31–40 of 188 posts
I haven't been keeping up lately, but I would guess that whichever camp the Chinese miners were in is going to lose, since Chinese mining itself may be headed for rapid decline.
the dumb money isnt even all in yet, so how can it be coming to an end? stuff like pension funds, mutual funds, there isnt even a bitcoin etc yet. Until this happens it will rise even more.
What makes you think the end cannot come before pensions and mutual funds start investing? What if panic selling triggers a deep loss in value, which then triggers miners to shut down as the mining reward falls below the energy cost; if enough miners shut down, someone could pull off a double-spending attack, and when people see that it will further reduce their confidence in the system. The result could be that confidence in Bitcoin never recovers.
Or Bitcoin could just be a fad that slows unwinds and fades away, and twenty years from now we'll all be laughing about it over drinks. I can think of a few other technologies that were "definitely going to take over" and are barely remembered today...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but that sidesteps the question: why does that matter? The answer isn't inherently obvious. Bitcoin seems to be doing just fine without a leader and with competing factions. The November issue will probably resolve itself just like all the issues that came before. And there are a lot of advantages to Bitcoin's model. Having a face means tying the fate of the currency to that face, one way or another. Their word…
I agree with your general sentiment for sure, why should any of this matter? On a personal basis I feel much more secure knowing a respected member of the community has enough faith in their product to tie their identity to it. Litecoin also has features that bitcoin doesn't. Faster block generation time, different hashing algorithms, larger supply. Charlie gives me confidence that the leadership of Bitcoin has not.
Gavin Andresen was that force in Bitcoin for years, as lead developer and chief evangelist, but now he plays a minor role; recently with big $$ in play and the big community split, not to mention the insane personal attacks, it is much harder to maintain influence.
Opt-in replay protection was merged in a few days ago. https://github.com/btc1/bitcoin/commit/a3c41256984bf11d95a56... In any case, if you believe Bitcoin's main value proposition is as a great store of value, then replay protection simply doesn't matter that much. You wouldn't be transacting enough to matter.
You are right, I suppose because we don't trade gold much, it doesn't make sense to ensure that it's secure when we transfer it. We transfer it so infrequently, there's nothing to worry about... For the opt-in replay protection, that is a proposal which requires people to update their software to protect themselves. That's unacceptable, many people are unlikely to even know that a fork happened. Replay protection nee…
The only case where this is a problem are business to consumer transactions and p2p txs both of which you rarely do, if ever if you use BTC as a store of value.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are right, I suppose because we don't trade gold much, it doesn't make sense to ensure that it's secure when we transfer it. We transfer it so infrequently, there's nothing to worry about... For the opt-in replay protection, that is a proposal which requires people to update their software to protect themselves. That's unacceptable, many people are unlikely to even know that a fork happened. Replay protection nee…
If you're transacting with an exchange or a merchant and accidentally send both coins (as a result of a replay attack) instead of one, they're going to give it back. It's not nearly the disaster this article makes it out to be. The only case where this is a problem are business to consumer transactions and p2p txs both of which you rarely do, if ever if you use BTC as a store of value.
the dumb money isnt even all in yet, so how can it be coming to an end? stuff like pension funds, mutual funds, there isnt even a bitcoin etc yet. Until this happens it will rise even more.
Pension funds will not even consider Bitcoin until it becomes much more stable. Pensions are an obligation and therefore demand much lower risk -- if a 5% change in value in a single day is not considered newsworthy there is no way pensions will make that investment. What makes you think the end cannot come before pensions and mutual funds start investing? What if panic selling triggers a deep loss in value, which th…
The interesting thing is that unlike in July where the price crashed, this time the price is completely stable despite the fact that it's a much bigger clusterfuck. It seems like perhaps the "you can't bet against the apocalypse" rule is being applied.
These companies have definitely lost users due to their support of 2x, and that hasn't gone unnoticed.
I disagree with this logic. Plenty of people said that SegWit was going to cause issues and it didn’t. If Bitcoin fails it will be from external market pressures, not internal politics.
SegWit2x is basically the mining faction stealing the network away from the Core development group, forcing everyone in Bitcoin to switch software if they still want their transactions confirmed.
Not that I really disagree with them - as _something_ needed to happen, as demand (whether real or manufactured) has led to 100% full blocks for months, resulting in long transaction delays and high fees, and the rise of competing currencies, fracturing the market.
We will see if one side backs down before the HF, but due to both incredibly entrenched positions I think we are going over the edge.
I think that 2X will destroy a lot of confidence in Bitcoin, as it proves that the network can be stolen away to change the rules, and would be managed by a much smaller dev group.
Though, the Bitcoin network can survive as a zombie forever with just a couple miners and zero devs. So it may not 'fail' in that sense, just become very stable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are right, I suppose because we don't trade gold much, it doesn't make sense to ensure that it's secure when we transfer it. We transfer it so infrequently, there's nothing to worry about... For the opt-in replay protection, that is a proposal which requires people to update their software to protect themselves. That's unacceptable, many people are unlikely to even know that a fork happened. Replay protection nee…
If you're transacting with an exchange or a merchant and accidentally send both coins (as a result of a replay attack) instead of one, they're going to give it back. It's not nearly the disaster this article makes it out to be. The only case where this is a problem are business to consumer transactions and p2p txs both of which you rarely do, if ever if you use BTC as a store of value.
Also, automated system may have no way of handling it if those automated systems are not upgraded. Which means a merchant could end up with thousands of payments that they have to manually fix. And, those merchants will be forced into adopting the new software to correct the issue, they will have no choice to o ignore it.
It FORCES every deployed system in the entire ecosystem to upgrade, even systems that don't consent to the change. That's absolutely unacceptable.