Is Bitcoin just a stepping stone to something better?

[QuestionAuthority]

More and more, Bitcoin looks like a Pink Sheet stock. Trading continues, even though there's no asset value behind it.

The fundamental problem with Bitcoin is that unidirectional money transfers to remote anonymous parties are the con man's dream. Most "Bitcoin enterpreneurs" seem to be con men. Over half the Bitcoin exchanges have gone bust, even though that should be a low-risk business. Most of the sellers of mining hardware seem to be unable to reliably make, sell, and deliver ordered hardware. The "Bitcoin stock markets" are a joke, and the "Bitcoin Ponzis" are just embarassing.

Bitcoin has become the clown car of money because of all this.

The underlying technology isn't bad. We're about 2/3 of the way there to something that might work. The first generation of crypto-currency was Chaum's DigiCash in the early 1990s. This had protection against double-spending, like Bitcoin, but it relied on a centralized ledger system. Bitcoin is basically DigiCash with a distributed ledger, the block chain. DigiCash failed because of Cham's differences with his backers, and because it was too early.  

With Bitcoin, you still have to trust the receiving party when you order something. From recent experience, that doesn't work. The protocol could in theory be extended to support escrow and arbitration, but it hasn't been.  That's the remaining 1/3 of the problem.

What we have now is too slimeball-friendly.

I disagree that it's too slimeball friendly or that the only entrepreneurs are con men looking to skirt the law.

A large part of the appeal for people is the reality that it can't be taxed or controlled or outlawed or anything else and go away just because some agency is threatened by it. I'm not a criminal and most people here aren't either, and to have an alternative means of currency with a secure value is a welcome relief. I can probably speak for a ton of people when I say that if I earn X amount of money, no government body has any rights to it without my consent anymore than they can take anything else...and the only time they do that is when they're abusing the limits of their power anyway...or get too threatened by the reality that people will choose to not hand it over when there is a viable alternative. And I don't want them touching it. I don't even want them aware of it.

I think people tend to forget what is real here.

We elect representatives to represent us and our wishes for our nation.
Their job is to honor those wishes, do the job, get paid and butt out.

Instead, they lie through their teeth, con people, get elected, do whatever the fuck they want to do, abuse their positions, abuse their power, and treat those they're supposed to represent like criminals - can't speak out to them during a speech, else the goon squad hauls you out, that douchebag bush fired up "free speech zones" 2 or 3 miles away from anywhere he was because he's a fucking psychopath, can't freely enter their offices without being thrown out or jailed, can't call them up to discuss policy because they don't answer and then condescend if you catch them off guard, and you can't vote them in or out because the whole thing is rigged...all they while they make back door deals that rip off the citizens, start wars that bankrupt the entire nation, lead into further and further debt - all this shit is what is reality here and now.,

They are the criminals and of course they're not going to like the idea of bitcoin coming along giving anyone a choice because they know anyone who is sane, rational, and intelligent will choose against everything they are until they implode - which is exactly what needs to happen.

As long as bitcoin is being traded at all, I don't give one rat's ass what any government declares, whether they outlaw it or not, fuck them. They had one job and becoming lord of the people is not it.

This is the one foundational thread that finally makes nonviolent revolution actually possible....so if Joe Blow wants to buy porn pot and pills through some back channel, I don't care, because chances are on the order of 100% that Joe Blow first tried all those legal channels and faced nothing but bullshit red tape, loopholes, obnoxious regulations, high costs, taxes and a slew of other things just to end up denied, declined or blocked. So they took it to the underground market with a secure payment alternative with value to trade for products or services.

Most everything we do anymore is a crime.

The governments, the corporations, and the bankers are the real criminals.

And because of it, bitcoin isn't going anywhere...and the more people understand its true "disruptive" power, the more they will flock in droves, cash out their USDs or other currencies and trade out.

I agree with Nagle's viewpoint that Bitcoin attracts too many scumbags that prey on simpletons. Bitcoin gives them a vehicle to perform their art. The Bruce Wagners of the world are attracted to Bitcoin like flys are attracted to shit. I do agree with most of the rest of what you said, especially about government bureaucracy.

