Referring to bolded section, some miners *are* smart because mining can be a less risky way to invest at least inasmuch as you can reliably predict your  , particularly if the price of BTC drops, and especially if you buy in at the right time.   I've profited more from the Antminers that I've purchased than I would have if I had bought BTC outright simply because the average price of BTC hasn't changed much since I bought them.

Now, cloud hashing is just plain stupid -- I have no problem conceding that.

I think this is nitpicking a little bit.  You're talking about a false sense of security from someone who assumes that 1 confirmation at an average of (for example) 30-second confirmation times provides the same level of security as 1 confirmation at an average of 10-minute confirmation times.  But, regardless of psychology, if you *had* to chose between 0 confirmations at n-second confirmation times or 1 confirmation at n-minus-m-second confirmation times, which would you pick?

The point is that one confirmation at any confirmation rate is preferable to 0 confirmations, and therefore *is* necessarily better.

No, it is not correct, or rather I should say it is incomplete.  Difficulty affects price because it impacts miner sales and also the rate at which mined BTC are liquidated to recoup mining costs.  It is not now, nor has it ever been, a one-way function.

Referring to bolded section, no.

Difficulty affects price and price affects difficulty.  It's absolutely not a one-way function.

I'll be honest, I kind of have no idea what you said, and I'm not sure that you do either.  Still, I'll try to break down this mess in front of me to see if I can make a relevant response,

Bitcoin has value and bitcoins have value, i.e. both the network and the currency units are valuable. The network is valuable because it provides a platform for sending currency units in a way that many users find preferable to traditional payment systems such as credit cards, checks, and wire transfers.  The value of Bitcoin as a network or protocol is debatable, but certainly you must acknowledge that many others believe it is valuable or else you wouldn't be seeing investors pumping tens of millions of dollars into infrastructure and Bitcoin start-up businesses.  And of course bitcoins, the currency units, obviously have value as reflected by the day's market trading and information pulled from the order books.

So, you're right, buying and selling bitcoins doesn't create value.  But, buying bitcoins is akin to investing in the Bitcoin network platform.  As that platform grows, it and the currency units become more valuable, and so I am rewarded with profit for investing into a platform that others find valuable.

Paper money is generated with a printing press, so I'm not really sure where you're going with the whole "it creates money in ur pocket through artificial means by a hyped currency" tangent.

Yes, a small % of the population uses BTC, but not only is your statistic unbelievably off-base, but the number of people that use BTC says nothing about whether it's a ponzi scheme.

How do large mining operations in any way suggest bitcoin is a ponzi scheme? Hint: they don't.

I actually agree that Bitcoin is technically inferior to some other coins.  That doesn't really bother me right now , though.  Bitcoin is 'good enough' so to speak, and I find that it's very useful and that I prefer it for many types of transactions.  

I think everyone's overreacting here, or at least those who are blaming Coinbase probably shouldn't be.  These changes were likely encouraged by their legal team.  They can't risk being caught knowingly helping others to fund illegal activities.

It's certainly over-the-top to suggest that Coinbase doesn't care about freedom.  That's completely unfair.

Why are *you* here?

Okay, I'm here to make money, but every morning when I go to my job I ask myself the same question, "Why am I here?"  And the answer is the same, "To make money."  But, working for monetary compensation isn't a ponzi.

Do you think gold is a ponzi?  You're talking about an asset that's sold in an auction market.  Bitcoin isn't unique in this regard, and auction markets aren't ponzis.

By the way, your accusatory logic is wrong.  If I sell my coins to others and make a profit, then I'm holding fiat and at that point don't care what others do with their BTC.

The reason Bitcoin isn't a ponzi is simply because it doesn't meet the criteria of a ponzi.  Go ahead and argue up and down about other concerns, there are a lot to choose from.   Being a ponzi scheme, however, isn't one of them.

Yes, the largest benefit to short confirmation times is that 1 confirmation is infinitely better than 0 confirmations.  As a result, very short confirmation times are hands-down better for convenience-store-like transactions (assuming that the time isn't so short that you end up with intolerably high rates of orphans, etc.).  Really, anything beyond 15-30 seconds becomes a legitimate issue for these transaction types.

Actually, the one thing I'm confident in asserting is that the relationship between price and difficulty is *NOT* a one-way function.  Price absolutely affects difficulty and vice-versa.   Anyone who tells you otherwise is completely ignoring psychological factors.

