Why Bitcoin is doomed to fail, and there's nothing you can do about it.

[rix5]

I think Bitcoin has crossed the border risk, and cant die, maybe will addapt to survive

But if Bitcoin DOES die, it will come from a fully operational quantum computer that is controlled by the banks or governments.

The only other thing that will kill Bitcoin is a massive disruption of the Internet. But this will take down the banking system, as well.

See: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=460457.msg5084101#msg5084101.

if those computers come up new algos and new encryption will also come up. Circle begins again. No, bitcoin and crypto in general will not die in any way. It will only evolve from this point. Bitcoin is here to stay. Maybe other digital currency comes up, but that will be based on bitcoin in most parts for now.
At this moment in time there is no better thing then btc freedom-wise and also technology-wise. It will only become more free and more advanced. I think most if not all future attacks on btc will fail.
Just in case bitcoin fails: there are around 120 other blockchains out there that just want to take over. So who really cares? Even if btc fails: Some other altcoins come up.

Conclusion: buy yourself some good alts Bitcoin is far from over.

[Meuh6879]

it will come from a fully operational quantum computer that is controlled by the banks or governments.

Even if this append ... block the IP in hardcoded and it's done. 
Like in many P2P file sharing software, you have an ipfilter. 

[asfbhero]

Bro your a dumb fuck, nobody would run a business for 10% I've worked in a pizza shop before you dumb 3rd world country cunt, they make 50% gross margins dumbass. On liquor sales its more like 200%.

YOUR A DUMB FUCKING MORON, being generous at 10% margins LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOO

 THANKS FOR ALL THE IMAGINARY ECON 101 TEXTBOOK BUTTHURT MATH YOU DID THERE

Care to explain this?, Average food services is at 8.08% net profit.  I said being generous and for ease of calculation, 10%.  Why am I a dumb ass?

http://imageshack.com/a/img844/8152/nmd9.gif


I'm sure you learned more about economics and business while working at the pizza place than I did while working doing Equities analysis making stock recommendations, writing detailed reports tearing apart companies to figure out which ones are the best to sell to different types of clients, or doing manual HFT for a hedge fund. 

Though the first time I learned to do a google search before talking out of my ass on a forum, I think I was maybe 11  or 12, and I figured that out on my own.  Don't feel too bad, sometimes people are just slow.  Try doing a google search on "Bitcoin pros and cons from a merchants perspective" There you will find a whole bunch of business owners talking about how the difference in transaction costs is a huge boon for them in terms of profits.  But what do they know? They are only realy business owners who have started accepting bitcoin as a payment method, and seen the results first hand.

[freebit13]

Wow, there are some big egos around here that seem to think they know a lot about the world... I don't claim to know it all, but maybe some "seniors" around here need to look up things like M-Pesa and Africa being the fastest growing cellular market in the world... yes, that's a 3rd world country being the biggest growing market in the world!

Think about all the migrant workers all over the world and the amount they lose on fees when sending money back home to their families... then maybe you can form a clearer understanding how bitcoin can be useful to the the rest of the world and not only the elitist smartphone owners... maybe you'll start to recognize the walls of the box you're living in.

Keep going OP (and friends), Divide and Conquer!

[asfbhero]

Wow, there are some big egos around here that seem to think they know a lot about the world... I don't claim to know it all, but maybe some "seniors" around here need to look up things like M-Pesa and Africa being the fastest growing cellular market in the world... yes, that's a 3rd world country being the biggest growing market in the world!

Think about all the migrant workers all over the world and the amount they lose on fees when sending money back home to their families... then maybe you can form a clearer understanding how bitcoin can be useful to the the rest of the world and not only the elitist smartphone owners... maybe you'll start to recognize the walls of the box you're living in.

Keep going OP (and friends), Divide and Conquer!

Exactly, very true.  Thank you for bringing that back up.  I got distracted arguing one small point   that wasn't even btc related.  Thanks for bringing us back OT.

