4 pages, did someone proposed the idiocy "ehi, if a bitcoin is not used for 10 years, we should remove it and put it back to be mined"?
Of course they did... maybe we should start a new subforum, only for people who've been around since 2011 or so, and pay someone to edit out the chaff. Using that logic, it might make more sense to expire the membership of anyone who has been on the forum before 2011 to prevent them feeling that they have entered groundhog day!  |
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Even with (compared to BTC nearly static) fiat currencies this would cause a LOT of uproar. Just download a year worth of Forex data and then act as if your USD account displayed its values in EUR instead (or the other way round). Suddenly your balance is different every minute, you cannot tell how much you'll earn and spend any more until you actually do so...
Sukrim, step back and think about it further. If you transfer money from euros or dollars into bitcoin and use it to buy an item off a website in bitcoin then you would be paying more or less in fiat terms by the time you do the purchase. Probably more, with bitcoin rising so much. Are merchants going to revise their Bitcoin prices (usually downward) every minute, hour or even daily? During the transition period when merchant costs are in fiat, they will be thinking of pricing in fiat terms. It is a hassle to keep revising their prices downwards as bitcoin appreciates. Stale bitcoin prices will always be seen by the public as too expensive. Making bitcoin a less visible layer underneath a virtual fiat transaction is the way to go. Yes, VF wallets will jump around in value, but if you have $200 worth in fiat and it oscillates between $190 and $210 every now and again, so what? it is not unusable for buying a $10 book. Finally, someone on this forum is thinking like a user rather than a developer! Currently, this issue of the value of bitcoins to other fiat is why nobody is spending any bitcoins. I am setting up an ecommerce site at the moment, and am having exactly the problems you are describing. The only solution I can think of is to offer the bitcoin price only once I'm through checkout on the total spent. If a bitcoin wallet did this automatically, it would make life very easy, and save me 5%+ on Paypal charges. More importantly, my customer would be using bitcoins without having to think about conversion prices etc. I think we may have stumbled on to something very good here! |
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Could someone crunch the numbers  how many satoshi's each would every person on earth be able to have? If we assume that all lost coins are eventually somehow recovered, all future coins have been mined, the population doesn't increase above the current level, and all coins are shared equally, that is some pretty simple and straight forward math (if you don't like those assumptions, what numbers would you prefer?). Total Bitcoins:20999999.97690000 = 2,099,999,997,690,000 Satoshis Total current world population = 7,070,409,764 2,099,999,997,690,000 divided by 7,070,409,764 = 297,012 Satoshi per person. Nice figures, but it does highlight that many of the claims that keep the bitcoin potential alive are just theory. For instance, I have about 4 wallets all ready to store my bitcoins in, but two of them have less than .05 btc in them. I might forget the details of the wallet within the next few years, and not feel too guilty about it, because currently, its not worth more to me than the coins down the back of the sofa. Most of the people on this forum are the sort of people who don't do things like that, and don't understand why someone would do something so irrational. However, the majority of people are very irrational and this is why I brought up the question in the first place. What would happen if there wasn't a limit on the number of coins created? My gut feeling is that anyone reading this with more than a handful of bitcoins is going to get very angry as they see their potential pension pot disappear in a cloud of zeros and ones! Any feedback? |
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The fact that ripple is a central entity/business/organization makes it flawed.
What happens if internally the people who run ripple become corrupt?
If I have to trust someone or some business, that is not for me.
No thanks.
