Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Odalv]

...
you do know that real ppl actually hurt themselves from severe myopia?  i can fix that for you.

Word to the wise:  Don't let a guy who is preoccupied looking at economic charts operate on your eyes with a laser beam:

I would never allow him to touch my bike.

... I know, it is "character assassination" :-)

[1715018113]

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[brg444]

ZB had brought up this point before and while it does sort of makes sense from an "antifragile" standpoint, I have a problem accepting it as a viable or desirable outcome.

On that point I believe this post from Alex Morcos is relevant:

What gives Bitcoin value aren't its technical merits but the fact that people believe in it.   The biggest risk here isn't that 20MB blocks will
be bad or that 1MB blocks will be bad, but that by forcing a hard fork that isn't nearly universally agreed upon, we will be damaging that belief.   If I strongly believed some hard fork would be better for Bitcoin, say permanent inflation of 1% a year to fund mining, and I managed to convince 80% of users, miners, businesses and developers to go along with me, I would still vote against doing it.  Because that's not nearly universal agreement, and it changes what people chose to believe in without their consent. Forks should be hard, very hard.  And both sides should recognize that belief in the value of Bitcoin might be a fragile thing.

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34092527/

While I do understand your point about improving on the ability of the users to come to consensus, it seems a stretch to me to suggest that regular changes to the way Bitcoin operate can strengthen the trust people have in it. Rather we should strive to come to a point where the consensus critical code in Bitcoin is set in stone for eternity as it becomes harder and harder for an ever-growing ecosystem to come to consensus on a proposed change.

For that reason, I am wary and quite frankly curious of recent attempts by Hearn in particular to lessen the impact and the dangers of hard forks.

You can't force a fork.

You can't, but by constantly challenging consensus you risk bleeding out some users/trust along the way don't you think?

[Peter R]

...
While I do understand your point about improving on the ability of the users to come to consensus, it seems a stretch to me to suggest that regular changes to the way Bitcoin operate can strengthen the trust people have in it. Rather we should strive to come to a point where the consensus critical code in Bitcoin is set in stone for eternity as it becomes harder and harder for an ever-growing ecosystem to come to consensus on a proposed change.

For that reason, I am wary and quite frankly curious of recent attempts by Hearn in particular to lessen the impact and the dangers of hard forks.

I think we mostly agree--it should be difficult to actually change the consensus layer because we should all be in tight agreement about what's in that layer.  And we are in agreement!: we all agree that double spending is bad, we all agree that valid signatures should be required to spend coins, and we all agree that Bob shouldn't be able to create coins out of thin air.  In other words, we already agree on what constitutes valid transactions.

But we don't agree on the block size limit.  That's OK, though, because we don't actually need to view the block size limit as part of the consensus layer.  The block size limit doesn't affect what transactions are valid.

So I suggest we agree to disagree on the block size limit. Let's move the limit from the consensus layer into the transport layer instead, and give all node operators the ability to very easily adjust it.  If we do this, then we don't even need to worry about figuring out the "perfect way to adjust the block size"; it will evolve naturally in a decentralized fashion.  

What do you think?

Here's more on that topic:

...
Why do we have a consensus layer in the first place?  It is a way for us to agree on what transactions are valid and what transactions are invalid.  For example, we all agree that Alice shouldn't be able to move Bob's coins without a valid signature, and that Bob shouldn't be able to create coins out of thin air.  The consensus layer is about obvious stuff like that.  In order for Bitcoin to function as sound money, we need to agree on "black-or-white" rules like this that define which transactions are valid and which are invalid.

Notice that the paragraph above discusses valid and invalid transactions.  No where did I say anything about blocks.  That's because we only really care about transactions in the first place!  In fact, how can a block be invalid just because it includes one too many valid transactions?  

Satoshi added the 1 MB limit as an anti-spam measure to deal with certain limitations of Bitcoin's transport layer--not as a new rule for what constitutes a valid transaction.  We should thus think of every block that is exclusively composed of valid transactions as itself valid.  The size of the block alone should not make it invalid.  Instead, if a block is too big, think of it as likely to be orphaned (a "gray" rule) rather than as invalid (a black-or-white rule).  Perhaps above a certain block size, we're even 100% sure that a block will be orphaned; still we should view it as a valid block!  It will be orphaned because the transport layer was insufficient to transport it across the network--not because there was anything invalid about it.

