adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Dec 11, 2020 22:39:39 GMT
What's the universal border-official-convincing currency ? USD. Euros... Seriously, especially in Africa. Euros over USD, any day of the week. Not that many people trust the US these days.
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ribs
Probably not James Marshall
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Post by ribs on Dec 12, 2020 5:45:30 GMT
ribs and err, the wallets, and the exchanges? Nice of you to forget them....  What about them?
Are you talking about security?
My wallet has never been hacked. Good luck if you choose to try.
I don't keep money on exchanges (why would I when I can self custody? that's madness) and I tend to stay away from my-amazing-totes-legit-crypto-exchange.biz Although I was a funding secure customer... ahem.
Did anyone blame the pound when Funding Secure went pop? No? A badly run business is a badly run business. If you go with the smaller players in any industry, you are more at risk of getting burned.
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ribs
Probably not James Marshall
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Post by ribs on Dec 12, 2020 6:12:26 GMT
Bitcoin investors seem to fall into 3 groups. 1) The tin hatters who think the whole world is going to collapse and they magically forsaw it and will become exceedingly rich. Bitcoin is a great vehicle if you are Chinese and want to circumvent capital controls to get it over the border but its not going to survive a systemic collapse. 2) The tulipers who use fundamental arguments to explain why bitcoin is worth x (real answer: like gold its worth what other people are willing to pay for it) and are effectively nothing more than salesman which fuel and feed the mania. They sincerely believe in it. 3) The scalpers who are not fundamentally tin hatters, nor tulipers, but just see an opportunity to make a buck trading and hope they arent the ones holding the bag when the whole things come down. Well, it seems clear that ribs falls into the second category. I'm not a "tuliper", but thanks for the insult I guess. I'm mearly explaining my position and why I think Bitcoin is a great opt-out from the corrupt system we are currently under. I'm not "selling" anything to anybody; you can make your own choices on that one. I do sincerely believe in it, I do believe it has a real chance to change our monetary system for the better, so those bits are accurate, but I'm very aware of the limitations. It might work, it might fail. I don't care if you buy any or not. In the same way I don't care if you invest using a specific p2p platform. I just saw my opportunity to participate in a thread on a forum I visit and mostly lurk on. That's all.
It has saddened me a little, seeing the responses in this thread. The reactions have largely been "this will never work", or "it's too X, nobody will ever use Y if it's too X!". Plus a fair bit of flat out misinformation.
If you would have told me, 1.5 years ago, that I would be hearing adverts on Spotify (yes, I'm a free tier cheap-ass) with the words "Coventry is in lockdown, and under very high alert" with instructions to not visit or leave the area, I'd have suggested that you should lay off the wacky backy and stop watching too much Mitchell and Web Look. And yet, here we are. The entire economy in lockdown, twice, with a double digit shrinking of the economy. I couldn't have predicted that, I doubt many would have. Kinda makes Brexit look a little like a nothing sandwich now, and everybody was so worried about it. If we go back, I dunno, 150/200 years? And tell people about cars, planes, computers, mobile smart phones... "Nah, people would never use cars. You have to build all these roads, and petrol stations everywhere? We have to dig and refine OIL? Are you crazy? I can get around just fine, nobody is going to use this sh*t. It's way too expensive and dangerous".. "Smart phones, we'd need HOW many transmitters, routers, fiber optic cable made out of glass? Are you crazy?! Nobody is paying for that, how is that even possible?".
If you'd have told people that Austria-Hungry would no longer exist after a world war. You could have been committed for being certifiably crazy.
That's how I see these reactions; many people stuck with "oh, but X! X stops this!".. "it's too complicated, I can't learn new things!". Humans are really good at working out really difficult problems. Just look at our history, look at what we have achieved over the past 100 years. Hell, look at the 10 years of progress we've made in 1 year on a vaccine. Do you really think "muh volatility" is really going to be a barrier in the long run? No, it's not. Short run, maybe, medium term, we'll probably come up with hybrid solutions, long term... who knows.
