[2018-09-12] Bitcoin Dominance Eyes 60% as Ethereum Price Flounders

[Sutters Mill]

@Sutters Mill,

You are desperately trying to discredit Bitcoin and praise other altcoins as if they are anything special. Perhaps you're on the wrong part of the forum man.

No, I'm really not at all. You're desperately trying to paint all alts as bad whilst ignoring the facts and you'll even be dishonest to do this. I'm actually just being realistic and stating truths but you're obviously blinded by your own fanboyism of bitcoin and dislike of alts.

Bitcoin a horrible store of value?

Values as per the 10th of September 2017;

Bitcoin $4083
Ethereum $281
XRP $0.20
BCash $515

Values as per today;

Bitcoin $6250
Ethereum $170
XRP $0.25
BCash $420

What you have done is called cherry picking. I can do that also:

Bitcoin value December 17th 2017: $19,783
Bitcoin value today: $6200

Bitcoin value July 28th 2018: $8151
Bitcoin value today: $6200

That's not a store of value.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Store_of_value

Insofar as an investment is speculative, it should not be considered a store of value because it lacks stability. An asset should only be considered a store of value if it is stable against future purchasing power.

Bitcoin is a speculative asset. Something that loses such drastic value in the space of hours is not a good store of wealth as much as you and anyone else wants it to be.

It's not Bitcoin's fault that people buy in at peak levels. Blame people for that.

You're right, it's not bitcoin's fault it's a terrible store of value, but it is. You can blame people for that all you want, but I'd love to hear how you can work out how to buy in at peak levels or not. You can't, especially when it can lose hundreds within the matter of hours and that is why it's not a good store of value and is a speculative asset.

I don't think this is true at all. You can't discount smart contracts as that is where its value lies. Surely you could just as easily say speculation is all bitcoin has as well. You might as well say take away bitcoin's mechanism as payment system and what do you have left? Well bitcoin being a payment system is pretty much its bread and butter much like smart contracts is to eth.

Bitcoin has one job - being Bitcoin. That involves being hard to stop, hard to control, impossible to corrupt and letting anyone who fancies join in. To fulfill that all it has to do is be sendable and receivable in a timely manner.

I completely agree.

ETH is trying to do too much and it can't cope enough to do any of it well. It's not foolproof, it's not immutable and its contracts often have not been secure. By an objective measure it's failed to do its job so far.

It might pull it back and improve. I think the more likely outcome is that the Fisher Price of smart contract projects will come along and ejaculate up its arse until it drowns in its successor's sperm from the inside out. That's if anyone figures out what smart contracts are truly for.

Its prime problem has been ICOs. I wonder where it would be if they hadn't come along. Smaller but stronger most likely.

I don't think bitcoin or any crypto is perfect, but my main quarrel with 1referee is him saying that eth has no other value other than being a speculative asset. If that's true then the same applies to bitcoin (except it doesn't have smart contracts so speculation would all it also would be worth for). Take away the speculators from bitcoin and the value would be worth a lot less than it is now and arguable near to collapse.

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[gentlemand]

I don't think bitcoin or any crypto is perfect, but my main quarrel with 1referee is him saying that eth has no other value other than being a speculative asset. If that's true then the same applies to bitcoin (except it doesn't have smart contracts so speculation would all it also would be worth for). Take away the speculators from bitcoin and the value would be worth a lot less than it is now and arguable near to collapse.

If you put the two coins up against each other it would be easier to say Bitcoin is more 'perfect' than ETH. It just works for anyone in a way ETH doesn't and can't, partly because of the extra functionality. Even the developers themselves say it's not designed to be a form of money.

I think in general far fewer people can wrap their heads around what ETH represents, or care, and does so it does attract more speculators, and more clueless ones. That's pretty moot though as everything is given life by speculators.

[1Referee]

I think in general far fewer people can wrap their heads around what ETH represents, or care, and does so it does attract more speculators, and more clueless ones. That's pretty moot though as everything is given life by speculators.

The thing with Ethereum is that Vitalik and other lead developers are forcing economical activity on that platform to be settled in Ether, which is pretty much what governments do when they force you to use a specific fiat currency.

There has been more than enough demand for a change to have everything running on top of Ethereum pay for gas in their native currency instead of Ether, which is perfectly sensible, but fiercely blocked by the aforementioned entities. I somewhat get it, because less demand for Ether means more available supply, but the whole point is decentralization and freedom, and yet it isn't allowed to bloom in that specific way.

[squatter]

I don't think bitcoin or any crypto is perfect, but my main quarrel with 1referee is him saying that eth has no other value other than being a speculative asset. If that's true then the same applies to bitcoin (except it doesn't have smart contracts so speculation would all it also would be worth for). Take away the speculators from bitcoin and the value would be worth a lot less than it is now and arguable near to collapse.

If you put the two coins up against each other it would be easier to say Bitcoin is more 'perfect' than ETH. It just works for anyone in a way ETH doesn't and can't, partly because of the extra functionality. Even the developers themselves say it's not designed to be a form of money.

