Bitcoin is a disaster • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#201

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

yunesj wrote: post #160

addicted wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. It’s treated as an investment vehicle. And the reason behind that is obvious. Something whose value may double in a month or whose value may halve within weeks is a terrible currency. If I expect it’s value to increase then I would be a fool to spend it. If I expect it’s value to drop I would be a fool to accept it. Cryptocurrencies are anything but currencies.

> No one treats Bitcoin as a currency. ... And the reason behind that is obvious. Something whose value may double in a month or whose value may halve within weeks is a terrible currency. Nope. I don't buy things in crypto only because of the reporting burden. Every cup of coffee bought with crypto has to be reported on a tax return.

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#202

Post by Trasmatta » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

37ef_ced3 wrote: post #50

tryptophan wrote: post #18

> The pseudonymity of coins being owned by the bearer of some > cryptographic key is a failure; People have been eavesdropping and > aggressively analyzing the block chain from day 1. And the block chain > will always be there, it will always be public, and it will always be > subject to further analysis. And we are learning that analysis of that > record is sufficient to destroy any pretense of anonymity or > pseudo…

I wonder how many Bitcoin users have read and understand the following extensive list of privacy "pitfalls" (mistakes that can reveal information about unwary Bitcoin users): https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Privacy Are you careful to avoid these numerous privacy pitfalls? If not, you're leaking information about yourself, into the public ledger (blockchain)

It makes me wonder how many people have gotten busted for either buying or selling drugs with cryptocurrencies, thinking it was automatically safe and private.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#203

Post by NoodleIncident » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #81

oblio wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gold is good for nothing useful imo, but is used in jewlery and other because it has value (not the other way around, as in gold has value because people make jewelry with it). You do know that gold has super low reactivity and it's a very good conductor, right? :-)

How often is it used for that use case? Does gold have a high value due to this? No. I would even say that we might see more use industrially if people weren’t inflating its price by using it as a store of value.

Well, low reactivity is why it stays shiny, right? People like the shiny squishy heavy rocks

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#204

Post by radiator » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 11:32 PM UTC

keithwhor wrote: post #24

Related: the current rise of Bitcoin prices has been peculiar to me, and seems to be a bit of a canary in an inflationary coal mine. We've injected trillions of dollars of fiat into the economy this year. It feels like the sky-high valuations of technology companies and Bitcoin are "shock absorbers" of sorts, or early signals of inflation-yet-to-come. If we assume the market is efficiently pricing these assets (like…

You are not missing anything, QE means the value of the currency has dropped, there is no escaping this simple fact. Whether it can be hidden for a while and for how long, remains to be seen.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#205

Post by thebean11 » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 11:32 PM UTC

rmason wrote: post #14

I was real excited the first time that Bitcoin was explained to me. I saw it as the first real alternative to paper money. But what I soon learned is that most of the people associated with Bitcoin saw it as digital gold and were only interested in seeing the value rise and cashing out. I've seen a few positive developments every once in a while that fail to get much adoption. So I keep waiting and waiting. It increa…

Ethereum is probably more exciting from a tech perspective currently.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#206

Post by beaner » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 11:32 PM UTC

542458 wrote: post #153

sunshinerag wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your armchair analysis is on the mark. in a fiat dominated world, any market distortions caused by monetary mismanagement (money printing through QE, asset inflation) is not visible as everything in the market is priced in the same underlying asset (USD globally). Since bitcoin is outside this system it is actually holding up a mirror to the increasing worthlessness of the USD and other mismanaged fiat currencies.

Economists weren’t born yesterday. Inflation is measured in many ways, most often by looking at a basket of goods where the prices are relatively non-volatile. Using the USD/Bitcoin ratio as a yardstick for inflation seems very misguided, as Bitcoin is heavily speculated.

