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Are cryptocurrencies about to go mainstream?

theguardian.com

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Re: Are cryptocurrencies about to go mainstream?

#21

Post by linsomniac »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #12

If it was easier to buy and sell them they might. I know people who are interested but due to the difficulty and complexity of buying/storing/selling they havnt yet.

This is very true. I just recently got back into cryptocurrencies after ~5 years away from them, and it was a pain getting all the pieces put together, finding the right places to put money in and trade. I wrote up a guide because basically all of my friends have expressed interest over the last 6 weeks, so I've been sending it around to them. Because it's hard.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies about to go mainstream?

#22

Post by remotehack »

andy_ppp wrote: post #16

This is the exact article that starts appearing about 6 to 12 months before a huge bust within a particular market. I’d be hugely surprised if there isn’t a huge rise over the next 4 months followed by a collapse. You should be looking for where you think the bottom of the market is because it’s too useful not to go up again (it’ll be around $800, I’m a time traveller). The top could be as high at $6000 though before…

> I’d be hugely surprised if there isn’t a huge rise over the next 4 months followed by a collapse.

It's because bitcoin is a pyramid scheme.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies about to go mainstream?

#23

Post by bradleyjg »

daxorid wrote: post #17
twothamendment wrote: post #4

Yes, and 2017 is the year of the Linux Desktop. We can barely get stores to use EMV/chip card readers, so I'd have to say no.

A little aside, I've been using Linux as primary workstation for seven years now. It works great, so I've never understood this "year of the desktop" meme. Now, OpenBSD is another matter entirely...

On the slashdot back in the late 90s there were breathless articles all the time about how this was going to be the year that the Linux Desktop was going to sweep across the world and surely M$ was doomed.

Two decades later Microsoft is doing quite well and Linux still accounts for a small percent of personal computers.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies about to go mainstream?

#25

Post by tyingq »

linsomniac wrote: post #18
twothamendment wrote: post #4

Yes, and 2017 is the year of the Linux Desktop. We can barely get stores to use EMV/chip card readers, so I'd have to say no.

To me, this seems like a good reason a cryptocurrency COULD take off. The established payment companies are stuck in the past, and pretty much everyone just upgraded their point of sale equipment to handle chip and pin. We might be ripe for a revolution in the payment space. Credit cards have been dragging their feet, and there's a ton of money flowing through them.

Bitcoin confirmations take 10+ minutes, and there's no notion of a chargeback.

I could see crypto currency replacing Western Union, for sending money to family far away. Replacing credit cards has some gaps on both the consumer and merchant sides.

Re: Are cryptocurrencies about to go mainstream?

#27

Post by quantdev »

michalu wrote: post #15

We will see some major drama in this space. Take EOS for example... it's a company that's basically a Bitshares fork and it's raising possibly a half to one billion dollars on the promise to deliver something different in one year. Their purchase agreement promises nothing and is highly concerning: https://eos.io/purchaseagreement/EOS%20Token%20Purchase%20Ag... What investor would give a startup half billion dollars…

As someone who believes in cryptocurrencies, let me just say, wow, this ICO is just absurd. From that purchase agreement,

“EOS TOKENS HAVE NO RIGHTS, USES OR ATTRIBUTES. The EOS Tokens do not have any rights, uses, purpose, attributes, functionalities or features, express or implied, including, without limitation, any uses, purpose, attributes, functionalities or features on the EOS Platform. The company does not guarantee and is not representing in any way to Buyer that the EOS Tokens have any rights, uses, purpose, attributes, functionalities or features."

Re: Are cryptocurrencies about to go mainstream?

#28

Post by emodendroket »

CM30 wrote: post #10

Not until they can really explain to the average Joe why cryptocurrencies are such a good thing. Because at the end of the day, privacy is nowhere near as important to many people are it arguably should be, and trying to market cryptocurrencies as 'independent from government control' is likely a losing proposition. Same with most of the reasons involved I've seen invoked for why to use Bitcoin or the likes online. T…

Are they logical? What are they?

Re: Are cryptocurrencies about to go mainstream?

#29

Post by shp0ngle »

The bitcoin community is now arguing to the point of death threats whether it's better to scale by adding data outside of the blocks and then making slightly larger blocks, or by adding data outside of the blocks and then adding more data outside of the blocks.

And both sides are accusing the other side of being authoritarian, for centralization, and basically being even a worst enemy than The State, which is like the worst thing ever. In the meantime, no scaling solution is being implemented, because they are too busy blocking the other side from implementing their solutions.

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