..

[Devin Chow]

..

[RyNinDaCleM]

I like to think of myself as a long term thinker. I look at the big picture. (Well, as much as I reasonably can.)

There's always discussion here about being a permabear, permabull...blah blah blah. My question is: How can you NOT be a permabull?

If you're looking at Bitcoin in terms of years, how can you make a realistic argument that favors the "permabear" mindset? It's just not logical given what we know. Every long term permabear on here, if you dig a little deeper, is just depressed/angry over losing or missing out on money. Human beings hate seeing others succeed while they themselves are left behind.

Every market crashes. Remember 2008 when the DOW was at, what, 6400? What's it now, 18,000?

Do you honestly believe 12 months is a long time for an emerging market like this? Come on...really?

Forget the short term. I don't even like to comment on it because NOBODY has a clue. But the long term...how can you NOT be a permabull on Bitcoin's long term prospects? (5-10 years)

If you're not thinking about Bitcoin for the long term, you're in the wrong place.

Speculation is the wrong place to speculate?
I would have to say that most are Bulls with short term Bearish outlook. Like myself. When we went up into the stratosphere, I knew it wouldn't last, so I prepared for shorting. I've had a Bearish bias since the 1163 top because that kind of blow-off inevitably ends in a long correction like we have seen since. This is all normal behavior of financial markets and you live a little less depressed when you aren't watching your wealth go down the shitter for an entire year.

[alexeft]

I like to think of myself as a long term thinker. I look at the big picture. (Well, as much as I reasonably can.)

There's always discussion here about being a permabear, permabull...blah blah blah. My question is: How can you NOT be a permabull?

If you're looking at Bitcoin in terms of years, how can you make a realistic argument that favors the "permabear" mindset? It's just not logical given what we know. Every long term permabear on here, if you dig a little deeper, is just depressed/angry over losing or missing out on money. Human beings hate seeing others succeed while they themselves are left behind.

Every market crashes. Remember 2008 when the DOW was at, what, 6400? What's it now, 18,000?

Do you honestly believe 12 months is a long time for an emerging market like this? Come on...really?

Forget the short term. I don't even like to comment on it because NOBODY has a clue. But the long term...how can you NOT be a permabull on Bitcoin's long term prospects? (5-10 years)

If you're not thinking about Bitcoin for the long term, you're in the wrong place.

You are soooooooooo right!

[Come-from-Beyond]

If you're not thinking about Bitcoin for the long term, you're in the wrong place.

Is ever-growing blockchain problem solved?
Is ever-increasing electricity consumption problem solved?
Is ever-concentrating mining power problem solved?

Sorry, but you seem to forgot <sarcasm> tag.

[montreal]

Big banks and the government worry me. But the fact that bitcoin has made it this far in a few short years is remarkable, hard to imagine where it could be in 10years+. Glad I'm here now for better or worse

[Come-from-Beyond]

But you know what I see with those "issues" you mention? Opportunity.

Right, this is why competitors like Ripple become more and more popular. Being a distributed but centralized solution Ripple is still not far from Bitcoin on the Decentralization axis.

[Wandererfromthenorth]

If you're not thinking about Bitcoin for the long term, you're in the wrong place.

Is ever-growing blockchain problem solved?
Is ever-increasing electricity consumption problem solved?
Is ever-concentrating mining power problem solved?

Sorry, but you seem to forgot <sarcasm> tag.

No, I didn't forget the <sarcasm> tag.

But you know what I see with those "issues" you mention? Opportunity.

Having problems that make BTC intrinsically (by design) not viable long term is an opportunity? 

[Wandererfromthenorth]

Having problems that make BTC intrinsically (by design) not viable long term is an opportunity?  

You see problems. I see opportunity for someone to make money by solving those problems.

1.) Make ASICs that utilize less power.
2.) Develop software that can compress the ever increasing blockchain to make it more manageable.
3.) Figure out how to mitigate risk related to the centralization of mining.

But some of the problems are intrinsic to how BTC and the Blockchain work (for example the reliance on Proof-of-Work which needs the system to constantly and forever pay the miners with either big inflation or higher transaction fees, among many others), and for some of them we don't even have an idea on how to solve them yet...


