the original "problem statements". Of course, BTC transactions are now very expensive, and that's an issue until lightning solves that.

As far as loans - the theoretical, grand idea there is that the loan market becomes global, e.g. Americans can loan to Sierra Leone, where they don't have access to a traditional, efficient banking system. Again, a pipe dream for now. Btw, there are other coins claiming to do loans based on reputation, but so far, I haven't seen them working well. And of course, there will be scammers.

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#159

Post by Skunkleton »

weare138 wrote: post #20
seibelj wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The settlement layer is purely peer to peer. Governments can enact laws to make actions illegal, and tougher for centralized entities like banks and corporations from using it. But there are addresses out there known to authorities with hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen bitcoin - and there is absolutely nothing they can do to prevent it from being moved. If you have the private key, you own the coins.

> If you have the private key, you own the coins. Until you get arrested and the government just makes you hand over your private key. https://www.wired.com/story/feds-seize-billion-stolen-silk-r...

https://xkcd.com/538/

Re: Bitcoin still makes no sense

#160

Post by timbit42 »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #127
timbit42 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there were people who thought Bitcoin was supposed to enable free and fast transactions but obviously it isn't. There are other cryptocurrencies that are. Bitcoin is more like digital gold.

But Bitcoin has proven itself to be a highly volatile asset, so even by that standard it has failed.

I wouldn't say it has failed. I would say there is still a lot of speculation in it. It is maturing over time and becoming more stable.
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