Bitcoin Is Having Its Moment But There Are Better Sustainable Currencies

[keanbosch]

So what's the other "Better Sustainable Currency" aside from bitcoin?

http://www.ahametals.com/bitcoin-moment-better-sustainable-currencies/

[Bubbles06]

Well, a lot of people are in to Proof of Stake currencies which use very little energy compared to Bitcoin. Which obviously "wastes"(I use that loosely since it's a loaded term) a ridiculous amount of energy.

[bitcoinverse]

This is a hit piece to advocate buying precious metals instead. Of the hit pieces I have read, this may be one of the most poorly written. Really bad.

Let's take a few of the assumptions apart shall we.

The downsides, however, are only too apparent. Stories abound about how the high-profile digital currency is the coinage of choice for the ‘darknet’, used for everything from arms running to money laundering.

Currency, especially the USD, it far and away the dominant way of laundering money. I could post links to articles about major banks being fined for money laundering, but it's not even worth it.

Silk Road, an online narcotics marketplace beloved of Bitcoin users,

Silk Road is a "beloved marketplace" for online narcotics. Just pitiful, really.

If you’re looking for an alternative currency system that will drive a transition towards sustainability, then there are plenty of better places to start than Bitcoin. Take e-portemonnee, an e-wallet system currently being piloted in Belgium. The system, which is run by Limburg.net, an inter-municipal waste disposal company, sees local residents gain discounts at municipal facilities in exchange for reducing their waste and other environmental actions.

Oohhh...How soon can I place my assets into a currency designed by garbage men?

Or consider an approach being experimented with in the French city of Nantes. Last year, local bank Crédit Municipal de Nantes issued a pilot currency in conjunction with the municipal authority for exclusive use in the area.

Even better, an inflationary currency designed by a bank that's only good in my neighborhood. I'm gonna convert my 401k into that!

I'm so sick of goldbugs writing this spam. It makes you look bad, it really does.

[kerafym]

Well, a lot of people are in to Proof of Stake currencies which use very little energy compared to Bitcoin. Which obviously "wastes"(I use that loosely since it's a loaded term) a ridiculous amount of energy.

Proof of State coin is not a decentralized currency.

[achimsmile]

Proof of State coin is not a decentralized currency.

This sentence is wrong in so many ways.

[Ron~Popeil]

"People don't kick dead dogs." These articles are a sign that these people are losing marketshare to bit coin. If it wasn't a threat they would simply ignore it.

[gmaxwell]

Proof of State coin is not a decentralized currency.

This sentence is wrong in so many ways.

It's insufficiently specific, but existing examples which require developer controlled block signing or closed source software don't really pass a sanity check as decentralized tools— though they're often marketed as such.

You may find this enlightening: https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

[achimsmile]

Proof of State coin is not a decentralized currency.

This sentence is wrong in so many ways.

It's insufficiently specific, but existing examples which require developer controlled block signing or closed source software don't really pass a sanity check as decentralized tools— though they're often marketed as such.

You may find this enlightening: https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

Agreed. But there are also examples which don't require dev controlled block signing, and which are open source.

Can you try to give a real world example of how to perform 'costless simulation' in practice against a PoS currency? It sounds easy in theory, but I've never seen someone perform it in practice.

[bitsterr]

Gold and silver are great for protecting your wealth but bitcoin is the best currency so far. People say we need to back digital currencies with precious metals but this is false. The reason currencies were backed by gold and silver were to make sure they held their value and were not inflated like crazy. Bitcoin already does this by having a fixed rate of supply. I can also buy gold and silver with it whenever I want.

[franky1]

im not even gonna argue about POS flaws

but those other currencies mentioned in the article are centralised small 'town currencies' only useful in a town meaning population base is small. not decentralised, meaning if the company goes bankrupt or the town hall/ town government changes their policies,, bye bye towncoin.

no matter who uses bitcoin, no matter how many want it. no matter how many companies come and go, the bitcoin protocol WILL continue over 100 years from now.. end of

[Bit_Happy]

...

Silk Road, an online narcotics marketplace beloved of Bitcoin users,

Silk Road is a "beloved marketplace" for online narcotics. Just pitiful, really.
...

I never used it but Silk Road is/was "loved" by many people.
It is an amazing example of people using technology to allow the free market to operate.
Not "pitiful", but truly incredible...

[bitcoinverse]

I never used it but Silk Road is/was "loved" by many people.
It is an amazing example of people using technology to allow the free market to operate.
Not "pitiful", but truly incredible...

I wasn't castigating silk road, which I never had need to use, but how the author throws this tired trope at bitcoin as a whole.

