Dear Bitcointalk Community, please change your perspective about Bitcoin!

[haroldtee]

I agree with your basic premise, but there is also the idea that we are not going to tell each other what to do with our money. That is the hard part about freedom. Freedom is not when you get to do what you want. It is when you are willing to allow others to do what you don't want them to do.

rodeox its not about telling people what they can do or not do with their money... its about waking people up to the fact that while some people are only looking at the price.. devs are screwing with the code and reducing what people can do with their money.

im sure you will see this when you visit africa and realise that trying to convince africans to use bitcoin is alot harder than trying to convince the icelandics

And that is not true. Come to Africa and we will convince you to use bitcoin. I am an African, precisely Nigeria and I know the rate at which bitcoin is going viral down here. Everyday, people ask questions about bitcoin and I have never seen a week that I haven't discussed bitcoin anywhere I find myself. Wanna check out the payment systems exchanging bitcoin to my currency everyday? You have no idea. I don't know why you must have mentioned that but that notion is totally wrong.

[aarturka]

You don't have a clue... Bitcoin's growing price indicates that it's becoming popular as digital gold. So quit you bitching about buying coffee, we've had enough Ver's bs   

[franky1]

And that is not true. Come to Africa and we will convince you to use bitcoin. I am an African, precisely Nigeria and I know the rate at which bitcoin is going viral down here. Everyday, people ask questions about bitcoin and I have never seen a week that I haven't discussed bitcoin anywhere I find myself. Wanna check out the payment systems exchanging bitcoin to my currency everyday? You have no idea. I don't know why you must have mentioned that but that notion is totally wrong.

are you inner city talking to the rich..
or actually talking to normal people.

people 'discussing/asking about bitcoin' is different than people USING bitcoin

how many have actually used bitcoin (without hoarding in exchanges) to notice the tx fee to move funds is more than some people weeks wage.

i have spoken to many people in many countries.. they love the premiss of bitcoin, its original ethos and ideology, but when it comes to actually using it. they start to notice the flaws. the only people that then continue to want bitcoin are those too afraid to cash out or too greedy to cash out due to hopes of 'becoming rich' in the future.

bitcoin has lost all its ideology as a currency and 3rd world/developing countries are usually first to point out this fact once they get passed the sales pitch and start using it. finding its not a 'daily life' currency like Mpesa. but instead a retirement plan

it seems even you yourself recognise the issues

Bitcoin is gradually becoming non-affordable for lower class for transaction purposes unless they just want to buy very little and keep as an investment. Moreover, the very little one can buy from most exchange sites, is still a bit on the high side. Also, transaction fees are increasing by the day, which is quite appalling. Best way to just get bitcoin now for lower masses is just to partake in stuffs that makes them earn bitcoin if they are well informed enough. So back to his question! In a way it is available to all levels of society and in a way it isn't.

[Dorky]

The biggest problem with Bitcoin now is the scaling drama.

I am sure they can easily find a very good solution but no, they instead make things overcomplicated.

[malami]

I'm writing this post because I see it everywhere on this forum. People who just talk about Bitcoin pump(s), $ price, € price and so on... even most legendary members do it!


I think most Bitcoin users miss what Bitcoin really is and what Satoshi wanted it to be.
If you read the white paper, there's no mention about Bitcoin as a digital asset. Satoshi just wanted to create a payment system, a strong one and much better than the traditional ones.

But right now, Bitcoin is mainly considered as a digital asset, digital gold, just an investment tool to make (quick) profit. That's wrong, in my opinion.

I think Bitcoin users are raping Satoshi's original view, thinking only about BTC's value on exchanges.

Bitcoin was created to allow us to do anything we want, what Satoshis original view was is completely irrelevant to me.

However I do agree with several of your points, mainly what bugs me is that the fees are ridiculous and limit what I can do with bitcoin.

A world where you can send money anywhere and to anyone in the world, instantly and with low fees.

I completely agree with this and this is what attracts me to the concept of bitcoin

A world where you can buy anything using Bitcoin, from coffees to yatchs.

Again it would be ideal, but the only way it can be done now is via exchanging services, nothing is done purely in terms of bitcoin

A world where you can get all the privacy you want.

I see bitcoin as more than this, it gives individuals the privacy we want while it could also allow us to track what government officials do with their money if we tracked them on the blockchain

A world without banks.

I don't want a world without banks as they give me loans which I couldn't get elsewhere, their services are needed for several other reasons too bitcoin or not

A world without old currencies, that only create inflation.

