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Bitcoin Is Time

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Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#761

Post by marshmallow_12 »

hannasanarion wrote: post #544
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.

This is accidentally a good analogy. Because yes, cars have made the world materially worse, not because horses are better, but because dense urban development, public transit, walking, and cycling is better. Cars are enormously wasteful, much like bitcoin is, not only because it uses way more energy than is necessary for the task it is performing (~90% of the energy used by cars is spent to move the car, not the car…

technically almost everything beyond food and medicine is wasteful. BUT cars improve the quality of my life (i like to drive). bitcoins floating through the cybersphere do not. end of story.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#762

Post by druidmaster »

dcist wrote: post #591
arbawk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it's pretty important for many: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLYYh4aPXAM It's being widely adopted in countries with inflating currencies: Nigeria, Vietnma, and Argentina made it to #3 today (this link is slightly old). https://www.statista.com/chart/18345/crypto-currency-adoptio...

I fail to see how something with wildly fluctuating value like bitcoin can ever serve as a stable currency or medium of exchange. Maybe it's a "less terrible" solution in poor countries with inflation challenges, but I don't see that as a strong proposition for the utility of bitcoin. Cigarettes are used as a medium of exchange in prison. That doesn't serve as a strong argument for using cigarettes as currency.

Volatility is only problematic to the downside, not the upside. Bitcoin's volatility is skewed to the upside. Yes if you were not advised properly, and buy the top, you may be down, but only temporarily.

There are long phases in BTC's history where 100% of holders are in very handsome profits. And that's the problem?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#763

Post by hossbeast »

hannasanarion wrote: post #609
kenniskrag wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if you have the same amount of horses like cars? Aren't they wasteful and need a lot of space and at night a heated parking spot? :)

Yes, which is why I didn't say anything about horses. Opposition to cars, like opposition to bitcoin, isn't rustic ludditism. There are modern solutions to transportation that are superior to cars, like rail, frequent busses, and bike infrastructure, but lose out in funding and hype because they're not prestigious and utopian like cars are. Likewise, Bitcoin does not solve any problem that any other transaction netwo…

The real problem you're going to run into with this argument is that people like cars, like to drive them, and want to own them.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#764

Post by bibabaloo »

pwm wrote: post #673
paulmd wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The lightning network is incredibly buggy and won't actually solve the problems it's promising. it's actually worse than that - lightning only works in the context of centralized banking. It presumes there is some other entity with whom you can hold a channel open, who you do roughly equivalent amounts of deposits and withdrawals from. If that criterion is not met, then you have to keep closing channels and re-open…

This is incorrect and highly misleading. You don't have to open and close channels like that. Instead you keep them open and do circular rebalances when your channels are imbalanced. As an experiment I've been running an lnd node for the last 6 months. During this time I've routed 1445 transactions totalling 4.68249963 BTC (~223K USD currently) and only closed a handful of channels, using single digit sat/vB as it's…

This sounds cool, do you have any recommended resources to get started with running a lnd node and getting it connected to a larger network? And, just curious, do you make any money from lighting fees?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#765

Post by drdeca »

gnrlst wrote: post #210

I'm ready to be downvoted to oblivion, especially by all the Bitcoin purists, but I hope my message sparks at least some curiosity. Bitcoin is getting "weaker" every year for several reasons: - emerging centralization due to economies of scale. If this trend continues the mining power will be so consolidated that a 51% attack will be likely. The Nakamoto coefficient is already at 4, and tending towards 3. - energy us…

not sure what you mean by "weaker". If you mean the security, then, I would think that would be a result of energy use going down, not energy use going up. (but as someone else pointed out, the power use seems to be steady, and neither trending up nor down)

(that being said, it becoming more centralized might be an issue for security, yes. I don't know how (de)centralized it currently is though)

Also, isn't there a rule or guideline or something discouraging talking about how getting downvoted?