Huge change events do happen. Me being able to pay off my mortgage in Bitcoin, being paid in Bitcoin for doing my job at some point in the future (via third parties I can do that right now, but I'm not trusting that!). Not at all impossible. Not even slightly. Some people already live off Bitcoin, but they are definitely braver than me.
As I've repeatedly said in this thread. Many really smart people are working on this. In the short time I've been in Bitcoin, I've seen huge strides in it's usability, and I'm blown away. But it's still really early days. There is still so much to do. Judging bitcoin by today's flaws will be like judging the Internet in the 90s: it kinda sucked, but if you look past some of the flaws, you can see the potential.
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ribs
Probably not James Marshall
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Post by ribs on Dec 12, 2020 7:01:11 GMT
This is to misunderstand the point that was being made (i'm sure you realise that). To you, BitCoin (or similar) IS the end, not the means. And therefore BlockChain is just (part of) the means, or the tyres as you put it. Others however may take a different view: namely that the most valuable thing coming out of BitCoin IS BlockChain theory and technology. There is and will be a lot of value in building business & commerce supporting applications/processes/practises utilising the "verifiable distributed ledger" principles of BlockChain. In this worldview, the real 'invention' and value - the car - is blockchain, and bitcoin is more of a sideshow (ok, the car / tyre analogy is not a great one). Perhaps another way of putting it is blockchain is not the tyres, but the whole powertrain and chassis: BitCoin is just the particular vehicle body which has been plonked on top of it. Blockchains are awful. I mean, Bitcoin sucks, but blockchains are a turd sandwich on top. It's turd sandwiches all the way down. Blockchain exists because of Bitcoin, not the other way around. And it was done to eliminate trust, as this was the only way to do it. As soon as trust is introduced into the system, then I'll offer to run the system for you for free and we're back to me buying jets, yachts, hookers and blow.
Think about it... You have to store everything, forever. And everyone has to have a copy otherwise it can be cheated. And if you make a mistake, that's stored there, forever. You must work in lock-step with your peers; nobody can fall behind, nobody must rush ahead, you can only go as fast as the slowest boat in the fleet. That is horrendously inefficient, difficult and dangerous to implement, and really is a last resort in storing data, when companies can just send data to each other as they do now. The blockchain was a terrible but necessary solution to a problem that was really difficult, but very critical to, solve. If at all possible, you shouldn't go anywhere near them. Blockchains, for the most part, only has a use to eliminate trust; if you just want to send data, we already have thousands of ways to do that which are much much better. Click the "Learn more" button on this site and take the little quiz with whatever scenario you want in your mind. In most cases, you don't want a blockchain. They suck. This. Just this (what's in blue). No meaningful business which can operate legitimately is going to operate its business based on a currency which is subject to such high volatility. Its a total non-starter. Well, best tell that to Michael Saylor, or to every crypto exchange, or to paypal, or to bitrefill or to Microsoft ... I could go on. Not all of them are Bitcoin exclusive, but all of them are dabbling in the technology at the very least. PayPal is a bit of a joke though. You can buy it through them, and sell it back to them... That's it. Useless! It's not even bitcoin if you can't transfer it to your own wallet, it's just an IOU. Supposedly that's going to change, but we'll see.
Time will tell on that one. The US$ is not at all immune to inflation, including high inflation. We've seen it before where it's hit double digits in living memory. And back then they weren't creating 20% of everything out of thin air, like they have this year. A currency - of any form - only has value to the extent that people are prepared to accept it in exchange for something of value (goods/services). What is the set of credible events that mean that BitCoin going to get to that point ? Are you not paying attention? 20%. Everything. Ever made. 2020. Because they had nothing in the kitty for a rainy day, but me or you are expected to do that, but it's okay if governments and "too big to fail" businesses don't as they just create the money or get bailed out. How are you okay with that injustice?
I print money, I go to jail for fraud.
They print money, they get defended on Internet forums because "prices haven't gone up yet".
Umm, but we aren't seeing inflation at 20% are we. And I strongly doubt we would do in a years time. This is the Cantillon effect. It's not instant. This year? No. Next year? Probably not. In 10 years time... Well, Freddos used to be 10 pence.
