I have to agree with this.

I'd also add that Facebook's coin "Diem" (not Libra)***  might as well just be an entry in a database for all the "innovation" it brings.  It is centralized, censorable, blocked at a border, tied to fiat, can be frozen at the whim of whatever government can pressure FB.  It might just be that FB not liking what you are posting or disagreeing with you.  As the last few years have shown, these huge companies (FB, Twitter etc) are behold to the governments and political parities.  Do something they don't like, "well your coins are frozen and you can't move them or cash out.  Recourse?  None since they aren't regulated banks."   Members of the association will be able to see, extract and analyze the items in the Diem ledger - think they are following you now with cookies?  Then they'll be able to also track what you spend your coins on.  Bitcoin will (one hopes shortly) be helping to increase privacy on chain.

The "Association" is essentially an unregulated central bank that will be able to monitor EVERY transaction, freeze, control, inflate the value away or seize your coins at any point.


It might as well be the Petro or one of the other nonsense coins.  Anyone who decides to use this is just asking to be controlled.  The ONLY potential positive is that people will see it, and go into "real" crypto, but that is a small hope.


**** https://www.diem.com/en-us/white-paper/
"On December 1, 2020, the Libra Association was renamed to Diem Association. This white paper, originally published by the Libra Association in June 2019 and then re-issued as a stand-alone update in April 2020, replaces previous versions published by the Association. Supporting technical papers published by the Libra Association in June 2019, have either been edited or retired. Features of the project as implemented may differ based on regulatory approvals or other considerations, and may evolve over time."

Agreed.  When Lite Coin forked the source code with the faster blocks tweak, there were a lot of the same comments about it.  It was an interesting experiment (and still is), but it didn't really impact bitcoin.  Today's forks are even worse since they really add little or nothing of value.

Bitcoin can certainly provide an alternative.  It is more likely that statism or authoritarianism (socialism, fascism, communism, totalitarianism etc) will undermine the dollar with bitcoin being there to pick up the pieces vs bitcoin causing it.

As soon as they start debasing fiat currency, it is lost.  

The dollar hasn't hit a century of being fiat yet, a reserve currency based on some objective value can last as long as the political class doesn't debase it.

I have to agree.  

I saw an article (https://www.coindesk.com/first-mover-mohamed-el-erian-bitcoin-19k) and it was discussing Metcalfe's law from an investment perspective and in the article they are discussing the number of bitcoin addresses and say:
"Cipolaro’s price projection does require assumptions about how fast bitcoin’s network grows during the first half of the 2020s. Over the past 12 months, the number of Bitcoin addresses has grown by 18%. So he assumes growth rates of 5% to 25% over the coming years. "

Now they are claiming that bitcoin addresses are the measure of the network effect and to me that sounds only tangentially related to the uses of the network.  Perhaps they are simplifying it for ease of calculation, but addresses don't seem to be a good indicator of the network effects.  If they are arguing that the number of active users is represented by X addresses, then perhaps it is understandable.

Speaking of Metcalfe, I most recently saw Metcalfe speak about 2.5 years ago and he was discussing ethernet and some of the people at the place I heard the talk (Maine, US) were just completely ignorant, two example questions.  "If there is ether, how can you say you invented ethernet?" Of course it is just a name. "If there is no ether, how can ethernet work?"  He seemed to be amused at first, and finally he said that he "wasn't able uphold his end of the conversation, but he'd be happy to talk to these people afterwards."  It was a very polite and astute way of handling what was degenerating into nonsense.

Whoops!  Thanks

Yeah, but I was responding to the headline which was dealing with the percentage of PayPal customers who were willing to pay in Bitcoin even though none of it is currently possible.  It seemed to me as if the headline was dealing with what people would like vs what currently is.

The pull quotes show this is why (a) there is huge upside still, and (b) people are getting in now while the price is relatively low:

"Give me the top 7 cryptocurrencies, put them into an ETF wrapper, and let me invest in it with liquidity so that if I want to buy a million dollars of it in the morning and sell a million dollars in the afternoon, I can do that in an ETF format," he said.

"...the seal of approval from the SEC that the ETF would require may convince more institutional investors to buy bitcoin, " he said. O'Leary said institutional support is "slowly creeping" into the bitcoin market, but many investors are still hesitant without "clearance from the regulators."

"If tomorrow morning we woke up and the SEC said you can create an ETF with bitcoin and we think bitcoin is legitimate payment system and storage of wealth, not only would it go up, you'd have a lot of people like me investing in it, because I'd say ok, I'll give it a 5% weighting," added O'Leary.