But yeah, you're right this is going to be a huge area of bitcoin growth and practical application.  Also, 3rd world peoples will like btc much more than unstable local currencies ran by local corrupt dictators.

[freebit13]

Wow, there are some big egos around here that seem to think they know a lot about the world... I don't claim to know it all, but maybe some "seniors" around here need to look up things like M-Pesa and Africa being the fastest growing cellular market in the world... yes, that's a 3rd world country being the biggest growing market in the world!

Think about all the migrant workers all over the world and the amount they lose on fees when sending money back home to their families... then maybe you can form a clearer understanding how bitcoin can be useful to the the rest of the world and not only the elitist smartphone owners... maybe you'll start to recognize the walls of the box you're living in.

Keep going OP (and friends), Divide and Conquer!

Exactly, very true.  Thank you for bringing that back up.  I got distracted arguing one small point   that wasn't even btc related.  Thanks for bringing us back OT.

But yeah, you're right this is going to be a huge area of bitcoin growth and practical application.  Also, 3rd world peoples will like btc much more than unstable local currencies ran by local corrupt dictators.

Yeah, but when you're right, you're right... gotta brandish the troll stick once in a while 

Here's a little 'old news' to whet everyone's appetite: http://www.mobilepaymentstoday.com/article/216119/M-PESA-meets-Bitcoin-with-new-service-in-Kenya, with numbers like 80% of the 44 million citizens of Kenya having a cellphone... next stop... THE MOON!

[BADecker]

The only reason Bitcoin is doomed to fail is, EVERYTHING is doomed to fail. The ONLY question is WHEN?

 

[bitnes]

But yeah, you're right this is going to be a huge area of bitcoin growth and practical application.  Also, 3rd world peoples will like btc much more than unstable local currencies ran by local corrupt dictators.

Why would they like the btc more? BTC has proven to be just as unstable, and it would drastically limit their possibilities in terms of exporting goods, something their economy is extremely depended on.

[asfbhero]

Bitcoin has generally gained in value, and may be a bit volitile, but is extremely stable when compared with their currencies that experience hyperinflation, and are re-issued, and changed completely with each new warlord who takes over.

Bitcoins can also be sent back and forth between first world countries and back home in africa basically for free, allowing the one family member a family has working in America, or some European country to send money back to their families, without paying the huge fees they do now with existing money transfer methods.

[freebit13]

But yeah, you're right this is going to be a huge area of bitcoin growth and practical application.  Also, 3rd world peoples will like btc much more than unstable local currencies ran by local corrupt dictators.

Why would they like the btc more? BTC has proven to be just as unstable, and it would drastically limit their possibilities in terms of exporting goods, something their economy is extremely depended on.

It's not about financial markets, it's about value transferral across borders and foreign exchange. They will generally lose a large percentage of their earnings through fees when transferring money through regular services like Western Union, but with bitcoin it's _almost free. They might not be rich or transferring loads of money, but 15% is a lot to lose when you earn $10 a day!

More old news: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/one-third-of-kenyans-now-have-a-bitcoin-wallet

EDIT: P.S. that's why Gox is such a screw up... there's supposed to be one price so that if I change my Egyptian pound into bitcoin, send it to my wife in Kenya and she changes it into Kenyan dollars, there's no loss except for some exchange fees (but if you know Africa... they'll be doing that in person on the street corner).

[bitnes]

But yeah, you're right this is going to be a huge area of bitcoin growth and practical application.  Also, 3rd world peoples will like btc much more than unstable local currencies ran by local corrupt dictators.

Why would they like the btc more? BTC has proven to be just as unstable, and it would drastically limit their possibilities in terms of exporting goods, something their economy is extremely depended on.

It's not about financial markets, it's about value transferral across borders and foreign exchange. They will generally lose a large percentage of their earnings through fees when transferring money through regular services like Western Union, but with bitcoin it's _almost free. They might not be rich or transferring loads of money, but 15% is a lot to lose when you earn $10 a day!

