That's just your cynical point of view, not the 'ugly truth'. You're just making assumptions as to what most people are in it for and that's your entire argument against it? I think for many it's a combination of things. Some see Bitcoin as a better form of money because there is no central authority having a monopoly on its creation and there is no limitless supply that can be created out of nowhere. It also cuts out middlemen like banks which is also a very positive thing for many. Others just see it as a practical tool to move money around and across borders almost for free. Anyway there are many reasons why people would like to get into Bitcoin, not just to make a lot of money. But even if it's only about becoming rich for some, how is that different from the people who invested early in Apple or Google? Are those companies bad because of greedy speculators/early adopters as well? There is a lot of risk involved with it too, so it's not an easy way to get rich at all because there is absolutely no guarantee that Bitcoin will succeed. I may lose it all if it fails. So in short I think your argument is flawed and biased but hey, you're entitled to your own opinion.
I base my argument on experience how people here express themselves and react on different arguments. It's different from investing into Apple or Google, because people actually built things that matter with these investments. With bitcoin the investments mostly go to mining. In other words to build machines that in the general perspective don't contribute to anything. The problem with bitcoin is that it causes arms race in mining, while the increasing size of the network doesn't actually improve anything. It doesn't improve the speed nor security. Just empty work done and resources wasted for something that could be done with a lot less. The system did make sense in a time where there were only CPU/GPU mining and no pools, but now it's only a fools game with unnecessary wasting. |
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Hi- just a thought... If Bitcoin has a year or two, then whatever is going to replace it, then it must already be around right now.... so which coin is it? and what does it do that is going to make it out compete Bitcoin in your opinion?
I tend to think that The digital currency hasn't been created yet. I'm still waiting for a team with proper funding and experience to enter this field. The potential is too big for single hobbyists. |
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That is no lie, but it is the ugly truth of bitcoin, that most people involved with bitcoin aren't here because they are idealistic, moral and ethical. They are here because they are promised an easy way to get rich. The talks of freedom and liberty are just marketing techniques to sell bitcoins to those who know less. Bitcoin kind of reminds me the communism movement. On the outside, it looked like idealistic people want to give more freedom and liberty to the people, but really they were just interested in redistributing power to their favor, while actually concentrating power even more then before. |
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Put up or shut up time soon asshole ... you want to accuse people of being leeches and having wet dreams, the fact is where the fuck were you when we were building this for you to criticise? Nowhere to be seen. ... Now where are your other "smart enough people to create alternatives"? Oh that's right, they're right fucking here emulating us, and flocking in droves to do the same things we were thinking about 4 years ago. Face it you are so far behind the curve you're not even worth discussing things with ... mostly you are like a curiosity, a plaything for our amusement, with your dumb questions and nagging attitude.
Please do put me on ignore, it would be an honour coming from a jumped up little twerp like you.
Calm down son, you will give yourself a stroke. In the middle of all of these desperate attempts to insult, I also found something interesting "we were building this". Tell me, what were you building exactly? |
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What we would need is an currency that is attracting people by it's utility, not by it's speculative investment value. Sour grapes don't sound any different now than they did 3 years ago ... boy most of these arguments are old, tired and still wrong, yawn. You are the first person I consider putting on ignore here. I must congratulate you because it's no easy feat to successfully troll me. You have talent for compiling insulting posts, that have absolutely nothing to do with the ongoing subject. I must confess that it is quite irritating. But I think that I won't put you on ignore. My curiosity gets the best of me and its interesting to see, if you are able to really get to me, enough that I wish to do terrible things on you. |
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I disagree. Proof of Stake has not been formally proven to be robust to all attacks. When that happens the discussion becomes relevant.
The proof of work method bitcoin uses relies on sha256 hashing which has been investigated quite thoroughly.
That is the reason why bitcoin isn't obsolete yet, and it will take time till new trustworthy digital currencies emerge. It took couple of years for bitcoin to proove it's secure enough. I expect new currencies to prove themselves quicker because of the increased amount of attention that the entire subject is getting Roughly speaking a protocol is merely an agreed upon way of communication. It is neutral in the sense that the protocol is well defined
and you are free to implement code that is compliant with the protocol.