[Cconvert2G36]

Not at all. It's not hard to understand really..

The thing holding other crypto back is the amount of capital people are willing to trust to them. Not necessarily the amount of users. The increasing ecosystem size is a result of capital, speculative or not, being stored into Bitcoin. As far as the nature of the speculation this is beside the point which is that Bitcoin is not used, as we speak, as a medium of exchange to purchase goods or services.

People are not buying Bitcoin because the number of transactions or users is seemingly increasing. They are buying because it attracts wealth unlike what most other coins can claim.

I've stated this repeatedly but I honestly believe it to be true: we are talking about a money protocol, a money network effect. the unit concerned is not number of users but amount of capital.

Think of it like this : if the 1% of the world's population who apparently controls around 40% of the world's wealth moved that money into Bitcoin it would do more to strengthen & grow the ecosystem than if 25% of the other people on earth invested all of their savings.

Capital flowing into Bitcoin is absolutely about expected future growth, in users, transactions, market cap, and in usefulness. Hard for me to comprehend how you can even divorce these metrics.

Remaining the domain of 10,000 geeks sitting on hordes of coins in paper wallets, occasionally trading some back and forth with each other... means failure to me. Not that it would fail to work, but that it would fail to reach its potential. 

This is not to say that user/transaction growth is some kind of panacea to be pursued at all costs, just that it shouldn't be ignored.   

[brg444]

Not at all. It's not hard to understand really..

The thing holding other crypto back is the amount of capital people are willing to trust to them. Not necessarily the amount of users. The increasing ecosystem size is a result of capital, speculative or not, being stored into Bitcoin. As far as the nature of the speculation this is beside the point which is that Bitcoin is not used, as we speak, as a medium of exchange to purchase goods or services.

People are not buying Bitcoin because the number of transactions or users is seemingly increasing. They are buying because it attracts wealth unlike what most other coins can claim.

I've stated this repeatedly but I honestly believe it to be true: we are talking about a money protocol, a money network effect. the unit concerned is not number of users but amount of capital.

Think of it like this : if the 1% of the world's population who apparently controls around 40% of the world's wealth moved that money into Bitcoin it would do more to strengthen & grow the ecosystem than if 25% of the other people on earth invested all of their savings.

Capital flowing into Bitcoin is absolutely about expected future growth, in users, transactions, market cap, and in usefulness. Hard for me to comprehend how you can even divorce these metrics.

Remaining the domain of 10,000 geeks sitting on hordes of coins in paper wallets, occasionally trading some back and forth with each other... means failure to me. Not that it would fail to work, but that it would fail to reach its potential.  

This is not to say that user/transaction growth is some kind of panacea to be pursued at all costs, just that it shouldn't be ignored.  

Yes. And much like the others your mischaracterize the only growth we are really concerned about : market cap, or how much of the fiat economy we have absorbed. As I've said previously I couldn't care less if it comes from the pockets of the 1% or the 99%. More fiat capital trusting Bitcoin as money is exactly how it grows until it consumes all of wealth in the world.

Users, transactions are secondary. They will follow the money because like any thing worth a lot in this world people will want a piece of it. Velocity of transactions will pickup once an actual Bitcoin economy develops. Meanwhile people will hoard Bitcoin and get rid of fiat. Some might not agree but this is pretty much Gresham's law in action.

While you may not consider them "panacea to be pursued at all costs", others have outright stated this is the ONLY goal to be pursuing and that it should be done as quickly as possible. They would like to run Bitcoin like a startup. This is IMO the wrong way to go about it.

[Cconvert2G36]

Not at all. It's not hard to understand really..

The thing holding other crypto back is the amount of capital people are willing to trust to them. Not necessarily the amount of users. The increasing ecosystem size is a result of capital, speculative or not, being stored into Bitcoin. As far as the nature of the speculation this is beside the point which is that Bitcoin is not used, as we speak, as a medium of exchange to purchase goods or services.

People are not buying Bitcoin because the number of transactions or users is seemingly increasing. They are buying because it attracts wealth unlike what most other coins can claim.

I've stated this repeatedly but I honestly believe it to be true: we are talking about a money protocol, a money network effect. the unit concerned is not number of users but amount of capital.

Think of it like this : if the 1% of the world's population who apparently controls around 40% of the world's wealth moved that money into Bitcoin it would do more to strengthen & grow the ecosystem than if 25% of the other people on earth invested all of their savings.