Why adopt NOW something that is CURRENTLY broken/doesn't really have a plan for the long term?

[Come-from-Beyond]

/conversation with you

Oh, yet another zealot. Your previous reply made me think that I had met an open-minded person...

[brg444]

If you're not thinking about Bitcoin for the long term, you're in the wrong place.

Is ever-growing blockchain problem solved? Yes, see Factom, invertible bloom table
Is ever-increasing electricity consumption problem solved? Absolutely not an issue. Energy consumption is the tradeoff for trust and security
Is ever-concentrating mining power problem solved? Solved? By what metric? You realize mining is more decentralized than it's probably ever been right? Look below

June 13 2014


December 26th 2014

Sorry, but you seem to forgot <troll> tag.

[Newbie1022]

There are wonderful things about it and there are problems that may impact scalability. People are uncertain whether those problems will be resolved which = risk. Risk makes the price go down short-term, but risk is also where profits can emanate from (if you are right and most others are wrong, you win extra). The same as any market. So, the problems are, indeed, an opportunity. They, however, may also be the undoing. Remains to be seen whether solutions are commercially viable or, if as Wanderer mentioned, people move on to something that doesn't have those problems (albeit may have a different basket of problems unto itself). We'll see. All views are viable on that matter. To say that you are crazy for being bearish though is to say that there is no profit opportunity at all -- by definition if you have rewards without risk then you've found an arbitrage opportunity and those don't tend to linger around very long.

So, a whole bunch of we'll see. Probably a binary outcome -- really good or replaced.

[redhawk979]

While I normally enjoy trolling this section, I'll give you a serious response:

Its not ready for prime time.
Pointing to the Wiki and going "SEE? THEY KNOW ABOUT THESE PROBLEMS THEREFORE ITS NOT A PROBLEM" is something I see too many people do. (i.e. My water main is cracked and leaking, but I know about it therefore there's no problem). You need to get things implemented, tested, and actually running first such as invertible bloom tables. Scalability is also a major issue, 7TPS isn't going to cut it, and raising the block size limit isn't a real long term fix, Gavin himself has said such. Solutions are coming, but they need to be implemented first before you can start crowing about "oh well its not a problem". Time will tell if these get solved in a reliable manner. Changes to Bitcoin come very slowly, which isn't a bad thing. I'm not saying its broken either, but it does need improvements.

The government(s) will never let it interfere with them on a national/global level.
People seem to think that "the government can't ban Bitcoin!". Technically, you'd be correct. However If the government bans Bitcoin, it will be relegated to the shadows. No more Bitpay/Coinbase, and you can bet places like Microsoft will drop it quickly. Wall Street won't go near it either and the Winklevoss ETF is out of the question. Its main use would then be for private personal money transfers and storage. It may still retain a high price, but it won't be used nearly as much as it would due to lack of accepting merchants. There are a LOT of businesses using Coinbase or BitPay to process their BTC transactions, and if it was suddenly illegal for them to operate, a lot of these places would no longer accept Bitcoin. ISPs will most likely try and comply with the new government ban by blocking Bitcoind traffic on the default port, much in the same way they send you nasty letters if you torrent certain items.  This isn't just targeted at the US government, many others could do it too.

People are stupid. A lot of them should never "be their own bank"
I'm going to skip over the laundry list of "OH GOD LOST MY BITCOINS" threads on this forum and Reddit because we both know how plentiful they are. A lot of people don't want the responsibility of being in charge of all of their money like some here. People also aren't going to trust putting things like $50,000 worth of money somewhere you could lose it all because someone formats your hard drive. Perhaps a Bitcoin Insurance would change this, sort of like how the FDIC works for fiat.

Consumer Incentives
As been mentioned before, as a consumer I currently see no reason to use BTC over my credit card. I get cash back and buyer protection. Why would I buy BTC at a premium via LocalBitcoins, or pay fees via CoinBase? I'm introducing more middle men and fees that I don't need. There needs to be a service which allows consumers to use BTC in the same way a credit card works.