Inflation doesn't need to be measured in many ways, you can view it directly on the m2 money supply chart: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2

Everything else is just a derivative of this. You're measuring the side effects of inflation. If you want the deeper cause, it's here.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#207

Post by louwrentius » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 11:32 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #59

louwrentius wrote: post #47

This is written from the perspective of a person who believes in blockchain-based currencies but thinks Bitcoin as an implementation of said currency is a failure. He thinks the concept of mining is a fundamental flaw. But he keeps the door open for different implementations. Personally, I think the whole concept of blockchain-based currencies is flawed. But let’s not go there right now. The value of Bitcoin is very…

Why would you put your money in gold rather than bitcoin? Also why is the concept of blockchain as currency is flawed? What construction would you use instead for a currency that is trusted throughout the world?

I think the problems we face are not solved by technology but through policy.

It may never be solved, but I believe no crypto currency will ever solve an inate human trust problem.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#208

Post by XargonEnder » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 11:33 PM UTC

37ef_ced3 wrote: post #50

tryptophan wrote: post #18

> The pseudonymity of coins being owned by the bearer of some > cryptographic key is a failure; People have been eavesdropping and > aggressively analyzing the block chain from day 1. And the block chain > will always be there, it will always be public, and it will always be > subject to further analysis. And we are learning that analysis of that > record is sufficient to destroy any pretense of anonymity or > pseudo…

I wonder how many Bitcoin users have read and understand the following extensive list of privacy "pitfalls" (mistakes that can reveal information about unwary Bitcoin users): https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Privacy Are you careful to avoid these numerous privacy pitfalls? If not, you're leaking information about yourself, into the public ledger (blockchain)

Wow that's a ludacris list of pitfalls. I've overwhelmed just looking at the list of sections in that document.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#209

Post by keithwhor » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 11:33 PM UTC

yourapostasy wrote: post #162

keithwhor wrote: post #24

Related: the current rise of Bitcoin prices has been peculiar to me, and seems to be a bit of a canary in an inflationary coal mine. We've injected trillions of dollars of fiat into the economy this year. It feels like the sky-high valuations of technology companies and Bitcoin are "shock absorbers" of sorts, or early signals of inflation-yet-to-come. If we assume the market is efficiently pricing these assets (like…

> After all, you can only charge what consumers can afford to pay. In the US, it is more like "you can only charge what consumers can go into debt for". The self-correcting force of consumer inflation on price discovery has been time-delayed buffered and confusing price signals for a long time for select industries by acommodative consumer debt issuance. Without that effect upon price discovery, I suspect the number…

Thanks. This is super interesting. Can I rephrase to make sure I understand?

What you're saying is that; due to debt issuance in the US, it's hard for commodities and consumer goods to be priced efficiently. I interpret "confusing price signals" to mean that e.g. Apple can charge $1k for an iPhone and sell out to families who wouldn't typically be able to afford it, but the price of bread remains the same. Your medical bill comment -- you're basically saying that when one of these families hits a statistically predictable snag, they're instantly bankrupt because they've always been functionally broke, propped up by the consumer debt industry?

And so you're saying that most commodity goods face deflationary pressure as a means to stabilize the market? So if the price of commodity goods does increase significantly beyond the capacity of debt issuance, we're likely to see a depression?

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#210

Post by xapata » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 11:33 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #39

Barrin92 wrote: post #3

>The scarcity of block chain space has led people to re-invent every last feature of the banks they thought they were going to be escaping. This is a pretty funny point because every time I go on twitter and see people talk about crypto, what they're essentially having is a discussion about public policy, and often they seem to try to reinvent institutions that already exist without even knowing it. From market-maker…

I don't see the irony. The point is that Bitcoin has introduced an actual "digital cash" currency without institutional/governmental middlemen. That institutions can be built on top of that, and that some people want such institutions, doesn't change the novel utility of finally having a currency that functions like digital cash. It's like saying it's ironic that people use physical USD for anonymous p2p transactions…

Since Bitcoin transactions are enabled only by spending electricity, isn't the whole system dependent on utility companies, which are either in part or in whole extensions of the government?