Don't forget India!
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/15/india-rupee-restriction-boost...
Bitcoin Is an Escapist Safe Haven
31–40 of 130 posts
Re: Bitcoin Is an Escapist Safe Haven
#32Bitcoin fails to satisfactorily answer von Mises' regression theorem. It also has no scarcity since it can face competition by an infinite number of similar conceivable algorithms / block-chains / virtual currencies that offer much the same features, regardless of how hard its own mining gets. Not to mention that once it is perceived as more than just a nuisance by some major government it will be shut down in a hear…
> once it is perceived as more than just a nuisance by some major government it will be shut down in a heartbeat Actually, the unique feature that makes Bitcoin special is specifically its censorship-resistance. That's why people value it -- because it cannot be shut down.
It is resistant to confiscation, but the IRS can still make you a fugitive in most of the developed world.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Escapist Safe Haven
#33> Its decentralized nature means it's not part of any system
That... isn't true. The bitcoin blockchain is distributed, but the last two years have functionally proven that bitcoin core IS bitcoin, and that implementation (most of whoms developers are employed by Blockstream) is centralized control by a corporate entity.
They can change what they want about bitcoin, and even after they force controversial tech already in tree like RBF or proposals like Segwit there has never been even close - by an order of magnitude - close to enough consensus to transition away from bitcoin core by replacing it as the majority client, and thus the implementation that controls the blockchain - the implementation that controls the protocol.
That is where I lost faith in the bitcoin dream. It started out as a project of idealists but has turned in large part into a for profit venture to create a large exploitable fee machine for black market trading sites.
Its replacement will require the diligence of its idealists to stay in charge and to not give the keys over to those whose objectives just involve profit.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Escapist Safe Haven
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> once it is perceived as more than just a nuisance by some major government it will be shut down in a heartbeat Actually, the unique feature that makes Bitcoin special is specifically its censorship-resistance. That's why people value it -- because it cannot be shut down.
It is resistant to confiscation, but the IRS can still make you a fugitive in most of the developed world.
Not if they don't know that you own an account.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Escapist Safe Haven
#35> Its decentralized nature means it's not part of any system That... isn't true. The bitcoin blockchain is distributed, but the last two years have functionally proven that bitcoin core IS bitcoin, and that implementation (most of whoms developers are employed by Blockstream) is centralized control by a corporate entity. They can change what they want about bitcoin, and even after they force controversial tech alread…
The reason no one has countermanded the changes implemented in Bitcoin Core is that none of the changes have been unreasonable.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Escapist Safe Haven
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm referring to the famed blocksize debate [1] that's happened with Bitcoin, in which several miners have gained control of the blockchain through economies of scale and are preventing forks for block size increase [2]. This size increase would allow for more than 7 tx/s but it would also increase costs for miners, so the miners are ignoring it, effectively making it tragedy of the commons. Note: This isn't a blockc…
Look, I am a pro big blocker myself (I think that the network would be perfectly fine with a 4-8x capacity increase). But Peter Todd has a point. (I would hope so. He is literally one of the experts) Imagine if blocks were x Gigabytes. Thats X GigaBytes that have to be sent to every single miner in the world every 10 minutes! There is a fundamental N squared problem in blockchains that you can't get around without us…
Litecoin has the same blocksize as Bitcoin, but resolves blocks every 2.5 minutes instead of 10, giving it more 4x capacity. ZCash just forces block size increases as hard forks.
Like I said, different blockchains solves the blocksize differently, and Bitcoin has demonstrated that it's not capable of addressing it's blocksize issue and can't scale.
You can scoff and say, "That's a non-issue.", but even at the start of an NPR Planet Money podcast episode about Bitcoins, where they do a Bitcoin transfer, it hits the cap and gets lost.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Escapist Safe Haven
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look, I am a pro big blocker myself (I think that the network would be perfectly fine with a 4-8x capacity increase). But Peter Todd has a point. (I would hope so. He is literally one of the experts) Imagine if blocks were x Gigabytes. Thats X GigaBytes that have to be sent to every single miner in the world every 10 minutes! There is a fundamental N squared problem in blockchains that you can't get around without us…
Litecoin has the same blocksize as Bitcoin, but resolves blocks every 2.5 minutes instead of 10, giving it more 4x capacity. ZCash just forces block size increases as hard forks. Like I said, different blockchains solves the blocksize differently, and Bitcoin has demonstrated that it's not capable of addressing it's blocksize issue and can't scale. You can scoff and say, "That's a non-issue.", but even at the start o…
Litecoin's capacity is still nothing compared to VISA or Mastercard.
The question is not whether a crytocurrency can do 4X. The question is whether it can do 1,000X or more.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Escapist Safe Haven
#38Bitcoin fails to satisfactorily answer von Mises' regression theorem. It also has no scarcity since it can face competition by an infinite number of similar conceivable algorithms / block-chains / virtual currencies that offer much the same features, regardless of how hard its own mining gets. Not to mention that once it is perceived as more than just a nuisance by some major government it will be shut down in a hear…
Most of the "value" of gold is by arbitrary societal agreement--there is very low natural use-driven demand compared to the froth from people using it as a store of value. That agreement, in a game theory sense, comes from the original time when participants coalesced around gold because it had the properties that seemed most appealing (limited supply, difficult to fake, measurable, transportable) as a store of value…
Scarcity, fungibility, divisibility, durability are not societal constructs. Plus all metals have some inherent value. On top of that you have desirability which you could perhaps explain as a societal construct although I think there is something ingrained in the human psyche about valuing very smooth and shiny things (perhaps there is even an evolutionary explanation). At any rate a societal construct that has persisted for milenia across vast swathes of the globe is not your typical societal construct.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Escapist Safe Haven
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Litecoin has the same blocksize as Bitcoin, but resolves blocks every 2.5 minutes instead of 10, giving it more 4x capacity. ZCash just forces block size increases as hard forks. Like I said, different blockchains solves the blocksize differently, and Bitcoin has demonstrated that it's not capable of addressing it's blocksize issue and can't scale. You can scoff and say, "That's a non-issue.", but even at the start o…
Litecoin's capacity is still nothing compared to VISA or Mastercard. The question is not whether a crytocurrency can do 4X. The question is whether it can do 1,000X or more.
Right, but Litecoin hasn't repeatedly hit it's transaction cap yet. Litecoin is still unproven as to whether or not it will fail to scale, which Bitcoin has already proven to fail at.
You're splitting hairs and ignoring ZCash. The point is that other cryptocurrencies are better implementations of a blockchain than Bitcoin, even with regards to the block size.
Re: Bitcoin Is an Escapist Safe Haven
#40> Its decentralized nature means it's not part of any system That... isn't true. The bitcoin blockchain is distributed, but the last two years have functionally proven that bitcoin core IS bitcoin, and that implementation (most of whoms developers are employed by Blockstream) is centralized control by a corporate entity. They can change what they want about bitcoin, and even after they force controversial tech alread…
The reason no one has countermanded the changes implemented in Bitcoin Core is that none of the changes have been unreasonable.
The most recent so called "segwit" change set that core pushed out recently looks to have strong enough opposition to it that it will never activate and the Bitcoin Ultimate implementation has strong support among a vocal and growing group of users. I would be surprised if core holds the control it currently does in a year or two.