Capital flowing into Bitcoin is absolutely about expected future growth, in users, transactions, market cap, and in usefulness. Hard for me to comprehend how you can even divorce these metrics.

Remaining the domain of 10,000 geeks sitting on hordes of coins in paper wallets, occasionally trading some back and forth with each other... means failure to me. Not that it would fail to work, but that it would fail to reach its potential.  

This is not to say that user/transaction growth is some kind of panacea to be pursued at all costs, just that it shouldn't be ignored.  

Yes. And much like the others your mischaracterize the only growth we are really concerned about : market cap, or how much of the fiat economy we have absorbed. As I've said previously I couldn't care less if it comes from the pockets of the 1% or the 99%. More fiat capital trusting Bitcoin as money is exactly how it grows until it consumes all of wealth in the world.

Users, transactions are secondary. They will follow the money because like any thing worth a lot in this world people will want a piece of it. Velocity of transactions will pickup once an actual Bitcoin economy develops. Meanwhile people will hoard Bitcoin and get rid of fiat. Some might not agree but this is pretty much Gresham's law in action.

While you may not consider them "panacea to be pursued at all costs", others have outright stated this is the ONLY goal to be pursuing and that it should be done as quickly as possible. They would like to run Bitcoin like a startup. This is IMO the wrong way to go about it.

You say I mischaracterize the importance of market cap growth, I say I simply try to describe some of the forces behind market cap. Do you see a scenario where market cap goes up while the number of users, transactions, applications, and merchants... goes down?

[brg444]

Not at all. It's not hard to understand really..

The thing holding other crypto back is the amount of capital people are willing to trust to them. Not necessarily the amount of users. The increasing ecosystem size is a result of capital, speculative or not, being stored into Bitcoin. As far as the nature of the speculation this is beside the point which is that Bitcoin is not used, as we speak, as a medium of exchange to purchase goods or services.

People are not buying Bitcoin because the number of transactions or users is seemingly increasing. They are buying because it attracts wealth unlike what most other coins can claim.

I've stated this repeatedly but I honestly believe it to be true: we are talking about a money protocol, a money network effect. the unit concerned is not number of users but amount of capital.

Think of it like this : if the 1% of the world's population who apparently controls around 40% of the world's wealth moved that money into Bitcoin it would do more to strengthen & grow the ecosystem than if 25% of the other people on earth invested all of their savings.

Capital flowing into Bitcoin is absolutely about expected future growth, in users, transactions, market cap, and in usefulness. Hard for me to comprehend how you can even divorce these metrics.

Remaining the domain of 10,000 geeks sitting on hordes of coins in paper wallets, occasionally trading some back and forth with each other... means failure to me. Not that it would fail to work, but that it would fail to reach its potential.  

This is not to say that user/transaction growth is some kind of panacea to be pursued at all costs, just that it shouldn't be ignored.  

Yes. And much like the others your mischaracterize the only growth we are really concerned about : market cap, or how much of the fiat economy we have absorbed. As I've said previously I couldn't care less if it comes from the pockets of the 1% or the 99%. More fiat capital trusting Bitcoin as money is exactly how it grows until it consumes all of wealth in the world.

Users, transactions are secondary. They will follow the money because like any thing worth a lot in this world people will want a piece of it. Velocity of transactions will pickup once an actual Bitcoin economy develops. Meanwhile people will hoard Bitcoin and get rid of fiat. Some might not agree but this is pretty much Gresham's law in action.

While you may not consider them "panacea to be pursued at all costs", others have outright stated this is the ONLY goal to be pursuing and that it should be done as quickly as possible. They would like to run Bitcoin like a startup. This is IMO the wrong way to go about it.

You say I mischaracterize the importance of market cap growth, I say I simply try to describe some of the forces behind market cap. Do you see a scenario where market cap goes up while the number of users, transactions, applications, and merchants... goes down?

I did not say anything about your characterization of market cap but of growth. Or more precisely, the driver of growth.

No I don't see a scenario where that happens. What I am observing though is market cap going up and users, transactions and merchants following.

[Cconvert2G36]

Not at all. It's not hard to understand really..