[gamersglory]

30,000 devs on BTC!! Sounds like to many hands in the pie. You will need a coin that has tight regulation to keep copy coins down. open source code for the coin is not always a good thing. Also those that want to say my ideas are communist what do you think open source code is. You contribute code don't get paid for it and it's freely available. That's communist !  I was suggesting more then just the one idea of not allow people with more hash power to be penalized. I was thinking more along the lines of a mechanism that would prevent a 51% attack and throttle down mining ops or pools that get at or near 51% of overall hashing power of the network.       

[gamersglory]

How is it possible that Bitcoin is a stepping stone, when the code is open source and can change? It's not stuck and frozen in time, it can evolve, right?

However Bitcoins code is hardwired to only 25 million coins that's it.

[Peter R]

How is it possible that Bitcoin is a stepping stone, when the code is open source and can change? It's not stuck and frozen in time, it can evolve, right?

However Bitcoins code is hardwired to only 25 21 million coins that's it.

Are you sure?  

I heard the CEO of bitcoin just increased it to 21 trillion "bits" and that presently there are about 12.8 trillion bits in circulation  .  Considering US M2 money supply is currently about 11.2 trillion dollars, if each bit was worth about one dollar, there should be enough units to support even a major global currency.  

[mah87]

ripple is the future

[Peter R]

ripple is the future never

(colored coins) = (useful features of ripple) - (counter-party risk on BTC-assets) - (premine) - (forum trolls)

[mah87]

ripple is the future

(colored coins) = (useful features of ripple) - (counter-party risk on BTC-assets) - (forum trolls)

you are kidding about counterparty risk ? What if color some gold from TheGoldCompany and you buy it and then I run away ?

colored coin are the same than ripple in less efficient. They are saying that themself on the official website.

Ripple signed a bank by the way...

[stryknyne666]

30,000 devs on BTC!! Sounds like to many hands in the pie. You will need a coin that has tight regulation to keep copy coins down. open source code for the coin is not always a good thing. Also those that want to say my ideas are communist what do you think open source code is. You contribute code don't get paid for it and it's freely available. That's communist !  I was suggesting more then just the one idea of not allow people with more hash power to be penalized. I was thinking more along the lines of a mechanism that would prevent a 51% attack and throttle down mining ops or pools that get at or near 51% of overall hashing power of the network.       

+1.5

[CryptoniteToSuperman]

Yes. Bitcoin is a stepping stone for 2nd generation cryptos (NXT, NEM, etc...) They aim to improve all aspects of Bitcoin and have much more usefull features, being more like a platform than a coin. And anyone can make "apps" to integrate on to platform.
No wastefull mining, no 51% attack.... and so on   

[mah87]

Yes. Bitcoin is a stepping stone for 2nd generation cryptos (NXT, NEM, etc...) ===> Ripple

[IIOII]

Ripple is a premine-like scam. It is not fully decentralized and can be inflated at will by the organization that holds the vast majority of ripples yet to be issued.

It's not comparable to Bitcoin more like a Paypal 2.0 with an integrated get-rich-quick-scheme for its creators. So "investing" in Ripple is a very bad idea.

When it comes to Bitcoin's future compared to other cryptos people tend to forget that Bitcoin can evolve too. Many features could be implemented in future that render alternative CC's obsolete.

[mah87]

Ripple is a premine-like scam. It is not fully decentralized and can be inflated at will by the organization that holds the vast majority of ripples yet to be issued.

It's not comparable to Bitcoin more like a Paypal 2.0 with an integrated get-rich-quick-scheme for its creators. So "investing" in Ripple is a very bad idea.

When it comes to Bitcoin's future compared to other cryptos people tend to forget that Bitcoin can evolve too. Many features could be implemented in future that render alternative CC's obsolete.

you certainly don't understand how Ripple works. Some people understand it and already use it:
==> Bitstamp (#1 bitcoin exchange in the world)
==>Firdor Bank ===> A BANK using a crypto system yes.


So try to understand that the future is certainly not next.... Ripple employs more than 50people actually, a bank jump in and it's only the beginning.

