Now I know I'm getting zero sleep tonight battling trolls... I'll read it when I've eaten dinner  |
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It may only be a conspiracy but Mt Gox have a huge motive for the blockchain to become as bloated as possible as fast as possible so that "little guys" are forced out and can no longer host a bitcoin node on their own but need a centralised wallet.
I expect the "solution" to the block size issue will be the one that benefits larger services and leaves smaller players in the cold.
Certain players have no interest in bitcoin being something you can host on your own machine.
If that were true, they'd deploy a few international editions of Satoshi Dice As for taxes, I'd prefer things to evolve to a system where we pay for what we truly need - community policing, etc, and only voluntarily contribute to programs that we'll either use in the future or other special interests. It would take a complete overhaul, of course, so I'm not holding my breath. I'm wary of the payment processing move, but I understand why they're distancing themselves from being the money-changers. The way bitcoin is structured, it reminds me of a 'poison pill', but built to take down legacy currencies. The edge exchanges show up, value is perceived and everyone starts converting their currencies. The end-game however is when complete supply chains end up having their services and products priced in BTC. Then the bitcoin user has no need to step outside the system anymore, and conventional currencies get left in the dust. It's quite brilliant, because it leverages the greed of people to destroy their own flawed currency system. |
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Jon has a knack for writing articles that get to the "meat" of the topic, often with many memorable one-liners.
Well done.
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Gizmodo has always been critical and snarky about Bitcoin. This is probably another going-through-the-motions kind of article where they exclaim with great surprise that a large bank won't deal with BTC. Then they'll add some snark at the end about how the whole thing is doomed.
Typical.
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I doubt I'll get voted up as a "Anonymous Coward" - but here's my reply:
======================================================
Valuation of bitcoin, or BTC, in other sovereign currencies isn't the point here - neither is 'cashing out' or any of that nonsense. The end-game here is to supplant and possibly replace sovereign currencies entirely. It may seem overly ambitious, but from all the financial scandals and other daily scams that are perpetuated by the banking and financial industry - people are getting *sick* of how the current system operates.
Edge exchanges will dominate for a while, but as things change, and end-to-end supply chains form that are BTC denominated, the conversion demand will change and people will be able to keep their entire activity within the BTC realm. This is important, because then true monetary freedom has been achieved. Nobody telling you what you can spend your money on, or stipulations as minimum balances or hours of operation.
This is the biggest revolution in finance taking place right in front of you, and most commenters here dismiss it out-of-hand.
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Its an elaborate delay-of-service attack, which you pay for in the time it takes to sync the bitcoin client for the first time, or when you need to get up to date after not running it for a while.
It is also responsible for 48% (and rising) of the total blockchain size right now. So when you play, you're actually harming yourself and other future bitcoin users.
Oh, and the creator(s) are totally aware of this, but think you dealing with it is a good thing.
Enjoy.
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Yes, lets move all the payment processing to the USA - and especially to the nearly-broke state of California. I'm really surprised and not really pleased about this. Have they considered the legal implications if legislators decided to come for a piece of the action? Or to disrupt their operations?
If anyone has a good answer as to why the positives outweigh the negatives, I'm all ears.
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Nice one, I have a post awaiting moderation in the comments that points them at the wiki and the ieee.spectrum.org infographic. I also pointed out what to expect when running the new 0.8.0 client, as well as Electrum if they can't wait.
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Just wanted to post this here to look at it later and laugh.
1 US Dollar == ~ 0.0321 Bitcoins
1 Bitcoin == $30.89 US Dollars
Go for it Ben, you're just making the US Dollar tank relative to BTC.
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Nice one about the response-FAQ. I'm too tired to contribute at the moment, but I'm sure you'll cover the common arguments. Update on the article - its been read over 22,000 times, and has over 500 responses. We've seen some people seriously change their minds about the whole process. I've tried very hard not to get personal and address the arguments as they present themselves in a logical manner. I think this tack and that of everyone who participated today has helped people get a basic understanding of how important this system is. I'm tired, time to sleep |
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I tried my best guys - honestly I did. But they have a few hardcore trolls in there going on and on about the same strawman arguments.
Hazek and a few others helped - so thanks for that. Man, crazy amount of reads this article is getting 11k and it wasn't posted that long ago.
