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Bitcoin is a disaster

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Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#841

Post by biolurker1 »

nmlnn wrote: post #825
biolurker1 wrote: post #819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got Pos wrong there is no trust involved

Sure, not until some entity gets over 50% of the stake

Sorry you do not understand how the system works. You can't buy 50% because the price would be worth more than all world gdp since each order is incrementally how gher and the supply of coins is not unlimited. Good to dig into things before you mindlessly dismiss them. Did you actually believe that people are designing and talking about Pos as a breakthrough when the main idea is "nobody rich enough will want to buy 50%"?

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#842

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

arcticbull wrote: post #809
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past 110 years Russian currency depreciated against USD at a something like trillion times. It's a safe bet that it'll continue the trend (with some occasional and not too long lapses of stae slowish decline), and actually bitcoin is a rather safe bet against rouble. After all, it's not backed by Putin's government!

This is an utterly ridiculous statement. Not only is the trillion fold devaluation not at all a reasonable assessment of the situation, the exchange rate only matters at the time of the exchange, not after. That's the point.

I was answering to a person who said that RUB lost half of its value against USD in a span of a year. I just pointed that it is a part of a general trend, what do you find ridiculous about that?

Btw, 'a trillion times' is an understatement. Exact figure in 2014 was... 57 460 000 000 000 000 (fifty seven quadrillion four hundred and sixty trillion) times [1], and just add some more since that time. Still thinking that bitcoin is a risky currency, huh?

[1]: https://zhartun.me/2014/12/usd.html

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#843

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

sangnoir wrote: post #790
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The banned person was Indonesian. Something something his bank account. (One more reason for me why payment system of the future must be permissionless. Like, you know, bitcoin)

> One more reason for me why payment system of the future must be permissionless. Like, you know, bitcoin That's not possible with a public ledger and current state of analysis - instead of proactive cancellation of the transaction on the legacy banking system, you'll get a delayed reaction from the authorities. When you file your tax return you'll get a notice to explain transaction ID 0x...34 to a certain banned in…

That's actually can be circumvented rather trivially. Wallets are anonymous, and you can just do some mixer transactions off chain. Wallet A pays to mixer M, mixer's address N sends funds to wallets B and C minus comission. In effect A paid B (and C), and nothing links them to each other. Schemes can get even less transparent with Lightning network.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#844

Post by rualca »

sunshinerag wrote: post #828
rualca wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I use Bitcoin where ever possible, so your opening claim is wrong. Just because a random guy barters bitcoins for goods/services, that by no means implies that bitcoin is anything close to money. There is a very specific definition of what money is, and bitcoin's volatility alone rules it completely out.

oh what is this very specific definition of what money is does the non-random guy on internet have?

> oh what is this very specific definition of what money is does the non-random guy on internet have?

Each and every single random guy on the internet who wants to buy stuff with money cares about money, and the properties that allow something to work as money.

Specifically, properties like being stable in its value within the market, and reliable both as a means of deferred payments and meet debts.

Bitcoin, or any cryptocurrency, is nothing of the sort. Far from it.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#845

Post by Kiro »

steeve wrote: post #683
sunshinerag wrote: post #8

I have no idea what he is talking about. I use bitcoin to buy things both onchain and via lightning and the experience is so smooth and much much better than the circa 2017 period when fees were high. Don't keep it on exchange. The real thing that is stopping adoption is countries trying to classify it as a commodity and insist to pay capital gains on every microtransaction. Some countries are backwards (US, UK) than…

Serious question: Bitcoin being subject to deflation, why would you spend it? Sort of like the $82 million pizzas [1] 1. https://qz.com/1285209/bitcoin-pizza-day-2018-eight-years-ag...

