Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible • Hacker News Board

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#81

Post by mrpopo » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:53 AM UTC

cyphertruck wrote: post #65

This article is knocking down a squadron of strawmen. First off, bitcoins key attribute is not “privacy” but censorship resistance. It’s why wikileaks has been able to keep operating all these years after being cancelled by the mainstream payments industry. Not to mention many smaller, politically oppressed activist organizations, and much of the marijuana industry. Secondly, the attributes of money are, according to…

> I understand, certain people really hate bitcoin— and fir good reason. Bitcoin will eventually obsolete the fiat inflation system which has created all the wealth inequality in much of the world. The system that lets politicians buy power and escape responsibility for violating rights.

What part of Bitcoin abolishes corruption, power-grabbing and bribes? How would it fix anything you accuse the current system of?

Actually, the deflatory effect of Bitcoin is more likely to create the kind of issues you mentioned, as there are historical examples (Great Depression).

I "hate" (rather, despise) Bitcoin because it's an obsolete Blockchain technology that uses absurd amounts of energy for the purpose of calculating SHA-1 hashes. There are dozens of other protocols that have taken off, that either don't use POW, or that use POW in a more useful manner.

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#82

Post by cyphertruck » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:54 AM UTC

cyphertruck wrote: post #65

This article is knocking down a squadron of strawmen. First off, bitcoins key attribute is not “privacy” but censorship resistance. It’s why wikileaks has been able to keep operating all these years after being cancelled by the mainstream payments industry. Not to mention many smaller, politically oppressed activist organizations, and much of the marijuana industry. Secondly, the attributes of money are, according to…

I cannot believe I forgot one of the requirements for money. Thst is scarcity. In this regard bitcoin beats everything else, and especially beats baseball cards. Unlimited dollars can be printed and baseball cards rven more so.

Gold is genuinely scarce but there is %1 inflation and the asteroid mining risk.

Meanwhile bitcoins inflation rate gets cut in half every 4 years until it becomes zero in 2140.

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#83

Post by matheusmoreira » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:54 AM UTC

fny wrote: post #52

graeme wrote: post #7

The funny thing is that Bitcoin will basically only have value as a collectible as long as substantial numbers of people believe this essay’s argument is false . People want to collect bitcoin at current valuations because they are convinced it will become a currency/store of value of the future and hence rise in value. If everyone suddenly switched to believing “Oh bitcoin doesn’t do anything but it is a fun collect…

Here's a question: how many people do you know that buy crypto intend to spend it? You know, use it like currency? Or are they all just HODLing in the hopes that some other buyer will come along who believes it will become a medium of exchange? In my view, it's not a currency until people stop speculating and start using it like a currency. So yes, it's a collectible with ridiculously high transaction costs that make…

I would pay and get paid using monero. It's everything bitcoin was supposed to be.

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#84

Post by afarrell » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:54 AM UTC

cyphertruck wrote: post #65

This article is knocking down a squadron of strawmen. First off, bitcoins key attribute is not “privacy” but censorship resistance. It’s why wikileaks has been able to keep operating all these years after being cancelled by the mainstream payments industry. Not to mention many smaller, politically oppressed activist organizations, and much of the marijuana industry. Secondly, the attributes of money are, according to…

> the fiat inflation system which has created all the wealth inequality in much of the world.

> The system that lets politicians buy power and escape responsibility for violating rights.

Wouldn’t it be more energy-efficient to just go back to golden years before William Jennings Bryan’s 1896 presidential campaign?

Can you think of historical examples of dramatic wealth inequality or misuse of political power? As surely as the Dalai Llama is Catholic, history shows us that empires and robber-barons were vanishingly rare before Bretton Woods.

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#85

Post by Closi » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:55 AM UTC

sMarsIntruder wrote: post #10

I really don't care getting downvoted, but I really think this is the worst explanation of what bitcoin is. There's a book that I strongly recommend to the author of this article: the bitcoin standard. The book gives also some fundamentals of what money is, and what bitcoin solves and can solve. (talking also about bitcoin layers) I understand this is a divisive topic, but there's really nothing to with the baseball…

You’ve not countered any of their arguments.

Of course there isn’t anything directly to do with baseball cards, but there are probably more similarities than with fiat currency, which is their argument.

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#86

Post by john_alan » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:56 AM UTC

beefield wrote: post #58

brbsix wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you own 2 BTC, there aren't specific Bitcoins that are marked for you. If you mine 2 BTC, you posses the private keys to two very specific BTC (unspent outputs) on the blockchain. No one else may spend them without the private keys. If you own 2 BTC in an exchange then it is true that you are unlikely to own any specific 2 BTC but that's an entirely different subject. At that point you don't really own them.

