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Why Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough, but perhaps not as a currency

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Re: Why Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough, but perhaps not as a currency

#21

Post by bachback »

fragsworth wrote: post #2

I think we almost all agree that cryptocurrency is a revolutionary thing. It's difficult to see how revolutionary, because we are only beginning to understand what can be made possible by it. I often see it compared to the advent of the early Internet in the 1980s, when nobody really knew how big it would get, just that it was "revolutionary" and would become huge. This may be an overestimation caused in part by bitc…

I very much like this line of reasoning, because its only this comparison which points to the magnitude of the potential impact. We don't have even HTTP style protocols used yet, and very little understanding. I have 5 new ideas everyday, and find 5 new projects I find interesting. Not necessarily for what they are, but for what can be.

Re: Why Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough, but perhaps not as a currency

#22

Post by praxeologist »

fragsworth wrote: post #13
praxeologist wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On that note, I want to point people to Protoshares and the concept of DACs (Decentralized Autonomous Corporations): http://protoshares.com/ http://letstalkbitcoin.com/bitcoin-and-the-three-laws-of-rob... http://letstalkbitcoin.com/dacs-that-spawn-dacs/ The use of the word "corporation" is kind of wonky to me and the whole concept took me a little time to wrap my head around it, but these are the types of things we c…

> hopefully IMO eventually the abolition of states worldwide. These kinds of comments do nothing to help promote bitcoin as a legitimate technology and only increase the risk that cryptocurrencies become generally illegal to use. I'm really disappointed with the anti-government garbage spouted by so many people in the community.

Bitcoin is inherently libertarian: http://rudd-o.com/archives/bitcoin-without-the-politics

If all the libertarians who are into bitcoin suddenly cut down the rhetoric, you think that this will "make bitcoin legitimate technology"? What does that even mean? You mean that governments are going to suddenly be more friendly to bitcoin users? That seems like an incredibly naive belief, sorry.

In general, it is disappointing that people still hold to backwards and primitive beliefs such as democracy and state worship. Statism is institutionalized violence and injustice writ large. I totally understand how your perspective on this can be different, but please understand that what you are calling garbage I see as a call for justice.

Re: Why Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough, but perhaps not as a currency

#23

Post by hershel »

rthomas6 wrote: post #19

I am convinced that many problems with Bitcoin would be solved if we could come up with a way to tie mining difficulty to the currency's demand instead of only to the mining computing power. Instead of ensuring a predictable generation rate, this could ensure a predictable value . When demand wanes, the currency is harder to mine and becomes more scarce, and when demand surges, the currency becomes easier to mine and…

The closest i found to a solution to bitcoin stability is here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=171539.msg1862790#ms...

Although at the beginning it should not be stable , but rising to get people involved with the coin., and at some pre defined point become stable.

Re: Why Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough, but perhaps not as a currency

#24

Post by bachback »

rthomas6 wrote: post #19

I am convinced that many problems with Bitcoin would be solved if we could come up with a way to tie mining difficulty to the currency's demand instead of only to the mining computing power. Instead of ensuring a predictable generation rate, this could ensure a predictable value . When demand wanes, the currency is harder to mine and becomes more scarce, and when demand surges, the currency becomes easier to mine and…

This is impossible. The network can never put a limit to its own value. The valuation must come from outside. How should a network possible describe what its worth? The money network should not predict demand. One could in theory have predictors of demand, but that would be an algorithm for pricing a set of cryptocoins.

Re: Why Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough, but perhaps not as a currency

#25

Post by bachback »

andrewla wrote: post #15

I don't think the author realizes how uninteresting a decentralized transaction store is without the currency element. The trick was to line up economic incentives so that securing the network and accepting transaction fees are the same thing. The fact that bitcoin serves as a centralized document store is one of the biggest defects in bitcoin as it stands now, and when bitcoin does fall, it will fall to a system tha…

I strongly believe you vastly underestimate the power that lies in this system. Scripts are in fact one of the most exciting features, although some things have to be figured out yet. How are transactions not "first-class citizens"? That statement makes no sense. In fact the opposite is true. Currently everything is about 1:1 transactions, because higher order protocols have not been build out.

Re: Why Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough, but perhaps not as a currency

#26

Post by jere »

>This realization raises interesting questions about the political motivations of Satoshi Nakamoto in presenting their creation as a digital currency when they must have known that they had solved this far more important general problem.

Why oh why must every mention of Nakamoto imbue him/them with certain politics? We're led to believe Nakamoto is a subversive anarcho-capitalist libertarian who wants to overthrow governments.

There are certainly hackers driven by ideals and politics (e.g. rms), but there are plenty more who solve a problem just because they can. The Morris worm wasn't published in order to promote anarchy. Quicksort wasn't invented as a metaphor for classism. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=358561

It seems far more likely that Nakamoto saw an existing problem, solved it in a clever fashion, and published the result.

Re: Why Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough, but perhaps not as a currency

#27

Post by bachback »

SwellJoe wrote: post #12
T-A wrote: post #3

Naive question from total outsider to both contexts, popped up while reading this: has there been any speculation that Aaron Swartz = Satoshi Nakamoto, or are there good reasons to exclude it?

It's not a theory I have ever heard, and I think there's sufficient reason to rule it out. Swartz never really professed an interest in currency or monetary policy, etc. that I am aware of. He was an extremely prolific individual who worked on many very public projects. Transparency was clearly one of his core values, and never exhibited more than passing general nerd interest in cryptography, anonymity, or the techn…

Who are on your list?

Nick Szabo. Mike Hearn. Hal Finney. Wei Dai.

Re: Why Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough, but perhaps not as a currency

#28

Post by richcollins »

rthomas6 wrote: post #19

I am convinced that many problems with Bitcoin would be solved if we could come up with a way to tie mining difficulty to the currency's demand instead of only to the mining computing power. Instead of ensuring a predictable generation rate, this could ensure a predictable value . When demand wanes, the currency is harder to mine and becomes more scarce, and when demand surges, the currency becomes easier to mine and…

When demand wanes, the currency is harder to mine and becomes more scarce

If its harder to mine then its harder to transfer. At some point you're stuck with something worthless.

Re: Why Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough, but perhaps not as a currency

#29

Post by richcollins »

jere wrote: post #26

>This realization raises interesting questions about the political motivations of Satoshi Nakamoto in presenting their creation as a digital currency when they must have known that they had solved this far more important general problem. Why oh why must every mention of Nakamoto imbue him/them with certain politics? We're led to believe Nakamoto is a subversive anarcho-capitalist libertarian who wants to overthrow go…

Pretty sure Satoshi had political motivations:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block

Re: Why Bitcoin is a significant breakthrough, but perhaps not as a currency

#30

Post by gwern »

T-A wrote: post #3

Naive question from total outsider to both contexts, popped up while reading this: has there been any speculation that Aaron Swartz = Satoshi Nakamoto, or are there good reasons to exclude it?

(If it helps, I have some private information on this topic which ~100% rules out Swartz as Nakamoto, but I'm afraid I can't tell you it. If you don't trust me for other reasons, feel free to ignore my claim.)
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