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The Bitcoin Apocalypse Is Coming in Mid-November

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Re: The Bitcoin Apocalypse Is Coming in Mid-November

#161

Post by alexasmyths »

wpietri wrote: post #154
alexasmyths wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SP500 has been growing consistently, has for quite a long time, and it's a bet on the future growth of the American economy. There will be ups and downs, but by enlarge, steady growth. BTC has been on a wild ride, and could evaporate at any moment. I don't think it will, but it could, since there's no reason for anyone anywhere to own it. There's no question the safer bet is S&P 500. Now - in the range of outcome…

It surprises me to see this downvoted. One fundamental of investing is that stocks represent an economically productive asset. In contrast, commodities just sit there. If I buy a chunk of a company, that company is working to become a bigger, more effective, more value-generating company. If I buy an ounce of gold, it stays an ounce of gold. Index funds represent a broader bet still. Because they're composed of many…

Ya. As per my comment below, it's a) the dissonance between a 'tech view of BTC' and an 'economic/financial' view of BTC and b) the religious nature of BTC hype. And by 'religious' I don't actually mean 'religious' rather, the old 'religious arguments over programming languages and frameworks' kind of trope.

Commenting against BTC is sure to get you down-voted.

It's ok though, it's just one of many HN quirks we're all used to :)

Re: The Bitcoin Apocalypse Is Coming in Mid-November

#162

Post by alexasmyths »

wpietri wrote: post #155
alexasmyths wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. It seems spot on to me. " Bitcoin is a religious subject among the tech crowd. The most fascinating thing about BTC has nothing to do with 'block-chain' - it's the manner in which it has created hype among tech circles. Techies look at it from a tech perspective, financial types from a financial perspective. From a financial perspective, BTC is downright bizarre. Even the 't…

Excellent point. I am really impressed with it as a technology. It's absolutely brilliant. But when I put on my business hat, I'm still not seeing it. For quite a number of years I've been asking for proof of daily use among significant market segments. For just as many years, I've been getting, "OMG THINK OF THE FUTURE!!!" as an answer. I have some hope that we're at peak BTC hype, though. A lot of the enthusiasm (a…

BTC valuation is pretty strongly correlated to it's Google Search popularity.

There are an amazing number of people who own a little BTC and are in on the hype.

And this is like Facebook 2007, where I already thought 'everyone was on it'. No. The 'rest of America' is just learning about it - then the 'rest of the world' - and then the other 3 billion or so people who are barely on the Internet. FB grew for quite a very long time after 'we thought we all were on it'.

BTC though is tricky to access, my Mother is on FB, she will never buy a Bitcoin.

But I do believe BTC has a lot of popular hype to ride yet.

I suggest it will start to wane quite a long while after the press stops talking about it daily. A lot of people will just 'hold' so I don't think we'll see a crash though.

There are caveats:

The press is notorious for flipping on things. They could turn on BTC and make enough noise. Since it's highly speulative, it's easy to see a flood of people rushing out to 'cash in'.

And of course governments: A Scandinavian country could opt to regulate it, or treat it like 'real currency' and require transparency etc. - which for any other currency would be 'great' because it's validation, but really, the whole point of BTC is anonymity etc. - esp. for black market transactions, so really, it's not a good thing.

It's a brilliant and fun excercise we're going through, but since it's doubtful BTC can ever be an actual currency or medium of exchange, I really wish we would 'move on' because it's not really a useful thing in the end.

Somebody may come along with an actually useful crypto - but i don't think that BTC or the ICO's we're seeing are it.

Re: The Bitcoin Apocalypse Is Coming in Mid-November

#163

Post by AgentME »

olegkikin wrote: post #112
Flowdalic wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A common mistake made by "self-appointed" bitcoin experts and IMHO a good indicator for more red flags. > On one side are those who believe that Bitcoin is … money, currency, …. On the other side are those who believe that it is a commodity, …. That is the other red flag: Trying to construct two different exclusive camps. This goes along with not mentioning the Lightning Network (LN). Some people still don't see that…

LN has been vaporware for a long time, and it's always 18 months before it's ready. Recently the developers openly admitted they don't know how to scale it beyond 10000+ channels, because they don't know how to solve distributed routing. https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/719vis/lightning_dev_t... https://medium.com/@jonaldfyookball/mathematical-proof-that-...

LN needed the transaction malleability fix in Segwit, so LN development stalled when Segwit was blocked for years.

Re: The Bitcoin Apocalypse Is Coming in Mid-November

#164

Post by omarchowdhury »

QAPereo wrote: post #152
omarchowdhury wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correlation does not imply causation. Did I really have to tell someone on HN this?

