Bitcoin Forum

Please do be gentle as I'm a total noob with regards to Bitcoin and indeed the inner workings of currency itself.

Over the last twelve months, I've heard numerous figures bill decentralized currency as one of the components that would form a better social environment on an international scale. Max Keiser in particular seems to be particularly supportive of the notion, yet never fully elaborates as to why cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin would be favorable to the way things are now.

What I'm asking is, how would the use of decentralized currencies be preferable to the current system of banking? How would it's mass use make my life better than it is now? Why should we as a people throw our support behind this cause?

Thanks in advance for your answers and helping to educate me on this topic.

 :)

Buy & hold.

It may be the best decision you ever make in about 10 years.

You'll be smoking a fat cigar on a beach somewhere with a Russian 25 year old wife.

Max Keiser is only supporting something for his own benefit.

Several banks have already said that the technology behind Bitcoin is something that can change how we do payments.

It's the blockchain that they are interested in, not so much Bitcoin as coin.

Thank you for your helpful reply.

Get it from the source:

"The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible."

http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-source

I also truly believe that cryptocurrencies will change the method of payment in 10 or 20 years. We are part of an unarmed revolution which affects the whole world.

Good presentation of AA in Melbourne but has some commercials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XailzWV-wak (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XailzWV-wak)

Bitcoin can't be counterfeit, the cash used by the "current system of banking" can.

Bitcoin allows you to make electronic payments without the need to provide account numbers, or other personal information that can be misused or stolen.

Bitcoin has significantly lower costs for transferring value at this time (it remains to be seen if this will hold true in the future).

Bitcoin has a public and well known inflation schedule for the initial creation of the currency.  After that the supply is inflation proof.

Bitcoin allows you to create backups of the content that is necessary for spending to protect against destruction (fire, flood, tornado, earthquake, etc), it is not possible to create backups of the cash used by the "current system of banking".

Merchants will prefer bitcoin over other forms of electronic payment, because (like cash, and unlike just about any other form of electronic payment) it is not reversible.

Merchants will prefer bitcoin over other forms of electronic payment, because it is much more difficult for the cashiers to "pocket" the revenue (impossible if the merchant sets it up properly).

I'm sure there are many more benefits, these are just the first few that come to mind.

Paper cash is going to extinct in 5~10 years , all fiat currencies will eventually be virtual .
Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are not backed by Gov & central banks , they are backed by math & computers which are more reliable than the former .
The bitcoin price has fall a lot recently , but the rules still the same , people'll finally figure out which is their favorite .

The currency system of banking will not offer you a high return, however, the cryptocurrencies can offer you the chance. Besides, the payment by crytocurrencies offers us a lot of  convenience.

I think 5-10 years is a bit short to call cash extinct but the convenience and ease of cryptocurrencies is hard to deny. Some of the things really holding BTC back are the scams, hacks, and uncertainty. But like every new technology, these kinks will be ironed out before it is widely accepted

The IMF has been calling for a one-world digital currency for years. It is inevitable.

One of the biggest reasons that Bitcoin is so popular, particularly amongst people calling themselves Anarchists and Libertarians is it allows for trade without borders, this means money can be sent to and from a place without government approval for a very cheap cost ( I take issue with the people who claim it's free, it's always $0.01 or so otherwise miners wouldn't make any money ) it also follows a strict logic of having only 21 million coins ever in circulation which means that no one should ever be able to hyperinflate the currency.

Part of the reason that everyone 'thinks' Bitcoin isn't needed is because they haven't felt the effects of a depression yet, but just wait, when the next stock market crash happens people will be running for the hills and won't give a shit about what Bitcoin is anymore because it will look dramatically stable compared to paper money.

Depressions are deflationary, aka one should expect the USD to go up in value during a deflation.  What you need to think about is "what is a Bitcoin worth regardless of it's exchange value into USD?"

When you have a deflationary currency everything becomes cheaper, why people are against this is beyond me especially when we keep experiencing what happens with inflationary currencies like the dollar that dramatically jack up food and housing prices is beyond me. No, the USD isn't going up, it's the value of Bitcoin otherwise you would need to sell 100 Bitcoins in order to get 1 Dollar, but then again, lots of people here are proving to me they don't actually know what Inflation and Deflation actually is.

