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What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

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Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#51

Post by brightball »

twblalock wrote: post #37
brightball wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never used bitcoin but one of the core appeals as I understood it was mathematically limited supply to create an inflation proof currency. There seem to be lots of fluctuations in the price but eventually it hit a point of relative stability (in theory at least) with value that increases slightly relative the rate that the dollar inflates. If that's the case then it certainly does the job. There are a lot of peo…

The cap on mining is actually a good example of an inflexible technical solution for a problem that is better solved through flexible governance. There are several problems with it: Inflation can be a good thing. It can be used to combat deflation, and the absence of inflation can lead to stagnation via the paradox of thrift. There are certain central bank policies that encourage inflation and are known to work prett…

Inflation is one of those issues that nobody ever seems to see eye to eye on. The best example IMO, is that if those policies were actually effective then you wouldn't see this nationwide desire to increase the minimum wage. That happens because the wage people were previously earning buys less...which creates a cycle of more policy, more inflation, etc.

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#52

Post by trophycase »

twblalock wrote: post #37
brightball wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never used bitcoin but one of the core appeals as I understood it was mathematically limited supply to create an inflation proof currency. There seem to be lots of fluctuations in the price but eventually it hit a point of relative stability (in theory at least) with value that increases slightly relative the rate that the dollar inflates. If that's the case then it certainly does the job. There are a lot of peo…

The cap on mining is actually a good example of an inflexible technical solution for a problem that is better solved through flexible governance. There are several problems with it: Inflation can be a good thing. It can be used to combat deflation, and the absence of inflation can lead to stagnation via the paradox of thrift. There are certain central bank policies that encourage inflation and are known to work prett…

These solutions can literally all be programmed. There is almost no way Bitcoin maintains the 21 million static cap by the time the mining reward is gone

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#53

Post by trophycase »

ForHackernews wrote: post #41
brightball wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never used bitcoin but one of the core appeals as I understood it was mathematically limited supply to create an inflation proof currency. There seem to be lots of fluctuations in the price but eventually it hit a point of relative stability (in theory at least) with value that increases slightly relative the rate that the dollar inflates. If that's the case then it certainly does the job. There are a lot of peo…

> There are a lot of people out there who are very aware of how their saved money loses value and actively want an alternative that feels "safe". Inflation-linked government bonds (e.g. https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_tips_glan... ) are extremely safe, and specifically protect against value lost to inflation. There are some problems solved by bitcoin, but needing a stable store of value certainly i…

How liquid/easy to trade are these bonds compared to Bitcoin, which I can spend and exchange for USD in minutes?

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#54

Post by beaner »

twblalock wrote: post #31
beaner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just seems like part of an evolutionary process. Very rarely is software released where version 1.0 is perfect. Maybe if government currencies allowed for these things, they would also be better by now. This is part of the reason why bitcoin remains highly speculative. People point this out like it's a bad thing - the only people who have it are just investors, speculating. But this is part of the process that bootst…

> Just seems like part of an evolutionary process. Very rarely is software released where version 1.0 is perfect. Maybe if government currencies allowed for these things, they would also be better by now. Let's use the US dollar as an example. In what ways do you think it could be improved if people could fork it?

As one example, maybe we would have an alternative to ACH, which would allow money to be settled in seconds, instead of several business days. Maybe we could have this at the protocol level (banks) instead of having to use private 3rd party software (Venmo) which emulates this feature but reduces our privacy.

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#55

Post by ForHackernews »

trophycase wrote: post #53
ForHackernews wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a lot of people out there who are very aware of how their saved money loses value and actively want an alternative that feels "safe". Inflation-linked government bonds (e.g. https://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_tips_glan... ) are extremely safe, and specifically protect against value lost to inflation. There are some problems solved by bitcoin, but needing a stable store of value certainly i…

How liquid/easy to trade are these bonds compared to Bitcoin, which I can spend and exchange for USD in minutes?

TIPS are easily traded on secondary markets. In addition, there are multiple TIPS-backed ETFs [0] that trade in extremely high volume. I guarantee you could exchange TIP shares for USD in seconds, not minutes.

[0] http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/092215/top-5-...

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#56

Post by hokkos »

sametmax wrote: post #6

"What did X ever do for us?" is the standard catch phrase of this guy in any pirate movie wanting to take command of the ship. It's not the words of somebody who wants to help anybody, just somebody wanting the power.

It is clearly satire and a Monty Python reference, how can you be so wrong ?

