Bitcoin Forum

The whole world can't start using BTC tomorrow.

What is the solution?

There is no a solution. The scalability issue can't be fixed without a hard fork.

the whole world wont start tomorrow. thats the solution.

at this point i would rather it boom really fast rather than steady, not just for the sake of $ gains.. but once it gets so big, it gets more difficult for government to regulate and stop.

Let it boom to wherever the market takes it.

BTC should allowed to go in the direction the market takes it without any intervention from anyone.

Please show mathematical or historical evidence that the Bitcoin economy booming would be a bad thing.

Gov'ts in China and India just took care of that for us.

Just think of the pump and dump as the Bitcoin economy and voila - is is booming, the price is up.  ::)

I don't calculate hyperinflated Bitcoin prices as part of whether the economy is doing well or not :D I do use it to find out how badly paper money is doing though.

Coming up next: The inevitable collapse of hubris.

Booms are good. It's the crashes that follow that are bad. Or not depending on how you take advantage of the situations.

Too many booms and busts may cause people to not take BTC seriously and put BTC to bed.  I'd rather a slow steady gain in acceptance, as I believe it has done so far.

I think anybody who believes in BTC feels this way, but booms are just a natural process. It'll be a wild ride but hopefully it'll steady at some point.

FTFY.

Ha. What crashes are bad with boobs? Unless you lose concentration whilst driving.

I'm sure it will take time and we will have booms and crashes just like always it is bitcoin afterall.

There are many road traffic accidents caused by men gawping at women on the side of the road.

BTC needs to boom fast, to attract more investors.

Or gradually grow steadily.

Yeah.  And is this a booming price?  Booming usage?  Booming mining? 

I would prefer a slow steady growth. I have all the booming/crashing i need in the alt markets

Increased use will lead to higher transaction fees and slow the rate of adoption.

Will this be like the housing bubble?

You don't know what a housing or general economic bubble is do you?

We need to hardfork and boost the block reward.

Alt-coins will take care of the booming too fast issue.

Yeah best idea ever.
Why don't we push the limit from 21M to 21 billions as well, there are not enough coins for everybody right?
This was sarcastic, if it wasn't clear.

Alt coins won't survive. Bitcoin can identify problems and create fixes faster than any government or business can keep up with.

why?

they're surviving alright, get out from under your rock and have a look :)

At one point I had over 3000 LTC when it wasn't worth anything, believe me, I know.

Alt systems are just acting as a ponzi, all dumb money.

If anything forks will be created within Bitcoin itself to solve an issue people aren't sure of.

So you say you had 3000 LTC, meaning you made a mistake selling them before they appreciated. Why would anyone believe you then and what exactly do you know since you didn't know to keep your LTCs and sold too early? LTC seems to be doing fine, is it because you sold too early and now biting your elbows for that you wish death for alt-coins? They wouldn't care about that, they'll keep surviving and diluting bitcoin value. Because technically they are equal to bitcoin, they only lack in infrastructure, but that's just a matter of time. Not all alt-coins will survive, only those that have serious devs and community behind them, but for sure bitcoin won't be the only game in town.

This goes back to the ponzi effect.

Litecoin has no other purpose but to store fictional value until it is depleted and taken over by the most powerful currency system in which will be Bitcoin or government money.

Multiple currencies cannot continue to exist, or stability issues will continue to arise within all value systems.

How is bitcoin different? 1 transaction per second in bitcoin network for the whole world - it's nothing, it's zero, nada, can safely say nobody is transacting in bitcoin yet. compare it with thousands of transactions per second for visa/mastercard.

And can you define fictional and non-fictional value please, that'd help a lot in the discussion.


Why? They always did through history of mankind, they will always do. Just on another, digital crypto level this time.

Take a look at this chart here:

http://www.activistpost.com/2013/11/bitcoin-tops-paypal-for-first-time-in.html

Every other "system" beside Bitcoin is just echoing across all "systems" they all effect and link to each other giving them a better appearance to the public eye.