Bitcoin is currently more inflationary than the US dollar, inflation itself is not a bad thing

A world where you pay only the taxes you wanna pay and not what you are forced to pay.

Taxes are a rent on our society that allows it to function, you wouldn't tell your landlord that he cannot ask you to pay your rent would you?

[JatiAnom]

well, I don't mind Bitcoin become "a digital asset" rather than "A real digital cash". I just a simple user that only care to get profit (in fiat) from the trades.

the reason why Bitcoin has failed to be "a real digital cash" is because its fail to  "crypto anarchy"

in a crypto-anarchy the government is not temporarily destroyed but permanently forbidden and permanently unnecessary. It's a community where the threat of violence is impotent because violence is impossible, and violence is impossible because its participants cannot be linked to their true names or physical locations.

http://nakamotoinstitute.org/b-money/

[dinofelis]

OP! Satoshi may have had that idea in the past but unfortunately, it blew more than he expected. If he just wanted a peer to peer thingy, he wouldn't have done it in such a way that bitcoin will keep increasing in value as a result of law of supply and demand or the transaction fee will increase hugely to this level. Unless you don't just want anyone to use bitcoin again. What is done is done! You can't expect people not to think of bitcoin as an asset when that is exactly what bitcoin has helped them to achieve. You bought bitcoin 2010 and you have a coin worth $2k plus today, what will you call that?

Very, very pertinent.  And actually, he had the perfect way to achieve a price stabilisation, but he explicitly didn't use it.  The right way to have a value-capped bitcoin would have been to have a programmed *difficulty* curve, instead of a programmed *number of coins* curve.  The difficulty would cap the value of the individual coin, and the number of coins would be determined by the law of offer and demand ; instead of the other way around.

In fact, this is the difference between "sound money" (Austrian school type money) and "ideal money" (Nash money) ; except that the Austrians don't want ANYONE to create money (seigniorage), which is why they could only use "assets from the distant past" (gold).  A good payment system comes close to ideal money ; which bitcoin isn't at all.  But bitcoin isn't sound money either because it has been recently created.  It might become it in 500 years or so, when the seigniorage of creating bitcoin has been forgotten.

[digaran]

The original post which I used the quotes.

Satoshi was a visionary and genius but he wasn't a prophet, he couldn't possible know what bitcoin will became in the future.
Sometimes our creations evolve beyond our control and despite our initial plan. Reality will correct every plan.
Op, what do you ask of us? What can we do to preserve original Satoshi's vision? Give out our BTC to poor people?

lol
probably easier to slap devs with a wet fish if they mess with the fee controls.... oh wait they have
probably easier to slap devs with a wet fish if they use bad(boy) code and empty promises that still only offer false hope of 7tx/s to avoid real onchain scaling... oh wait*(I'm cumming) they have.

so maybe instead of just letting devs screw with bitcoin, and pretend bitcoin can survive without utility. we should be slapping devs *asses more often

Oh damn, I think you watch too much punish porn, maybe while in the sky as it seems you are traveling very much often, be rich and have no concern right?
Could you clarify, how could devs force miners and nodes to do anything, I mean how exactly?
Why BU changed their proposal name to EC?
Who is manipulating the minds of the community now? did you think changing BU to EC will legitimize the proposal and effects people's mindset since BU was infamous among people?

[franky1]

Oh damn, I think you watch too much punish porn, maybe while in the sky as it seems you are traveling very much often, be rich and have no concern right?
Could you clarify, how could devs force miners and nodes to do anything, I mean how exactly?
Why BU changed their proposal name to EC?
Who is manipulating the minds of the community now? did you think changing BU to EC will legitimize the proposal and effects people's mindset since BU was infamous among people?

devs removed the fee priority formulae
devs changed to a tx relay min cost and estimated fee mechanisms that if you had a damn spread sheet you could run scenarios that show fee's rise even while there is low demand.
so even if pool's had a block that accepted under X.. the fee estimates and other mechanisms still push the fee's up.. not down
this was all stuff added that didnt need full consensus to achieve. which is why people are so angry. the fee rules have changed and people had no choice/chance to veto. nor did they even realise it was happening until it was too late.

we need to stop allowing dev's to just do crap that can be slid in without consensus
as for the BU stuff

even before BU many people wanted bigger blocks, dynamic blocks etc. but it was BU that really hit the headlines and got all the conversations flowing.