What I'm not confident about is exactly how this dynamic plays out, and specifically how miners (particularly the largest mining operations) are affected and influenced by varying difficult adjustment periods.

Also note that I'm not referring to how the actual difficulty level influences miners and the price, but rather I'm simply focusing on the time between difficulty adjustments.

I would decrease the time for difficulty adjustments.  I don't have a specific duration in mind, but maybe something like every 1-3 days.

My reasoning for this is that I think it could have interesting effects on price stability due to reduced effects of difficulty manipulation and speculation by miners.  I think there's a likelihood that it could help stabilize the rate at which miners sell BTC to recoup investment costs.

For the record, I kind of have no idea what I'm talking about here.

Ahhh! Noooooo!

Lol, I edit about 99% of my posts.  Virtually all of these edits are typographical, but I also do it intentionally so that I never get called out for an edited post. 

Edit:  See?

1)  Okay, I'll agree with you that we are all interdependent, and that is why...

2) ...a good society is dependent upon the contributions from *all* of its citizens!  Its 'wrong' to refuse to subject yourself as a 'wage slave' because you're asking for money from people who ARE wage slaves.  In fact, if there were no wage slaves, then there would be nobody to give you money at all.  You're just acting like a baby and complaining that we, your fellow citizens, actually expect you to contribute something.

3)  Fine.  You don't have to sacrifice your values or beliefs, and we don't have to give you money.  We *are* working for ourselves, but you're not, which is why you continue to receive exactly what you deserve -- nothing.   

Dank, do you think it's in any way indicative of your own inability to succeed (or lack of self-efficacy, whatever) that you're so dependent on everyone else to get *anything* done?

How do you reconcile this inability to succeed or acquire any type of income by yourself with your claims of divinity and your claims that you have pushed the boundaries of human ability beyond what the average person would consider possible? 

I'm going to be blunt instead of my usual "let's give Dank a chance to explain his unique viewpoint" approach -- you sound like one of the laziest, most selfish individuals I've ever met, and whether by denial, stupidity, or just juvenile egocentrism, you've created a mountain of evidence which suggests you are a social parasite and little more.

You can't possibly be proud of your lack of effort and genuine attempts at paying your debts...are you?

Agreed.

Bitcoin allows you the opportunity to exercise personal responsibility for your money.  If you entrust your BTC with a third-party service provider -- even if it's a well-established entity such as Coinbase, Blockchain.info, etc. -- and you lose your money, you can only blame yourself at that point.

- Bartering is primitive, yet it's a wonderful system especially for small and proximal exchanges.  It's ill-equipped for global commerce, though.
- The benefits over credit cards are pretty obvious (e.g. Lower fees, no need to give sensitive personal info, etc.).
- Paper money is *very*expensive.  First, you have all the cost of production (e.g. Cultivating the materials which costs a buttload of money), then there's the production cost, the transportation cost (think of all those armored vehicles that routinely fill banks and ATMs, etc.), then there's the cost of both automated and manual security (e.g. Safes, security systems, armed guards and security personnel, etc.).  Then you have coined money like pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, etc. that weigh a ton, and all of that weight requires even more oil and gasoline to transport.  You're talking about tens of billions of dollars being spent annually just to preserve the standard of paper money.

Maybe later down the road when ASICs became a reality, but it certainly wasn't an initial selling point.  And like you said, it was coined by the users.  It wasn't stated by the devs as an initial or primary consideration.

Oh come on, that's like saying rich people have a monopoly over Ferraris and Lamborghinis.  It's pretty obvious that people with more money can buy more.  It doesn't matter if it's ASICs, GPUs, FPGAs, CPUs, etc.  You seem to be butchering the term 'monopoly.'

The reason I posted the original Litecoin announcement thread is to show you exactly why the devs created Litecoin.  Again, it has nothing to do with being ASIC resistant.  You made that up.

Again:
- The devs clearly state it was intended to be similar to BTC, and to be to BTC what silver is to gold.
- No ASICs were in development at that time, so ASIC resistance was a total non-issue.
- Again, claiming LTC was designed to be ASIC resistant simply because it utilizes a different mining algorithm is very stupid, because that's equating ASIC resistance to the current lack of ASIC technology suited for that specific purpose.  Quit making things up.
- By your logic, you might as well say LTC was supposed to be GPU resistant because there was no GPU scrypt miner at the time.  See how absurd this idea is?