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#57

Post by honestlyreally »

twblalock wrote: post #28
jnordwick wrote: post #7

Why do people seem to assume that those most capable of implementing the cryptography, networking, or other code are also those most capable of understanding the economics of cryptocurrencies or determining their future? Most of the arguments against the core team revolve around the economics and future of the coin, but the tech team seems to think that somehow their coding experience gives them insight into that. Bi…

> Why do people seem to assume that those most capable of implementing the cryptography, networking, or other code are also those most capable of understanding the economics of cryptocurrencies or determining their future? I guess I'll give the blunt answer: many proponents of cryptocurrency have views on economics, politics, society, law, and contracts that are ignorant of the way those things really work. Many real…

> The blockchain is an interesting technical achievement, and so are smart contracts, but they are not a replacement for laws and governments.

A lot of Venezuelans would disagree with you there. History clearly shows governments fail to act responisbly with currency. In the last 25 years, 21 countries experienced hyperinflation. What do you propose people in those counties do?

Your comment was big on problems but offered no solutions. Cryptocurrencies are a solution for many.

Take off the developed world rose tinted glasses for a moment and see that for a large majority of Earth's population their government and courts do not serve them well.

And this is not just poor countries, a woman in Saudi Arabia cannot open a bank account without a mans permission. That same woman can create a bitcoin wallet in one minute.

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#58

Post by RandVal30142 »

wmf wrote: post #15

This "fire Core" situation reminds me of Uber. You can be killing it 24/7 and still get fired if you cause enough non-technical damage.

>You can be killing it 24/7

Problem is they have -not- been killing it 24/7.

This block size debate has been going on for years with Blockstream(Core) refusing to do anything about it aside from indirect fixes. Well before Bitcoin's 1MB blocks were full people were getting dismissed/deflected/denigrated due to bringing the subject up to the developers.

As the issue climaxed earlier this year Blockstream only proposed SegWit as a fix[1]. Segwit isn't even related to the block size issue directly. It is more applicable to Blockstream's business plans for rolling out for-profit Lightning Network nodes that use Bitcoin as a settlement layer.

So for years now Blockstream has done what? Threatened to edit[2] Satoshi's whitepaper while ignoring public consensus unless the public accepts their kludge of a 'fix?'

Fire Core. They are overtly driving Bitcoin away from the purpose it was created for, a "peer to peer electronic currency." They halted Bitcoin development after investment by AXA and others, turning their focus into creating for-profit products that use Bitcoin.

Fire Core.

[1] https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues/10028 [2] https://github.com/bitcoin-dot-org/bitcoin.org/issues/1325

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#59

Post by RandVal30142 »

fpgaminer wrote: post #11
SkyMarshal wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A meme has developed among some in Bitcoin - "Fire Core", aka fire the core dev team who have contributed most of the code to the canonical Bitcoin repo ( http://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin ) and stewarded Bitcoin for the last few years ( https://bitcoincore.org ). The argument is that they've moved too slow on important things like scalability, blocked a simple blocksize increase hard fork that would have added capac…

> The counterargument is that there's no other technically credible team in Bitcoin You forgot the most important counterargument. That they _did_ move extremely fast on scalability. They released a masterpiece of engineering, SegWit, which doubles the blocksize, improves efficiency, enables future efficiency gains, and a laundry list of other improvements ... all while being a softfork. And, IIRC, that was all devel…

> That they _did_ move extremely fast on scalability.

Three years. People have been making issue tickets for three years about Bitcoin's block size.

"Core's" response was always to suggest an indirect fix to this by enabling SegWit.

>a masterpiece of engineering

Substantiate your claim.

>doubles the blocksize

Incorrect. 140% is the common number floated around.

>doubles the blocksize

140% block 'capacity' while using 400% more bandwidth. That is terribly inefficient.

>enables future efficiency gains

Substantiate your claims.

> and a laundry list of other improvements

Substantiate your claims.

>developed, tested, and released in _very_ short order.

Funny how Core halted development of Bitcoin for several years now up until now.

Now there is a frantic dash to get SegWit implemented as a fix to the block size issue even though it does not directly address it. What SegWit DOES directly affect though is the ability for Blockstream(Core) to roll out for-profit products that use Bitcoin as a settlement layer. This is the vision AXA[1] Strategic Investments and others have for Bitcoin and they are using their investments in Blockstream to make it happen.

[1] http://www.coindesk.com/investment-bank-axa-eyeing-bitcoin-f...

Re: What did Bitcoin Core contributors ever do for us?

#60

Post by elmar »

mikeash wrote: post #50
elmar wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have replied to a similar thread on HN recently here is the link. Inflation the Hidden Tax https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14828655

I don't understand what the big deal is there. I can understand it in a hyperinflation situation, but when inflation is ~2%, surely this hidden tax is insignificant compared to the more visible, explicit taxes?

let's do some assumptions:

- the 2% inflation number is completely wrong and real inflation is around 5%~10%

- with no government monetary intervention we should have deflation let's assume around 5%

the delta is now 10%~15% looks less insignificant.

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