Don't you wonder why we can sell mere fractions of Bitcoin for so much money? It's because they're printing so many dollars that it's become so expensive to buy Bitcoin even with this recent slump just to get some coins. Deflation in a depression is the end game of inflation and it's a good thing, because it's esentially the economy resetting itself back to a stable level but what happens is economists like to panic and claim this is a bad thing and they pump the economy even more causing an even worse crash than before.

If the blockchain technology is widely adopted by bank, many banks will go bust because end consumers will be able to deal with each other and no need to use them.

Look dickface, if I asked it once, I asked it a million times - no links to AA videos. You know goddamn well that I'm addicted to this fuck.  ;D That said, I'm about to share a secret about AA: He's no REAL Star Trek fan. At about the 15m mark, he describes Scotty going into a computer store, picking up a mouse and speaking into it. When you, I and Sheldon fully know that that event took place at Alcoa.  ::)

Brunoism aside, I love this guy, and thanks for the link.

Lol Gleb... No problem  :D

The main reason is that cryptocurrencies are not controlled by any central entitie.

There is not anyone that can control your money, so this is the free way to use money.

It's been said before that the best thing about BTC is that it's not related to any nation state. Since most countries have bad economic policies, the local currency suffers, something which can't happen with BTC.

Good thing:
It is free,it is not controlled by country or banks.
No inflation
Bad thing:
It is no worth itself,you must take responsibility for yourself.
The cost of bitcoin system is high.

Cheap, fast and borderless payments. Payments need distrupting.

In fact it not cheap and fast at all.Now transaction fee is low because the cost of system is undertake by people who buy bitcoins,not people who use bitcoins.Bitcoin need hash race,and,many miner computer work,but just one computer's working is effective at one time.Compare to bank's mainframe,the cost of Bitcoin system is much more higher.

Why? You can make serious profits if you know when to buy.
And two, nobody can track the money.

I don't think that 'people' are against deflation. I am sure that governments are against deflation, because it backs them into an inescapable self-imposed debt corner. Other than that, i think 'economists' are against deflation, as they axiomatically view 'an expanding economy' as A Good Thing, and fail to take into account what is good for each of the actual persons within the economy.

While this has been alluded to in earlier posts, I think it needs stating directly.

The current fiat system is merely a system designed to steal the accumulated real wealth of the entire populace, and put it in the pockets of the financiers, through the hidden tax called 'inflation'.

Bitcoin is free of this issue. Granted, there is inflation in the early years*, but this tax is one placed not on the entire populace, but upon all existing holders of bitcoin. And it benefits not the financiers, but all users of bitcoin.

*by the classical definition of inflation='increase in money supply". If you'd rather define it as the change in ratio of 'change in money supply'/'economic activity supported by the currency', it has been -- and will likely to continue to be --- deflationary on net. Or by the corrupted definition of 'change in price of goods and services', also deflationary on net -- albeit hugely variable.

Further, the increase in money supply asymptotically approaches zero until somewhere about the year 2140, at which point it becomes zero. Or probably actually goes negative, due to the inevitable case of people losing private keys. Nevertheless, the rate of money creation, as well as its absolute cap, is fixed, known, and fully predictable.

My wife may not be a fan of that idea  ;)
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Best just smoke the cigar with her then.

really it brings improvements in quality of life for people living places where economic policies are weak.

That is hardly the reason why it should be the future.

One of the major reasons that cryptocurrencies are the future is, the offer of treasure provided to hackers.

Hackers are people who do hacking for a reason or purpose. Some of them are bored. Some of them are young punks who want to test and improve their computer skills. Some of them are paid to hack. Others are paid computer programmers who use hacking to sharpen their programming skills. And I'm sure there are loads of other reasons.

In almost all of the above cases, hackers are basically looking for some form of "pay." I mean, if you were a hacker who fit into one of the above examples, wouldn't you be more inclined to do a good job of hacking if you knew that there was the promise of treasure, if only you could do your hacking well enough?

Cryptocurrencies are the future because of the promise of treasure to the hackers. Just look at all those bitcoins that could be stolen if only the blockchain or personal computers could be systematically hacked.