The unit price has absolutely nothing to do with this. In a system where you want to exchange ownership of something you need
to actually create that something. Either you put it all in at the start or you add it. To stick with the protocol concept.
Altcoins that are forks of bitcoin are merely modifications of the protocol where these aspects were changed.
And here we can see the difference. The bitcoin source code could be defined as an protocol. A neutral piece of software that you can use to build different applications on. But bitcoin(tm) itself is a speficic brand of service, that is only based on the protocol. When unit price is involved then it doesn't resemble anything else that has been called a protocol in the field of information technology. It's like someone creating the IMAP protocol, and at the same time creating an IMAP using e-mail service and calling the service itself "the IMAP protocol" I'll go as far as saying it is impossible to create a system of wealth exchange without having an "unfair" distribution.
Every single altcoin has this exact problem. Look at the discussions on wealth distribution in nxt for instance.
I agree that there is no way that you can make a system that is 100% fair. But you can either have increased of decreased amount of fairness. The main thing to decrease the amount of fairness in the bitcoin system is the same old devil: too fast deflation . This is what makes a very wide cap between adopters who have entered at different times. Most of the altcoins suffer the same problem. They also want to sell their coins and therefor they try to make them attractive to buyers. And the main option to use is a promise of increasing deflation and riches that come with that. What we would need is an currency that is attracting people by it's utility, not by it's speculative investment value. |
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To a) : Would you agree with me that in our current system as you get wealthier it becomes easier to increase that wealth even more?
You are also comparing apples to oranges. The current value increase is price discovery and not deflation. Deflation will happen once this has stabilized
I agree that this is an general concept that you can more easily increase wealth when you have wealth. But with the nature of bitcoin it's a lot worse. Whether you call it price discovery or deflation, the general idea is the same. Bitcoin is called a currency, with it's main value should be in transferring value. But the speed of deflation is just too high to build any stability. It was built so it would be attractive as an investment. It was built so people would buy in hopes of selling higher. This system was never meant to find stability, but to find increasing amount of users. That is the reason why bitcoin is compared to an pyramid scheme, because it's in a constant hunger of needing new adopters. b) I'm not sure what you mean here. If bitcoin finds mass adoption prices won't fluctuate as much.
Because bitcoin is deflationary the incentive to spend it is lower. It will be interesting to see how that plays out on a larger scale if
bitcoin is ever to become mainstream
The increasing market cap won't help with stability much. It will only attract players with deeper pockets and more knowledge on how to play the unregulated market for personal gain. Only thing that would create stability would be if bitcoin would be unattractive as an investment, but then all the get-rich-quick part of the community would walk. Most of the people aren't here because they find bitcoin to be useful in transfer of value. They are here because they want to invest into bitcoin so that their wealth will increase. And that is the fundamental flaw in bitcoin. Money should never be attractive as an investment. It could work with 1% a year deflation, but with bitcoin the deflation rate is and will be ridiculous with its future plan with inflow of new coins. c) I've told you before that Proof of Work is a robust way of building consensus in such an anonymous probabilistic consensus
Bitcoin is a protocol. If a better method comes along that is guaranteed to work it can be implemented trivially.
Proof-of-Stake is already better and could be implemented but there is no interest in doing that because even the very small decrease in deflation that is created, will put most people off. Most here want as much deflation as possible. When looking at the past developments and the current discussions on possible developments, then I don't see any hope for important changes. People need to wrap their head around the fact that bitcoin is what the majority of miners use as a protocol.
Anything can be changed, yes this includes the 21 million cap. If everyone adopts a protocol that changes this then
thats that. If some don't agree with this you'd fork bitcoin, effectively creating a new altcoin.
I myself find it funny that bitcoin is called as a protocol to some. Protocol needs to be something neutral without increasing unit price. You don't see e-mail being created in a way where the new adopters have to fill the pockets of the old adopters to join the game. If e-mail would have been created in this way, then people would have found a workaround to create an alternative where everyone can get a fair chance in using this protocol. These are the wet dreams of bitcoin adopters, that everyone will start using bitcoin and will start filling their pockets in the process. But the world doesn't work like that. There are smart enough people to create alternatives, so people don't have to feed the leeches to use a piece of technology. Anyway, I like your post because you explained yourself in a calm and constructive manner. I still can't see how bitcoin could survive very long though. |
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There is no reason to get defensive here.
