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The first Bitcoin post on HN

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#241

Post by saalweachter »

vkou wrote: post #228
jaxn wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where the bitcoin boosters start to seem a little looney to me. 99% of my experience with currency has been with USD, which have been relatively stable from month to month. It is a difficult situation because it appears that when people take the time to learn about it, they become big fans of bitcoin but also start worrying about the total collapse of the fed and the USD. I am trying to understand the argumen…

I can say, with 100% that the USD, and the fed will collapse. Nothing lasts forever - and if anyone argues otherwise, I've got some Roman Denarius to sell them (At twice the price of their gold content). Whether or not this happens in my lifetime, and whether BTC is worth speculating on is another question altogether.

I will happily buy all of them at those terms.

(Denarii was a silver currency.)

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#242

Post by Nursie »

Houshalter wrote: post #240
Nursie wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you view a change in currency as fundamentally pretty useless, then yes, giving massive amounts of financial control of resources and labour(which is what money represents) to people with BTC hoarded does indeed take away from others. And if BTC were to become (for instance) a primary currency for a country, and that country were to experience economic growth, then deflation must necessarily continue.

>If you view a change in currency as fundamentally pretty useless, then yes, giving massive amounts of financial control of resources and labour(which is what money represents) to people with BTC hoarded does indeed take away from others. People are voluntarily paying them for their coins because they, for whatever reason, value them. You can say that's silly but it's not like you are being forced to buy bitcoins or…

>> People are voluntarily paying them for their coins because they, for whatever reason, value them. You can say that's silly but it's not like you are being forced to buy bitcoins or anything.

I'm saying it would be a bad idea to adopt as a de-facto currency, that's all.

>> Isn't the same true for any other finite resource? Everything will deflate/increase in value relative to rest of the economy.

Currency isn't and shouldn't be a resource, it's a medium of exchange. If BTC is a resource then cool, but lets stop pushing it as a currency.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#243

Post by kingkawn »

kamjam wrote: post #234
kingkawn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

skepticism and critical inquiry is different than dismissal

And dismissal is different from hating, at least from my understanding of the word used in this context.

I am struggling to come up with a different definition for hating than just dismissal. What do you call it when you don't try to think about how something could change to work or be better, and instead just say thats dumb. Sounds like hating to me. How else can it be defined?

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#244

Post by saalweachter »

JackFr wrote: post #193
Groxx wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, though it won't fall in an instant, so there's some warning. And other governments seem likely to hold at least some power over any brand-new government, so it's still unlikely/impossible that they'll get nothing back from the debts.

There are also examples of post-fiat currencies. Immediately following the toppling of Saddam Hussein there was still economic activity denominated in the old Iraqi currency, most probably on the assumption that it would be convertible at some rate with whatever came next.

There's also a certain amount of inertia. If I stop taking your old Iraqi currency, you'll stop taking my old Iraqi currency, so it's worth a lot to me to maintain the fiction, to believe really hard that the old fiat currency is still meaningful.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#245

Post by grecy »

INTPenis wrote: post #156
jeffasinger wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was posted in May 2009. On October 5th, 2009, $1 = 1,309.03 BTC [1], so you'd have bought about 1.3 million bitcoin. Which means you'd have over $500M dollars in Bitcoin. I bet that spending $1000 back then would have considerably changed the exchange rate though, and selling $500M now would definitely aversely affect the economy. 1: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/History

The problem today would be finding a buyer for those bitcoins.

eh, sell them for a bargain price of 50% of the going rate and you'd still be insanely rich.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#246

Post by sliverstorm »

jzwinck wrote: post #235
sliverstorm wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely! A first step could be updating prices periodically, perhaps on an hourly or daily basis, rather than every second.

Just like Zimbabwe in the good old days of 2008, "updating" prices constantly would have deleterious effects on purchasing by normal people. When prices in some system have to be updated constantly to reflect another metric (say, USD), it may be more efficient to just use that other metric in the price. This is what happened in Zimbabwe.

Updating them constantly will be bad, yes. But prices don't need to remain perfectly fixed. Prices on Amazon, for example, fluctuate all the time. Most products stay at the same price, but plenty fluctuate a couple percent on a daily basis.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#247

Post by Houshalter »

Nursie wrote: post #242
Houshalter wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you view a change in currency as fundamentally pretty useless, then yes, giving massive amounts of financial control of resources and labour(which is what money represents) to people with BTC hoarded does indeed take away from others. People are voluntarily paying them for their coins because they, for whatever reason, value them. You can say that's silly but it's not like you are being forced to buy bitcoins or…

>> People are voluntarily paying them for their coins because they, for whatever reason, value them. You can say that's silly but it's not like you are being forced to buy bitcoins or anything. I'm saying it would be a bad idea to adopt as a de-facto currency, that's all. >> Isn't the same true for any other finite resource? Everything will deflate/increase in value relative to rest of the economy. Currency isn't and…

>Currency isn't and shouldn't be a resource, it's a medium of exchange.

Well why not? A medium of exchange is a resource. There are exchanges and markets for currencies, people speculate on them, etc. They are definitely a resource.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#249

Post by BlackDeath3 »

infra178 wrote: post #108

> jdoliner 1655 days ago | link >Well this is an exceptionally cute idea, but there is absolutely no way that anyone is going to have any faith in this currency. > joedoliner.com jdoliner@gmail.com https://twitter.com/jdoliner

Good idea. We really need to make sure that everybody is forever held accountable for everything that they ever say online. I like where that's going.

Re: The first Bitcoin post on HN

#250

Post by ericb »

steveklabnik wrote: post #233
ericb wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could argue that deflation is the cure to consumerism, and the start of environmentalism. HDTV's have had strong deflation for years, but I still have one.

You don't buy things in HDTVs so that doesn't really matter.

In the frame of a single transaction, and the point I'm making, it doesn't matter which side of the purchase equation causes the deflationary more-for-your money effect.

The point is that the more-for-your-money effect does not stop even discretionary purchases like TV's from happening.

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