Bitcoin obviously has a better design. It's elegant, functional and scalable. It is obviously more established and has much more users than Ethereum. But that's not the point, and it doesn't matter what ETH developers say.

The fact is that both BTC and ETH derive their valuation from speculation about future adoption. Real world usage of ETH is completely nil, and real world usage of BTC is maybe a hair above that. Total network transactions are so low, they are almost nonexistent compared to legacy financial infrastructure. The entire economy is built on centralized fiat gateways and payment processors. The arms race among miners is completely speculative. The community's general consensus that a) BTC will be adopted by the masses and b) that this will bring 6-8 figure dollar valuations is completely speculative. None of the assumptions about future adoption can be extrapolated from the past. Nobody has any real idea how to value BTC because it's not based on hard numbers. It's based on speculation that other people are going to join the network and drive the price up.

I think Sutters Mill makes a legitimate point. Trying to argue that BTC has lots of value outside of speculation (quantified how?) is a poor argument against ETH. They're both speculative assets. There are lots of reasons one can trash ETH based on its poor design choices.

The thing with Ethereum is that Vitalik and other lead developers are forcing economical activity on that platform to be settled in Ether, which is pretty much what governments do when they force you to use a specific fiat currency.

There has been more than enough demand for a change to have everything running on top of Ethereum pay for gas in their native currency instead of Ether, which is perfectly sensible, but fiercely blocked by the aforementioned entities.

I'm not sure I follow. ETH is the native currency on the platform. Why would gas fees be tied to currencies other than ETH?

In Bitcoin, we would never price transaction fees in anything other than BTC at the protocol level. Anything else would be absurd. I don't see the Core developers as "forcing" that on me.

[1Referee]

I'm not sure I follow. ETH is the native currency on the platform. Why would gas fees be tied to currencies other than ETH?

You don't get it.

By default applications and smart contracts running on top of Ethereum are forced to pay fees in Ether instead of their own (could be tokens tied to specific dapps or smart contracts) native currency. It's completely unnecessary and forces everyone to fund their channels with Ether in order to even use it. If you don't have Ether, you are pretty much excluded from network participation.

It's perfectly possible to have dapps and smart contracts run while paying for fees in their own token rather than using Ether. There are various ways to tackle that obstacle, but it's held back by the lead developers for a reason.

[squatter]

I'm not sure I follow. ETH is the native currency on the platform. Why would gas fees be tied to currencies other than ETH?

You don't get it.

By default applications and smart contracts running on top of Ethereum are forced to pay fees in Ether instead of their own (could be tokens tied to specific dapps or smart contracts) native currency. It's completely unnecessary and forces everyone to fund their channels with Ether in order to even use it. If you don't have Ether, you are pretty much excluded from network participation.

Sort of like, if you don't have BTC, you're excluded from Bitcoin network participation?

Interacting with contracts running on Ethereum requires mainchain transactions, with fees paid to ETH miners. Why would transaction fees be paid for by anything besides ETH? That was the whole design, and I think it's the only economically feasible solution if transactions are taking mainchain block space. If people want to pay fees in non-native tokens, they'll need sidechains.

It's perfectly possible to have dapps and smart contracts run while paying for fees in their own token rather than using Ether. There are various ways to tackle that obstacle, but it's held back by the lead developers for a reason.

Could you point out a few of those ways? Because I don't understand how this would work, economically.

[1Referee]

The most convenient option is to have non Ether token fees be pushed to the miners directly at protocol level. It will require a fork, and some level of re-organizing, but it's perfectly possible, and there actually seems to be quite some demand for this.

The second option is where an intermediary exchanger on the Ethereum network basically does the converting from x token to Ether and miners still get their Ethers, but that doesn't address the main issue with how you are still tied to Ether. It however does allow anything operating on Ethereum to operate without touching the underlying Ether token. In other words, more operational freedom.

The third option could be a mixture of both aforementioned options. Let miners pick what fee they think is the most economically attractive fee for them.

[hatshepsut93]

The most convenient option is to have non Ether token fees be pushed to the miners directly at protocol level. It will require a fork, and some level of re-organizing, but it's perfectly possible, and there actually seems to be quite some demand for this.

The second option is where an intermediary exchanger on the Ethereum network basically does the converting from x token to Ether and miners still get their Ethers, but that doesn't address the main issue with how you are still tied to Ether. It however does allow anything operating on Ethereum to operate without touching the underlying Ether token. In other words, more operational freedom.

The third option could be a mixture of both aforementioned options. Let miners pick what fee they think is the most economically attractive fee for them.

What's the goal of this change? It won't fix the biggest current problem of Ethereum - scalability, fees will still be high because blocks will be full, regardless in what form they are paid. I think it will be a good change because users won't have to keep track of how much Ether they have if they only want to use some tokens, but I don't see any benefits beyond that.

