I get what you are saying, but in all honesty, its naive thinking.

The world has hardly changed politically since the days of the Greeks.

People have always found that when they can't get what they want, they try and find a way to create their own rules.  It all works out great for them, but eventually, others within the group want something else, find that the rules don't work for them, and the cycle continues!

I guess the reason for this difference of opinion is our backgrounds. I live in a place where there are daily reminders of 2000 years of man's desire to change their own world.  Every few generations, a revolution occurs and life changes.  However, the dirty part of reality is that its the same people who are on the top of the pile.

You think the privileged classes will get removed by bitcoin?  Forget it, the reason they are there in the first place is because they know how to play the game.  Bitcoin is just a handy way to move cash. No more, No less.

Bitcoin to grow by 4000% in 14 minutes!
Cash to die out in 6 weeks!
If you don't have bitcoins, you will be poor forever!
Bitcoins will remove all evil in the future!
etc
etc!

Raising people's expectation to a level which is unreachable is a sure fire way of making everyone turn against you!!

I'm noticing the same types of extrapolation that were around in the mid 90s in relation to the internet. How it would take over the world, and the first people in would be the winners - and so started the stupid dot com boom (linked with that other stupid idea, the millennium bug!) that brought a whole industry to its knees in the start of the Century!

What do we have now?  The internet has changed the world, but the world is still here.  We buy more online, but we now spend more money in Coffee shops! We download our music, but spend far more time actually seeing the live music. But we still have to visit the corner shop to buy bread - just like my grandad did! Some companies have grown from nothing - others had died a death!

The reality is that bitcoin is still very, very unstable - compared to credit cards, and little bits of paper.  There are currently as many bitcoin transactions in a day that the credit card companies deal with in a few seconds. Bitcoin is sometimes having problems dealing with its daily amount!

The reality is that if bitcoin survives this gold rush insanity, its going to have to find a niche that keeps everyone happy - or risk lots of government intervention.  After it does that, then we will see some growth, maybe the sort we see in the picture.  But its going to take a lot of time.

We are reaching a tipping point soon where bitcoin is either going to become respectable, or the currency of the tin foil brigade.  If its the latter, the brand will die, regardless of how technically good it becomes.

What do others think?

Do you care?

Are you just in it for the big bucks - even if they just turn out to be a mirage?

I can see why there are so many angry people here - this video is not a criticism of bitcoin - its a criticism of bitcoin supporters!

+ 1

Well worth reading it all.
 
Interesting to read how Bitcoin was always designed for small transactions, not the Mega amounts people are speculating that it might get to now.

Thanks for the link

So what is the smallest usable transaction that is possible with bitcoin?

Can this figure be made smaller or is that a hard fork problem?

just a quick question which probably isn't going to help the OP directly.  

Is this problem due to the wallet design or is it due to the way that the block is designed?

Would it be possible to transfer them all to one new wallet without paying a fee?

The reason I'm asking is that while these micro payments are a pain now, if the value keeps going up as expected, these tiny payments are going to be worth something and could well become the usual value people have in their wallets - unless the wallets can't handle such small values - best find a solution now before it becomes a major issue!

Good article +1

But it does move the original question along a little in that as we measuring who can use bitcoin or how much people are using bitcoin?

I would have though that how much people are using it is more important, because number of account holders are only of interest in press releases and for IPOs!

If we were to try and compare it with others, we would need to come up with a workable GDP figure.

Is there a way to add up all the transactions going through the blockchain over a period?

That would give you a nice GDP figure

We all want to see bitcoin succeed but what is the best way of measuring if it really is growing?

Using the value of a bitcoin vs Fiat is flawed because of speculation driving prices.
Using market cap is essentially the same thing
If we look at trading volumes we see a few spikes, but generally, its never more than 20k coins traded an hour - more like 1k per hour.
If we look at blockchain transactions its only about 20k a day
If we look at general awareness, as in marketing measurements, we could use Google, or Twitter, but its not very substantial.
We could count press releases and the number of times they get published
If we look at the numbers of members of this forum, its not peaked more than 3k and that was in 2011 - although there are far more forums than their used to be.

So How do we measure if bitcoin is taking off in the real world, or if its just the activity of those who are interested that is increasing?

There is something that can be done, play the system and see what happens.

Bitcoin isn't a one shot deal.  It can easily fail, and a new phoenix grow out of the ashes. Let's see what breaks as things start to scale and remember where it all goes wrong! Eventually, it might get so broken that it can't continue.  At that point, we start again with something like Litecoin - safe in the knowledge that we won't make the same mistakes again.

Eventually, the problems will no longer be technical and the role of the geek in the bitcoin project will dwindle to very little.  That will upset a few people too!

The question is, if this is a real problem or not, and if it is it a technical one or a business one?

From the replies I've had, the answer is its decentralized as long as nobody is stopping you from doing something.

Obviously, I've confused centralized with a practical monopoly.

My bad!

I love this idea, but I would only use the term credit card for marketing purposes.

I am currently working on a business plan that would do something similar, but I'm using telecom prepayment cards as my incentive.

The main advantage is that bitcoin is not a currency and so you don't have to follow financial rules for how you sell bitcoins and to who.

maybe its time bitcoin supporters got some lobbyists of their own?

A lie can get half way around the world before the truth has got its pants on - some great politician a few years ago!

If a nations resources are nationalised, what is the difference? 
Who gains?
It seems to me all that happens is you create a closed shop for only the government's friends.

Bitcoin is meant to be a decentralized system where anyone can do business and nobody is in control, but - it doesn't seem to be panning out like that.

MTGox has the vast majority of exchange transactions.
The official bitcoin price is based on their average. 
We also have MTGox being courted by Wall St and suddenly the bitcoin price goes nuts!

For a decentralized system, that is an awful lot of influence on bitcoin from one location. 

While I know that anyone could set up their own exchange, it does seem to me that being centralized is benefiting bitcoin.

How does this work with the whole ethos of nobody being in control of bitcoin?

Is it important to the success of bitcoin or is a little bit of 'rebellion and dangerous out of control' decentralized PR just a hook to catch initial interest?



BTW, This is a serious question!

Your simple logic is flawed on the basis that the number of USD doesn't really effect its value.  That has more to do with political decisions.  You can devalue a fiat currency without effecting the number of notes in existence.

You also haven't answered my question so I'll simplify it.

By investing in LTC, am I gaining the benefit of both rises in BTC against Fiat, as well as rises of the value of  LTC against BTC?

I think the answer is yes (I even give you an answer!) - I'm just looking at confirmation, which would suggest that a drop is also magnified!

That's a neat idea.
It could be used with all your important logins.  Maybe another use for your wallet?

As I thought, criticism of Bitcoin is Taboo - now its official!

I really can't afford more than a couple of BTC at a time - and I only discovered them a few weeks ago.

However, I can afford a load more LTC.

What I am most interested in is how LTC values against the Dollar.

It just seems to me that the recent spurt in LTC prices was in addition to the bubble that is happening with BTC vs the Dollar.

So does that mean that you get twice the growth by buying LTC?

I can fully understand the concerns of the OP. Its just a shame its becoming taboo to suggest that Crypto coins are in some way flawed!

However, People will sell out as they reach their personal version of super rich.  Eventually, the owners of the majority of bitcoins will be those same rich people who are currently on top of the hill!

There is an old saying that if all the money in the world was equally divided, it would only take a week before we would be back to where we are today!