I'm convinced "Xeno Frog" works for a bank or a big payment processor.
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Nobody is forced to mine Satoshi Dice transaction. Miners can set any fee policy they want for transactions to and from those addresses. If it is causing so much damage they could just refuse to mine those transactional at all and make Satoshi Dice either pay more or mine directly.
So it makes more sense to integrate policy into all the mining nodes versus a single actor changing their behavior? Mind boggling... |
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It's funny watching all the Bitcoin fans trying to reassure themselves that the suddenly increased growth rate of the past month somehow indicates a rapidly rising equilibrium point. Much more probably the value will crash or fizzle back to something below $20 before the beginning of Q3 this year. There's no way what's happening now is sustainable. Just check the evolution of the number of companies accepting Bitcoin and you'll see - nothing special happened in January, this is just another hot air balloon, albeit inflating more slowly than the one in 2011.
In your breathless monologue you seem to be forgetting that the people who are used to trading BTC fully realize the potential for any kind of correction or major retracement. The experienced users know the risks, and are riding the trend. There's nothing to "reassure", price does all the talking. We're here for a reason, even if your shallow analysis seems incapable of describing what that is. |
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< snipped >
I just cannot see how anyone can argue that compromising money with surveillance, law enforcement or other "socially-fashionable" desired properties makes any economic or monetary sense? It is setting the govt. monies up inevitably to fail, maybe that is the plan?
Marcus, great post by the way. I always enjoy reading what you have to say, if I haven't told you before - I did now! I also wonder where the government is going with this monetary policy suicide. I can't help thinking that there's a few people who saw the dominoes in place, and are nudging the whole system towards collapse - because some of these policies seem absolutely insane to me. I'm aware of the saying "never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity", but by Satoshi, I can't even comprehend some of the things that are being done out there. |
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If bitcoins reached $1 millions what would happen to the transaction fee. 0.0005 of 1,000,000 is 300. That would be a large fee.
300 is NOT a large transaction fee if you're sending 1,000,000 securely around the world. Quite right - I wouldn't consider a 0.0003% fee 'large' to send that much to someone else. Now, to get that kind of balance in the first place... |
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From the ripple project website https://ripple.com/working-with-ripple/ it states: Beyond the basic payment uses, Ripple lets people go back to older forms of financial relationships — trust-based, reputation-driven, and conveniently local. But by providing an internet-based platform, Ripple lets these relationships extend across global distances in almost real time, and at almost no cost. What’s more, because Ripple is a distributed system connecting people to people, anyone can play a role. I would call trust-based financial relationships a counterparty risk. I'm on the fence about its utility, but I don't think you can misrepresent the probability of an I.O.U. default. |
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Looking at past price rises, the price rises steadily and then goes up increasingly fast just before the pop. Since we have been rising pretty steadily the past few weeks, I would not start worrying about a popping bubble until the rate of increase starts increasing. Basically what I am saying is if you buy now, the price after the spike and crash and consolidation will probably be higher than it is right now.
This is what I'm being wary of. The current growth seems to be linear, but the moment we get some kind of hockey-stick to exponential rise, it will be time to pull the investing irons out of the fire until it cools off. |
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Slashdot is now full of idiots, more than usual. Sure, they can recompile a kernel and argue the subtleties of bytecode generated by different compilers, but honestly they don't have a single clue when it comes to disruptive tech. For instance, the whole 'ponzi' thing is ridiculous, but they'll point at the several-thousand percent run that bitcoin has had so far as evidence of shady dealings. Guess what, other things gain a couple thousand percent and they're traded on the world exchanges - reference: "Ten penny stocks that didn't stay that way"
http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=f31d0125-0818-47f7-87d7-cad7848d0a7fWhile I think bitcoin has better odds than a penny stock making it to the "big board", look at these gains: Concur Technologies (CNQR) +21,190%General Growth Properties (GGP) +3,205%Medifast (MED) +18,471%Bitcoin multiplying in value many times over looks completely probable to me. As a quick calc, since we're about 4,000% above where we started, lets see what another 4,000% would be. 30.22 - Used as a starting price. That would yield a price of $1,240 - a total increase of +8,000% and you still would be in real-world territory. Interesting, eh? |
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So you're going to have a service that facilitates panic? Awesome. I'd sign up just to know when to buy my discount bitcoins. |
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