[1Referee]

What's the goal of this change? It won't fix the biggest current problem of Ethereum - scalability, fees will still be high because blocks will be full, regardless in what form they are paid. I think it will be a good change because users won't have to keep track of how much Ether they have if they only want to use some tokens, but I don't see any benefits beyond that.

The goal is exactly in your post; it solves the dependence on the underlying native asset.

And yes, Ethereum itself is still a mess in terms of scalability and that indeed won't change any time soon. I have never been a fan of these platforms because you are heavily subjecting yourself to a force that decides for you when to scale and what to use. The main reason projects run on top of Ethereum is because of how easy it is to market yourself and thus raise capital.

If nothing happens in terms of scalability within a reasonable time frame, you'll see that more and more projects will disconnect themselves from Ethereum to run their own platform.

[veleten]

Remember how in the last year Ethereum fans were anticipating "the Flippening" - a scenario when ETH marketcap surpasses Bitcoin marketcap. For a few days a lot of people seriously believed in this possibility, but now, a bit more than 1 year after, crypto community seriously discusses how Ethereum is going to die soon. Everyone should take this as a lesson of how a common sentiment is never a good indicator of the future and how volatile and experimental the world of cryptocurrencies is.

it just started for ETH, the troubles I mean
they have announced the block reward cut to 2 eth per block instead of 3
also there are ASICS to mine ETH hitting the market very soon (unless they are just waporware,but it is highly unlikely since its Bitmain's child and they do not copulate around)
so flippening was just fappening and can soon be real rippening for Vitalik's creation

[squatter]

The most convenient option is to have non Ether token fees be pushed to the miners directly at protocol level. It will require a fork, and some level of re-organizing, but it's perfectly possible, and there actually seems to be quite some demand for this.

The second option is where an intermediary exchanger on the Ethereum network basically does the converting from x token to Ether and miners still get their Ethers, but that doesn't address the main issue with how you are still tied to Ether. It however does allow anything operating on Ethereum to operate without touching the underlying Ether token. In other words, more operational freedom.

The third option could be a mixture of both aforementioned options. Let miners pick what fee they think is the most economically attractive fee for them.

The first option seems totally unfeasible economically. Why would ETH miners want to receive less ETH fees as block rewards, to be replaced by random tokens they don't want? Fees exist to prevent tragedy of the commons -- to keep mainchain contracts from monopolizing precious block space without paying for it. Cryptocurrency miners are investing in what they mine. ETH miners are mining ETH because they want ETH. The whole incentive system break downs if you pay miners based on what users want rather than what miners want.

The second option seems utterly centralized. In theory, it could be done with contracts, but at best they would be dependent on third party APIs (to price and sell tokens) that could be exploited. It also seems problematic from a data propagation standpoint. Wouldn't this result in a huge and permanent influx of additional throughput on the network due to all these conversion transactions? That seems really inefficient.

It always seemed like a basic premise to me that to use a cryptocurrency network, you need to own some native tokens.

[Sutters Mill]

I don't think bitcoin or any crypto is perfect, but my main quarrel with 1referee is him saying that eth has no other value other than being a speculative asset. If that's true then the same applies to bitcoin (except it doesn't have smart contracts so speculation would all it also would be worth for). Take away the speculators from bitcoin and the value would be worth a lot less than it is now and arguable near to collapse.

If you put the two coins up against each other it would be easier to say Bitcoin is more 'perfect' than ETH. It just works for anyone in a way ETH doesn't and can't, partly because of the extra functionality. Even the developers themselves say it's not designed to be a form of money.

I think in general far fewer people can wrap their heads around what ETH represents, or care, and does so it does attract more speculators, and more clueless ones. That's pretty moot though as everything is given life by speculators.

I would choose bitcoin over ethereum any day of the week, and btc is better as a currency for numerous reasons (though obviously not perfect), but eth has different functions (mainly smart contracts as I said), but I also think a lot of people do - or did - just get involved with it because they saw it as the second best thing to bitcoin and missed out on getting in early with btc so they're trying their luck with eth in the hopes that someday it will bring them riches. I just had issue with the argument that eth's only use is as a speculative asset when I don't think that's true, and especially when I think it's speculation that is driving the majority of the entire cyrpto market right now, but that doesn't mean to say you can't be both a speculator and purveyor of the tech either as many people are.

so flippening was just fappening and can soon be real rippening for Vitalik's creation

 

[Argoo]

Crypto currencies are such things where you never know what is going to be next. I had very big expectations in Etherum and I still have, but now I'm full of doubts. Couple months ago I've got a Eth payment per some promotion job on social media and that time Etherum costed around 600$ so I decided to keep it in Eth with expectation that the price will go higher. This days I'm often thinking that I should to sell those  4 Eth immediately or to buy bitcoin, cause of Eth fuel almost three times lower during a short period of time, but Btc didn't loose too much if to see in percentage.

Do not sell your ethereum. Crypto currency is really hard to predict. However, the situation can still change very drastically. Ethereum can still rise well compared to bitcoin, especially as ethereum is now quite cheap. Keep your ethereum, there is no reason for it to fall in price. All this is temporary.