It is just not rational to be this risk averse. This is like not taking an airplane because you're afraid of terrorists. Most businesses currently take credit cards, paying 2% or so for payment processing. That's equivalent to one out of 50 customers not paying you a dime. That's like having your day's receipts stolen from you more than 7 times a year. Right now, nobody has a stronger incentive in seeing Ripple succeed than OpenCoin does. But we do agree with you about the importance of Ripple being decentralized. That's why we designed the system from the ground up not to require any central authorities to operate. Long term we gain nothing from running or controlling the network. It will take time before Ripple actually *is* decentralized though. If you want to wait and see because you're very risk averse, that's fine. Just make sure your avoiding risk is rationally balanced against the cost of lost opportunities. These two highlighted lines, ring alarm bells for me! Firstly, the mainstream public, the people who need to use this to make it work are very risk averse. That is why they will spend far too much money on an mp3 player because it has an Apple logo and a tv advert associated with it! Secondly, when a third party is worried that I am going to lose out on an opportunity, its generally because they too will lose out on that same opportunity! That observation is based on 25 years of buying and selling in every vertical market known to man! This thread has helped me understand the concept a little clearer, and in essence, I truly like the idea, but I don't understand why it needs another currency to make it work. Why can't this be done using bitcoins? Why add an extra layer of complexity? Or is it about creating a float of currency to make sure there is enough money in the system? |
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This is going to be a huge problem for mainstream uptake of bitcoin. The way that bitcoin is deflating against fiat currencies means that very soon a single BTC is going to be useless for day to day use. This means that there are going to be a lot of zeros and points in funny places if we carry on with the current system. Maybe we need to start looking at this from the other side of the decimal point. Maybe its time to consider that the unit of interest to the public should be the Satoshi. A Big Mac would cost 0.12345678 bitcoins, but that too complex. Its still too big, and with the public being used to 5 numbers as a maximum while out shopping, it would make sense to carry on the tradition. What if it cost 12345678 Satoshi and forget the decimal? From a commercial angle, why not call it 12.34 Mega Satoshis. As inflation kicks in and a Big Mac costs 0.00123456, this will become 123 000 Satoshi but that could be in time for the mainstream takeup. I know that on face value, this looks to be going against the grain, but in the grand scheme of things, the public needs as little difference to their fiat currency as possible. Having a figure which is a fraction of a fraction is really hard work to compare with a positive number in the 10s or hundreds. From the wallet perspective, it should make no difference, its just how its presented. Would love some feedback on this idea!  nwbitcoin, +1 for thinking through detail that most people just ignore. For a while now I have been thinking that the twin Bitcoin "features" of many decimal places and serious deflation will be a real road-block to widespread casual adoption. People need to be able to quickly compare and absorb prices. How to do it? The answer is by using existing fiat values. So, what is needed is a new type of "virtual fiat" wallet, call it the VF-Wallet and similarly for clients, a VF-Client. What these do is allow users to select from a multi-choice the fiat they are used to, then it displays all the price values in fiat. However, no real fiat is involved. The actual transaction takes place entirely in Bitcoin with an fx rate determined by a weighted average of the main Bitcoin exchanges last execution price. Merchants making many transactions would average out on the fx rate they receive. Yes, that is the answer! If everyone is carrying a simple exchange in their pockets, then while their minds are spending Dollars, Pounds, Yen or Euros, they are really spending bitcoins where that is the cheapest option. If you think of it like the way the telephone network was derestricted, and people could choose to use voip or traditional pbx. The only thing they actually cared about was talking to Aunt Bessie for the least cost. That is what this wallet would allow. Use bitcoins to make stuff cheaper by using a virtual fiat wallet! You want mainstream take up? This might be how we are going to convince people to try it out! |
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Just a quick question of forum etiquette - if someone is writing total nonsense, is the tradition to let them get on with it, or do you point it out? |
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I like the idea of Ripple, but like the OP, I don't see a way to explain its advantages in a simple statement that doesn't create a whole bunch of complex questions! Does it work if I don't know anyone on the network? That is the main question that needs answering in a way that gives my mum confidence enough to use it! Then you have your killer app! |
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I read in sequence, thank you for trying to answer. ...
I haven't got the time to teach you how to read a thread in sequence...
I have time to teach you to not unjustly paint Libertarianism in a bad light. You want "sequence", OK let's start at the top: ...
In a simple world of libertarian ideals...