Whenever someone suggests to invest or use a Alt currency, Bitcoin is always mentioned as the first, original inspirational solid argument to back another system up.

Bitcoin is here to destroy the fantasy that we can exist in a world with multiple value systems.

Only one final currency system will exist in the future.

So what, that Bitcoin is always mentioned as the first? It's just a matter of time that people who seriously want to invest into Bitcoin do their research and realize there are others, technically equal to Bitcoin. Do you think smart money are stupid and will be buying into overvalued assets, whereas they could invest in undervalued and get much more ROI? Even if they invest 90% into bitcoin and 10% into 2-3 alt-coins (which they will do because diversifying risk is Investing 101 lesson #1), those alt-coins will still appreciate faster than bitcoin because they are so much undervalued.


It's never been like that in the history of mankind and it will never be, because humans never change.

Again, the Alt coins are acting as a Ponzi for dumb (or play?) money.

Nothing but a game with no real value behind the system but wasted computing resources.

Again, how is Bitcoin different if nobody is transacting in it yet (I repeat - only 1 measly transaction per second for the entire planet in bitcoin network)?

What real value does it have?

Please, define 'real' and 'fictional' value, otherwise, we're just beating around the bush here.

Explain how people aren't transacting in it "yet".

I did above.

People do 1 transaction per second in bitcoin network, whereas people do thousands transactions per second in visa/mastercard networks.

Meaning that bitcoin is carrying out just a store of value money function right now, not an exchange or trade goods and service for it functions.

Same goes for Litecoin, it's a store of value as of this time.

So how is BTC different from LTC?

Refer to the chart and response I already had to this. You believing people aren't using BTC for transactions is just crazy wrong and it appears you have been away for a few years.

Plenty of charts online for you to look at besides the one I linked you to.

There is nothing to refer to, your chart is irrelevant to my arguments.


I am not believing anything, I see numbers and compare them.
Can you compare 1 with 1000s, which one is bigger?

What? They are direct responses to said arguments.

You for some reason believe people aren't transacting by Bitcoins.

Yes, they do, 0.00001% people of the world transact in bitcoins, that is so mainstream.
And even that 1 measly transaction per second for the entire planet is mostly for speculation, not for purchasing goods and services.

LTC is exactly the same, I don't see how it's different from Bitcoin and have yet to hear any arguments from you.

You entirely miss the point of me showing you that chart.

All those currency systems are linked with each other, giving them the appearance that they are so much more greater.

You greatly over value certain medians for exchange.

Just like people did in the housing bubble.

The global currency systems are about to all suffer very hard and a time will come for action.

People/countries invested heavy in traditional currency systems that were backed by government/banker/business control instead of something like gold.

Bitcoin has already created a system that self adopts to the peoples needs.

Everyone is dumping traditional currency into assets. In other words, people aren't trusting government (other people) but rather forces that aren't controlled by humans, such as gold or Bitcoin (governed by computing power etc).

We are entering dog-eat dog systems where only one will survive.

Why use Alt coins when Bitcoin is at the same time the first decentralized currency and a Alt coin (since it adapts to global community needs).

We don't need a "Alt" coin to Bitcoin it in itself is a Alt coin.

Litecoin is just like PayPal and Visa.

One is more powerful than the other, the first, original etc.

So, by this statement you confirm my position that some alt-coins will survive and even prosper.
Visa and Paypal survive and prosper along side with other digital fiat systems, people use different systems, because some of them offer more convenience than others, different features, better customer support than others.

Why would it be different with cryptos?

Even when people move from fiat into cryptos, why would they move to Bitcoin only and ignore others? Others are technically the same or about the same with minor not relevant differences. And like I said before, infrastructure is a matter of time, and Bitcoin can't boast of a large infrastructure yet, very few merchants use it, very few customers buy with it. 1 transaction per second for the whole world in bitcoin network is proof of that.

People like simple systems when it comes to dealing with technology.