So you do not believe that the protocol can last much longer than maybe a few years?
That's great but I feel that half of your arguments have nothing to do with that sentiment.
And to clarify things on the protocol level.
Bitcoin does something elegant that Lamport already proposed in 84 when talking about the consensus problem.
Cryptographically signed messages make solving the Byzantine generals problem easier because attackers can't forge the general's message
This is the basic building block for bitcoin.
Other consensus variants are better for other tasks (Like using a Total order multicast for a replicated state machine).
Sticking everything into one protocol makes absolutely no sense.
You bloat the system, the code gets messy and ultimately this can lead to major problems in the long run.
A slim protocol is a good thing in this respect. It is easier to maintain and better to understand
In my vision what stops bitcoin from going much further: a) Speed of increasing wealth concentration b) Deflationary system that prohibits price stability c) Inefficiency of mining where new resources are spent while the network doesn't gain in speed or security. I find these properties to be core properties that are also highly flawed and beyond fixing. |
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Surely it's possible that it is not bitcoin itself that is going to be the HUGE thing. but if some other cryptocurrency should come in existence and starts to look better and better it's going to be easy to jump from bitcoin to that one. And still get the huge profits because nothing can come to existence with possibilities to compete with bitcoin and not being so that it has to gain its value little by little. Problem solved and everyones still going to be rich if they have the insight to do this possibly upcoming jump from btc to this other that in my mind doesn't exist yet. Because I think thats the case with almost everyone of us in here, I don't believe that too many of us have to insist that is HAS TO BE bitcoin that is the end game, we just jump to this better one when it seems necessary. Because if we wouldn't then that would really be cultist behaviour in my opinion. But I think we can agree that cryptocurrencies are here NOW and they are not going away. Lots of money coming to those guys who know what is the best place to be holding a position. ATM I think bitcoin is the thing. Hope someone agrees with me.
I agree that it will be easy to jump coins. The only thing is that most of the people who are showing strong cult behavior won't notice the opportunity and they will be forever hodling. I think that bitcoin will forever hold some value for it's historical importance. It just won't ever become an serious financial tool. Most of the people here seem to think that bitcoin is the end game. I will always fall under a series of furious attacks when I say that bitcoin will probably only have couple of years max left in it. Just look how this discussion started and how so many people felt a sudden urge to direct their posts towards me. |
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That is the dumbest answer I've seen from you yet.
As much as it annoys me that you keep introducing new reasons of why bitcoin is not for you whenever an argument shows that it is not a black and white answer and bitcoin could have merit I do value that this discussion is taking place with solid arguments.
The potential for getting rich is a reflection of the high risks you are actually pointing out.
Bitcoin could be replaced by some other crypto currency.
All the points you are making are the reasons why bitcoins current value is what it is and why it might be magnitudes more once they are resolved.
Just like you many many people are saying the risk is too high.
Please don't put words into my mouth. I have never said that bitcoin is not for me. I have earned quite a buck with investing in bitcoin. The disagreement comes where I don't see that bitcoin has a very long future infront of it. I see about a year or maybe two. And I have been telling if the problems with the current market threat is resolved, then the price can go up. It seems that if you don't agree with the constant shouts of "now this is the bottom and it will go up!" or arguments like "bitcoin will be used for decades to come!" then people here will actually start to demonize you, with acting like you are saying things that you have never actually said. |
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No it doesn't. It's been a rocky road and it will likely only get rockier. However distributed consensus networks (in which currency is one application) are is a revolutionary technology, you cannot deny this or else you wouldn't be wasting your time here.
I agree with your every word. That's exactly why I'm here! I really believe in the future of transparent monetary systems that are based on open source development and supported by the internet. Bitcoin is just too flawed and simplistic to fill the shoes of that idea. There has to be something a lot more complex to be considered as an serious currency that can offer price stability. Some say that bitcoin can develop into something more complex, but I just can't see that. There are too many flaws in the very core that won't be changed. A total remake is a more probable option to me. |
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Look kkaspar is a bit like Jorge in the sense that he/she is trying incredibly hard to find good reasons why bitcoin can't and will not work.
I think it speaks for itself that both keep posting here.