That money has to go somewhere. Where do you think it's going to go? Remember what the savings rates were before 2008? What do you think will happen this time? History is repeating and very quickly; the leaky roof wasn't fixed last time and now a hurricane is heading our way.
Hopefully I'm wrong. I want to be wrong. Seriously. Let Bitcoin crash and burn because we have no need for it; fine by me. A lot less suffering that way and I just look like a moron on the Internet (wouldn't be the first time!)
You could argue that this relates to a point made by someone else: that the idea that existing money which simply sits idle should somehow retain its value is a false one. It is the act of putting it to constructive use by way of facilitating economically productive activity - which in the end is what underpins the value of a fiat currency - which has value. Why is it false? If I earned £10, why can it not be worth £10 in ten years time? Who benefits? Why is my labour suddenly worth less? Why is it okay to steal my purchasing power from me?
If I choose to invest that £10 and it ends up being worth £12, then sure, go me! I get a return for taking a risk, I'm not at all against that, it could have gone to £6 if I chose poorly. That's my reward for taking risk. But I shouldn't be forced to take risk otherwise I lose my value. That's theft, it's just that we call it inflation and for some reason people don't get angry about it.
Still, I'm not a crypto currency, economics, or banking SME. But I like to learn. For bitcoin, start here. This guy is a master in explaining this stuff.
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ribs
Probably not James Marshall
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Post by ribs on Dec 12, 2020 7:08:30 GMT
Bitcoin is way too slow to replace real money and be used in the same way Who's going to hang around the coffee shop while your transaction is waiting to be confirmed several times? Not me. Lightning Network fixes this.
Transactions settle, with finality, in just a few seconds. And the money is moved immediately.
At risk of repeating myself: Bitcoin sucks in some ways. But really smart people are working on making the experience much safer and much easier to use.
Lightning is just one path being explored to fix this problem, and frankly, it's amazing.
Lightning would be for your coffee transaction. The "on chain" bitcoin transaction would be for your "I want to buy a car" transaction and you'd still wait for confirmations.
This is how quick is it, just a few seconds.
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Post by bracknellboy on Dec 12, 2020 7:18:41 GMT
For clarity, I was not stating that the USD is the only or forever reserve currency. It was the dominant one for decades, and is still the major one. Nonetheless reserve currencies do fade away/change: Sterling for example. Its been a couple of thousand years or more since the Drachma played that role. The Euro now has a significant role to play. And at some point in the future it is highly likely that the Yuan will do so, and may indeed replace the $ as the primary one.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Dec 12, 2020 7:38:10 GMT
Well, it seems clear that ribs falls into the second category. I'm not a "tuliper", but thanks for the insult I guess. I'm mearly explaining my position Not an insult, at all. A simple statement of how I perceive your attitude to Bitcoin, based solely on what I've read in a small handful of your posts in this thread. Except it's nothing of the kind, is it? You can't buy your groceries with it. You can't pay your electricity bill with it. You can't travel from A to B using it. All it is is a speculative investment. No more, no less. At least most investments actually have a basis in something tangible - equities, government debt. Sorry, Bitcoin is our great golden hope to resolve the pandemic...? How about Brexit? And climate change? Can it save us from them, too? Hallelujah!
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macq
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Post by macq on Dec 12, 2020 9:44:52 GMT
I get and accept the point about Govt's printing money and that has been raised at other points in history - but not sure how the mentioned "creating 20% out of free air" is any different to somebody sitting in front of a computer and inventing 100% of something out of free air and calling it a reward/coin
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ribs
Probably not James Marshall
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Post by ribs on Dec 12, 2020 9:51:14 GMT
Except it's nothing of the kind, is it? You can't buy your groceries with it. You can't pay your electricity bill with it. You can't travel from A to B using it. All it is is a speculative investment. No more, no less. At least most investments actually have a basis in something tangible - equities, government debt. Categorically wrong. I bought a Sainsbury's voucher with it last week. Electric bill, no I grant you that. I can buy plane tickets directly with bitcoin. Government debt is tangible, is it? Numbers just entered into a computer is tangible, since when? In terms of tangible I don't see how Bitcoin is any different.
