Bitcoin Failure is likely

[kiba]

Also this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

This thread looks very much like one of these operations imo.

Or you're just paranoid.

[N12]

Or you're just paranoid.

You are one of them.

[smellyBobby]

this is becoming a joke........ I am not apart of some government conspiracy.

This simply to help, would you all rather have your "hopes" corrected now so that a collective solution can be found? Or rather in the future when bitcoin is truly against the wilderness and all of your hopes and dreams for bitcoin will be decimated???

If you don't understand ask for help, or read about the topics that are indirectly refered to.

I.E USE YOUR BRAIN

I am all for a healthy amount of "skeptical questioning", and I can agree with this statement:

I've been thinking along similar lines.  Considering that I once worked for these bastards, I certainly wouldn't put it past them to hire trolls.  They are probably relatively cheap.  Hell, they might even be outsourcing to India.

I've been busy lately.

imo thats "healthy".

This isn't

you have to remember that Fiat currencies are always forced on you by men with guns and prison sentences.

People have never used them willingly, ever.

And this is borderline

I think all the power, and control, freak governments and bankers of the world have learned about bitcoin and simply figured .. 'eh .. it's only in it's early stages .. easy to destroy with just a little 'mis-information' .. send a few loyal (but stupid) volunteers to scare people away from it and be done with it.'

And remember Galileo told everyone that the sun was at the center of the universe, look what happen to him. (Not in anyway comparing the scale of this to Galileo )

Just because you don't understand something, isn't reason to say it is false.




I come here bearing gifts, i.e seeing something that it seems no one else could.

[MoonShadow]

Now that I've caught your attention, I believe that there is one fundamental flaw with the bitcoin model, failure to be recognized by any authority.

If it is failed to be recognized, then the value cannot be guaranteed. Modern day currencies are recognized as payment by a authorities within the country of issuance, e.g the government recognizes them as payment for taxes,etc, and once upon a time the value was guaranteed by gold.

It has been brushed upon in another thread¹.

Essentially the problem is this, firstly Bitcoin shows

                 It is possible to have a currency without a central banking authority.
                 That implementation is not difficult.
Anyways I hope I'm wrong, I really do.

Please negate

Sorry, I can't.  But what happens if a very small nation recognizes bitcoin as an official tax currency?  I think that if Bitcoin has any successes at all, such a recognition is only a matter of time.  There are precedents for such a maneuver, such as the many small South American nations that peg their own national currencies to the US $ despite having no control over the value of the US $ whatever.  The first hurdle that Bitcoin must get over, is to reach some level of acceptable monetary inflation rate without getting crushed.  This will take till at least 2013 when the first block reward drop occurs.  That is a major weak moment.  If we survive that, then the next hurdle is achieving a fairly stable market price.  It won't take much longer than that before some tiny coastal nation that depends heavily on international trade (think taiwan) for their own local economies to support Bitcoin, even if that is only on an unofficial basis.  I can't even hazard a guess how long that would take under the best of situations.  But once one small nation was willing to openly support Bitcoin, then that means that the threats of bigger nations to suppress same were already doomed to failure, and Bitcoin will outlive us all.

[smellyBobby]

There are some important weaknesses in my arguments that may be exploitable, will outline later. Busy atm


e.g You could argue that world of cryptocurrencies is so broadly defined that there exist within this world cryptocurrencies that exhibit the properities outlined prior. i.e could bitcoin be developed enough with properties that make it something beyond the current definition of crypto-currencies. This could become a rather subjective topic.

e.g Each bitcoin could be associated with a solution to a computationally challenging problem. e.g a subset of a fractal, this applies an indirect constraint on the amount of bitcoins to be minted. But possibly puts power in the hands of those with the most computing power.

e.g Maybe the collective nature of bitcoins qualifies as a unique property.

[thursday0451]

The first hurdle that Bitcoin must get over, is to reach some level of acceptable monetary inflation rate without getting crushed.  This will take till at least 2013 when the first block reward drop occurs.  That is a major weak moment.  If we survive that, then the next hurdle is achieving a fairly stable market price. 

