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Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

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Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#361

Post by hakfoo »

conanbatt wrote: post #259
cirgue wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being deflationary predictably is better than unpredictably inflationary. Unpredictable deflation is what bitcoin does, and with a fixed policy it can never do anything else. The amount of wealth generated by an economy grows in an unpredictable manner, and fixed monetary policy translates that fluctuation directly into the value of the currency. We learned this with metal currency. It didn’t go well.

Did we? The history of monetary policy crisis were not related to the metal as much as to the instability of banking. Bitcoin cant go broke like a bank can.

You can still have crises that aren't banking-related. When the New World was conquered, the mountains of silver and gold flowing back to Spain in particular caused inflation, no bankers involved.

I'm not sure if there's a direct equivalent for Bitcoin. My first thought is that there are probably a few large stashes of coins that the market assumes are "out of circulation" and priced accordingly.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#362

Post by hakfoo »

coryfklein wrote: post #329
dragontamer wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American Eagle Gold coins are US-Government issued, serial-number stamped official Gold coins of the US Government. Created by the US Mint, you have strong assurances that you are recieving in fact, 91.67% gold / 22 karat (an alloy, because pure gold is too soft for the typical consumer). If you do want 99.99% Gold / 24 karat, the US Mint also makes the Buffalo coin. But that's usually harder to store. American Eagle…

1 oz gold spot is $1210 per ounce [1] 1 oz American Eagle coin direct from the mint? $1,490 [2] That's a 23% "transaction fee". You'll get much much lower buying gold (or bitcoin) from somebody else. [1] http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html [2] https://catalog.usmint.gov/american-eagle-2018-one-ounce-gol...

The Gold Eagles sold direct to consumers by the mint are either "proofs" -- struck with a special finish, or a special minting targeted towards collectors. You're paying a premium for the "W" mint-mark and fancy box.

They also make a non-collector version and sell them to bullion dealers, who then mark them up modestly for retail. To get access to them direct, you're probably buying hundreds of coins at a time.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#363

Post by keymone »

smsm42 wrote: post #359
keymone wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

paypal is a product built on top of existing currency. bitcoin is a currency on top of which you can build paypal-like product. there are many things trivially done in bitcoin that are absolutely impossible in bare usd. one can use multisig escrow accounts to implement paypal-like dispute resolution but also limiting the influence middleman (paypal) has - can't run away with your money, can't block the transaction ag…

> bitcoin is a currency on top of which you can build paypal-like product I can't, I don't have time. No, I understand you mean "somebody might build" - but so far, nobody did. When it changes, the evaluation changes too. So far, we aren't there by no means. > there are many things trivially done in bitcoin that are absolutely impossible in bare usd Sure. How many of them are necessary to a typical credit card/cash u…

> No, I understand you mean "somebody might build" - but so far, nobody did.

there are plenty of products on top of bitcoin. but i guess it's important for you to believe that there are none?

> Sure. How many of them are necessary to a typical credit card/cash user?

gee, i don't know, what do you think, does typical credit card/cash user do this thing called "transacting with other people"? sigh.

> You seem to be under impression dispute resolution is a technical problem in search of suitable algorithm

when you're not sure it's wise to ask rather than to make assumptions.

> if the middle-man can't reverse transaction, what prevents me from selling you an iphone, sending a brick instead and leaving with the money

what prevents you is smart application of cryptography. maybe you should inform yourself on the topic before arguing? https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multisignature#Multisignature_App...

> feds close it after a month because it is being used to trade drugs

quick, somebody tell feds most of drug deals are done in USD, make them close USD!

this is depressing.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#364

Post by beefield »

dmichulke wrote: post #337
beefield wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait for a day when there is a central banker that simultaneously has half a brain cell and tiniest set of balls. That day you see price of gold crashing in a way that has never seen before. Really, there is no more reason for a modern central bank to hold gold reserves than there is reason to hold ponzicoin reserves.

> Just wait for a day when there is a central banker that simultaneously has half a brain cell and tiniest set of balls. You do realize that you just implicitly said that you're basically much smarter and more courageous than every central banker in the world. I assume there are more than 10000, so that's not exactly humble. I'd bet against you but if you're short BTC or gold, we're already betting against each other…

I did not imply I would have those balls either.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#365

Post by conanbatt »

hakfoo wrote: post #361
conanbatt wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did we? The history of monetary policy crisis were not related to the metal as much as to the instability of banking. Bitcoin cant go broke like a bank can.

