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Bitcoin is fiat money, too

economist.com

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Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#291

Post by johnbellone »

noddy1 wrote: post #173
noitsnot wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty well hedged? Is that supposed to be easy for the average person? This just one of the many reasons Bitcoin isn't taken seriously for widespread adoption.

I think in the future instead of having a accountant/lawyer assisting with private/offshore banking, you will have a crypto security consultant showing you the best way to secure your own funds.

I think you're drinking a little too much from the kool-aid faucet. You're still going to need an accountant and lawyer, because you do live in the real, physical world.

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#292

Post by danmaz74 »

sonink wrote: post #190

Fundamentally, Bitcoin is software eating the Fed-Bank-Retail ecosystem. The Fed governance is replaced by code. The banking utility is replaced by miners. I think the march of bitcoin is actually a better example of how AI is taking over the world. People in AI are fascinated by AGI - but the bitcoin ecosystem is actually a real world example of how AI will take over the world. Specifically, the march of AI won't ha…

AI? Bitcoin has nothing even remotely to do with AI - on the contrary, most support for Bitcoin is based on the idea that a totally pre-determined algorithmic management of currencies would be beneficial to the economy. So, what AI are you talking about?

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#293

Post by beefield »

sonink wrote: post #190

Fundamentally, Bitcoin is software eating the Fed-Bank-Retail ecosystem. The Fed governance is replaced by code. The banking utility is replaced by miners. I think the march of bitcoin is actually a better example of how AI is taking over the world. People in AI are fascinated by AGI - but the bitcoin ecosystem is actually a real world example of how AI will take over the world. Specifically, the march of AI won't ha…

> People underestimate the amount of resources required to articulate monetary policy by a central bank. Bitcoin can already do that much better than maybe 70% of the worlds central banks. India, China and US can think about banning/regulating bitcoin. But there are countries in Africa who can already do better by simply leapfrogging to bitcoin and ditching their national currencies.

Could you elaborate how you think bitcoin monetary policy is better than 70% of world's central banks? To me, one of the most important tasks of monetary policy is to have a stable value of a currency (not against other currencies but against stuff people actually buy). And with that measure, I have difficulties identifying one single central banks that is worse than bitcoin within the last few years. (Maybe Zimbabwe or Venezuela?) But 70%? No way.

(Note that bitcoin also fundamentally lacks a mechanism for price stability, not that anyone actually owning bitcoin would that want.)

And Africa ditching national currencies for bitcoin? How do you propose that an illiterate farmer in rural nambia is going to use bitcoin? Even if you figure that out, do you think that the african governments - crappy as they may be - are that stupid that they don't figure out that instead of paying the seignorage to bunch of bitcoin nerds who currently own the currency, they can make their own fork and pocket the seignorage themselves?

Bitcoin has no future as an usable, official currency anywhere. That should be obvious.

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#294

Post by mrb »

rblatz wrote: post #195
mrb wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin does not need to, will probably not, and was never intended to completely replace fiat currency. As a cryptocurrency aficionado I think it can achieve great success and high adoption while coexisting with fiat currency. I don't need to pay my cup of coffee in bitcoins, but Bitcoin is very useful for plenty of other use cases.

Like buying drugs, money laundering, and hoarding. So far only one of those is legal.

Bitcoin has a lot of legit use cases: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15228983

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#295

Post by narrator »

ben_w wrote: post #199
narrator wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would someone destroy all the value of their money and all the money power to mine just to troll? Sure a government might do that, but they could point a gun to every full node owners head and tell them to stop it just like China did. It would also be much cheaper.

Step 1: purchase, borrow, or steal enough hash power to reach 51% for a short while Step 2: use this power to force enough transactions to make yourself rich enough to keep 51% power indefinitely Step 3: profit

51% hash power lets you doublespend coins. It does not let you steal from wallets or change the block reward rules.

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#296

Post by brndnmtthws »

sumedh wrote: post #94
brndnmtthws wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same can be said of every technology. Besides, what's interesting is that it has survived major bugs, again and again. Doesn't that say something? Seems quite resilient to me.

> Same can be said of every technology. Can that technology double number of dollars in the world right now?

No, but the Federal Reserve can.

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#297

Post by ric2b »

jdietrich wrote: post #175
AgentME wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 51% attack means a lot of bad things can happen to bitcoin. Its value would probably crash if an individual got 51% of the power just because it is no longer truly decentralized, even if they don't abuse that power. Bitcoin was made with the idea that a 51% attack would be unlikely and unfeasible; as long as that holds, I'm not sure what value your comparison has. You might as well make a comparison to any other po…

The top four pools have ~55% of the total hashing power. They could orchestrate a 51% attack with a conference call. As we've seen with the BTH/SegWit2X fiasco, Bitcoin is anything but democratic or decentralised. A cartel is every bit as dangerous as a monopoly.

And what exactly do you think a 51% attack can do? I'll tell you what: censor transactions and make double-spends.

Not exactly end of Bitcoin danger, is it?

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#298

Post by ric2b »

moxious wrote: post #61
dnautics wrote: post #18

Interestingly the economist misses the traditional definition of Fiat: a currency whose value is determined by the Fiat of a state. Whether or not Bitcoin exhibits similar trends as currency that isn't backed by the state is immaterial to the ethical appeal (to some) of a medium of exchange where participation is voluntary and consensual.

Will it still be voluntary and consensual if the day comes where stores post signs: "Payment accepted in bitcoin only"?

If the stores are not forced to use Bitcoin and are still allowed to accept other forms of payment but simply choose not to, then yeah, it's voluntary.

Go find someone who's willing to take whatever you're trying to use instead, why should other people have to take your form of payment against their will?

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#299

Post by ojr »

vkou wrote: post #74
ojr wrote: post #24

Fiat money with better programming apis and permissions

Worse apis and permissions, because there is no way to recover from bugs in your code. Unless you hard-fork.

you need permission which could take weeks, to take donations through kickstarter or send micropayments to 1000 people through paypal, losing bitcoin or ethereum is a possibility but security strategies are improving, there will be growing pains in a new financial software platform but you already know that?

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#300

Post by kazagistar »

narrator wrote: post #295
ben_w wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: purchase, borrow, or steal enough hash power to reach 51% for a short while Step 2: use this power to force enough transactions to make yourself rich enough to keep 51% power indefinitely Step 3: profit

51% hash power lets you doublespend coins. It does not let you steal from wallets or change the block reward rules.

So you become like a government, able to print more currency at will?
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