Been lurking so far, but I didn't follow this. First block reward drop in 2013? I don't get it. Can you explain what this is for me?

[Anonymous]

The first hurdle that Bitcoin must get over, is to reach some level of acceptable monetary inflation rate without getting crushed.  This will take till at least 2013 when the first block reward drop occurs.  That is a major weak moment.  If we survive that, then the next hurdle is achieving a fairly stable market price. 

Been lurking so far, but I didn't follow this. First block reward drop in 2013? I don't get it. Can you explain what this is for me?

The reward to miners for solving a block will halve from 50 to 25.

Its designed so that eventually the reward will be zero and miners will instead collect transaction fees.

[QuantPlus]

How is this achieved? If an entity does not want to recognize the value of a particular crypto-currency then they will simply start their own. Hence crypto-currencies will be plentiful.

I don't think so. Bitcoin has the first adopter advantage.

Yes, but if BTC early adopters end up making a lot of money...
This will create a huge incentive to be an early adopter of similar crypto-currencies.

If fact, people will try to parlay BTC early adoption...
Into repeated early adoption of anything promising.

Since all crypto-currencies will be exchangable by Market Makers...
People are not going to "defend" BTC...
They will hedge their bets by diversifying across multiple currencies.

"BTC loyalty" is a myth... the loyalty is to money.

[eMansipater]

The only way BitCoin early adopters make a lot of money is if the uncertainty over BitCoin's viability has caused it to be initially undervalued.  If the concept is proven, any similar system will not launch with that same uncertainty--either prices will start at a high level from the beginning if there is any good reason to believe the new system will succeed, or there will be enough competitors failing left and right to make "early adoption" a very risky proposition indeed.  Either way, there's no such thing as a money machine--no one is likely to make anything on a bitcoin competitor unless it has something fundamentally new to differentiate it.

[Alex Beckenham]

The only way BitCoin early adopters make a lot of money is if the uncertainty over BitCoin's viability has caused it to be initially undervalued.  If the concept is proven, any similar system will not launch with that same uncertainty--either prices will start at a high level from the beginning if there is any good reason to believe the new system will succeed, or there will be enough competitors failing left and right to make "early adoption" a very risky proposition indeed.  Either way, there's no such thing as a money machine--no one is likely to make anything on a bitcoin competitor unless it has something fundamentally new to differentiate it.

These discussions about being the first, remind me of http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com  ...I mean, who ever made any real money selling pixel ads besides this guy? No-one as far as I know.

[eMansipater]

These discussions about being the first, remind me of http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com  ...I mean, who ever made any real money selling pixel ads besides this guy? No-one as far as I know.

Ironically, doood, that was precisely the venture from history I was thinking of when I wrote that last paragraph.  Great minds and all that I guess

[tomcollins]

The only way BitCoin early adopters make a lot of money is if the uncertainty over BitCoin's viability has caused it to be initially undervalued.  If the concept is proven, any similar system will not launch with that same uncertainty--either prices will start at a high level from the beginning if there is any good reason to believe the new system will succeed, or there will be enough competitors failing left and right to make "early adoption" a very risky proposition indeed.  Either way, there's no such thing as a money machine--no one is likely to make anything on a bitcoin competitor unless it has something fundamentally new to differentiate it.

There are two forms of doubt with BTC.

1)  Will the idea of BitCoin be able to suceced.
2)  Will the implementation of BitCoin be able to succeed.

These are two separate problems.  It may possibly be true that 1 is able to succeed, but 2 is not due to some unforeseen flaw.  And even if 2 is a success, a new competing currency would be still have the same risk as #2.

The new currency would also have early adopters generally find out about it before everyone else.  Information does not move instantly.  If 50 clones came out, would all 50 have the same high price?  I doubt it.  The early adopters of each one would be people who are on the inside or know the creators, and the public would be the last two know.

A clone/improvement will succeed if it is somehow better to use than BTC.  There are enough pain points with BTC now that might make it inferior to a future currency.

All the advantages of BTC being scarce dry up once you realize that although BTC's are scarce, if you include all possible bitcoin implementations, they are as scarce as stars in the galaxy.