The thing holding other crypto back is the amount of capital people are willing to trust to them. Not necessarily the amount of users. The increasing ecosystem size is a result of capital, speculative or not, being stored into Bitcoin. As far as the nature of the speculation this is beside the point which is that Bitcoin is not used, as we speak, as a medium of exchange to purchase goods or services.

People are not buying Bitcoin because the number of transactions or users is seemingly increasing. They are buying because it attracts wealth unlike what most other coins can claim.

I've stated this repeatedly but I honestly believe it to be true: we are talking about a money protocol, a money network effect. the unit concerned is not number of users but amount of capital.

Think of it like this : if the 1% of the world's population who apparently controls around 40% of the world's wealth moved that money into Bitcoin it would do more to strengthen & grow the ecosystem than if 25% of the other people on earth invested all of their savings.

Capital flowing into Bitcoin is absolutely about expected future growth, in users, transactions, market cap, and in usefulness. Hard for me to comprehend how you can even divorce these metrics.

Remaining the domain of 10,000 geeks sitting on hordes of coins in paper wallets, occasionally trading some back and forth with each other... means failure to me. Not that it would fail to work, but that it would fail to reach its potential.  

This is not to say that user/transaction growth is some kind of panacea to be pursued at all costs, just that it shouldn't be ignored.  

Yes. And much like the others your mischaracterize the only growth we are really concerned about : market cap, or how much of the fiat economy we have absorbed. As I've said previously I couldn't care less if it comes from the pockets of the 1% or the 99%. More fiat capital trusting Bitcoin as money is exactly how it grows until it consumes all of wealth in the world.

Users, transactions are secondary. They will follow the money because like any thing worth a lot in this world people will want a piece of it. Velocity of transactions will pickup once an actual Bitcoin economy develops. Meanwhile people will hoard Bitcoin and get rid of fiat. Some might not agree but this is pretty much Gresham's law in action.

While you may not consider them "panacea to be pursued at all costs", others have outright stated this is the ONLY goal to be pursuing and that it should be done as quickly as possible. They would like to run Bitcoin like a startup. This is IMO the wrong way to go about it.

You say I mischaracterize the importance of market cap growth, I say I simply try to describe some of the forces behind market cap. Do you see a scenario where market cap goes up while the number of users, transactions, applications, and merchants... goes down?

I did not say anything about your characterization of market cap but of growth. Or more precisely, the driver of growth.

No I don't see a scenario where that happens. What I am observing though is market cap going up and users, transactions and merchants following.

So AAPL's market cap growth is a feedback loop in which it ultimately consumes the entirety of global wealth... before bitcoin! Yikes!

[brg444]

Not at all. It's not hard to understand really..

The thing holding other crypto back is the amount of capital people are willing to trust to them. Not necessarily the amount of users. The increasing ecosystem size is a result of capital, speculative or not, being stored into Bitcoin. As far as the nature of the speculation this is beside the point which is that Bitcoin is not used, as we speak, as a medium of exchange to purchase goods or services.

People are not buying Bitcoin because the number of transactions or users is seemingly increasing. They are buying because it attracts wealth unlike what most other coins can claim.

I've stated this repeatedly but I honestly believe it to be true: we are talking about a money protocol, a money network effect. the unit concerned is not number of users but amount of capital.

Think of it like this : if the 1% of the world's population who apparently controls around 40% of the world's wealth moved that money into Bitcoin it would do more to strengthen & grow the ecosystem than if 25% of the other people on earth invested all of their savings.

Capital flowing into Bitcoin is absolutely about expected future growth, in users, transactions, market cap, and in usefulness. Hard for me to comprehend how you can even divorce these metrics.

Remaining the domain of 10,000 geeks sitting on hordes of coins in paper wallets, occasionally trading some back and forth with each other... means failure to me. Not that it would fail to work, but that it would fail to reach its potential.  

This is not to say that user/transaction growth is some kind of panacea to be pursued at all costs, just that it shouldn't be ignored.  

Yes. And much like the others your mischaracterize the only growth we are really concerned about : market cap, or how much of the fiat economy we have absorbed. As I've said previously I couldn't care less if it comes from the pockets of the 1% or the 99%. More fiat capital trusting Bitcoin as money is exactly how it grows until it consumes all of wealth in the world.

Users, transactions are secondary. They will follow the money because like any thing worth a lot in this world people will want a piece of it. Velocity of transactions will pickup once an actual Bitcoin economy develops. Meanwhile people will hoard Bitcoin and get rid of fiat. Some might not agree but this is pretty much Gresham's law in action.