[CokeCoin]

Even though bitcoin is succeeding, it can't/shouldn't succeed because blah blah blah

[RepublicSpace]

lol
Another author who didn't understand Bitcoin, and that in 2014

[aztecminer]

I never used it but Silk Road is/was "loved" by many people.
It is an amazing example of people using technology to allow the free market to operate.
Not "pitiful", but truly incredible...

I wasn't castigating silk road, which I never had need to use, but how the author throws this tired trope at bitcoin as a whole.

Silk Road got BUSTED. How much usd currency in hand is used to buy drugs ?? Maybe if the guys running Silk Road dealt their drugs in usd cash in hand then maybe they wouldnt have gotten busted. What drug dealer accepts debit card for drug sales ?? A dumbass who is going to get busted is who.

[Este Nuno]

Proof of State coin is not a decentralized currency.

This sentence is wrong in so many ways.

It's insufficiently specific, but existing examples which require developer controlled block signing or closed source software don't really pass a sanity check as decentralized tools— though they're often marketed as such.

You may find this enlightening: https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

I believe Come-From-Beyond one of the NXT devs devised a solution to the main issue of 'nothing at stake' after a discussion with Vitalik Buterin who wrote an article outlining some problems with PoS.

Once PoS works out all the current issues it's going to be hard to argue against it I think. A lot has been happening this year so far.

I guess a lot of people are thinking that a robust PoS system is not possible at this point, but with the amount of work being done I wouldn't be surprised to see solutions developed by early next year.

[Brangdon]

"Nothing at stake" is in any case a chimera. It's a hypothetical beast that's never been seen in the real world. The idea makes some sense for currencies with a high block reward, but for a PoS currency that doesn't pay interest, like Nxt, the potential gains from forging on multiple forks are tiny, and not worth the loss of security. Remember that in PoS the forgers with the most to gain from shenanigans are also the ones with the biggest stake to lose if the currency does get broken. Upshot is that no-one forges Nxt on multiple forks today, and they likely never will.

[Este Nuno]

"Nothing at stake" is in any case a chimera. It's a hypothetical beast that's never been seen in the real world. The idea makes some sense for currencies with a high block reward, but for a PoS currency that doesn't pay interest, like Nxt, the potential gains from forging on multiple forks are tiny, and not worth the loss of security. Remember that in PoS the forgers with the most to gain from shenanigans are also the ones with the biggest stake to lose if the currency does get broken. Upshot is that no-one forges Nxt on multiple forks today, and they likely never will.

Seems like similar logic to what most people agree is an acceptable amount of risk with Bitcoin(>%50 attacks).

[jubalix]

"Nothing at stake" is in any case a chimera. It's a hypothetical beast that's never been seen in the real world. The idea makes some sense for currencies with a high block reward, but for a PoS currency that doesn't pay interest, like Nxt, the potential gains from forging on multiple forks are tiny, and not worth the loss of security. Remember that in PoS the forgers with the most to gain from shenanigans are also the ones with the biggest stake to lose if the currency does get broken. Upshot is that no-one forges Nxt on multiple forks today, and they likely never will.

I just do not see the nothing at stake as an issue, its just like merged mining.....

[Brangdon]

"Nothing at stake" is in any case a chimera. It's a hypothetical beast that's never been seen in the real world. The idea makes some sense for currencies with a high block reward, but for a PoS currency that doesn't pay interest, like Nxt, the potential gains from forging on multiple forks are tiny, and not worth the loss of security. Remember that in PoS the forgers with the most to gain from shenanigans are also the ones with the biggest stake to lose if the currency does get broken. Upshot is that no-one forges Nxt on multiple forks today, and they likely never will.

Seems like similar logic to what most people agree is an acceptable amount of risk with Bitcoin(>%50 attacks).

Up to a point. Nothing at Stake is a two stage thing. In the first stage, selfish forgers forge on every chain they see, to avoid losing fees from picking the wrong chain. In the second stage, someone mounts an attack; one which would have failed if forgers only forged on one chain, but succeeds because of the selfish multi-chain forging. Currently we aren't yet at stage one. Stage two, an actual attack, is therefore currently not possible.

With Bitcoin 51% attacks, there are also two stages. The first stage is to acquire 51% of the hashing power. The second stage is to use that power to attack. The difference is that Bitcoin has actually reached the first stage: there have been entities that could have attacked if they wanted to.

You're right in that the reason GHash.io didn't attack is that doing so would have destroyed their own business, and that's also the reason Nxt forgers don't forge on multiple chains.