You can still have crises that aren't banking-related. When the New World was conquered, the mountains of silver and gold flowing back to Spain in particular caused inflation, no bankers involved. I'm not sure if there's a direct equivalent for Bitcoin. My first thought is that there are probably a few large stashes of coins that the market assumes are "out of circulation" and priced accordingly.

Its true the metal created inflation, but I assure you it created less inflation issues that any paper ever, and could never create hyperinflation as we know it unless it rained gold or something.

Im unaware of big crisis stemming from that inflation, although I find it very amusing when Adam Smith or Ricardo talk about it without having the word in their arsenal. I loved knowing they were trying to define inflation without knowing what it was.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#366

Post by lossolo »

fwip wrote: post #360
lossolo wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even with renewable energy there's an opportunity cost - you can sell it back to the grid. Plus the fixed costs of buying the solar panels and mining equipment in the first place. In many cases this doesn't matter, as it 's being paid by someone else. Millions of teenagers mining crypto on their GPUs, their parents pay for electricity, what about enthusiasts? They will mine even if price is higher than the value of…

So, "The value of bitcoin will forever be propped up by people stealing electricity."

I don't think this is a constructive answer, considering my arguments in previous comment.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#367

Post by slavik81 »

throwaway123156 wrote: post #316
slavik81 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In economic terms, suppliers will continue producing so long as the sale price is greater the marginal cost of production. The average cost is irrelevant in the short run because it includes sunk costs.

The comment you were responding to was about electricity, which is clearly a highly linearly correlated marginal cost. I am not sure why you're bringing up average costs at all. And the comment you replied to did not even mention the other marginal costs that Bitcoin faces (employee costs, land rental, networking costs, etc).

I was restating what they were getting at in a way that could be easily traced back to widely studied economic theories. It was an elaboration, not a disagreement.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#368

Post by javajosh »

keymone wrote: post #315
javajosh wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* > [Money] is a weapon of war.* This point is so true and so important it deserves special emphasis. If you imagine two societies at war, one with currency and other without, who wins? Clearly, the one with currency, because you can collaborate far better than the other, and war is won primarily by scale, which money can maintain. And as for those that want to abolish currency, or nation-states, this is naive ideali…

> Clearly, the one with currency, because you can collaborate far better than the other, and war is won primarily by scale, which money can maintain. this is a weird hypothetical. i can't imagine a nation-state without currency and i don't think you can either. so how is it clear who wins? i highly doubt isolated regime can somehow improve it's sustainability simply by manipulating money. Venezuela just had a massive…

Venzuela is a great example of my point! If V got into a war right now, let's say with Columbia, how would that go? If the money is worthless in V, then how do you pay troops; how do you pay for the food for the troops; how do you pay for the gas to get the troops where they need to be; how do you pay for the weapons? If you don't pay for that stuff, how do you get it? Will people volunteer? How long can they do that until they starve? Or will you use coercion? Coercion requires troops, and also suffers from the starvation end-game, at both ends.

Basically, V can't fight a war until they get their money situation in order.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#369

Post by gammateam »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #211
gammateam wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is something I'm following too. So although Bitcoin has a low transaction per second limitation, the database Transaction objects can contain hundreds of transactions between users. This is what batching does. Segwit further helps lower the size of Transaction objects. And further proposals also lower that further.

>>the database Transaction objects can contain hundreds of transactions between users. Can you elaborate or provide a link? If you're referring to off-chain transactions through LN that are 'batched' on chain: these cannot set up payment channels. On-chain transactions for payment channel set up are the necessary minimum for the LN, and even to do just this, Bitcoin's block size limit doesn't come close to being adeq…

A "transaction" on the bitcoin blockchain can contain many peer to peer actions which are also colloquially called transactions.

I'm not referring to lightning. This is basic day-one functionality of bitcoin. I don't feel compelled to provide a link to this at this point. Many popular services' implementation of bitcoin wasn't doing this, and now they are, this is called batching.

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