The masses will never adopt away from a currency that is already adaptable within one system. They want the best and involving as little people/time as possible.

In other words, yes computers are taking your jobs.

Any other Alt coin besides Bitcoin is just echoing and playing catch up that is doomed to crash once and for all.

Litecoin will never serve a good purpose and can only collapse within itself along with the Alt coins after that.

People do enjoy Ponzi schemes though, and the Ponzi market is being taken over by "Alt coins".


 

The more I read these ungrounded statements the more I'm convinced it's just remorse on your part for selling LTC too soon.

I sold LTC that I mined for nothing when it first came out, this has nothing to do with my feelings.

Then what exactly did you mean when you said 'I had 3000 LTC, believe me'? What am I supposed to believe? You're a miner, maybe a good one, I don't know. But miners are usually not good at trading or foreseeing future economic and currency trends, otherwise they'd be better off trading, coz it's more profitable, compared to mining operations where profits are marginal.

LMAO. But what's a "boob crash"? ;)

The housing bubble and subsequent crash was caused by government interference in the economy (Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae). It's not clear that the speed of the rise was the primary cause of the problem.

indeed, bitcoins market cap is only 40% of Inktomi's during the .com-bubble, it will sure be interesting to see once/if it's market cap will be equal to that of Apple/Exxon/Berkshire

Bitcoin at 10k would be ~120B market cap if my high school math still works, it may not. ;)  Not many companies, stocks, etc, have a market cap that large.  Not if its a currency...that's a whole different story on currency market cap...

Once it gets very big, it forces governments to regulate, rather than "gets more difficult" IMHO

That's an interesting statement because it's basically what happened.  No government, basically anywhere in the world, took notice of Bitcoin until it's value increased greatly in price.  Now that is has a market cap of ~$10B, governments care because of what it is and what it may become.  It will threaten some of them and they have taken notice.  As it becomes more mainstream, and increases in value, you'll see more governments taking action, some positive, some negative.

Why would governments take notice until something becomes valuable to them. It's natural that regulation will come.

Because governments have limited time to enact regulation. They weren't interested in bitcoin 2 years ago because bitcoin was irrelevant in terms of revenue. Its no coincidence government regulation started happening in 2013 when the price skyrocketed

Bitcoin wont be the only game in town, but its still the best game, when someone (Zynga, Overstock) wants to begin accepting a digital currency, they dont use dogecoin, they will start with BTC, LTC probably transacts a tiny fraction of what bitcoin does, the media knows BTC, it has a brand value now

Will LTC survive the long run, even flourish? yes, and maybe a 3rd coin, like peercoin, but is it different enough to overtake bitcoin, I'd say no, eventually it will fall by the wayside, because even more than BTC, LTC is currently only a store of value, a hedge with much less base support, propped up more by the success of its competitor than its own use, which is not to say BTC cant be toppled, there just isnt a scheme with clear enough advantages over BTC to take from its momentum

And just because humans have had differing currencies so far doesnt mean things dont change, people didnt have near universal access to free knowledge 100 years ago (internet), we have only just gone to space and got down being able to be anywhere on earth within a day, change is the only constant, fiscal revolution has happened many times before and it will happen more after digital currencies have their reign, being able to use the same money at a starbucks in california and a starbucks in shanghai is a logical progression of advancement

the housing bubble was pure speculation and the increase of demand was artificial.. that's why it fizzled out, not because it boomed so fast.

Yes, it boomed too fast, bubbled.

Bitcoin can follow the same path/events.

Yes, brand and network effect always seem like the 'strongest' arguments. I agree to some extent, but not fully agree. Some altcoins are better technically than bitcoin. The better they are, the more market share they will gain. Most will die though. Only a few will survive, most likely those that offer some innovation. Litecoin is sort of backup for bitcoin, in case sha-256 is ever broken, which cannot be ruled out.