The blockchain encryption is very strong. Computer firewall encryption is very strong. They are strong, like the walls of a bank vault that houses treasure - money, gold, silver, bonds, etc.  If only one could breach those walls, think of the possibilities. Yet unlike a bank vault, there is tremendous freedom. There aren't many armed guards. The firewall guards are strong, but they are not armed. Properly done, if you can hack and get away, you live to hack another day... from elsewhere.

Because the blockchain and firewalls are so strong, hackers are refining all kinds of hacking methods, even inventing new machinery and math methods, just so they can hack and steal. Many of the hackers don't realize what a job they have ahead of themselves. Rather, they feel lucky. So they go about their hacking attempts with ever-renewed vigor.

Because of all of the above, many new developments will come about in the areas of computer and programming technology. Even mathematics itself may be extended by some obscure hacker, who is simply trying to grab as many bitcoins out of the blockchain and firewall "bank vaults" as he/she can get away with. Because of the strength of the encryption, this whole hacking-caused advancement of math and computer technology will go on well into the future.

:)

LOL, I am mentally paraphrasing that  to "Just a big fuckoff carrot to get useful work out of shiftless crackers."

as we can already see that cryptocurrency are more loyal than the real money.it is fun to use the cryptocurrency

Glad you liked it. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=916556.msg10092840#msg10092840

 :D

I'll be gentle since it's your first time. I'll even give you a kiss first.  :-*

You asked a key question with, "how would the use of decentralized currencies be preferable to the current system". Decentralized in this case means controlled by the people and not one overseer. That's not really even difficult to understand when you realize that you are being controlled using your money. You can't tell the government not to do something because by the time you vote for the change the deed is done. What if the government had to ask you for money to do something before they could do it because they aren't in control of the money? Greedy businessmen determine the direction of the economy. That power would shift to you unless you voluntarily release that power by releasing your private keys. Sometimes individual governments screw up so bad that they screw the whole country and with it the people of that country. I bet the people of Greece wish they had all of their money in bitcoins a few years ago. Examples like that exist all over the world. What would it feel like to live in a world where the people really controlled the government? Take away their money and you'll find out. Would life really be better? I can't answer that without a crystal ball. I can say, from watching current events for the last few decades, that I believe it can't be worse than what we have now.

My guess is he only cares about bitcoin to make profit. And bitcoin is very easy to track, especially if you're not careful. Unlike fiat every transaction is logged on the blockchain so you can see where every coin moves.

Cryptocurrency is global, without barriers to entry, and inclusive.
Besides being (mostly) open-source and distributed to withstand attacks, Cryptocurrency is the future of how we understand digital value.

The Blockchain is at the heart of all of this, and bringing utility and reach to this technology is how Cryptocurrency will be part of our everyday lives in this very near future.

Projects like Factom are reaching outside of Bitcoin to show how the Blockchain can be used for things like land title registries for the 3rd world - there's a video on YouTube here: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uYQ5icxGvmA

If you use bitcoin,anybody can track the money.Bitcoin is anonymous,but blockchain is open to everybody.

I can mention at least a few reasons.

Decentralization.
Bitcoin is anonymous.
Online security.
Get rid from banks:)

Yes, we do need all kinds of people. Speculators play an important role in the bitcoin market.

People like Max Keiser are proponents of bitcoin because the entire fiat and banking systems are corrupt and rotten to their core, and with bitcoin there are many ways this can help make the playing field a bit more fair. Just read up on some basic econmics and how the fiat money system works and you'll see why.

Cryptos will face some challenging times going ahead, but I believe they will overcome and persevere.

Times more challenging than current times? All we have seen for the last 6 months is a gradual grinding down of the price.

The fiat system is a scam, Ben Bernakle and friends will pay due MATH. The debts will never be paid. We will need an alternative. Paying with metals is not very nice so Bitcoin seems like the best alternative in this internet world.

I can't imagine a more benign challenge than a slide in price. Sure, it sux for hodlers. But it is good for newcomers. Most importantly, the protocol has not been shown to be broken. Surely that event would be more challenging, would it come to pass.

Crypto-currencies are the future as they form the foundations of decentralized systems that protect life, liberty and property from the increasing over-reach of big brother governments. The fractional reserve banking system is largely insolvent, when it finally breaks there will a rapid transition to limited money alternatives, including decentralized currencies.