"Fortunately for O'Leary, the prospect of a crypto ETF may not be far out. In October, SEC Chairman James Clayton said the SEC is working on regulations that may one day authorize the use of cryptocurrency ETFs. "

I agree about the "life better" thing and "haunt me".  I just don't need to to sell bitcoin to do so.  And try to be judicious with other stuff.  

Better locks on the house, yes.  Better safety in the car, yes.  An efficient washing machine or dishwasher, yes.

Lambo, Bentley, pet jewelry, Golden Goose sneakers, Louis Vuitton luggage, etc no.    <--- to me, that is rubbish, a way to overpay.  

  
 

I am of the opinion that if I don't need something, I'm not selling/spending bitcoin on it. (I try not to buy it anyway).  I'm inclined to let the bitcoin ride right now given that the future (still) looks bright.  Another order of magnitude or two and I might sell some small percent and invest them in something else from a diversification standpoint.  Geographic diversification and political system diversification are important. Right now bitcoin is providing a lot of that since our geographic diversification is still somewhat limited, but with bitcoin being so portable, it is an escape hatch if ever needed.

Definitely not on "rubbish"   though.  A lot of it, Lamborghini's etc are merely expensive toys designed to separate people from their money, aka rubbish.  lol

The "smarter money" was in bitcoin 10, 8, 6, 4, 3 years ago.  At least this "smart money" won't be looking back in 2-5 years saying, "man, I wish I'd bought more back when it was at only $19000.'  While this is "smart money" it is only the start of so-called smart money.

One important point about this is IF it gets people to stay in crypto instead of converting back to fiat.  A buys from B and B just keeps the crypto and then uses it to buy from C, D, and E.  C,D, and E do similarly.

If B converts back to fiat immediately, it is better than nothing, but not much. 

Supply and demand.

PayPal, GBTC, Square, MicroStrategy etc.  They are all fueling demand.

Protecting assets from inflation, confiscation, border controls - all things that totalitarians (fascist, socialist, communist etc) invariably impose.

Sending money and other use cases.

No, the correct answer is no one knows.  Everything else is just a guess. 

Previous order of magnitude new highs didn't take that long, but ask in 2030 and then you can get the correct answer as to how long it took.

A country that truly adopts bitcoin and the ideals that underlay it would attract a lot of people. 

As some places have done with adopting favorable trust laws, a country that adopts a bunch of favorable bitcoin developer, investor laws etc will do well.  Perhaps an easier way is to convince a government somewhere of the benefits that would accrue if they were to do so. 

The authoritarians (socialist, fascist, communist etc) will grouse about it being a "race to the bottom" but that is only true if one considers liberty or freedom the "bottom".  It is more a race toward the top - liberty.

I think the correct answer here is:
1. Put out an actual proposal/whitepaper with real terms.
2. Write some code.
3. Launch and see what happens. 

I'd love to see an actual specification and code.

If it is a great idea, it will do well, if not not.  Talking here does nothing.  I won't hold my breath.

Taproot, MAST, Schnoor etc can't come soon enough.  Every one of these will provide important long term features that will help long term growth of the ecosystem and hence the fiat price.

What coin are you talking about that mined 15 millions coins in 2 years?  It certainly wasn't bitcoin, the 15 millionth coin was mined in 2015-2016 so 6-7 years after the genesis block.  If you want to have an intelligent discussion, you need to at least be informed.

Please define "fair".  Fair that the people who spent their time on bitcoin mined early?  Fair that people mined it because it was an interesting project that is still in beta and had no guarantee of success?  Fair that the people who paid attention and were able to understand the white paper did so?  

"It is not fair" sounds like a 3 year old complaining.  

And as soon as this "bio recognition" stuff gets going, someone will use CRISPR or something to slightly alter some genes and get a double or 1000 x helping.

You don't know what "premine" means.  It is as if I said "I want to rob X" and I defined "rob" as give some cookies to X when everyone else understands it is taking them.  It helps to understand the terms.

1.  It is distributed to favored groups every year by inflating the value away to pay for things.  Somewhere between 3% and 1,000,000% depending on the nation.  
2. So fiat is therefore not a premise since they print more every year and distribute it.
3. Good luck with that.
4. So you change what you said, okay.

Sounds like someone is butt hurt they were too busy doing something else and only found bitcoin.

1. Fiat is not a "premine" - they are inflating it away (e.g. printing more) every year.
2. Bitcoin has a fixed total number, fiat does not.
3. "I will...".  Who put you in charge?  With bitcoin, unlike your "I will" coin and fiat, the math is in charge.
4. While I think space exploration is important, who made you god to decide that everyone else should pay for your (or my) choices?  Other people may make different choices.