Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#201

Post by gyom » Sat, Mar 30, 2013, 4:12 PM UTC

niggler wrote: post #41

cs702 wrote: post #35

As usual on HN, any submission about Bitcoin is met with concerned comments about its high volatility, present impracticality as a currency, disadvantages versus precious metals, current concentration of transactions in a single exchange (MtGox), potential for market manipulation by governments and/or speculators, etc. This is analogous to being present at the creation of the World Wide Web, but instead of getting ex…

I came across this last night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fvSYT7vhQY ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5459304 ) The phrase that really resonated with me was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fvSYT7vhQY#t=404s : "When a few get something for nothing, at some point in a zero-sum game most will get nothing for something". That point may not happen anytime soon, but I think that's a very legitimate concern.

Calling it a zero-sum game makes it sound like some people are exploiting others. You can make the same argument with gold by saying that, if everybody stopped caring about gold on the same day, then everybody owning gold would be big losers in the zero-sum game of gold.

Moreover, the argument that the cited video makes about criminals using the currency (i.e. "honor among thieves" doesn't exist) is fundamentally at odds with the concept of the infinitely iterated prisoner's dilemma. That's why the whole concept of "reputation" envolved (in Nature and online). Someone with 98.7% positive feedback might screw you to save $50, but doing so would not be beneficial in the long run.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#202

Post by drusenko » Sat, Mar 30, 2013, 8:48 PM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #156

drusenko wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how the credit card system works. The merchant first makes an "Authorization" which is a promise by the credit card company to pay the merchant that amount of money within the next 90 days. When they make that promise, they check the customer's account to verify that there are enough funds and then deduct that amount from the available funds. Assuming everything else goes as expected, the merchant then iss…

So, basically what you're saying is: Bitcoin: * funds transfer: instant * fraud vulnerability window: 1 hour * fraud exposure: reversal of transaction Credit card: * funds transfer: 24 hours * fraud vulnerability window: 60 days * fraud exposure: reversal of transaction + $25

I think you're seriously missing the point. This whole discussion has been about the fact that bitcoin funds transfer isn't instant, it takes 10 minutes. With credit cards, regardless of when the funds transfer happens, you're given a guarantee instantly. That's what really matters so you can deliver goods.

And while a shorter "fraud vulnerability" window is good for the merchant, it's terrible for the consumer. People have come to expect that they can get their money back if they get scammed or get their CC details stolen, it's a huge part of what's attractive about credit cards vs. cash.

Would you carry $50,000 in cash on your person? No. But you wouldn't mind carrying a credit card with a $50k balance on you, because you know you're protected.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#203

Post by nwh » Sun, Mar 31, 2013, 12:06 AM UTC

tocomment wrote: post #199

nwh wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote a bot for HN a few months ago, but canned the idea fairly early on. If people were willing to put up with a slightly spammy bot, it wouldn't take much to modify my backend to do something similar. I'm genuinely not sure how it would be received in this community. It would certainly be something to put past the moderators first.

I think it's worth a try. It wouldn't hurt to ask to rin it on a trial basis right?

The main issue is that without private messaging, there needs to be an external interface. It suddenly makes the whole thing a lot less pretty.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#204

Post by aminok » Sun, Mar 31, 2013, 9:30 AM UTC

waffle_ss wrote: post #47

cs702 wrote: post #35

As usual on HN, any submission about Bitcoin is met with concerned comments about its high volatility, present impracticality as a currency, disadvantages versus precious metals, current concentration of transactions in a single exchange (MtGox), potential for market manipulation by governments and/or speculators, etc. This is analogous to being present at the creation of the World Wide Web, but instead of getting ex…

There are some real concerns with Bitcoin. For example, I was going to write an app that accepts Bitcoins as payment. However, the problem is that the amount of time it takes for a transaction to become "verified," i.e. be part of the official block chain, can take up to 10 minutes. What am I supposed to present to the user during this time? Am I supposed to tell them that their payment may or may not have been accep…

Bitcoin transactions are instant. Satoshidice, a major bitcoin business, accepts zero-confirmation transactions.

Re: Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion

#205

Post by eah13 » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 7:36 PM UTC

The market cap isn't the stat to watch on BTC- the daily volume is. With volume at something in the low millions of dollars it'd be very easy for the currency to be manipulated by dollar-based traders. There's not much evidence that there are large deep pocketed investors who will toe som imaginary line in the wake of a retail investor sell-off. Until volumes pick up the daily price ont he various exchanges represents the valuations of a distressingly low number of traders.

That said, I think bitcoin is super exciting and want to see it succeed. But it needs to be much more heavily traded, regardless of its dollar exchange rate, for that to happen.