the posted thread is rather interesting and I would love to see more critical discussions like this on the issues of bitcoin. unlike the often seen circle jerk of bitcoin maxis, this could actually lead to solutions or issues getting addressed before they become bigger.
Bitcoin is a disaster
911–920 of 992 posts
Re: Bitcoin is a disaster
#912Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, miners are far more powerful than all the other stakeholders. While acceptance by merchants is a relevant factor, miners also have to facilitate any transaction. Any fork without miners is instantly unable to transact, making the coins useless and therefore worthless.
>Any fork without miners is instantly unable to transact, making the coins useless and therefore worthless. The incentive structure discourages this. If half the hash power goes off to mine Bitcoin Infinite (the fork with uncapped Bitcoin generation), then mining the original Bitcoin would be twice as lucrative because there's half the competition. This gets better the more miners leave. If 95% of miners leave for Bi…
The incentive structure falls apart once Bitcoin original runs out of blocks to mine. That’s the starting point for this discussion.
The only incentive to mine then is to earn the transaction fee. These fees ($8) are currently orders of magnitude smaller than the mining reward of 6.25 coins ($125,000 at $20,000/coin). Either fees have to dramatically compensate by rising stratospherically or miners will depart for greener pastures. Yes, difficulty level drops eventually, but by then a large number of users have also followed miners off the network, in which case the price will drop too. As the price collapses, there will be a selling frenzy, further reducing the price. In this scenario, Bitcoin may settle to something as low as $10 per token.
Once miners depart en masse, network resilience will drop precipitously. That makes it an attractive target for someone to stage a coordinated attack, which would destroy remaining residual trust in the network and bringing about the end of Bitcoin original.
Re: Bitcoin is a disaster
#913Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don’t need most to agree. Just the basic majority (50%+). And of course that’s exactly what the major mining consortiums will do: Collude to increase the limit when it’s reached. After all, the rewards are in the mining, not the transaction fee.
> You don’t need most to agree. Just the basic majority (50%+). And of course that’s exactly what the major mining consortiums will do You don't need anyone else to agree to start mining your own fork / altcoin. However, even if most of the miners change the protocol, it doesn't mean that the users will.
Sure, but my coin isn’t worth $20,000. Or even $2.
Re: Bitcoin is a disaster
#914Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is gold an asset or a currency? Now it is definitely the former, but throughout history it was mostly an asset and a currency, with rather vague lines between them. Bitcoin is not a USD replacement. It's more of a gold replacement: finite supply, great malleability, but with modern benefits regarding storage and transfer.
> Bitcoin is not a USD replacement. It's more of a gold replacement: finite supply, great malleability, but with modern benefits regarding storage and transfer. This is an opinion that Bitcoin advocates throw out every time someone criticizes Bitcoin's ability to be a currency. As soon as someone criticizes its ability to be an asset, someone trots out that its actually been a currency this whole time. It's bad at bo…
> This is an opinion that Bitcoin advocates throw out every time someone criticizes Bitcoin's ability to be a currency.
This 'opinion' comparing Bitcoin properties to Gold appeared before Bitcoin antagonists appeared. It is part of a design.
Re: Bitcoin is a disaster
#915Earlier quoted context omitted.
read my answer, it's pretty well explained there
You are all missing the the trend over the last 7 years for bitcoin is to create a digital asset that is a store of wealth. To say bitcoin is a payments system in the sense of cash is to miss the executed tech roadmap where cheap one off transactions is a secondary concern (not bitcoin core's). Listen Saylor talk about MicroStrategy's investment in bitcoin. He is very clear that is a store of wealth and appreciating…
Currency has more than two functions. Transferring wealth is not the same as paying for goods, and storing wealth is not the same as holding a speculative asset class.
Bitcoin is volatile. Holding it is more like holding gold, not USD.
Bitcoin is very easy to move across borders. Moving it is much more like a bank transfer, than paying for a pizza.
Re: Bitcoin is a disaster
#916Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Fiat currency is one the most beneficial economic developments ever. Currency certainly is. Fiat most certainly not [1] [1] https://ginifoundation.org/kb/fiat-currency-graveyard-a-hist... >Goldbuggery is idiotic. Whenever something is being thought of as useful by a sizable portion of the population over large swaths of time, calling it idiotic is pretty much guaranteed to be a boomerang.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKYKLgzyF9o this is what you uneducated goldbugs sound like
First you're assuming I'm a gold bug : I'm not.
Second, the person who looks like an absolute ass in this video is not who you think.
Third, there are a lot more house sessions where Ron Paul is giving various heads of the fed, including Bernanke, a healthy dose of reality check. They're all really worth watching, thaanks for pointing them out.
Finally: the only point I was trying to make is that fiat currency have been systematically used throughout history by governments to milk their citizenry without them noticing.
The USD and the feds are following a pattern that has existed since the Romans[1]: debasing currency to hide their incompetence at managing budgets.
The actual implementation vary through history, becoming increasingly sophisticated with time: the Romans slowly decreased the amount of silver in their coins hoping no one would notice.
The USG uses quantitative easing, which is much less noticeable by John Does in the street.
[1] http://numismatics.org/rome-a-thousand-years-of-monetary-his...
Re: Bitcoin is a disaster
#917Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Who owns the mixer?
Re: Bitcoin is a disaster
#918Earlier 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…
> When you file your tax return you'll get a notice to explain transaction ID 0x...34 to a certain banned individual. S
We were talking about PayPal banning someone and you equate that to tax authorities banning someone?!
Re: Bitcoin is a disaster
#919BTC is incredibly overvalued. if you value Bitcoin as much as the cost of the labor it takes to create one, then it should be worth a lot less.
Bitcoin is valued at precisely what the market believes it’s valued at. If you believe it’s incredibly overvalued, then you should short it.
I believe this is a winning comment
Re: Bitcoin is a disaster
#920Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personal experience: not only bitcoin was the only practical way I was able to receive funds in Russia from an Indonesian client, it was cheaper than just one leg of converting Indonesian currency (to USD). Think of it. Buying bitcoin, sending and selling resulted being cheaper than just buying USD. The spread was that much lower. (It was in a relatively static price period in summer 2016) And regular banks just didn…
Did you actually try multiple banks? Is the banking ststem really that broken in Indonesia? My experience is that bank fees vary greatly. My (limited) experience with US banks is that they have huge hidden fees and you get really bad currency exchange rates. I'm talking about 8% of funds miraculously disappearing during currency exchange. I don't understand why anybody would bother going via USD. My Austrian bank on…
> Did you actually try multiple banks? Is the banking ststem really that broken in Indonesia?
I like how you consider that opening an account on another bank was both cheaper and easier than using Bitcoin.