Sorry, Bitcoin is our great golden hope to resolve the pandemic...? How about Brexit? And climate change? Can it save us from them, too? Hallelujah! No? Of course not.
That's clearly not the point I was making. Nor was I claiming that Bitcoin was any of those things at any stage.
I have no idea why you typed that utter nonsense. I have no idea why you felt the need to respond in this rude and facetious manner.
Up until now, everyone has been civil, if sceptical, and I have answered in good faith and they have responded in kind, even if we disagree, which is okay.
If you are unable to extend the same courtesy and maturity in your responses to me, I politely ask you to not bother responding to me any further so we can stop wasting each other's time.
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ribs
Probably not James Marshall
Posts: 148
Likes: 151
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Post by ribs on Dec 12, 2020 9:55:23 GMT
I get and accept the point about Govt's printing money and that has been raised at other points in history - but not sure how the mentioned "creating 20% out of free air" is any different to somebody sitting in front of a computer and inventing 100% of something out of free air and calling it a reward/coin It's not free.
In the very early days it was very cheap, and you could mine it with a spare laptop. That lasted about a year as more and more people started to mine. Bitcoin's price was 0 back then. It took a fair while for it to hit $1.
These days? Not so much. Mining Bitcoin is very expensive and the margins are razor thin. The concept is called "proof of work" for a reason; they have to work for it, and that work helps to secure the network.
If it were free, why would anyone pay for it? Everyone would just mine it and the price would drop to zero and nobody would buy/sell it.
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macq
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Post by macq on Dec 12, 2020 10:06:21 GMT
Bitcoin is way too slow to replace real money and be used in the same way Who's going to hang around the coffee shop while your transaction is waiting to be confirmed several times? Not me. Lightning Network fixes this.
Transactions settle, with finality, in just a few seconds. And the money is moved immediately.
At risk of repeating myself: Bitcoin sucks in some ways. But really smart people are working on making the experience much safer and much easier to use.
Lightning is just one path being explored to fix this problem, and frankly, it's amazing.
Lightning would be for your coffee transaction. The "on chain" bitcoin transaction would be for your "I want to buy a car" transaction and you'd still wait for confirmations.
This is how quick is it, just a few seconds.
You mention being disappointed in the negative reaction (but i am guessing not surprised) but i think many have no problem with it as an investment in the same way as Gold,art,stamps,football progs etc and good luck to people - but anybody holding coin now does not what it to become stable or a fixed price they went it to behave as a commodity and to keep on going up (forever i guess would be the hope) But like your mention here of lightning network its the practical side that has most people scratching their head.How if as you forecast BC at 100K in a few years and presumably you hope it keeps rising after that do you use it as a stable currency no matter how fast the network? Will there be an exchange rate and tied to what the evil dollar or pound? if i go in Tesco with my pound and the sticker says £1 for a pack of sweets how will i know what it will cost in BC and if the supply of coin is limited how do i know i will even have any?
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macq
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Post by macq on Dec 12, 2020 10:19:45 GMT
I get and accept the point about Govt's printing money and that has been raised at other points in history - but not sure how the mentioned "creating 20% out of free air" is any different to somebody sitting in front of a computer and inventing 100% of something out of free air and calling it a reward/coin It's not free.
In the very early days it was very cheap, and you could mine it with a spare laptop. That lasted about a year as more and more people started to mine. Bitcoin's price was 0 back then. It took a fair while for it to hit $1.
These days? Not so much. Mining Bitcoin is very expensive and the margins are razor thin. The concept is called "proof of work" for a reason; they have to work for it, and that work helps to secure the network.