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#766

Post by cwkoss »

danShumway wrote: post #644
cwkoss wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is a settlement layer, like ACH, not a payment provider like Venmo

The payment provider layer is the part that ordinary people worry about when they're looking at transaction fees, security, censorship, and privacy. If Bitcoin isn't a payment provider, then why should I care about it? It's more expensive and slower than ACH is. It's being converted into normal currencies and tracked by the same companies that are making payment providers today. What is it solving? All of these payme…

I* think the average person probably shouldn't/wont care about Bitcoin. Bitcoin will become something that only the sort of entities who directly interact with the ACH system are worried about.

If Bitcoin succeeds, I don't think it is likely the average person will ever touch Bitcoin: it is technically complex to handle it securely. However, many of the Venmos and Squares in this future would likely be using Bitcoin to settle flow disparities behind the scenes.

In terms of what it's solving:

- Bitcoin has a much lower barrier to entry. It is very expensive and slow to get direct access to the ACH system (vs having your bank make transactions on your behalf).

- Bitcoin is apolitical. Banking and finance is still very much an old-boys network of after hours handshake deals. Bitcoin lets you swim with the big fish without having to worry about kissing the right asses. Similarly to claimed noble benefits of public markets, Bitcoin has a democratizing effect by not having a mechanism to favor entrenched players.

- Bitcoin is insulated from US monetary policy. This tends to appeal to gold-bug types who believe inflation is being underaccounted and will get worse.

- Bitcoin is permissionlessly auditable. I wish there was more development in this space, but I think bitcoin could be very powerful for non-profits and other organizations which want to be as transparent as possible with their finances. If an organization wanted to prove holdings or transactions, Bitcoin is arguably better than bank-money because Bitcoin txns cannot be forged, while documents being alleged to be coming from a bank could. (Similarly, I think it would be really cool for a bank to make an option for fiat accounts to have their balances and transaction history published publicly online)

* I am certainly not speaking for all Bitcoin advocates

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#768

Post by SCUSKU »

hossbeast wrote: post #763
hannasanarion wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, which is why I didn't say anything about horses. Opposition to cars, like opposition to bitcoin, isn't rustic ludditism. There are modern solutions to transportation that are superior to cars, like rail, frequent busses, and bike infrastructure, but lose out in funding and hype because they're not prestigious and utopian like cars are. Likewise, Bitcoin does not solve any problem that any other transaction netwo…

The real problem you're going to run into with this argument is that people like cars, like to drive them, and want to own them.

That may be the case for some car fanatics, but by and large the average person simply wants easy and flexible transportation. If public transportation were better, lots of people would opt to take the local train/bus/ride share because it would be a fraction of the cost, with ideally only slightly more friction as a passenger.

Re: Bitcoin Is Time

#769

Post by dcist »

druidmaster wrote: post #762
dcist wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how something with wildly fluctuating value like bitcoin can ever serve as a stable currency or medium of exchange. Maybe it's a "less terrible" solution in poor countries with inflation challenges, but I don't see that as a strong proposition for the utility of bitcoin. Cigarettes are used as a medium of exchange in prison. That doesn't serve as a strong argument for using cigarettes as currency.

Volatility is only problematic to the downside, not the upside. Bitcoin's volatility is skewed to the upside. Yes if you were not advised properly, and buy the top, you may be down, but only temporarily. There are long phases in BTC's history where 100% of holders are in very handsome profits. And that's the problem?

No, it's also problematic to the upside if you're trying to use it as currency or medium of exchange rather than a speculative investment. How do sellers of assets price things? If I'm trying to sell a home in bitcoin and btc surges in value one day, do I lower my price accordingly? Or do I wait to see if btc goes back down a bit and settles? Volatility - both up and down - is destructive to price discovery.

If you're just making long speculative investments in btc and volatility is skewed to the upside, well sure that's fine but you're not using bitcoin as a medium of exchange, you're investing in it as a security.

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