More old news: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/one-third-of-kenyans-now-have-a-bitcoin-wallet

I see your point... But while it's great for them to be able to send money for free, I don't see how it will promote growth for the bitcoin. Hypothetical scenario: work in the U.S., earn $10, buy bitcoin, send to Kenyan family, family sell bitcoin to buy necessary goods. Becoming a vehicle currency won't help lessen the volatility of the bitcoin.

[Bitmanandrobin]

That's ok, if it is done often enough, that will even out and stabilize at a set value. the more people that are doing that, the more value bitcoin would have. They wouldn't all be fully precisely synchronized creating a perfect wave of value.

[asfbhero]

Bitcoin is at the very beginning of it's rise to mainstream use. it's going to be volatile.  Merchants can just use services like bitpay which removes volatility risk for 1% with no minimum transaction size.  You can't expect a revolutionary innovation in currency thats only been ou a few years that has only a fraction of major fiat currencies to be just as stable.

There is going to be a few years of exponential growth and volatility, until trading volume is sufficient and market cap is large enough BTC at $10,000-$100,000.  Then volatility will be more akin to that of major fiat currencies, perhaps even less.

[freebit13]

But yeah, you're right this is going to be a huge area of bitcoin growth and practical application.  Also, 3rd world peoples will like btc much more than unstable local currencies ran by local corrupt dictators.

Why would they like the btc more? BTC has proven to be just as unstable, and it would drastically limit their possibilities in terms of exporting goods, something their economy is extremely depended on.

It's not about financial markets, it's about value transferral across borders and foreign exchange. They will generally lose a large percentage of their earnings through fees when transferring money through regular services like Western Union, but with bitcoin it's _almost free. They might not be rich or transferring loads of money, but 15% is a lot to lose when you earn $10 a day!

More old news: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/one-third-of-kenyans-now-have-a-bitcoin-wallet

I see your point... But while it's great for them to be able to send money for free, I don't see how it will promote growth for the bitcoin. Hypothetical scenario: work in the U.S., earn $10, buy bitcoin, send to Kenyan family, family sell bitcoin to buy necessary goods. Becoming a vehicle currency won't help lessen the volatility of the bitcoin.

The way I see it; the true value of bitcoin lies in its inherent use (what you can do with it) and its demand, which are linked... the more you can do with it; the more people use/need it; the more it's worth

Also, the more people adopt bitcoin, the more money gets fed into the system, thereby increasing the market cap and the value of each coin. Everyone thinks that something needs to be backed by physical value like gold or silver, but that's old-school thinking... times are changing... many are realising that it is actually energy that backs everything and it's how much energy is put in that determines the value... just think about that for a minute  and then how that relates to all the energy being put into bitcoin from all angles, not just the exchanges (I'm talking veture capitalists, startups, mining hardware etc.), that energy has to go somewhere and it is... there will be hiccups along the way, but the value has to increase, although it's still very early in the game IMHO.

I also think the volatility will decrease with more widespread adoption and a larger network, at the moment there are a lot of speculators and day traders and they have a very big effect on the rate due to the small market cap, not to mention those who got in on the promise of a quick profit and sell at the first sign of a downward slope, but in future, something like what's happening with Gox will be a small blip in the overall scheme of things, kinda like the forex counter at your local bank being out for lunch

[freebit13]

Bitcoin is at the very beginning of it's rise to mainstream use. it's going to be volatile.  Merchants can just use services like bitpay which removes volatility risk for 1% with no minimum transaction size.  You can't expect a revolutionary innovation in currency thats only been ou a few years that has only a fraction of major fiat currencies to be just as stable.

There is going to be a few years of exponential growth and volatility, until trading volume is sufficient and market cap is large enough BTC at $10,000-$100,000.  Then volatility will be more akin to that of major fiat currencies, perhaps even less.