Out of curiosity, as I do not know enough details: 1. Alice owns one BTC 2. Bob owns one BTC 3. Both send their BTC to Charlie 4. Charlie sends one BTC to David Question: Is there unambiguous way to define whether David got the BTC originally owned by Alice or the one owned by Bob? If yes, how? If no, doesn't that mean that there exist no specific bitcoins anywhere?

> Is there unambiguous way to define whether David got the BTC originally owned by Alice or the one owned by Bob?

Yes. BTC is completely traceable. You can follow the TXOs

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#87

Post by Spivak » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:58 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #83

fny wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a question: how many people do you know that buy crypto intend to spend it? You know, use it like currency? Or are they all just HODLing in the hopes that some other buyer will come along who believes it will become a medium of exchange? In my view, it's not a currency until people stop speculating and start using it like a currency. So yes, it's a collectible with ridiculously high transaction costs that make…

I would pay and get paid using monero. It's everything bitcoin was supposed to be.

I mean we would probably pay and get paid in any currency that was stable enough in the world market and accepted by the people we want to buy from.

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#88

Post by cyphertruck » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:58 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #78

DubiousPusher wrote: post #69

I don't know why there's an article that makes the rounds once a month analogizing bitcoin to some other thing when.. 1 bitcoin is its own thing 2 bitcoin has a clear analog in the form of gold Collectibles are a terrible analogy because 1 they are not fungable and bitcoin is 2 they are not easily converted into currency whereas bitcoin is 3 they carry novelty and bitcoin does not (cryptocurrency may carry some novel…

> they are not fungable and bitcoin is Bitcoin is not fungible. Bitcoins can be distinguished by their transaction history. Governments are blacklisting addresses and all bitcoins that have passed through them are now tainted. Exchanges already reject deposits containing coins tainted by association with blacklisted individuals or even coin mixing services.

Blacklisting doesn’t change fungibility. It just means some exchanges are refusing to do business with people who believe in privacy.

A government can scream and shout but they cannot block a bitcoin transaction.

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#89

Post by matheusmoreira » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 5:58 AM UTC

graeme wrote: post #7

The funny thing is that Bitcoin will basically only have value as a collectible as long as substantial numbers of people believe this essay’s argument is false . People want to collect bitcoin at current valuations because they are convinced it will become a currency/store of value of the future and hence rise in value. If everyone suddenly switched to believing “Oh bitcoin doesn’t do anything but it is a fun collect…

Bitcoin's only value is the fact it's the most popular and well-known cryptocurrency. It came first and a lot of people are aware of it. Technologically it's already been surpassed by everything that came after. Monero in particular is essentially bitcoin with all the problems fixed.

I wish it'd just lose it's value already so that liquidity will flow into all the much better coins out there. Not likely to happen though...

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#90

Post by cesarb » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:01 AM UTC

beefield wrote: post #58

brbsix wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you own 2 BTC, there aren't specific Bitcoins that are marked for you. If you mine 2 BTC, you posses the private keys to two very specific BTC (unspent outputs) on the blockchain. No one else may spend them without the private keys. If you own 2 BTC in an exchange then it is true that you are unlikely to own any specific 2 BTC but that's an entirely different subject. At that point you don't really own them.

Out of curiosity, as I do not know enough details: 1. Alice owns one BTC 2. Bob owns one BTC 3. Both send their BTC to Charlie 4. Charlie sends one BTC to David Question: Is there unambiguous way to define whether David got the BTC originally owned by Alice or the one owned by Bob? If yes, how? If no, doesn't that mean that there exist no specific bitcoins anywhere?

Yes. What you think of as a "specific Bitcoin" doesn't actually exist; what exists is an "unspent transaction output", which can be used as an input for a new transaction if certain conditions are met. So what really happens in your example scenario is:

1. Alice knows the private keys corresponding to one or more unspent outputs of transactions, with a total value of 1 BTC;

2. Bob knows the private keys corresponding to one or more unspent outputs of transactions, with a total value of 1 BTC;

3. Both create new transactions, specifying one or more of their formerly unspent outputs as inputs to the new transaction, and Charlie's address (which is a hash of a public key) as one of the outputs of the new transaction, that output having the value of 1 BTC;

4. Charlie creates a new transaction, with David's address as one of the outputs, having the value of 1 BTC. Note that, at this point, Charlie can chose which of the unspent outputs will be used as the input for the new transaction. It can be the output from Alice's transaction, it can be the output from Bob's transaction, it can be the output from some other transaction, or it can even be a combination of them: the transaction could have both Alice's and Bob's outputs as inputs, and have two outputs, one going to David, the other going to a new address (which can be a "change address" on the same wallet, or an address belonging to someone else).