While you may not consider them "panacea to be pursued at all costs", others have outright stated this is the ONLY goal to be pursuing and that it should be done as quickly as possible. They would like to run Bitcoin like a startup. This is IMO the wrong way to go about it.

You say I mischaracterize the importance of market cap growth, I say I simply try to describe some of the forces behind market cap. Do you see a scenario where market cap goes up while the number of users, transactions, applications, and merchants... goes down?

I did not say anything about your characterization of market cap but of growth. Or more precisely, the driver of growth.

No I don't see a scenario where that happens. What I am observing though is market cap going up and users, transactions and merchants following.

So AAPL's market cap growth is a feedback loop in which it ultimately consumes the entirety of global wealth... before bitcoin! Yikes!

 

Is AAPL competing with fiat as money?

Sorry but that's such a stupid thing to say. I'm sure you can do better than this...

Let me ask you. Did the current 1B$ ecosystem investment, equivalent billion dollar mining infrastructure, incremental userbase and increasing transactions come about before or after the price increase? You wouldn't argue the other way around would you?

[Cconvert2G36]

Is AAPL competing with fiat as money?

Sorry but that's such a stupid thing to say. I'm sure you can do better than this...

Let me ask you. Did the current 1B$ ecosystem investment, equivalent billion dollar mining infrastructure, incremental userbase and increasing transactions come before or after the price increase?

Of course I'm being silly and hyperbolic, but only to illustrate that market cap isn't some "build it and they will come" metric.

There is a feedback loop between price and user growth, but it can only be sustained with growing utility.

[brg444]

Is AAPL competing with fiat as money?

Sorry but that's such a stupid thing to say. I'm sure you can do better than this...

Let me ask you. Did the current 1B$ ecosystem investment, equivalent billion dollar mining infrastructure, incremental userbase and increasing transactions come before or after the price increase?

Of course I'm being silly and hyperbolic, but only to illustrate that market cap isn't some "build it and they will come" metric.

There is a feedback loop between price and user growth, but it can only be sustained with growing utility.

"Yikes"

You still don't get it.

Stop thinking in terms of users. Think in terms of capital. This is not Facebook.

market cap isn't some "build it and they will come" metric.

On the contrary, when it comes to money (or networks for that matter) it seemingly works this way.

Let me borrow from the Facebook example again : create a huge network of people and they will come.

Create a huge network of money and you will attract wealth.

Look I'm not neglecting the positive added effect of these other feedback loops you are referring too. Merely downplaying their importance for the time being as some people have seemingly lost their eyes from the prize.

"When the wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger."

[Cconvert2G36]

Is AAPL competing with fiat as money?

Sorry but that's such a stupid thing to say. I'm sure you can do better than this...

Let me ask you. Did the current 1B$ ecosystem investment, equivalent billion dollar mining infrastructure, incremental userbase and increasing transactions come before or after the price increase?

Of course I'm being silly and hyperbolic, but only to illustrate that market cap isn't some "build it and they will come" metric.

There is a feedback loop between price and user growth, but it can only be sustained with growing utility.

"Yikes"

You still don't get it.

Stop thinking in terms of users. Think in terms of capital. This is not Facebook.

market cap isn't some "build it and they will come" metric.

On the contrary, when it comes to money (or networks for that matter) it seemingly works this way.

Let me borrow from the Facebook example again : create a huge network of people and they will come.

Create a huge network of money and you will attract wealth.

Look I'm not neglecting the positive added effect of these other feedback loops you are referring too. Merely downplaying their importance for the time being as some people have seemingly lost their eyes from the prize.

"When the wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger."

Who plows capital into the ecosystem other than users? More of them = more available capital. More utility = more users. You still don't get it and I'm done trying... for today. 

I respect your viewpoint, I just don't completely share it.

[brg444]

Is AAPL competing with fiat as money?

Sorry but that's such a stupid thing to say. I'm sure you can do better than this...

Let me ask you. Did the current 1B$ ecosystem investment, equivalent billion dollar mining infrastructure, incremental userbase and increasing transactions come before or after the price increase?

Of course I'm being silly and hyperbolic, but only to illustrate that market cap isn't some "build it and they will come" metric.

There is a feedback loop between price and user growth, but it can only be sustained with growing utility.

"Yikes"

You still don't get it.

