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Bitcoin Is Time

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Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#551

Post by eloff »

boredpandas777 wrote: post #348

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…

It's a ten year pump and dump scheme?

I'm also skeptical of bitcoin, but it can't be dismissed so easily anymore. There's clearly something to it, but what? Is it it just speculation about future value, a hedge against inflation and government control? A way around laws and currency export controls?

I'm not sure.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#552

Post by megameter »

nwah1 wrote: post #437
ForHackernews wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the difference is cars are useful. What can I do with a bitcoin except hope to sell it for more USD later?

The only answer that makes any sense is that you can do things that are otherwise illegal or banned by major companies. But the drawbacks are plentiful, even for this sort of use case. And this use case doesn't get easier with a whole bunch of speculation. In fact, it gets harder. And there's no particular reason for such users to leave it in a volatile form. Rather, they would be rational to cash out once the illega…

It should be noted that should you have the right kinds of connections, bitcoin mining itself lets you launder. The miner is given the dirty money as capital, energy subsidies, etc, then creates clean bitcoin, which appears in some anonymous wallet and is then sold.

So it's not just that the black market has incentive to use it, there's incentive to make it and even to prefer it over alternatives, because the operation's excess is a good front.

The actual conclusion I think is most relevant is the nilhilistic one: "None of these tokens really matter!" The actual place of decentralized ledgers is as one of several tools for designing autonomous, non-coercive communities, and when designed as such most of the overhead of proving disappears(e.g. DAG coins). Everything else is an attempt to extract rent into the coercive economy, which in due course will be trivially subverted by forking the chain or starting a new one.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#553

Post by cwkoss »

hannasanarion wrote: post #530
cwkoss wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exchange it for goods and services. What can you do with USD besides exchanging it for goods and services? (Pay taxes)

The USD (and more importantly, the banking system), also allows for efficient high-volume transfers, reversibility, ID verification, and fraud investigation. None of this is possible with blockchain, by design.

I'd argue that USD in isolation doesn't support those use cases: the banking system does.

There is no reason a parallel banking system with all of the same features cannot built with Bitcoin being used as the denomination. I think this future is increasing likely (probably much to the chagrin of decentralization advocates) as Bitcoin increases in value and number of holders.

efficient high-volume transfers - risky and expensive to do with cash, really requires a hawala-like middleman (often a bank)

reversibility - not true of cash, only true within the context of softer credit systems. You could build a "Venmo backed by Bitcoin" where funds cannot be withdrawn for the reversibility period if you thought there was market demand for it.

ID verification - subject to discretion of counterparty

fraud investigation - Bitcoin is likely much better than USD for this because of it's traceability.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#554

Post by curuinor »

anthropodie wrote: post #537
fwiwm2c wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He likely didn't read it. People have strong visceral reactions when they hear about Bitcoin - mostly because a lot of them are salty.

Earlier I thought it had some obscure use case but this article convinced me that Bitcoin does not deserve the hate it does. It needs more discussion on ways to improve it and solve energy problem! Full disclosure I have 0 bitcoins.

BTC is as old as android, and as likely to change basically and fundamentally as android.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#555

Post by hannasanarion »

danlugo92 wrote: post #334
ori_b wrote: 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.

Have you?

Venezuelans and Iranians aren't using crypto in any large numbers outside the dreams of speculators. Real people who actually need to do commerce prefer to transact in USD when the local currency falls short. You're never going to lose all your dollars because somebody guessed your email password.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#556

Post by xtracto »

I'm ready to be downvoted but... nah just following the stupid memes.

The article made thing an interesting point regarding how information cannot be "moved" itself but only copied and then the previous copy destroyed.

I think RIAA, MPAA and other virtual goods creators could benefit from the non-fungible tokens things that are just raising as a use of the blockchain.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#557

Post by Tenal »

fwiwm2c wrote: post #445
aeternum wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose I create a new coin that I also call Nano. I create a bunch of bots and websites and post on message boards so it looks like my version is more popular and has more participants. How will people tell the difference?

You won't. This is why Bitcoin is valuable since it has stood the test of time and has gained more acceptability. Nanos and other nonsense coins are just trying to attack the emperor in the hope that they come close to it and thus make the speculators a lot of money.

It's weird how hard you go against literally anything except Bitcoin because of your rabid obsession with whatever paltry sum of money you've made over this one dated technologically is. You're literally like a cancer-ridden coal miner coughing his last lung to keep the mines open. Good riddance.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#558

Post by jakupovic »

silasdavis wrote: post #454
boredpandas777 wrote: post #348

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…

The idea you could be downvoted on hacker news for being anti-crypto is a novel one

I do remember when Linux was the useless technology and didn't have any use case, we already had all the OSes we needed. This wasn't the story on this forum, but it was popular. Same thing here.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#559

Post by dandanua »

mtve wrote: post #400
dandanua wrote: post #333

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/

Yes, you can do it if you put the hash of a message INTO the chain as a transaction (I think they do something of this kind). But in this way you will share the limits of the Bitcoin network. They claim they do it in some efficient way, though. But I wouldn't trust it without checking their algorithm.

Anyway, any other "linear" blockchain (e.g. with PoS consensus) can do the same work. No wasting of resources is needed.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#560

Post by root_axis »

glitchc wrote: post #538
fredfoobar wrote: post #373

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.

As much as it's funny, this is a false analogy. Horses don't travel as fast as cars, or as far. They also can't pull/carry as much as a car, let alone a truck. How many horses are needed to carry the same load as one 18 wheeler? Would Amazon be possible without trucks? How about Walmart?

Horses are also living creatures capable of feeling pain, fear, fatigue and can also be stubborn or aggressive. Horses also need to be sexed, reared, trained, fed and cared for, you can't simply build more horses on demand or scrap and recycle their parts. It's a silly analogy all around.
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