If they truly didn't think bitcoin could succeed they'd have left and done something else.
They are either trolling or secretly want to get in.
It is the same as me posting in a my little pony forum how stupid the franchise is.
No, actually I'm trying to find the opposite. Only without success. Wouldn't it just be great if bitcoin will just expand and expand, and the coins will just get more expensive and expensive, with me getting richer and richer, and all while doing absolutely no work? It would be awesome! Like winning the lottery! Sadly in my experience, the world doesn't work like that. |
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OK, that's fine. And you're welcome here just like everyone else.
I just thought that if someone was so convinced of bitcoin's imminent demise then they surely must know something that I do not.
I guess the evidence that exists can be interpreted in many ways. You are right that it is only speculation. I just don't see how anything can stop bitcoin at this point. Barring any major flaw that no one knows about. Slow it down, sure, governments could do that quite a bit. But it isn't going away.
In my idea bitcoin will just become obsolete with coing of better digital currencies. I see it as inevitable because of the childish nature of bitcoins financial properties and the lack of consensus among the community that these properties should evolve. |
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No, I'm defending the fact that a commodity does not need a "market system" to have an exchange rate.
"Market system" being what I am assuming you mean as a group of centralized exchanges where we can see in real time the most recent trades between one commodity and another.
Ok then, when you'll take away all the centralized exchanges and leave localbitcoins to handle exchange, then what do you think will be the volume of trade and the price of bitcoin? Do you really think that any serious investor will buy their coins from craigslist? Without an centralized exchange system, then bitcoin will be valued as much as bitcoin was valued when it didn't have a centralized exchange system. |
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You seem to be stuck inside a box. It's becoming quite clear to me that no matter what I say you will remain in that box.
Try saying things that are different from comparing marijuana to bitcoin.. Marijuana largely functions via a decentralized market, yet no matter where you go, somehow the price of an ounce of pot is always very similar (depending on the potency). If you want to ignore the comparisons, so be it. Oh god... you are actually trying to defend the argument that marijuana is similar to bitcoin.. |
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And what do we see you as? Hmmmm?
You believe that bitcoin will not succeed. Good for you. Care to offer any hard evidence to convince me of the error of my ways?
You want hard evidence of future speculation? Having some trouble with understanding the concept of future speculation? I'm not interested in converting you and I believe that everyone can believe whatever they want. I'm just here to to read others thoughts and to speak my mind. |
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You seem to be stuck inside a box. It's becoming quite clear to me that no matter what I say you will remain in that box.
Try saying things that are different from comparing marijuana to bitcoin.. |
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If they use Bitcoin properly, their money is probably safer than any other asset they own.
The bitcoin market system is the thing that gives bitcoin value. Otherwise it would just be play money that can be used for fun. If the market system can't be trusted to transfer value between $ and BTC, then no new value will come to BTC and the existing value will slowly start to flow out. Sure your bitcoins will be safe in your cold wallet, but they don't have much $ value without a decent market system. The bitcoin market system? Is that anything like the marijuana market system that gives marijuana it's value? Do you think this thing actually needs centralized exchanges to function? If you are comparing a drug market with the bitcoin market now, then I don't think that we should discuss any further. |
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I think many people are once again going to be surprised at how resilient Bitcoin is.
Let's check back in six months, shall we?
"Bitcoin will succeed! I don't know how, but it must!" This mentality is the reason why people tend to see bitcoin as an cult. Too much forced belief in dogmas. Oh, I know how. It's quite simple. It allows someone to store and send value anywhere in the world, almost instantaneously for very little to no fee, without the help of a middleman or the permission of an authority. If someone is storing value in a commodity that's value is purely supported by speculation and that has high volatility, then that someone should stay away from handling money. And how do you send value through bitcoin without exchanges? If bitcoin isn't the 1 global currency, then all the value transfer is still going through the exchanges. |
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If they use Bitcoin properly, their money is probably safer than any other asset they own.
The bitcoin market system is the thing that gives bitcoin value. Otherwise it would just be play money that can be used for fun. If the market system can't be trusted to transfer value between $ and BTC, then no new value will come to BTC and the existing value will slowly start to flow out. Sure your bitcoins will be safe in your cold wallet, but they don't have much $ value without a decent market system. |
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