[jaredboice]

While I normally enjoy trolling this section, I'll give you a serious response:

Its not ready for prime time.
Pointing to the Wiki and going "SEE? THEY KNOW ABOUT THESE PROBLEMS THEREFORE ITS NOT A PROBLEM" is something I see too many people do. (i.e. My water main is cracked and leaking, but I know about it therefore there's no problem). You need to get things implemented, tested, and actually running first such as invertible bloom tables. Scalability is also a major issue, 7TPS isn't going to cut it, and raising the block size limit isn't a real long term fix, Gavin himself has said such. Solutions are coming, but they need to be implemented first before you can start crowing about "oh well its not a problem". Time will tell if these get solved in a reliable manner. Changes to Bitcoin come very slowly, which isn't a bad thing. I'm not saying its broken either, but it does need improvements.

The government(s) will never let it interfere with them on a national/global level.
People seem to think that "the government can't ban Bitcoin!". Technically, you'd be correct. However If the government bans Bitcoin, it will be relegated to the shadows. No more Bitpay/Coinbase, and you can bet places like Microsoft will drop it quickly. Wall Street won't go near it either and the Winklevoss ETF is out of the question. Its main use would then be for private personal money transfers and storage. It may still retain a high price, but it won't be used nearly as much as it would due to lack of accepting merchants. There are a LOT of businesses using Coinbase or BitPay to process their BTC transactions, and if it was suddenly illegal for them to operate, a lot of these places would no longer accept Bitcoin. ISPs will most likely try and comply with the new government ban by blocking Bitcoind traffic on the default port, much in the same way they send you nasty letters if you torrent certain items.  This isn't just targeted at the US government, many others could do it too.

People are stupid. A lot of them should never "be their own bank"
I'm going to skip over the laundry list of "OH GOD LOST MY BITCOINS" threads on this forum and Reddit because we both know how plentiful they are. A lot of people don't want the responsibility of being in charge of all of their money like some here. People also aren't going to trust putting things like $50,000 worth of money somewhere you could lose it all because someone formats your hard drive. Perhaps a Bitcoin Insurance would change this, sort of like how the FDIC works for fiat.

Consumer Incentives
As been mentioned before, as a consumer I currently see no reason to use BTC over my credit card. I get cash back and buyer protection. Why would I buy BTC at a premium via LocalBitcoins, or pay fees via CoinBase? I'm introducing more middle men and fees that I don't need. There needs to be a service which allows consumers to use BTC in the same way a credit card works.

Government won't have a choice. They didn't do too well stopping the Internet did they. Fast forward to file sharing, BitTorrent is still alive and well. People were stupid before email too but they quickly learned how to use it. No consumer incentives? How about no fees!?

You say bitcoin isn't ready for prime time but I'm in the middle of watching the Bitcoin Bowl on ESPN 

[jaredboice]

Redhawk is on ignore

[coinableS]

But you know what I see with those "issues" you mention? Opportunity.

Right, this is why competitors like Ripple become more and more popular. Being a distributed but centralized solution Ripple is still not far from Bitcoin on the Decentralization axis.

Oh boy, not another goofball supporting corporate proprietary bullshit. Long live mega corporations! Am I right?  LOL

[Come-from-Beyond]

Is ever-growing blockchain problem solved? Yes, see Factom, invertible bloom table

And where is it? https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size

Is ever-increasing electricity consumption problem solved? Absolutely not an issue. Energy consumption is the tradeoff for trust and security

Absolutely not an issue? Why do you then make an excuse in the next statement?

Is ever-concentrating mining power problem solved? Solved? By what metric? You realize mining is more decentralized than it's probably ever been right? Look below

It's quite naive to think that some of the slices are not controlled by the same entity.

Sorry, but you seem to forgot <troll> tag.

99% of my posts is trolling, I use <notroll> in the opposite cases.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Just tired of people coming here all gung-ho over Ripple.

Ok, I get this. For the note, I own 0 (zero) XRP.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Oh boy, not another goofball supporting corporate proprietary bullshit. Long live mega corporations! Am I right?  LOL

No, of course. I don't support such bullshit.