That is already a load of BS. (i.e A typical mindless smear against free markets) A world of libertarian ideals does not need to be simple. Do you agree? All the best ideas are simple, just not too simple! |
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What people don't realise is that you can always just walk out of the whole system and ignore it.
Going off the grid is a nice idea, but it doesn't really work if you also want to live in a civil society. The local police only keep the criminals off your back if you keep paying them the local taxes. |
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Ok, If you allow the miners to sweep up the untouched coins then the ones that remain untouched are most likely lost (yes, before you mention it: I know that a very small percent of the time it maybe that they're not lost its just that the owner can't make any transaction-- say if the owner is imprisoned or in a coma, etc-- but this would be rare. To them I'd say it's just tough luck) Wait, what? Again, the issue is that you want to take coins from addresses that haven't had activity at all or for a very long time. The question can be rephrased as, "How do you know that untouched coins are lost, and can thus be taken without depriving anyone of their digital property?". Your answer is, "Take (sweep) the untouched coins...". But if the question is about how we can know when we're justified in taking them, the answer can't just be, "well, take them!". Do you see how you've failed to answer the question? It seems that the point he was making is that if it is known by all users that any coins that aren't spent/moved within some official timeframe (say 2 years) will automatically be swept (or have a significant fee), then any rational actor will devise a coin storage plan that includes moving the coins on a regular basis (within 2 years). Since any rational actor will move their coins regularly to avoid the penalty, any that are not moved can be considered lost. Ok, so I will make a comment. Yes, this is exactly what I meant. I'm glad there's atleast there is someone here who has 1/2 a brain, stick around Heaven knows that bitcoin needs you. Ok, I made the mistake that I'm taking with normal people, not bitcoiners. I'll try to give a little analogy just incase people here don't understand what Danny has just said. If you see a mouse in your kitchen and you pick up your cat and rub its nose in the mouse's face and the mouse doesn't run away, then chances are that the mouse is dead. Do you get it now? In, general you can assume that people take actions try to avoid an obvious loss-- unless of course that person is a bitcoiner, because bitcoiners will flap there hands about and say that there is no loss coming or that it is unfair that there is a loss coming or that neither sashotshi nor anyof the other bitcoin gods have told me there is a loss coming so I don't believe there is. You just lost me any confidence I had in bitcoin. If I have to jingle my money every few years or lose it, I am going to eventually lose it - because that is what happens to every other deal I have had in the past. Insurance deals where you get your money back if you claim within a timeframe, vouchers that have time limits on them just before I decide to use them - they all suck and bitcoin will join the club if it goes down this route. In theory its a perfectly good idea, but in the real world that the rest of us live in, it fails big time. While I like the idea of the splitting the coin even further down, it does negate the limited bitcoin advantage. I'm starting to think that the only part of bitcoin that is going to go mainstream is the core idea of the chainblock and elements of the mining. If there is a way to invest in that, its time to start speculating! |
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I have a feeling nobody is seeing the scale involved here.
How many people are currently using bitcoin? lets be generous, and say 1 million. If we are looking to have just the rich countries of the world using bitcoin, we are talking 1 billion people. If each one was to lose, 0.01 btc at some time over their 1st year of usage, that would amount to 10 million bitcoins. I've lost real money in the past - everyone does - but with coins, I don't really care. It has very little value to me, and the government make sure there is enough in circulation by producing more!
The point is that its not the bit coins people will be loosing, but the decimals as they lose wallets, delete files and generally act as proper ignorant users - anyone who has done any IT support will be aware of how stupid some user errors can be.
With a billion people using bitcoins, we are also going to be seeing a lot of transactions - possibly 100k per second or more, meaning that using the figures from today to extrapolate on future behaviour isn't the best way of preparing for this possibility.
Is there some scope to deal with this issue built into the plan?
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Look at Bittorrent as an example of something working without corporatism that system has had nothing but hate from corporations and yet it's thriving and is more popular than ever, these kind of decentralised technologies are designed to work without any sort of regulative body or corporation behind it, sure corporate backing can do things, but it isn't as necessary as you seem to think.