TRUTH--> There is no volatility in fiat currencies... they all become worth-less over time 

[FalconFly]

Just a reminder from the viewpoint of IT security :

Can you imagine what kind of cybercrime potential will be awaken when (in theory) everyone's wallet (assuming global mass adoption) is more or less online for daily shopping purposes - and BTC would be priced @ lets say... 10000$ ?

Given the already dire security record of basically all established mainstream Operating Systems, lack of knowledge by their users and the knowledge that certain intelligence agencies have backdoor keys to most of these systems... Oh boy, that'd be quite a show to watch.
In theory, 1st assumtion (mass adoption and/or further increased BTC pricing) may come true within a few years.
2nd assumtion that would need to follow to prevent mass mayhem (massive increase in IT security and security awareness by every joe sixpack).... not very realistic IMHO.

Now that's something to watch out for. I don't even want to speculate how many zero day exploits would be rewritten to specifically target wallets. That'd take the term "cyberwar" to a whole new level.

[clout]

1. IT'S A DECENTRALIZED CURRENCY

Does this even require any explaining? Do you honestly think that the current financial system that controls Trillions of dollars in the current global economy, is going to give up their power to some guy Guatemala because he ran he's 1990's computer the first year of Bitcoin.

Let's all open up our history books and see when the 99% won against the 1%? Almost never, and even when they did “win” it was basically the 1% handing off power to another form, and still running it behind the scenes just to appease the people.

Even if they allowed Bitcoin to become successful, they will regulate it so heavily, that it will pretty  much lose any “benefits” that it had, (Europe is preparing to tax and regulate Bitcoin) and pretty much becomes centralized and just like anything else.

The current system will stay in power with centralized control, hence why they will create their own digital fiat currencies replacing their paper, to even gain more control.

2. CENTRALIZED MAIN DEVELOPMENT

Basically the “official” releases come from the Bitcoin Foundation. The development is pretty much centralized. Even if people fix everything wrong with Bitcoin, the foundation makes the final decision on what to include in it's next version on it's own priorities. This is basically all run by “Gavin” who caused Satoshi to disappear after he decided to meet with the CIA. The same guy who has not addressed any of the issues going to be discussed below for the whole time he has been in control. Whether by accident or on purpose is not the point. The point is the main trusted Bitcoin client is controlled by one entity, and everything they say, do, or don't do goes.

3. FLAWED ARCHITECTURE

Size

11 GB today.
100 GB 1.5 years from now
1 TB 3 years from now
10 TB 4.5 years from now
100 TB 6 years from now
1 PB 7.5 years from now
10 PB 9 years from now
100 PB 10.5 years from now

You think average people will store a 100TB worth of data? No. The solution cut the blockchain into pieces and store the whole blockchain only on specialized nodes, kind of defeats the purpose of decentralized than doesn’t it?

Double Spends

Double spends are already occurring, and have occurred since over 1.5 years ago, and it will only get worst as time goes on, and bigger merchants and higher ticket items come online the then you will really see the “bad pool operators” start to take advantage of this.

Nobody is going to double spend on a cup of coffee, nobody is going to commit fraud for small amounts, well at least not in person, but they will for big ticket items.

Slow Speed

Waiting for a transaction to fully confirm, is not feasible for day to day transactions. Yes let's hear the Credit Cards take 180 day confirms. One no they don't they confirm instantly, the money is just on hold for 90-180 days if the merchant sells a crappy product and refuses to honor warranty or remedy the issue. If it's fraud, say someone uses someone else card to buy something, the money does not come out of the merchants account, the credit card company takes the hit. Secondly, most important the buyer pays and gets his goods immediately, unlike Bitcoin where they have to wait for a few confirmations to be sure.

Un-Scalable

Bitcoin can barley handle a few hundred thousand transactions a day, what happens if the transactions grow to 10 Million, 50 Million, 100 Million which are all still relativity small transaction numbers compared to the 6 Billion people in the world. It simply can't handle it.

