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Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

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Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#31

Post by bbrx »

michaelchisari wrote: post #28
bbrx wrote: post #17

Pardon my very limited knowledge about those things, but one thing I wonder and find fascinating about bitcoin is this : I understand that a very limited number of people, probably the initial developers, hold a very hight percentage of available bitcoin. (disregard the rest in case i'm even completely mistaken in that assumption...) Those people have an asset with an incredibly high face value. Of course, the market…

On the flip side of that, how do you build an economy around a currency that front loads such massive wealth inequality out of the gate?

The moral angle is indeed the mindblowing part, but I wanted to sollicit the acute minds of hackernews to shine a light on the practical aspect of it.

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#32

Post by moneytide1 »

Bitcoin will be more relevant soon because there is exponentially more gold/silver/platinum/uranium in the solar system than on Sol-3.

It would be silly to ship in paper every 2 years so people could trade "cash" while working at the methane harvesters and excavators.

Just keep that price constant and we can finally move forward.

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#33

Post by 0wing »

bbrx wrote: post #17

Pardon my very limited knowledge about those things, but one thing I wonder and find fascinating about bitcoin is this : I understand that a very limited number of people, probably the initial developers, hold a very hight percentage of available bitcoin. (disregard the rest in case i'm even completely mistaken in that assumption...) Those people have an asset with an incredibly high face value. Of course, the market…

Because there's no inherent value and it's just traders making up theories, I would conclude there's this set of game theory:

  1. Buy bitcoins or release media PR to pump price
  2. Buy future shorts
  3. Sell a large enough order to trigger margin calls and stop losses
  4. Profit twice from your BTC sale, and short sale
  5. If you believe the price will return, buy back in cheaper
     than you sold due to other panic sellers

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#34

Post by ardit33 »

nadam wrote: post #27

These "bitcoin = tulip maina = .com bubble" articles get a bit boring after a while especially if one is relatively deeply involved with the space. This has been discussed at very great depths thousands of times already. What shows how superficial these articles are is that almost all of these articles (and most of the mainstream media articles) single out BTC, (which is less than 50% of total crypto market capitaliz…

Nobody is using bitcoin for any daily transactions.... at this point is just bits... so, it fails as a cash.

The the second argument is made, it is a "storage" medium, like gold/silver, etc...

At least you could argue that gold/platinium/silver have some intrinsic industrial value, but bitcoin?

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#35

Post by pbhjpbhj »

moneytide1 wrote: post #32

Bitcoin will be more relevant soon because there is exponentially more gold/silver/platinum/uranium in the solar system than on Sol-3. It would be silly to ship in paper every 2 years so people could trade "cash" while working at the methane harvesters and excavators. Just keep that price constant and we can finally move forward.

I haven't carried paper currency as a matter of course for something like 12 years. Most transaction since the Summer in our small UK business have been "contactless" (debit/credit card), though we still took 2 cheques IIRC.

Bitcoin isn't the only alternative to cash.

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#36

Post by pimmen »

My main problem with Bitcoin is that it’s a deflationary currency, that’s really why I hope it doesn’t have a future.

I have paid this months bills and rent, I have budgeted some money for groceries and fun, I have put 10% of my pay check in my pension fund.

Something is very wrong if you feel conflicted when you’ve invested money or spent money to get by because you missed out on your money being worth more.

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#37

Post by EastLondonCoder »

I think Satoshi marketed bitcoin as a currency, but the intention was something that more resembles gold than currency.

Bitcoin as a currency does not make sense from a macroeconomic point of view. Whats the incentive of spending something of a fixed resource?

Maybe I'm old fashioned but I prefer monetary policy to be decided by a small cabal of professionals.

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#38

Post by CryoLogic »

Bought at $230, sold at $19450.

That's enough roller coaster for me. I'm out for good.

Here are my issues with Bitcoin:

1. Transaction times are insane, 30-45 minutes at peak hours. Bitcoin blockchain can only handle ~10TPS. 2. Fees, upwards of $30 / transaction a few weeks ago. This makes it not practical for any real purchasing or as a currency.

Both of those issues are solved by IOTA and the tangle, so that's where my money is going. I want to invest in a currency that has real world usability. Bitcoin doesn't have that at current scale.

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#39

Post by nadam »

ardit33 wrote: post #34
nadam wrote: post #27

These "bitcoin = tulip maina = .com bubble" articles get a bit boring after a while especially if one is relatively deeply involved with the space. This has been discussed at very great depths thousands of times already. What shows how superficial these articles are is that almost all of these articles (and most of the mainstream media articles) single out BTC, (which is less than 50% of total crypto market capitaliz…

Nobody is using bitcoin for any daily transactions.... at this point is just bits... so, it fails as a cash. The the second argument is made, it is a "storage" medium, like gold/silver, etc... At least you could argue that gold/platinium/silver have some intrinsic industrial value, but bitcoin?

The vision of the BTC community is that on-chain scalability for payment has no chance anyway (1MByte is capable of 5 orders of magniutde less tx/sec than VISA), so using second layer methods (like lighting network) to do payment is absolutely inevitable anyway. So they keep blocksize small enough that a regular guy with a regular PC can realistically sync-up the network and become a full node, because they think this is needed to be truly decentralized and secure. This possible lighting network future, and also that BTC is the most battle tested, and most forked coin, and has by far the biggest network effect are all included in its price.

My portfolio contains other coins from the top ten so I hedge it with other solutions for scaling, but BTC's share in my portfolio is close to its share in the crypto market cap (a bit less, admittedly).

Re: Bitcoin, I've Been Here Before

#40

Post by saalweachter »

olalonde wrote: post #20

If this article interested you, you might like https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/ . And here's more or less the same article from 2013 when price was $84: https://whistlinginthewind.org/2013/04/12/the-bitcoin-bubble... "So what now for bitcoin? It will crash and disappear like Pets.com, Leheman Brothers and Anglo Irish Bank, existing only in the memories of economists." "There have been some slight recoveries…

I will say, as a Bitcoin "hater", Bitcoin is far more resilient than many things it might be compared to.

With Pets.com or Leheman Brothers, there was a corporate structure that could stop existing. It could go bankrupt, the C-executives could be arrested, something could happen beyond which it'd be fair to say it was over.

With Bitcoin, you could have all of the exchanges go defunct, you could have 99% of the miners close up shop, and as long as a few people kept the blockchain going, a few years later it could be back, the same as before.

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