[IIOII]

Ripple is a premine-like scam. It is not fully decentralized and can be inflated at will by the organization that holds the vast majority of ripples yet to be issued.

It's not comparable to Bitcoin more like a Paypal 2.0 with an integrated get-rich-quick-scheme for its creators. So "investing" in Ripple is a very bad idea.

When it comes to Bitcoin's future compared to other cryptos people tend to forget that Bitcoin can evolve too. Many features could be implemented in future that render alternative CC's obsolete.

you certainly don't understand how Ripple works. Some people understand it and already use it:
==> Bitstamp (#1 bitcoin exchange in the world)
==>Firdor Bank ===> A BANK using a crypto system yes.


So try to understand that the future is certainly not next.... Ripple employs more than 50people actually, a bank jump in and it's only the beginning.

You didn't refute my points, because you know they are true. You just post some "jump on the bandwagon"-slipslop which is unrelated to the systemic facts that make Ripple a very bad investment. Well if you're into pump and dump... go ahead...

(Just remember the neobee-story. They were all wearing nice suits, great furniture, perfect marketing...)

[CryptoniteToSuperman]

Ripple is a premine-like scam. It is not fully decentralized and can be inflated at will by the organization that holds the vast majority of ripples yet to be issued.

It's not comparable to Bitcoin more like a Paypal 2.0 with an integrated get-rich-quick-scheme for its creators. So "investing" in Ripple is a very bad idea.

When it comes to Bitcoin's future compared to other cryptos people tend to forget that Bitcoin can evolve too. Many features could be implemented in future that render alternative CC's obsolete.

you certainly don't understand how Ripple works. Some people understand it and already use it:
==> Bitstamp (#1 bitcoin exchange in the world)
==>Firdor Bank ===> A BANK using a crypto system yes.


So try to understand that the future is certainly not next.... Ripple employs more than 50people actually, a bank jump in and it's only the beginning.

That centralized corporate backround makes Ripple suspicious. They could do whatever they want with XRP, issue more coins, shut it down... burn them. It's like dollar 2.0, right ? And that is single point of failure. Many people don't want to trust third party with their coins.

[serenitys]

Bitcoin might get successor at some point but definitely it wont get thrown away. I expect it would rather be slow evolution then sudden revolution.

When it comes to technology when something get outdated it is never forgotten. Everyday nowadays devices uses same cheeps that were used by old computers. Nothing get wasted. Bitcoin might be value determine in future, just as we use dollar right now.

I know this might not be the same comparison but remeber yahoo was one of the most popular search engines before google stepped in and look how fast they gotten to the top just by implementing a new concept to the search engine.  I thought yahoo was going to be on the top and it never did happen, now yahoo is on there knees.

I understand your analogy but I would offer instead that Yahoo is to USD what Google is to bicoin And right now, no alt search is going to out perform...it's setting the foundation while shaping the future of technology (and it's even focused on life extension tech, curing death)...so while it's always possible some better alternative than Google will appear, it'd be way on down the road. Investing in google now is still a smart move.

If we could buy in to Google as easily as bitcoin, we ALL would

[mah87]

rIPPLE IS DECENTRALIZED OPENSOURCE AND XRP CANT BE CREATED AT WILL

[gtraah]

Try to think it like 30000000 satoshi rather than 0.3 btc then

I try. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and trust me, I always try to think about things logically. Now, imagine a lot of people aren't that logical. Trying to think that way won't work for them each time, and they will choose a different coin where they don't have to rack their brain like that, but instead feel rich and have fun

ROFL

wow just WOW...


Ripple = controlled by organisation not math...

21 million is just a number which can be broken down and down again, I dont understand why people cannot see it... 8 decimal places and the name of the denomination can be added so it doesnt have to be 0.0004 or what ever.

Other coins with new features? Well bitcoin can add new features and extras ontop of the blockchain... there are many things devs are working on..

[mah87]

People are so ignorant about ripple =D Soon ripple will be the #1 crypto. This is certain

[Whitehouse]

Bitcoin might be a stepping stone but only if something comes along that improves on it.

[CarlesPuyol]

BTC is the coin of the future and in some years, he will replace the dollar.