51% Attacks

51% attacks which don't have to be 51% of the network, as they can do it with far less hashpower, such as ghash.io 29% the two biggest pools combined make up over 51% of the network and can literally destroy Bitcoin at any second. It doesn't even need to be the pool operators, it can be hackers who take over the pools.

Unstable Exchange Rate

It can never be used as a sole currency to replace all other fiat currencies. Why? Because it's price is unstable. It must always rely on another fiat currency to have any sort of monetary use, no merchant is going to transact when the price of the currency fluctuates 50-200% a day. The only way to stop this is to have actual control of the currency and adjust creation.

4. NO BENEFIT OVER FIAT

With everything mentioned above it shows that Bitcoin has no real advantage over fiat for 99% of the people in the world. You can't pay your bills or general living expenses in it, can't buy much with it. It's slow, not consumer friendly, as once a payment is sent there is no charge back method. Guess what 90% of the world are consumers not merchants. If Bitcoin doesn't appeal to the regular consumer who buys goods from merchants it will never succeed. Even if it succeeds it's doomed by it's very architecture which can't handle the success.

The only use it has, is sending small internationally pretty quickly, which then again gets converted to fiat for people to actually use. What market is there for small international payments 5-10% of the world?

No entity would trust high sums of money to be transferred with Bitcoin with all of it's flaws. Want to know how right I am and how wrong you are? Bitcoin has about 3 million users in a 5 year period. Facebook in that same time had what? 600M-1 Billion users.

Not to mention by the time, I have opened 10 accounts just to buy and convert Bitcoin, I could have swiped my credit/debit card 1000 times.

5. CONCLUSION

Even if Bitcoin or another crypto currency fixes all of these issues, they are still doomed to fail because of reason #1.

With zero advantages and quite a few disadvantages over fiat, centralized incompetent development, and inhert flaws Bitcoin is doomed. So next time you get excited about Bitcoin growing, and can't wait for it's mass adaption, just know it's own growth is another nail in it's coffin. Bitcoin is digging it's own grave.


Before all the geniuses on this forum come and give your wonderful flawed opinions, and say how wonderful it is, and it's going places, and I am wrong, and Gavin will fix everything, and Bitcoin will take over the world as a currency and payment system. Please refer below to get a reality check:

Bitcoin users in 5 years: 3 Million

stop thinking of this technology as only being applicable to currency. now for the first time you can exchange financial assets without an intermediary. it also means that you can create derivative assets that retain their value even if the underlying currency of the network loosing collateral. through this you can create an investment and banking platform for the unbanked people of the world. there is an economic imperative for this technology to succeed. bitcoin isnt the end but the beginning.

[freebit13]

Just a reminder from the viewpoint of IT security :

Can you imagine what kind of cybercrime potential will be awaken when (in theory) everyone's wallet (assuming global mass adoption) is more or less online for daily shopping purposes - and BTC would be priced @ lets say... 10000$ ?

Given the already dire security record of basically all established mainstream Operating Systems, lack of knowledge by their users and the knowledge that certain intelligence agencies have backdoor keys to most of these systems... Oh boy, that'd be quite a show to watch.
In theory, 1st assumtion (mass adoption and/or further increased BTC pricing) may come true within a few years.
2nd assumtion that would need to follow to prevent mass mayhem (massive increase in IT security and security awareness by every joe sixpack).... not very realistic IMHO.

Now that's something to watch out for. I don't even want to speculate how many zero day exploits would be rewritten to specifically target wallets. That'd take the term "cyberwar" to a whole new level.

You do know there was a time before antivirus software? People said the same about the internet.

[blankemp]

I'm sure there will be another crypto to take on the role of bitcoin in the near future...

The technology is here and it's going to stay. There is nothing that can make crypto go away! 

[tokeweed]

JED SAVE US!