Stop thinking in terms of users. Think in terms of capital. This is not Facebook.

market cap isn't some "build it and they will come" metric.

On the contrary, when it comes to money (or networks for that matter) it seemingly works this way.

Let me borrow from the Facebook example again : create a huge network of people and they will come.

Create a huge network of money and you will attract wealth.

Look I'm not neglecting the positive added effect of these other feedback loops you are referring too. Merely downplaying their importance for the time being as some people have seemingly lost their eyes from the prize.

"When the wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger."

Who plows capital into the ecosystem other than users? More of them = more available capital. More utility = more users. You still don't get it and I'm done trying... for today.  

I respect your viewpoint, I just don't completely share it.

 

Think of it like this : if the 1% of the world's population who apparently controls around 40% of the world's wealth moved that money into Bitcoin it would do more to strengthen & grow the ecosystem than if 25% of the other people on earth invested all of their savings.

Chew on this one for a bit and see what comes out of it when you're done. It's not exactly a viewpoint as it's pretty much a matter of fact.

[Cconvert2G36]

Think of it like this : if the 1% of the world's population who apparently controls around 40% of the world's wealth moved that money into Bitcoin it would do more to strengthen & grow the ecosystem than if 25% of the other people on earth invested all of their savings.

Chew on this one for a bit and see what comes out of it when you're done. It's not exactly a viewpoint but pretty much matter of fact.

 

I did, seems idealistic, imitating people that divide the market cap of gold by the number of bitcoins. The few top 1% wealth owners I've met seem highly unlikely to convert their entire net worth to private keys, storing m of n in various places, subject to destruction, theft, and system collapse with zero recourse.

"Large streams from little fountains flow, Tall oaks from little acorns grow." 

[brg444]

Think of it like this : if the 1% of the world's population who apparently controls around 40% of the world's wealth moved that money into Bitcoin it would do more to strengthen & grow the ecosystem than if 25% of the other people on earth invested all of their savings.

Chew on this one for a bit and see what comes out of it when you're done. It's not exactly a viewpoint but pretty much matter of fact.

 

I did, seems idealistic, imitating people that divide the market cap of gold by the number of bitcoins. The few top 1% wealth owners I've met seem highly unlikely to convert their entire net worth to private keys, storing m of n in various places, subject to destruction, theft, and system collapse with zero recourse.

"Large streams from little fountains flow, Tall oaks from little acorns grow."  

You seem to make the mistake of thinking I'm proposing it as a realistic scenario. That's not what this is about. This is a thought experiment.

How exactly do you propose this work, will they have more incentives or motives to enter the system when the 80% of humanity that lives on less than $10 a day are included?

Of course in reality the scenario is orders of magnitudes smaller but the idea is the same process I describe is unfolding incrementally on a lesser scale.

Users, anyway, are not a quantifiable metric in this network, are they?

[Adrian-x]

Not at all. It's not hard to understand really..

The thing holding other crypto back is the amount of capital people are willing to trust to them. Not necessarily the amount of users. The increasing ecosystem size is a result of capital, speculative or not, being stored into Bitcoin. As far as the nature of the speculation this is beside the point which is that Bitcoin is not used, as we speak, as a medium of exchange to purchase goods or services.

People are not buying Bitcoin because the number of transactions or users is seemingly increasing. They are buying because it attracts wealth unlike what most other coins can claim.

I've stated this repeatedly but I honestly believe it to be true: we are talking about a money protocol, a money network effect. the unit concerned is not number of users but amount of capital.

Think of it like this : if the 1% of the world's population who apparently controls around 40% of the world's wealth moved that money into Bitcoin it would do more to strengthen & grow the ecosystem than if 25% of the other people on earth invested all of their savings.

Capital flowing into Bitcoin is absolutely about expected future growth, in users, transactions, market cap, and in usefulness. Hard for me to comprehend how you can even divorce these metrics.

Remaining the domain of 10,000 geeks sitting on hordes of coins in paper wallets, occasionally trading some back and forth with each other... means failure to me. Not that it would fail to work, but that it would fail to reach its potential.  

This is not to say that user/transaction growth is some kind of panacea to be pursued at all costs, just that it shouldn't be ignored.  

