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Bitcoin Is Time

dergigi.com

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Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#271

Post by Retric »

cyphertruck wrote: post #264
Retric wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Bitcoin specifically. You can use a different token backed up by Bitcoin, but the actual implementation has these issues. Transaction rates - Artificially kept low to profit miners. Privacy - Every Bitcoin transactions is on a public blockchain. Transaction fees - Using Bitcoin for even one transaction a day gets expensive. Online only - Unlike cash only works with network access. Conformation Time - Failing to w…

First off, thank you for making fair criticisms. Unfortunately some of your information is old. You don’t need a bitcoin backed token, lightning does it. Transaction rates are not artificially kept low. In fact most the vast majority of the time bitcoin has excess capacity. Privacy- this is a legitimate concern but it is improving, slowly. Taoroot and Lightning are both privacy improvements. So your daily transaction…

> Transaction rates are not artificially kept low.

You can look it up, larger blocks where allowed in the past, 1MB is a completely arbitrary size that was overkill at the time but hasn’t increased. Even 1$ transactions are quite expensive though they are often much higher.

The lighting network has it’s own separate set of issues. It’s Bitcoin backed but loses some of Bitcoins advantages: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.08513.pdf

> Online Only- I don’t think there is a solution to this criticism, but not sure what the issue is.

It’s simply a dependency. Shops may have issues accepting CC payments after a hurricane for example, but they can always take cash.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#272

Post by diego »

jes5199 wrote: post #254
gnrlst wrote: post #210

I'm ready to be downvoted to oblivion, especially by all the Bitcoin purists, but I hope my message sparks at least some curiosity. Bitcoin is getting "weaker" every year for several reasons: - emerging centralization due to economies of scale. If this trend continues the mining power will be so consolidated that a 51% attack will be likely. The Nakamoto coefficient is already at 4, and tending towards 3. - energy us…

can you explain your point about renewable energy? I'm not sure I see how that follows

It doesn't follow. Bitcoin chases cheap energy, so wherever green is cheaper than carbon that's where Bitcoin will be mined. Eventually carbon will be more expensive everywhere.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#273

Post by [deleted] »

birdsbirdsbirds wrote: post #266
gnrlst wrote: post #210

I'm ready to be downvoted to oblivion, especially by all the Bitcoin purists, but I hope my message sparks at least some curiosity. Bitcoin is getting "weaker" every year for several reasons: - emerging centralization due to economies of scale. If this trend continues the mining power will be so consolidated that a 51% attack will be likely. The Nakamoto coefficient is already at 4, and tending towards 3. - energy us…

From the article: > they [the central banks] can expand the money supply to keep the system propped up. They have to expand money supply to keep the value of the currencies stable as long as most money is not spent. The economy depends not on the supply of money but on the stability of the money. By which force do central banks have to keep increasing the money supply once people start spending? There is no reason to…

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#274

Post by cyphertruck »

nickysielicki wrote: post #234
cyphertruck wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To answer that question you have to make assumptions about the cost of mining, the cost of attacks and the cost of hash power at a point 117 years from now. But we know in the future hash power (technology) will be cheaper and thus bitcoin security will be cheaper, while bitcoin will be more valuable (or non-existing — it has to be either or). Also remember if you have wealth in bitcoin you would likely mine at a los…

> To answer that question you gave to make assumptions about the cost if mining, the cost if attacks and the cost of hash power at a point 117 years from now. I'm not convinced that you actually do have to make too many assumptions. The claim I'm making here is that bitcoin has had a steady and predictable increase in mining demand as the currency has grown, but that iff bitcoin becomes solely a low-volume high-value…

Not sure how you measure an increase in mining demand, but given that we have had three halvenings now, doesn't that imply mining isn’t going away? They are getting less bitcoin, yet still mining. I don't think it will be a shock by then. Put another way, the shock in 2012, 2016 and 2020 have all made mining very profitable in the following years resulting in mining booms in 2013, 2017 & 2021 (so far.)

Transaction volumes over time have risen as well. If bitcoin has amy value to society in 113 years, people will pay to transact it. Whether that is one expensive transaction a month or a million every block I don’t know— but I think the latter is more likely.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#275

Post by greggturkington »

mdoms wrote: post #263
option_greek wrote: post #105

HN comments on articles like this remind me of a fun t-shirt quote: There are 10 kinds of people in the world. The ones who understand binary and the ones that do not. You can obviously replace binary with bitcoin :). The ones who do not get bitcoin, will continue to not get bitcoin.

Yes you can replace "binary" with "bitcoin", if you absolutely don't understand the joke, at all.

And hopefully we can keep the discussion a bit more insightful than "a fun t-shirt quote" prior to Eternal September

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#276

Post by dntrkv »

ben_w wrote: post #174
dntrkv wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One possible reason is that by the time they realize it's a threat, it will be too late.