There are two different issues here. There is the technical one which needs some support to grow, but not much. On the other hand bitcoin needs legal support due to what it is, a new form of currency. That doesn't get into the party without someone noticing its not wearing a tie! |
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Having used the search facility a bit, all the discussion on lost coins seems to be focused on its only a bit, and it will make the rest more valuable so its not an issue. However, I think there is a problem with this thinking.
All physical currencies have a percentage that are lost. Its generally around 2-3% per year, and mostly effects the smaller denominations.
If we have a situation where we know there will only be 21 million coins, eventually, all the coins will become lost.
As things were, when you had so many coins that thousands are needed to buy a pizza, then that's when even the biggest denominations are worthless enough to lose. You also have the issue with losing wallets and that whole learning cycle that early adoptors suffered.
As the mainstream start using the coins, they too will lose a few coins as they get used to the security needed to not lose this new currency.
Assuming a 2% lose per annum, within 20 years, half of the total number of coins will have been lost.
Does anyone else see this as a problem, or is the idea that because the coins can be split down, there is still enough currency to be used by everyone on the internet - for ever?
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However, unlike Libertarianism, corporatism exists in the real world and is the only way to grow a business to a national and international level. ..... You are aware we're on a Bitcoin forum right? That may have been true a few years ago but it isn't now LOL  Really?  One of the reasons that bitcoin is taking off is because some people in Wall St like the idea. Wall St is the home of Corporatism with its closed shop mentality, thousands of pages of regulations and political lobbyists. As things are at the moment, bitcoin needs to wind in its free market spirit if it wants to grow. If it wants to be recognized as a currency, it needs to start jumping through some corporatist hoops. If it does take off, one of the first things that will happen is that you will need to be a financially qualified to do more than save and spend it. Welcome to the regulated market - it certainly isn't libertarian! |
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Obviously, I have written a post that was designed...
Please, have the integrity to answer the main point, or admit you are unable for some reason. FYI: Corporatism and your prized regulatory system provide central control which can be/is abused by people with access to that centralized control. I haven't got the time to teach you how to read a thread in sequence so let me just say that I agree with you that corporatism stinks. However, unlike Libertarianism, corporatism exists in the real world and is the only way to grow a business to a national and international level. My original point was that if you wanted to see libertarianism in the real world, you would need to find employment for all the people that the current corporatist system employs. Without that happening, you are destined to create a third world country very quickly. Now will you retract your suggestion that I support the actions of companies like the ones you named? |
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...if we didn't have the regulatory system in place that corporatism has given us. Do you have any objections to it? Please Share! Enron Bernie Madoff Real estate mortgage meltdown Corporatism and your prized regulatory system provide central control which can be/is abused by people with access to that centralized control. Obviously, I have written a post that was designed for someone with the ability to read, and understand abstract ideas, and that is my fault. I won't do it again! |
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I think SilkRoad is expensive - seems anonymity costs! |
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Bitcoin has the potential of becoming the preferred choice of currency for the internet. But, is all this speculation, mostly by Americans, going to limit its appeal to other, less well developed countries?
The internet is full of language based preferred websites, why would a currency be any different?
Are we going to see Bitcoin being the currency equivalent of Facebook, where world domination is dependent on the base language being English?
Where the rest of the world use the equivalent of Qzone or Orkurt and currencies don't mix or develop?
Would be interested in getting your opinions
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Who is your mentor? What books taught you about the "free market"? ...
So, in a true libertarian world, C through to X would have to sell their services to A and B. They would have to convince them both, without using the threat of a big fine or the loss of their liberty, that raising their prices to cover the cost of employing C to X was a price worth paying!
...
Having spent a few years reading different interpretations of free market and trading, (from Adam Smith through to Milton Friedman and the Austrian Types) the above is how I would see that world we have today would have to work, if we didn't have the regulatory system in place that corporatism has given us. Do you have any objections to it? Please Share! |
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