So there'll always be at least people diversifying on the basis of a different than sha-256 algo. It's simply not wise to keep all eggs in one basket. There are many encryption algos, and that's for a reason. No reason to believe sha-256 is the best one, just because it's not been broken yet.

Besides, Bitcoin is becoming less and less suited for micropayments, which can be a big market, especially if more merchants start accepting it. Something else has to take over that niche.

Micro transactions is just a short-term problem for Bitcoin.

It will be solved in the future by Bitcoin processors.

Bitcoin is always way more universal than most people believe, it can and will always keep up with any "Alt currency" -- forever.

Alt coins will all die out, along with government/banking currency.

Some Alt coins are slightly better technically in some ways but more often they are just different, or their advantages also pose disadvantages aswell, SHA-256 could be broken, but so could Scrypt, given enough of a warning it might be possible to switch the community to a different algorithm, but certainly if SHA-256 is cracked not only bitcoin but all Alt coins will suffer horrible PR and marketplace distrust

A niche for micropayments could also certainly open up, Id say it just depends on future fee price progression, how the bitcoin infrastructure is built and how 3rd party service learn to implement functions within those structures, but if a more serious and ready contender for micropayments was currently around we would probably be talking about them and not BTC

We can already handle micro transactions using Bitcoin as the backbone, no ALT currency needed.

Right, but housing was also fueled by bad lending practices, and housing is apples and oranges compared to bitcoin, a more apt comparison is dutch tulips if you wanted to make it, of course BTC will bubble, its not the top you should look at for BTC health, its the floor, and the floor seems to be doing great by all accounts, the last crash saw the floor at 400+


the lower we can get the fees, the better and more useful microtransactions are as a medium, and the more value that particular coin has, its the market that decides what is needed, and it usually chooses the most efficient route

Not a bubble development is consistent with the creation of the digital economy if anything the stability is just increasing as more people use it.

Of course this is not inconsistent with rapid price pops and crashes
I'm arguing about the underlying infrastructure being built to support the network and utility of the asset class  ;
Growing developing tech has adoption curves and growth spurts and for now this is to be expected from a developing system so expect pops till we stabilize :)

Exactly, Bitcoin needs to avoid huge booms and busts.

How would you propose steady growth? through a regulation that forces people to adopt bitcoin at a steady rate? that would cause a boom because people would want to be the first to get in while the price is low, and subsequent bust

your asking the impossible, its the nature of this type of growth, core transactors and enthusiasts increase the value, outside forces see a ridiculously quick rising store of value with almost limitless potential, jump in, hyper inflate price, market goes to unstable value, bad news of some sort hits, market crashes and investors panic sell, left with core transactors, enthusiasts and steely nerved investors, market re stabilizes, rinse and repeat

but the booms and busts are in some ways a GOOD thing, better that than a drawn out stagnation

A hard fork already happened in March last year. Didn't cause too much problems.

http://bitcoin.org/en/alert/2013-03-11-chain-fork

Bitcoin doesn't have huge booms and busts. It has huge booms, followed by "profit taking". The thing is going to $10K. Its not going to get there in a straight line, this is a market we are talking about here folks - people play markets

Exactly, Bitcoin needs to avoid huge booms and busts.

Well colored coins and mastercoins will come so we can deal with it for now
Mind you that improves over the Fiat system by adding a new level

I think it will be interesting to see what the community starts to deem "clean" and "dirty" Bitcoin.

Seems like it will easily replace the current credit system the big bankers have in place.

The more "dirty" money you have the harder it becomes to spend.

Can't tell you whether you agree with me or not, but I'll guess yes :)

Not sure if you read my reply but,
Bottom line- Bitcoin needs to do whatever it will do, if its more fit than its competitors it will thrive, if not it will die, everything in between is natural order

Bubbles booms/busts happen to just about anything once you attach the word "investment" to it. Higher risks to rewards ect. Speculations: we don't even know how to do that properly with access to historical data? Crypto currencies are a wild card (and I personally like it that way at the moment).
"The housing bubble" has happened before, all around the globe in many forms and some of us may even experience several more in our lifetimes.
Housing is a much different type of "asset bubble"  than any other.