Yes. And much like the others your mischaracterize the only growth we are really concerned about : market cap, or how much of the fiat economy we have absorbed. As I've said previously I couldn't care less if it comes from the pockets of the 1% or the 99%. More fiat capital trusting Bitcoin as money is exactly how it grows until it consumes all of wealth in the world.

Users, transactions are secondary. They will follow the money because like any thing worth a lot in this world people will want a piece of it. Velocity of transactions will pickup once an actual Bitcoin economy develops. Meanwhile people will hoard Bitcoin and get rid of fiat. Some might not agree but this is pretty much Gresham's law in action.

While you may not consider them "panacea to be pursued at all costs", others have outright stated this is the ONLY goal to be pursuing and that it should be done as quickly as possible. They would like to run Bitcoin like a startup. This is IMO the wrong way to go about it.

You say I mischaracterize the importance of market cap growth, I say I simply try to describe some of the forces behind market cap. Do you see a scenario where market cap goes up while the number of users, transactions, applications, and merchants... goes down?

I did not say anything about your characterization of market cap but of growth. Or more precisely, the driver of growth.

No I don't see a scenario where that happens. What I am observing though is market cap going up and users, transactions and merchants following.

So AAPL's market cap growth is a feedback loop in which it ultimately consumes the entirety of global wealth... before bitcoin! Yikes!

 

Is AAPL competing with fiat as money?

Sorry but that's such a stupid thing to say. I'm sure you can do better than this...

Let me ask you. Did the current 1B$ ecosystem investment, equivalent billion dollar mining infrastructure, incremental userbase and increasing transactions come about before or after the price increase? You wouldn't argue the other way around would you?

Just so you know brg444 the market cap is not a valid metric, its a shortcut to understanding the value stored in bitcoin, its not a leading metric but a wagging tail, here oda.krell illustrates the point nicely. unfortunately the real insight was only intended for those who pay attention it's been deleted on porous :-( .

[Adrian-x]

Is AAPL competing with fiat as money?

Sorry but that's such a stupid thing to say. I'm sure you can do better than this...

Let me ask you. Did the current 1B$ ecosystem investment, equivalent billion dollar mining infrastructure, incremental userbase and increasing transactions come before or after the price increase?

Of course I'm being silly and hyperbolic, but only to illustrate that market cap isn't some "build it and they will come" metric.

There is a feedback loop between price and user growth, but it can only be sustained with growing utility.

"Yikes"

You still don't get it.

Stop thinking in terms of users. Think in terms of capital. This is not Facebook.

market cap isn't some "build it and they will come" metric.

On the contrary, when it comes to money (or networks for that matter) it seemingly works this way.

Let me borrow from the Facebook example again : create a huge network of people and they will come.

Create a huge network of money and you will attract wealth.

Look I'm not neglecting the positive added effect of these other feedback loops you are referring too. Merely downplaying their importance for the time being as some people have seemingly lost their eyes from the prize.

"When the wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger."

I'm not sure where your cumming from 444, but reading your comments elsewhere you seem to be bullish on bitcoin but reading your contributions here you seem oblivious to where that value comes from.

there is a nice correlation to Metacafe Law when it comes to Bitcoins value, its the best we have.

I dont think your humble enough to learn, and you defiantly overconfident enough in your ignorance to depart any wisdom.

[brg444]

Not at all. It's not hard to understand really..

The thing holding other crypto back is the amount of capital people are willing to trust to them. Not necessarily the amount of users. The increasing ecosystem size is a result of capital, speculative or not, being stored into Bitcoin. As far as the nature of the speculation this is beside the point which is that Bitcoin is not used, as we speak, as a medium of exchange to purchase goods or services.

People are not buying Bitcoin because the number of transactions or users is seemingly increasing. They are buying because it attracts wealth unlike what most other coins can claim.

I've stated this repeatedly but I honestly believe it to be true: we are talking about a money protocol, a money network effect. the unit concerned is not number of users but amount of capital.

Think of it like this : if the 1% of the world's population who apparently controls around 40% of the world's wealth moved that money into Bitcoin it would do more to strengthen & grow the ecosystem than if 25% of the other people on earth invested all of their savings.

Capital flowing into Bitcoin is absolutely about expected future growth, in users, transactions, market cap, and in usefulness. Hard for me to comprehend how you can even divorce these metrics.

Remaining the domain of 10,000 geeks sitting on hordes of coins in paper wallets, occasionally trading some back and forth with each other... means failure to me. Not that it would fail to work, but that it would fail to reach its potential.  