That's $300 million today, which illustrates your point further.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#846

Post by stale2002 »

xapata wrote: post #807
stale2002 wrote: post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holding enough currency to have a small amount of hedged safety against risk of that currency changing in value is not really a good enough reason to say that a country would be able to "force" "taxpapers to be subject to its currency". Even if we say that people would hold some of that original currency, there could still be a significant benefit to transferring most of your wealth to a deflationary currency. Theref…

> significant benefit to transferring most of your wealth to a deflationary currency I'm not familiar with any evidence of that claim, despite my economics education. I suppose the best historical corollary would be gold? If so, I think we can agree that almost no one has adopted that practice. Do you think Bitcoin is different enough than gold such that it would motivate different behavior? Let's consider the effect…

> I suppose the best historical corollary would be gold?

Not really a good analogy. The difference between gold and other forms of alternative currency, is the ease at which it can be transferred.

This whole situation only works, in the case where it is simple and easy to transfer between the deflationary, and non deflationary currency.

Obviously, the ease at which it is possible to transfer currency to other people, is an important factor as to why someone would or would not use a currency.

> if goods are priced in national currency, it's handy to keep your working capital in that same currency.

Not necessarily. If there are easy ways of instantly transforming your deflationary currency, automatically, without you having to do anything, into that other currency, then there is no need to hold that other currency.

> Why do people want USD instead of gold?

Obviously it is because it is pretty difficult to spend gold at your supermarket.

This isn't a problem though, if you have a cryptocurrency credit card, for example, that immediately turns your deflationary crypto, into USD.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#847

Post by stale2002 »

xapata wrote: post #775
stale2002 wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do know that they keep tight control I was talking about how much control they have over the internet. The fact of the matter is, that even the most authoritarian countries out there, are simply are unable to have a 100% perfect authoritarian control over their internet, as of today. Despite the many motivations that current authoritarian countries have for definitely wanting to control their internet, right now,…

I don't think the aim is to have 100% control, but just enough. I'll admit I didn't read closely, but I have read a few news articles about some government or another temporarily shutting down internet access during a protest. I'd expect Venezuela could do something similar if they felt like it. They seem perfectly happy letting their citizenry go without basic staples, I'm sure they'd be fine turning off internet fo…

> I'd expect Venezuela could do something similar if they felt like it.

And yet, if you look at the real world, and how things exist already, you see that these types of efforts have failed.

This is not a hypothetical situation. This is not about stuff that may or may not happen in the future.

Instead, you can look at real world situations, that happen right now, in existing countries all around the world, and you will see that the efforts to control the internet, have mostly failed.

Ex: Just look at china, which is the most famous example of internet control. . Lots of people have VPNs and can get around these restrictions in china.

The evidence already proves you wrong. There are multiple countries who have attempted to enact strict controls, over the internet, already, and they have mostly failed.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#848

Post by ric2b »

arcticbull wrote: post #810
lawrenceyan wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with the ongoing devaluation of the bolivar currently?

Truthfully? There's no good answer, period. The government needs to be replaced. This is the false promise of bitcoin. As long as the government needs to be replaced you have much bigger problems than the currency. As soon as the government is replaced, you no longer have to worry about the currency. Bitcoin always has been, and always will be, a solution in search of a problem. Forget Venezuela for a second and ask…

How is the USD helping the North Koreans?

No one claimed that Bitcoin is useful in NK so I don't get the point of the question.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#849

Post by neop1x »

Bitcoin all-time-high, has someone missed the boat? Bitcoin is bad, that's why there are thousands of alternative crypto coins. For me, Bitcoin is a commodity, digital gold. It's fast and easy to move across country borders, it's quicker than international wire transfers. And because nothing is 100% perfect in the world, Bitcoin is not perfect, either.

Re: Bitcoin is a disaster

#850

Post by ric2b »

arcticbull wrote: post #813
wolco2 wrote: post #799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The value of a bitcoin is the rarity of owning a coin is limited and the way it works opens up transactions globally. The price is the market demand.

oooh the rarity of owning a some digital magic beans, right, thanks I'll pass.

That's alright, there is no coercion to use BTC.
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