Given what governments worldwide have done with currencies in the past, I think you’re underestimating their capacity and how much they care about the functioning of their currency. If you’ll excuse my admittedly also-naïve wargaming of their responses: “Dear ISPs, this is the government. That stuff you do to block piracy and illegal porn? Do that for bitcoin.” “Dear Banks, this is the government. Purchase of bitcoin…

As I mentioned in my reply above, I think the way it can work is if it grows exponentially, and the US government doesn't respond in time at which point not using crypto will put the US at a disadvantage. Crypto has the unique ability to spread across borders with ease, no other currency has had this ability. So I think it's a pretty unique scenario in that case.

Another scenario is if it grows slowly amongst the countries that have unstable currencies. Slowly it takes over the USD as the world currency. At a certain point, the US would have to allow it to participate in that economy.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#277

Post by ballofrubber »

boringg wrote: post #233
ballofrubber wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These low hanging counters have been discussed over a lot. Transaction cost is pretty low in multiple views: - You can globally settle billions of dollars worth of bitcoin for less than 10$ [0] - FIAT Settlements between banks is a complicated and non-auditable process, which is internationally speaking also very slow - You can build layers on top of bitcoin, i.e. the Lightning Network or liquid, which reduces transa…

Im answering his question why bitcoin is not the best use of money: (1) Most people don't settle on large volumes (thats typically banks/states/institutionals) so small volumes have a high cost percentage making it not a good daily driver. The fact that there is any transaction cost makes it challenging to work with as a daily money vehicle for consumers. (2) It requires energy to exist and keep a ledger, it also req…

(1) I think people assume that just because bitcoin exists banks will vanish. Bitcoin is the protocol that banks can use, but individuals as well. Also, micropayments on Bitcoin exist today. I encourage you to download a lightning network wallet (e.g. Breez Wallet: non-custodial and open source) and send me a "lightning-invoice" I can pay you in the sub-cent range.

(2) It requires real world resources to be spend and uses the most globally available resource, energy. I see it as a feature not a bug.

Renewable energy is the cheapest though[0] and thus the one that competitive miners need to use. Non-competitive miners get driven out very fast thanks to the difficulty adjustment.

Any percentage of optimization you can get in your energy production you can use to outperform other miners, thus get more of the block subsidy and drive out inefficient miners.

Bitcoin mining de-risks investments in energy producing facilities. You always have a buyer for your energy, which is a problem especially in renewables. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13640...

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#278

Post by cyphertruck »

shawnz wrote: post #221
cyphertruck wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To answer that question you have to make assumptions about the cost of mining, the cost of attacks and the cost of hash power at a point 117 years from now. But we know in the future hash power (technology) will be cheaper and thus bitcoin security will be cheaper, while bitcoin will be more valuable (or non-existing — it has to be either or). Also remember if you have wealth in bitcoin you would likely mine at a los…

> Also remember if you have wealth in bitcoin you would mine at a loss merely to secure your own bitcoin. You could also send null transactions which do nothing but pay a transaction fee

Null transactions require mining. The question is if nobody wants to mine who will mine? Old mining chips are already so cheap they cost less than a cheap bitcoin transaction. It would not cost much to mine just to preserve the value of your holdings.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#279

Post by tomp »

cyphertruck wrote: post #185
nickysielicki wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bitcoin is digital gold for settlements among digital currencies. What are the implications of this on the network stability wrt mining? Doesn't bitcoin need transaction volume to remain a stable network? My read is that the incentive structure changes. Right now, miners are motivated by block rewards. In the future, they'll be motivated by transaction fees. If transactions are rare, mining profitably is going to b…

To answer that question you have to make assumptions about the cost of mining, the cost of attacks and the cost of hash power at a point 117 years from now. But we know in the future hash power (technology) will be cheaper and thus bitcoin security will be cheaper, while bitcoin will be more valuable (or non-existing — it has to be either or). Also remember if you have wealth in bitcoin you would likely mine at a los…

> But we know in the future hash power (technology) will be cheaper and thus bitcoin security will be cheaper,

This is not in line with my understanding if BTC. The difficulty adjusts automatically, so the real cost isn’t hashing, but energy. And there is no inherent reason why any less energy would be spent/wasted on mining/securing BTC (assuming it will be worth more than today).

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#280

Post by inter_netuser »

UncleMeat wrote: post #198
inter_netuser wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Bitcoin becomes the reserve currency, the theory goes that the US would not need to involve itself in as many petrodollar wars as it does today, thus resulting in a smaller military. I don't think anyone seriously thinks Bitcoin will replace militaries completely.

Wouldn't the US become more desperate to hold onto its influence in oil producing regions and do so with violence? don't see why "wow, everybody is starting to use BTC rather than USD for oil transactions" would lead to "guess we don't need this aircraft carrier" instead of "time for some coups to install governments who will do what we want and not switch to BTC".

I don't advocate that theory. Previous transitions in reserve currency status led to literally worldwide military conflicts.

May Satoshi save us all.

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