You asked for reasoning, not evidence, so it might be helpful not to move those goalposts.

Reasoning can't have or be evidence?

Re: The Bitcoin Apocalypse Is Coming in Mid-November

#165

Post by olegkikin »

AgentME wrote: post #163
olegkikin wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LN has been vaporware for a long time, and it's always 18 months before it's ready. Recently the developers openly admitted they don't know how to scale it beyond 10000+ channels, because they don't know how to solve distributed routing. https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/719vis/lightning_dev_t... https://medium.com/@jonaldfyookball/mathematical-proof-that-...

LN needed the transaction malleability fix in Segwit, so LN development stalled when Segwit was blocked for years.

Please tell us when LN will launch. Not some half-baked beta that chokes on 10000 channels, but the real thing.

Re: The Bitcoin Apocalypse Is Coming in Mid-November

#166

Post by chrisco255 »

kccqzy wrote: post #65
chrisco255 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would suffer a temporary drop then inevitably climb back up again. Bitcoin is global at this point. No one jurisdiction is going to shut it down.

Here’s a thought experiment. Yes Bitcoin is global but like all other distributed systems, the CAP theorem applies. When there is a network partition, you can only choose between consistency and availability. Now what if tomorrow the Chinese government decided to totally block Bitcoin traffic, just like they block Facebook, Twitter, NYT, Tor and VPNs? Losing either consistency or availability would be a heavy blow. I…

It wouldn't matter at all. It would inconvenience Chinese holders of Bitcoin. You can't really block Bitcoin traffic. There's ways around firewalls. For example, I could embed a bitcoin address into a JPG image, certain XY positions would contain the bits which could be decoded into an address or key. That could then be routed to the Bitcoin network once outside of China. As long as you can send bits, you can send bitcoin.

Re: The Bitcoin Apocalypse Is Coming in Mid-November

#167

Post by QAPereo »

chrisco255 wrote: post #166
kccqzy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s a thought experiment. Yes Bitcoin is global but like all other distributed systems, the CAP theorem applies. When there is a network partition, you can only choose between consistency and availability. Now what if tomorrow the Chinese government decided to totally block Bitcoin traffic, just like they block Facebook, Twitter, NYT, Tor and VPNs? Losing either consistency or availability would be a heavy blow. I…

It wouldn't matter at all. It would inconvenience Chinese holders of Bitcoin. You can't really block Bitcoin traffic. There's ways around firewalls. For example, I could embed a bitcoin address into a JPG image, certain XY positions would contain the bits which could be decoded into an address or key. That could then be routed to the Bitcoin network once outside of China. As long as you can send bits, you can send bi…

You can arrest people and seize their assets.

Re: The Bitcoin Apocalypse Is Coming in Mid-November

#168

Post by QAPereo »

omarchowdhury wrote: post #164
QAPereo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You asked for reasoning, not evidence, so it might be helpful not to move those goalposts.

Reasoning can't have or be evidence?

They’re two words with different meanings, and I don’t find semantic arguments engaging, sorry.

Re: The Bitcoin Apocalypse Is Coming in Mid-November

#169

Post by QAPereo »

kobeya wrote: post #153
zaroth wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it and a very good point. But do you have a source?

Not a quotable one no, although some like colony.io have blog posts explaining why they are changing the terms or schedule of their ICO. Others have refunded their ICO. But it is Back channel sources that tell me the others have received calls too (I work in this industry).

In that case, I doubly appreciate you sharing the info, it does fit with how the SEC likes to operate too.

Re: The Bitcoin Apocalypse Is Coming in Mid-November

#170

Post by mrb »

wpietri wrote: post #158
mrb wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The largest 500 retailers are a poor representation of all retailers. Especially because Bitcoin tends to be more often accepted at small—as opposed to large—retailers. And again the sample size is way too small. Two (2!) retailers dropping it means nothing, in particular because other larger more significant data points contradict this small sample size: BitPay doing 1B/yr at +328% growth... hardly a sign the "visio…

You seem to be working very hard not to understand their point. Or mine. The largest 500 retailers is an excellent representation of major retailers. It's also a reasonable indicator to use for general consumer behavior, because what makes retailers the largest is their use by consumers. You could claim that a loss of 2 retailers isn't significant proof of decline, although since it's 2 of 5, a 40% decline seems nota…

«isn't significant proof of decline, although since it's 2 of 5, a 40% decline seems notable to me»

Any percentage value is irrelevant because a change of ±2 among 500 retailers is statistically insignificant. If it was ±20 it would be significant.

What if we went from 1 to 2 accepting BTC, would you say "acceptance went up 50% among top 500 retailers?" It would be highly misleading and improper to report it as such.

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