[Alex Beckenham]

These discussions about being the first, remind me of http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com  ...I mean, who ever made any real money selling pixel ads besides this guy? No-one as far as I know.

Ironically, doood, that was precisely the venture from history I was thinking of when I wrote that last paragraph.  Great minds and all that I guess

Hehe. On the other hand, noone has tried selling pixel ads for BTC yet

[epii]

These discussions about being the first, remind me of http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com  ...I mean, who ever made any real money selling pixel ads besides this guy? No-one as far as I know.

Ironically, doood, that was precisely the venture from history I was thinking of when I wrote that last paragraph.  Great minds and all that I guess

Hehe. On the other hand, noone has tried selling pixel ads for BTC yet

They totally did!  Saw it almost a month ago, and I haven't been able to find it again...

EDIT:  Did stumble upon this though. 

[Alex Beckenham]

EDIT:  Did stumble upon this though.  

Thanks! I found a green blob-looking thing there with yellow eyes and what looked like poo stains on his behind... fixed him up a lot and made a new radio-emitting avatar

I really should have taken a screen shot of what it looked like before!

[eMansipater]

EDIT:  Did stumble upon this though. 

That is an ingenious application of bitcoins--taking advantage of the fact that they have some value without needing to worry about their specific value.  I hope they're donating the proceeds back to the faucet!  That would be ideal.

[QuantPlus]

A clone/improvement will succeed if it is somehow better to use than BTC.  There are enough pain points with BTC now that might make it inferior to a future currency.

All the advantages of BTC being scarce dry up once you realize that although BTC's are scarce, if you include all possible bitcoin implementations, they are as scarce as stars in the galaxy.

TC's 2nd point agrees with the one I tried to make above...
Clones of BTC effectively change it's "hard cap" to more of a "soft cap".

And for the good folks that think BTC has a big "head start"...
Let's say Google or Apple or Geico or a small Carribean Island...
Or some sort of enviro or political organization...
Decided to launch a BTC clone with minor enhancements...
Promoting heavily to an employee/user/zombie base of 50,000 or whatever...
Could vault past BTC in market share within months.

Having competing crypto-currencies...
Would actually help legitimize BTC...
If you have exactly ONE... to an average person it's suspect.
 

[matonis]

A clone/improvement will succeed if it is somehow better to use than BTC.  There are enough pain points with BTC now that might make it inferior to a future currency.

All the advantages of BTC being scarce dry up once you realize that although BTC's are scarce, if you include all possible bitcoin implementations, they are as scarce as stars in the galaxy.

And for the good folks that think BTC has a big "head start"...
Let's say Google or Apple or Geico or a small Carribean Island...
Or some sort of enviro or political organization...
Decided to launch a BTC clone with minor enhancements...
Promoting heavily to an employee/user/zombie base of 50,000 or whatever...
Could vault past BTC in market share within months.

Having competing crypto-currencies...
Would actually help legitimize BTC...
If you have exactly ONE... to an average person it's suspect.
 

An environment of multiple cryptocurrencies is a likely future but I don't think a BTC clone will come from Google, Apple, or any nation-State because those entities would be centralized in nature and they would not be in a position to exploit the attributes of bitcoin, such as remaining open and operational while under political attack.  It would almost be like Google coming out with their own BitTorrent server to compete against The Pirate Bay.

[AzelSpears]

If there were multiple bitcoin style currencies that would be better. Sometimes the market demands more currency, and that is the natural setting of interest rates. In this type of environment, you can create "digital currency baskets" based on algorithms to have better strength and sell them as a financial product. That would allow for a more modern currency system that can fluctuate based on the market to meet population needs, innovation needs, and other issues that change the demand for currency.

Stable currency doesn't necessarily mean a fixed amount. It means an amount that is set by the marketplace. The best way to do that is just to legalize the use of any currency by anyone whenever they would like. We have the technology now to make all currencies introconvertible even at the retail counter.

[RaggedMonk]

Mishra: Necromancer Newbie
Finds old thread, brings it back from the dead