BTC and other crypto currencies are still becoming whatever it is that they "will be"; volatility will be part of this process.

If you consider it as an investment then treat it as such, risk what you can lose and learn how to protect the gains.
Strap in and enjoy the ride if you can stomach it ;-) stay on the sidelines if wild roller-coasters make you queasy because that's what this will likely be for some time.

Wishing you (and us all) much prosperity (and all the miners much 'luck' ;-)

Taint is always an issue that makes it quite interesting to address as those clean newly minted coins will not be considered dirty and in theory could have a greater value than older coins (Consider it some ethical premium)
Of course that brings up the issues of mixing that bring about discussion of how to remove taint and if it really concerns the system.
However pushing blacklists on the bitcoins is not the solution and we know by extension that cash can easily be tainted as well that still doesn't mean we don't use it :)
Probably why the higher protocols are being created as it addresses Problem A and B better than it does now.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=333824.0

Apparently even the famous "tulipomania" may have been driven to a large extent by the Dutch government changing laws governing such contracts (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulipomania#Modern_views). Most of these large historical bubbles are where the government had a hand in distorting the market, like the recent 2008 mortgage bubble.

Bitcoin is interesting in that the bubbles seem to reflect the bubbly enthusiasm, but without government driving it (so far as we know).

Ummmmm, Btc is booming!

That's true it will attrack investors to buy cheap and sell high.

Why hasn't this been done yet? It's better to be ahead of the curve rather than wait for problems to appear later on.

This is a people's bubble :)

If merchants for a while switch coins received for fiat, then spending your Bitcoins is the answer.

If Bitcoin takes off, it'll be because there is more ready access to buy; and if then there are places to spend and people spending to match that new income, then the price will not rise as quickly as it might with only buyers. So, perhaps wealthy developers and miners and then others with lots of coins, really should spend as many as they can afford to early on in that rise - and ideally relative to where they came in.

Except nobody has the right to tell anyone else what to do with their personal finances or investment decisions ;)

It always cracks me up when people think the free market needs to be manged. The relative success of Bitcoin over Ripple where Ripple Labs essentially acts like a central bank, is evidence that active management is a net negative.  Adoption means price increase which means more hashing power. It self regulates. Almost anyone with an incentive to harm the network has a larger incentive for it to succeed.

As humiliating as it is to admit, that definitely happened to me. It was her legs; she had very nice legs. Nearly ran the bitch over. Would have been boss if I got her number: "Hey, I nearly killed you. This is crazy. Here's my numblah blah blah"

Bitcoin.

even with a hard for how would it be done, also how well does NXT scale???

Lol,what?  :D

It was a warm summer's eve. I was out for a drive. Then I saw this stunning woman whose legs seemed to glow. It was as if they were speaking to me, "Come to me, I will open for you." Next thing I know, my tie rod is bent and my FR tire is shredded; I hit the curb.

Nutshell version:

1. Pretty girl
2. I got distracted
3. Car blew up
4. Lols all around

Not sure you should be on the road lol. Pretty girls are everywhere :)

I don't think that BTC is booming too fast. The current market cap ($12 b USD) is no way near the market-share of Visa / Master, or even that of Paypal / WU. I think BTC is quite cheap at current levels.

Reading the thread, don't understand how it got into a conversation about attractive girls distracting you while driving O_O

That said, I completely understand, I suspect that attractive girls are almost certainly the reason behind the statistics about young men crashing so often, it's just you'll never get anyone to admit it :P I saw a girl with some fantastic boobs one time and even though I didn't crash I completely forgot to make a turn and was halfway down the road before I realised where the hell I was >_<

The worse one for me is when it's a girl with massive boobs and she's jogging.

Also, I actually think the price is stabilising now, we'll have to wait awhile longer for some news to try and shake things up but I haven't seen very much movement from Bitcoin, which is good news for me :D