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Bitcoin Is Time

dergigi.com

511–520 of 1001 posts

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#511
post #364
post #69

This is the article that made things finally click with me. Thinking about the pre-WWI gold standard and the issues that existed there and the improvements that Bitcoin brings around time, consensus, etc. The baseless negative comments with no interaction with the article content confirms for me that Bitcoin is on to something. Sour grapes syndrome is a result of pride, I think.

Bitcoin is nothing like gold. Gold has inherent value. If I buy 100% of the world's gold, gold would still be valuable. If I buy 100% of the world's bitcoin, it's the same as owning no Bitcoin. Gold would be immensely valued during an extreme global crisis (WWIII, massive solar flare, etc) whereas bitcoin would be entirely useless.

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Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying the same damn thing about automobiles man, horses already have self driving even! and they don't pollute like cars. Look at the mess we're in now! who's laughing?? Cars pollute and need roads, we had to build so many roads and gas stations. We even had to go to war to make sure we have enough oil.

Now that people are understanding that horses are better, can I turn your attention to concrete? The manufacture of cement produces about 0.9 pounds of CO2 for every pound of cement. Since cement is only a fraction of the constituents in concrete, manufacturing a cubic yard of concrete (about 3900 lbs) is responsible for emitting about 400 lbs of CO2. We should stop making things out of concrete, it's destroying our…

It appears that in Norway they are already concerned, no need to turn attention any more :)

https://ccsnorway.com/

https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/943cb244091d4b2fb37...

A solution for full-scale CCS has now matured that facilitates the further development of CCS in both Norway and Europe. The project has encompassed carbon capture from Norcem’s cement factory in Brevik and carbon capture from Fortum Oslo Varme’s waste incineration facility at Klemetsrud, Oslo. Northern Lights, which is a collaboration between Equinor, Shell and Total, has been responsible for the CO2 transport and storage part of the project. This part of the project comprises ships for transport of liquid CO2, a reception terminal in Øygarden municipality, and pipeline to a well where CO2 will be injected into a storage formation beneath the seabed

edit: formatting

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#513
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so excited about a really inefficient clearing house? We already have those.

Ask Venezuelans and Iranians.

Why are they interested in producing a public record of their transactions? Isn't that dangerous given their current political situations?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's the one that's caught on. There's no actual need for inherent utility of it that can't be papered over by running everything through one of a few big exchanges. Or, preferably, ONE big exchange, where all settlements can take place off-chain and the blockchain sits in a big vault and everyone just trusts you can redeem your account balance for Bitcoin if you ever want it, but you won't want it, because t…

> Or, preferably, ONE big exchange, where all settlements can take place off-chain and the blockchain sits in a big vault and everyone just trusts you can redeem your account balance for Bitcoin if you ever want it, but you won't want it, because the balance is more valuable than the actual Bitcoin. That's an important point, because it prompts the question: what is the problem that Bitcoin is solving if the preferab…

The problem it solves is that currently, it's not possible for any single central entity to prove anything about ownership changes directly. Now, you can simply trace every on-chain transaction on the chain -- it's as if there were a universal log of every SWIFT transaction, available to the public. It's incredibly useful for forensics! And we can leverage the huge amount of compute power directed here to do useful work as a side effect, by putting in identity stakes and layer2'ing things like proof-of-identity or proof-of-ownership.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#515
post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: To be honest, knowledge of the hash of a block can be used as a proof that something has happened AFTER a particular event (similarly to a picture of a hostage with the newspaper). But you can't prove that something has happened BEFORE a particular event using Bitcoin hashes. Also, this "feature" is unrelated to Bitcoin being a cryptocurrency. You can have cryptocurrencies without "global time" (e.g. NANO).

> But you can't prove that something has happened BEFORE a particular event using Bitcoin hashes. https://opentimestamps.org/

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Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been saying the same damn thing about automobiles man, horses already have self driving even! and they don't pollute like cars. Look at the mess we're in now! who's laughing?? Cars pollute and need roads, we had to build so many roads and gas stations. We even had to go to war to make sure we have enough oil.

I got the feeling this post is a bit sarcastic, because it references horses, as opposed to automobiles. If you just replace "horses" with "mass public transit", "railroads" and "electrobikes", it suddenly starts to make much more sense.

Horses will work on YOUR schedule, and it's socially distanced during COVID.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#517

Let me fix that title. Happy to be downvoted into negative territory. I only have 11 points. Go ahead. "Bitcoin Is A Waste of Time (and Resources)" What Bitcoin has done is that it taught people they can come together in a sustained flash mob (like an on-the-fly hedge fund operation) and manipulate the price of speculative assets by creating artificial short-term pump-n-dump type demand. Bitcoin has trained our colle…

You just described the stock market. The only difference is that before, there were only a handful of people with the power and tools to manipulate it (ie. Wall Street), whereas now, due to the power of the Internet and social networks, masses of people are able to coordinate to achieve similar effects. In a way, what has been happening lately, is the democratization of the power to game the system. Which doesn’t mea…

The stock market is a place to purchase productive assets. That share I own represents actual work done by human beings to produce goods and services. That BTC I own represents an immutable thing that itself does nothing.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#518

Bitcoin network is constantly readjusting mining complexity, so that every new block will be mined in approximately 10 minutes. Then, they substitute the notion of time with the sequence of Bitcoin blocks. Yeah, well done! Bitcoin proponents are becoming more and more insane.

Or is it the detractors that are becoming more and more insane? Perhaps it's both. There are so many detractors who seem to have the need to go "hurmph!" every time someone mentions Bitcoin, and often times they have knowledge gaps that destroy their credibility. In every Bitcoin related thread here on HN, there's tons of detractors who make ridiculous claims around the utility and mechanics of Bitcoin that it's hard…

I think the insane people are getting louder. :)

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#519
A few questions I need help with -

If bitcoin becomes a store of value / digital gold and people increasingly hold their wealth in Bitcoin countries will lose the ability control and regulate their own economy.

1) Why would any country hand over the reins of its economy to others ? India is already thinking of banning cryptocurrencies, China has similar thoughts too, if many large countries ban it how would Bitcoin sustain ?

2) US has fought wars to retain dollar as the global reserve currency. Why would the US give up this advantage ?

3) Presently, economic sanctions are used to push interests and disincentivize bad behavior. How would this play out in a world of Bitcoin ?

4) If bitcoin exists with fiat and exchange points can be controlled and blocked by governments, what's the point of Bitcoin ?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#520

I always enjoy conversations with cryptocurrency cognoscenti: "Ok. Assume I have some bitcoin (a bitcoin? bitcoins?). How would I exchange it for, say, a carton of milk?" Don't get me wrong. I'm a math nerd. I think bitcoin is fascinating as a technical achievement, and hope we keep exploring the blockchain idea. However, I also know that bitcoin mania has literally affected global supply chains of computer component…

Personally I see bitcoin more as internet gold, you wouldnt buy a carton of milk with gold either, but you can create commerce services on top of bitcoin who are backed by this descentralized currency
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