If it were free, why would anyone pay for it? Everyone would just mine it and the price would drop to zero and nobody would buy/sell it.
understood which is why i said reward/coin for the work - but the idea of that reward is still invented 100% out of free air but that's ok if people want to partake its no different to somebody in an office inventing a loyalty card 20 years ago and giving you a reward for how much you spend But it would be interesting to wonder whether the positive spin on BC would be the same if say a boffin at the BOE or US Fed had come up with the idea
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Dec 12, 2020 10:22:31 GMT
Except it's nothing of the kind, is it? You can't buy your groceries with it. You can't pay your electricity bill with it. You can't travel from A to B using it. All it is is a speculative investment. No more, no less. At least most investments actually have a basis in something tangible - equities, government debt. Categorically wrong. I bought a Sainsbury's voucher with it last week. I do apologise. It appears that somebody has indeed set sites up to allow you to buy supermarket vouchers with cryptocurrency. How much cheaper does converting bitcoins into a pound-denominated retailer voucher work out than simply paying the supermarket with a normal debit card? It's as tangible as any other lending, yes. You are lending real-world money to a real-world entity, based on their real-world creditworthiness. It's as tangible as my credit card or overdraft or mortgage or car finance. Government debt isn't just "numbers entered into a computer", though, is it? It's a gap-filler because real-world government spending is outstripping real-world government income, secured against future real-world government income. Any such trading is, ultimately, number-shuffling - of course it is. But, at the end of it all, there is an actual product. OTOH, "Numbers entered into a computer" is precisely what Bitcoin is, though the numbers aren't even entered by a person - they're auto-generated by a computer based on an arbitrary algorithm designed by somebody who - a decade and a bit later - is still unknown. You refer to "proof of work" - but that work is utterly pointless outside of being required for the proof. Yes, massive amounts of computer resource are required - couldn't they be better used for real-world tasks...? Unlike cryptocurrencies, real-world currencies are based on the real-world economies underlying them. Forex trading is simply spotting short-term inequalities in the multi-dimensional circular relationship between A:B:C:D and back to A again, as the real-world politics of each of those countries cause those real-world economies to wax and wane relative to each other. That simply does not apply to cryptocurrency trading, which is purely based on speculative market demand. Well, the only other explanation I can find for the reference to pandemic-management, is that it was a total non-sequitur diversion into the realms of the irrelevant. It is, of course, entirely possible that I'm just being a little slow, and simply failed to spot the link - maybe you would be so kind as to elucidate? No "rudeness" was intended, and I can only apologise for any that you found. Mild sarcasm? Absolutely - but no more than was necessary to illustrate the point I was making.
As for the references to history, there are plenty of parallels to Bitcoin in history. Tulips have already been mentioned, while the South Sea Company seems quite topical in this time of BLM and the "Common Sense Group". At least they were nominally predicated on trading in real-world products, however loathsome in the case of the South Sea Company. In more recent history, the lunacy of dotcom venture-capitalism - although the tiny number of huge successes did turn out to provide a more-than-adequate return on the vast majority of utter white elephants.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2020 10:49:05 GMT
I remember when Hungarians were happy to take out Mortgages in Swiss Francs until the terrible day when the Forint collapsed.
My concern about the mining is the shear amount of energy used nearly all of which is carbon based. Reminds me of the Russian in the shed in the winter who had to burn everything to keep warm including the shed. Lets have more bitcoin so we can have less human habital planet.
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Post by mfaxford on Dec 12, 2020 11:15:44 GMT
OTOH, "Numbers entered into a computer" is precisely what Bitcoin is, though the numbers aren't even entered by a person - they're auto-generated by a computer based on an arbitrary algorithm designed by somebody who - a decade and a bit later - is still unknown. You refer to "proof of work" - but that work is utterly pointless outside of being required for the proof. Yes, massive amounts of computer resource are required - couldn't they be better used for real-world tasks...? I think proof-of-work is becoming one of the real issues with bitcoin, the electrical energy input into mining bitcoin is huge. From 18 months ago it was estimated to be around the same as Switzerland ( BBC: Bitcoin's energy consumption 'equals that of Switzerland') and I expect it's only increased in the time since. There have been other blockchains looking at alternatives to proof-of-work to build the blockchain. Proof-of-stake seems to be one interesting concept where nodes compete for the next block based on the coins they hold rather than the numbers of calculations they perform. I think there are probably some issues to work out there, partly around how well the technology works and also in terms of user motivation. If there was a way to have the proof-of-work algorithms simultaneously building a blockchain and doing some real-world problem solving then that would be interesting. However I suspect the needs for a blockchain to drive a stable currency won't be that compatible with much problem solving where changes potentially need to be made often and quickly.
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