This is not to say that user/transaction growth is some kind of panacea to be pursued at all costs, just that it shouldn't be ignored.  

Yes. And much like the others your mischaracterize the only growth we are really concerned about : market cap, or how much of the fiat economy we have absorbed. As I've said previously I couldn't care less if it comes from the pockets of the 1% or the 99%. More fiat capital trusting Bitcoin as money is exactly how it grows until it consumes all of wealth in the world.

Users, transactions are secondary. They will follow the money because like any thing worth a lot in this world people will want a piece of it. Velocity of transactions will pickup once an actual Bitcoin economy develops. Meanwhile people will hoard Bitcoin and get rid of fiat. Some might not agree but this is pretty much Gresham's law in action.

While you may not consider them "panacea to be pursued at all costs", others have outright stated this is the ONLY goal to be pursuing and that it should be done as quickly as possible. They would like to run Bitcoin like a startup. This is IMO the wrong way to go about it.

You say I mischaracterize the importance of market cap growth, I say I simply try to describe some of the forces behind market cap. Do you see a scenario where market cap goes up while the number of users, transactions, applications, and merchants... goes down?

I did not say anything about your characterization of market cap but of growth. Or more precisely, the driver of growth.

No I don't see a scenario where that happens. What I am observing though is market cap going up and users, transactions and merchants following.

So AAPL's market cap growth is a feedback loop in which it ultimately consumes the entirety of global wealth... before bitcoin! Yikes!

 

Is AAPL competing with fiat as money?

Sorry but that's such a stupid thing to say. I'm sure you can do better than this...

Let me ask you. Did the current 1B$ ecosystem investment, equivalent billion dollar mining infrastructure, incremental userbase and increasing transactions come about before or after the price increase? You wouldn't argue the other way around would you?

Just so you know brg444 the market cap is not a valid metric, its a shortcut to understanding the value stored in bitcoin, its not a leading metric but a wagging tail, here oda.krell illustrates the point nicely. unfortunately the real insight was only intended for those who pay attention it's been deleted on porous :-( .

While that is a perfectly valid observation. Market cap is at least the most precise indicator of historic growth in the value of network we have at hand.

Not users, not nodes, not transactions.

[brg444]

Is AAPL competing with fiat as money?

Sorry but that's such a stupid thing to say. I'm sure you can do better than this...

Let me ask you. Did the current 1B$ ecosystem investment, equivalent billion dollar mining infrastructure, incremental userbase and increasing transactions come before or after the price increase?

Of course I'm being silly and hyperbolic, but only to illustrate that market cap isn't some "build it and they will come" metric.

There is a feedback loop between price and user growth, but it can only be sustained with growing utility.

"Yikes"

You still don't get it.

Stop thinking in terms of users. Think in terms of capital. This is not Facebook.

market cap isn't some "build it and they will come" metric.

On the contrary, when it comes to money (or networks for that matter) it seemingly works this way.

Let me borrow from the Facebook example again : create a huge network of people and they will come.

Create a huge network of money and you will attract wealth.

Look I'm not neglecting the positive added effect of these other feedback loops you are referring too. Merely downplaying their importance for the time being as some people have seemingly lost their eyes from the prize.

"When the wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger."

I'm not sure where your cumming from 444, but reading your comments elsewhere you seem to be bullish on bitcoin but reading your contributions here you seem oblivious to where that value comes from.

there is a nice correlation to Metacafe Law when it comes to Bitcoins value, its the best we have.

I dont think your humble enough to learn, and you defiantly overconfident enough in your ignorance to depart any wisdom.

Is that so? I do remember Raystonn used to project the value of the network using Unique Addresses^2. Peter R had his own transactions version. That seemed like it could work back in 2014. In both cases I believe we've seen at least 100% increases while the market cap has not quite followed.

I'm curious what both charts would look right about now but I'm afraid it would invalidate both theories. The reason might be that no one knows exactly how to quantify the amount of users in the network.

[n2004al]

Every intimation that put gold in front of bitcoin is a pure speculation. Are separate entities that have totally different duties. It is enough to tell that gold is not currencies (and never will be) and that bitcoin is currency (even not full as such by some) and maybe will be a reserve toll. Being totally different make them incomparable. So put in one thread both of them with the intent to compare those with each other is not correct in my point of view.