EC and dynamic proposals existed before during and continually... but its only now people are realising that the EC(dynamics) is much bigger debate than just brand shaming BU.

however from what i can see. BU is still BU..
from what i can see BU is using a buzzword ABC (adjustable blocksize cap) which is along the same lines as EC.. but EC(dynamics) is not a BU product. dynamics is a concept that MANY brands/implementations can offer

 but atleast people are starting to see the concept of onchain scale growth using EC(dynamics), is much bigger than a single 'brand'

[Boseda]

A world where you can send money anywhere and to anyone in the world, instantly and with low fees.
A world where you can buy anything using Bitcoin, from coffees to yatchs.
A world where you can get all the privacy you want.
A world without banks.
A world without old currencies, that only create inflation.
A world where you pay only the taxes you wanna pay and not what you are forced to pay.


I think Satoshi's original view was very revolutionary.
A decentralized payment system and a deflationary currency. A real digital cash.

You've just described Dash, which aims to be (real) digital cash.


Anyway, what the OP said makes sense. Bitcoin is going to the wrong direction, yet they do nothing.

What you feel when reading this page: https://bitcoin.org/en/innovation ? It feels like false advertising.

Yes, at least the post about "Micro-Payments" should be removed.

[poplolnman]

Money makes the world go round, don't forget that. It's true that maybe at the begininig Bitcoin has engaged and gathered a lot of enthusiasts and visionaires but with time a lot of different people was attracted to Bitcoin with main purpose to get their share of profit and opportunity to make some money.
And I don't think this should necessary be wrong thought some would like to see more idealists.

it's good to see a lot of people get interested in bitcoin , but when the majority bitcoin user have a purpose to make it as a digital asset then the main purpose of bitcoin invention as a payment processor could get disappeared slowly. always needed to remind people about this , greedy sometimes make people forgot about the beautiful bitcoin purpose for the better financial world.

yes that is right.  there is no doubt that the popularity of bitcoin increasing from time to time but in fact they do not have all the facilities that we are expecting from  bitcoin. and which are available to us in fiat,  and that is the reason that most of the people are using bitcoin for trading and investment purposes, and not using it as currency, but in future we can expect that in future people will be using bitcoin as currency for purchasing everything they want.

everyone should expect about that thing otherwise the current ecosystem could just go broke and disappear. noone want it happened right? when people make bitcoin keep circulating by used in every single day , buy and spend it just the way people use fiat in daily life i believe the longer bitcoin could survive in financial technology world.

[David Horton]

In my opinion, I think the term Bitcoin is a digital gold derived when Bitcoin started having more value than Gold. I am saying this because the time BTC was below $1000, the term digital gold didn't exist. And I think people who are using it just want to say that BTC has more value than Gold, nothing more nothing less.

[ilovefeetsmell]

Yeah, I think Bitcoin will change payment system on the world's in future. It will replace old system: Banks, Paypal, Visa... and become to a currency freedom, not managent by any country, anyone!

Bitcoin did everything and overcome different payment system as like you've said. Bitcoin is decentralized, no one could control the bitcoin. We can share it with everyone, we can use it as payment tools. Bitcoin has gradually changed and the main reason why created bitcoin to much easier to us to make money. In my own opinion, bitcoin will overcome PayPal and others, this is just my opinion! don't be serious on that one. I feel great confidence with bitcoin. I belong to the bitcoin community and I am so proud of it.

[lonelygrimm]

wow, really nice perspective from you dude, your opinion is same with what i think. Bitcoin price change is too fast and too large, nobody can expect that will be happening,  i think some of satoshi goals not same from this day coindition, fee so large, late confirmation, and many more. But we must respect everybody opinion hehehe

[Boseda]

wow, really nice perspective from you dude, your opinion is same with what i think. Bitcoin price change is too fast and too large, nobody can expect that will be happening,  i think some of satoshi goals not same from this day coindition, fee so large, late confirmation, and many more. But we must respect everybody opinion hehehe

It's good many people here seem to have this opinion.

I think it's sad Bitcoin lost all of its rebellious and subversive charm.

Just look at how goverments and banks consider Bitcoin now. It's accepted in almost every country, with no problem for them while instead some years ago they considered Bitcoin as a very "evil" stuff, something dangerous to fight. In my opinion this is how it sould be; governments and banks should be afraid, should be scared and try to fight Bitcoin by any means. Why? Because Bitcoin has the power to kill 'em all!

