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Digital coins may be on the verge of going mainstream

nytimes.com

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Re: Digital coins may be on the verge of going mainstream

#201

Post by coldtea »

rubidium wrote: post #164
coldtea wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Don't know when you lads/lasses were born, but the Web was already mainstream, with everybody and their dog getting on it, on 1998-9 or so. It didn't have to wait until Facebook.

In the US, 30% adoption by 1998, 50% adoption by 2000. But much higher rates of adoption for the wealthier households and much lower for the poorer. So depends on your economic state then.

30% is still totally mainstream, even if it's the richer 30%.

Imagine a music genre that 30% of the population enjoys. In what way wouldn't that be totally mainstream?

Re: Digital coins may be on the verge of going mainstream

#202

Post by coldtea »

bitreality wrote: post #195
coldtea wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> International payments confirmed and spendable in minutes not days. Escaping inflation Venezuela/Argentina/whoeverisnext. So cryptocurrency is a niche app for crashing economies in the developing world and those needing to do international payments through unofficial channels?

Crypto simply levels the playing field for people in all types of economies. Many countries force you into using the national currency. Often they create artificial exchange rates which do not match up with market rates (Argentina, Venezuela). Other countries impose capital controls which force their populations to hold devaluing currencies or restrict how they can spend their money. Think India, China. No surprise t…

>Crypto simply levels the playing field for people in all types of economies. Many countries force you into using the national currency.

And how would you bypass that with cryprocurrency, except by breaking your country's law?

Just because it's a grey area now doesn't mean it will be forever.

Re: Digital coins may be on the verge of going mainstream

#203

Post by tudorw »

blueprint wrote: post #121
tudorw wrote: post #118

The value of fiat currency is that the issuing entity assures it's worth, ensures it's security, it's validity and facilitates flow. The benefits of cryptocurrency may look appealing, however, as a store of wealth it's a long way from 'mainstream' and I believe entropy will prevail, in the fiat system entropy is handled, the supply of money is flexible, in a system with entropy, everyone's wealth will tend towards ze…

Aren't you talking about fungibility?

not in isolation, no, fungibility is solely a currencies ability to be substituted for goods.

Re: Digital coins may be on the verge of going mainstream

#205

Post by PhasmaFelis »

mrb wrote: post #110
legulere wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> International payments When was the last time you made an international payment? I never made a payment outside of the EU and inside the EU I already have free wire transfers. For most people this is not interesting. > unbanked/underbanked You have the right to a bank account in the EU. > Allowing merchants to save 2% in credit card fees Currently Bitcoin is more expensive for typical transactions. And there's dire…

" When was the last time you made an international payment? " I love that you asked this question! The very reason it doesn't happen often is because of friction inherent to legacy payment systems. Cryptocurrencies remove this friction in cross-border trade, hence are making such transactions more commonplace. It's like you saying in 1890 "Why buy cars? People don't travel that much." But the invention of cars is pre…

> I love that you asked this question! The very reason it doesn't happen often is because of friction inherent to legacy payment systems.

I think the reason it doesn't happen often is that most people have no need to send money internationally when all the things they might want to buy are readily available locally or online. Of course there are people who do it all the time, but it's not "mainstream" and I don't see it becoming so.

Re: Digital coins may be on the verge of going mainstream

#206

Post by reefoctopus »

stronglikedan wrote: post #184
sgspace wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? There is no such thing as a physical bitcoin. 1 bitcoin will always be worth 1 bitcoin. To calculate the total bitcoin market cap you multiply the number of circulating bitcoins by the current exchange rate for your preferred currency.

> There is no such thing as a physical bitcoin. Of course there are: https://www.google.com/search?q=physical+bitcoin&oq=physical... As to how they relate to crypto, I have no idea, which is why I asked about it.

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

Re: Digital coins may be on the verge of going mainstream

#207

Post by lightbyte »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #97
samtoday wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it is a Samsung Galaxy 2. A quick search yielded: http://bgr.com/2017/01/26/donald-trumps-android-phone/ https://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/29/donald-trump-apple-iphone-an...

That's a bit cheapskate for a president.

Bit too risky to upgrade, don't want the POTUS's phone to spontaneously combust.

Re: Digital coins may be on the verge of going mainstream

#208

Post by [deleted] »

gloverkcn wrote: post #174

This reminds me of the wired article "the long boom" which described how the economy was on a permanent upswing. The telco / .com crash happened a couple years later. The article asserts that currency will always go up because people will want it as an investment strategy. Sounds like the idea that real estate value will always go up

[deleted]

Re: Digital coins may be on the verge of going mainstream

#209

Post by specialist »

rubatuga wrote: post #105

I believe that crypto currencies will not affect most people’s lives (<10%), and therefore it will never go “mainstream”. The applications for BTC are quite limited, and are mostly edge cases such as evading detection, and easy international transfers. The value of a BTC is currently based on the price of mining one BTC, plus mass speculation. If you consider the immense inefficiency and resources required to mine a…

Using blockchains (crypto-currencies) as digital escrows will have wide ranging and high value impact. Modernized escrows for the 3rd millenium.

--

Early merchants used cuneiform impressed tokens (or equiv) to represent some kind of trade, for convenience. You and I agreed to trade 100 bushels of wheat for 10 jugs of wine. I give you 100 bushels. You give me 10 wine tokens. I later redeem tokens for actual wine. Or trade my 10 wine for 2 silk. Or whatever.

Those tokens only became "money" when they became ubiquituous enough to become units of measurement (of value) onto themselves, independent of their original intent.

Meaning the escrow medium became currency. A phase change.

Maybe that happens with bitcoin. I don't see it. For me, bitcoins are akin to collectables, like limited edition baseball cards. Precious bits of data that you might be able to pawn off onto someone else.

Until bitcoin becomes currency (a ubiquituous form of escrow), bitcoin investments is just a form of gambling.

Anyone wanting something like bitcoin to supplant something like US dollars should build towards that future by tackling the escrow use cases.

Re: Digital coins may be on the verge of going mainstream

#210

Post by flashdance »

davidgerard wrote: post #166
mrb wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" When was the last time you made an international payment? " I love that you asked this question! The very reason it doesn't happen often is because of friction inherent to legacy payment systems. Cryptocurrencies remove this friction in cross-border trade, hence are making such transactions more commonplace. It's like you saying in 1890 "Why buy cars? People don't travel that much." But the invention of cars is pre…

> What about the rest of the world? 6.6B humans? “Banking the unbanked” is much discussed in international development circles. Around 2013, Bitcoin advocates started claiming that Bitcoin could help with this problem. Unfortunately: * The actual problems that leave people unbanked are the bank being too far away, or bureaucratic barriers to setting up an account when you get there. * Unless they use an exchange (whi…

> Unless they use an exchange (which would functionally be a bank), they’d need an expensive computer and a reliable Internet connection to hold and update 120 gigabytes of blockchain.

Some of your points are well thought out, but I couldn't leave this one alone.

The vast majority of bitcoin users don't use a bitcoin exchange to store their coins. They also don't download the entire blockchain.

SPV wallets exist (like electrum or the android bitcoin wallet) that give the user complete control over their private keys without needing a copy of the blockchain or using substantial bandwith.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin_network#Payment_verifi...

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