But now they think something like this: "Ok, this whole Bitcoin stuff is completely harmless for us... people buy Bitcoin using dollars (and we earn), then sell it for Dollars (and we earn) then their profits are taxed (and we earn again!) That's no problem with Bitcoin, it's another way to make money for us!"

That's wrong, in my humble opinion.

[algernonen]

I don't like what you said
Everyone has their own ideas，You can't force him to change

[szpalata]

I think the OP is witnessing the change in people's perspective about Bitcoin since it's early years. It's been evolving and I think at this stage a lot of the people involved prefer to rather focus on the prices and what they might be earning should they sell or buy and I think we should leave them to their perception of Bitcoin.

[Boseda]

I think the OP is witnessing the change in people's perspective about Bitcoin since it's early years. It's been evolving and I think at this stage a lot of the people involved prefer to rather focus on the prices and what they might be earning should they sell or buy and I think we should leave them to their perception of Bitcoin.

Yes, it's not a good thing, but if people behave like this we just have to accept their opinions.

[Last of the V8s]

...

I think it's sad Bitcoin lost all of its rebellious and subversive charm.

Just look at how goverments and banks consider Bitcoin now. It's accepted in almost every country, with no problem for them while instead some years ago they considered Bitcoin as a very "evil" stuff, something dangerous to fight. In my opinion this is how it sould be; governments and banks should be afraid, should be scared and try to fight Bitcoin by any means. Why? Because Bitcoin has the power to kill 'em all!

But now they think something like this: "Ok, this whole Bitcoin stuff is completely harmless for us... people buy Bitcoin using dollars (and we earn), then sell it for Dollars (and we earn) then their profits are taxed (and we earn again!) That's no problem with Bitcoin, it's another way to make money for us!"

That's wrong, in my humble opinion.

there are some rebels left in bitcoin, just that few are left on this board.

meanwhile some in the govts are scared, which is why they try to subvert btc with scams like ethereum and Roger Ver. but mostly they are totally inept and can't see the tsunami rushing up towards them.

you may like: "These fools have been handed a technology so clever, so disruptive and revolutionary, that the rulers of the world would have to fully unmask themselves as ruthless tyrants in order to suppress it, — or give up their thrones on their own free will — if it were used correctly, that is." http://www.loper-os.org/?p=939

[dinofelis]

wow, really nice perspective from you dude, your opinion is same with what i think. Bitcoin price change is too fast and too large, nobody can expect that will be happening,  i think some of satoshi goals not same from this day coindition, fee so large, late confirmation, and many more. But we must respect everybody opinion hehehe

It's good many people here seem to have this opinion.

I think it's sad Bitcoin lost all of its rebellious and subversive charm.

Just look at how goverments and banks consider Bitcoin now. It's accepted in almost every country, with no problem for them while instead some years ago they considered Bitcoin as a very "evil" stuff, something dangerous to fight. In my opinion this is how it sould be; governments and banks should be afraid, should be scared and try to fight Bitcoin by any means. Why? Because Bitcoin has the power to kill 'em all!

But now they think something like this: "Ok, this whole Bitcoin stuff is completely harmless for us... people buy Bitcoin using dollars (and we earn), then sell it for Dollars (and we earn) then their profits are taxed (and we earn again!) That's no problem with Bitcoin, it's another way to make money for us!"

That's wrong, in my humble opinion.

And they are right.  They have seen that bitcoin is not what it claimed to be, namely a freedom money which would scare the hell out of them (and which it did, in the early years), but is a system designed for greedy people to play speculative games on.  And that's what they like. The greedy people playing speculative games (which is how bitcoin was designed, with huge initial emission, and later restricted amount of coins) are the ones cheering when there's regulation ("this will increase the adoption of bitcoin, and increase the price and allow me to become even more wealthy sitting on my arse and my stash"), they are the ones causing huge volatility making bitcoin unsuitable as a currency, and they are the ones causing returns on investment on bitcoin that will make financial institutions play the game too.
Because bitcoin was designed to be a greedy people's toy in a greater fool game, and not a currency.  Because of its huge initial supply, and its restricted emission in the future.

Moreover, bitcoin has now killed all possibilities to create a real freedom currency.  Bitcoin will be hailed by the powers that be as the tool that ended their nightmare of someone inventing a freedom currency.  Banks will praise it as the speculative tools that replaces those they were taken away after their 2007 crisis.