[redhawk979]

While I normally enjoy trolling this section, I'll give you a serious response:

Its not ready for prime time.
Pointing to the Wiki and going "SEE? THEY KNOW ABOUT THESE PROBLEMS THEREFORE ITS NOT A PROBLEM" is something I see too many people do. (i.e. My water main is cracked and leaking, but I know about it therefore there's no problem). You need to get things implemented, tested, and actually running first such as invertible bloom tables. Scalability is also a major issue, 7TPS isn't going to cut it, and raising the block size limit isn't a real long term fix, Gavin himself has said such. Solutions are coming, but they need to be implemented first before you can start crowing about "oh well its not a problem". Time will tell if these get solved in a reliable manner. Changes to Bitcoin come very slowly, which isn't a bad thing. I'm not saying its broken either, but it does need improvements.

The government(s) will never let it interfere with them on a national/global level.
People seem to think that "the government can't ban Bitcoin!". Technically, you'd be correct. However If the government bans Bitcoin, it will be relegated to the shadows. No more Bitpay/Coinbase, and you can bet places like Microsoft will drop it quickly. Wall Street won't go near it either and the Winklevoss ETF is out of the question. Its main use would then be for private personal money transfers and storage. It may still retain a high price, but it won't be used nearly as much as it would due to lack of accepting merchants. There are a LOT of businesses using Coinbase or BitPay to process their BTC transactions, and if it was suddenly illegal for them to operate, a lot of these places would no longer accept Bitcoin. ISPs will most likely try and comply with the new government ban by blocking Bitcoind traffic on the default port, much in the same way they send you nasty letters if you torrent certain items.  This isn't just targeted at the US government, many others could do it too.

People are stupid. A lot of them should never "be their own bank"
I'm going to skip over the laundry list of "OH GOD LOST MY BITCOINS" threads on this forum and Reddit because we both know how plentiful they are. A lot of people don't want the responsibility of being in charge of all of their money like some here. People also aren't going to trust putting things like $50,000 worth of money somewhere you could lose it all because someone formats your hard drive. Perhaps a Bitcoin Insurance would change this, sort of like how the FDIC works for fiat.

Consumer Incentives
As been mentioned before, as a consumer I currently see no reason to use BTC over my credit card. I get cash back and buyer protection. Why would I buy BTC at a premium via LocalBitcoins, or pay fees via CoinBase? I'm introducing more middle men and fees that I don't need. There needs to be a service which allows consumers to use BTC in the same way a credit card works.

Government won't have a choice. They didn't do too well stopping the Internet did they. Fast forward to file sharing, BitTorrent is still alive and well. People were stupid before email too but they quickly learned how to use it. No consumer incentives? How about no fees!?

You say bitcoin isn't ready for prime time but I'm in the middle of watching the Bitcoin Bowl on ESPN 

Not sure where to even start with this.

When did the Government try to stop the internet? Maybe you're referring to mass filtering? Bittorrent isn't used by major businesses to connect with their consumers. If the Government declares Bitcoin illegal no business in their right mind is going to publicly be like "yea fuck u govt we're still accepting it anyway"

Bitcoin can only handle 7TPS but with a straight face you're going to say its totally ready for prime time and mass use because OMG BITCOIN BOWL? Thats ridiculous.

NO FEES - What whitepaper did you read? I'm pretty sure you skipped over the whole part about miner fees keeping the network alive down the road, fees which will rise. Do I need to use a fee on my transaction? No, but if I want it to confirm in a reasonable time frame I'm pretty much forced to. Not going to sit around PC Richards for 9 hours for my $500 transaction to confirm because I didn't want to send it with any fees.

[btcxyzzz]

Is ever-growing blockchain problem solved?
Is ever-increasing electricity consumption problem solved?
Is ever-concentrating mining power problem solved?

Don't know exactly for first two problems, but it seems 3rd one is not a problem anymore and it won't be ever. Just look at the pie chart now. No pool is even close to 50%. BTW, for many miners out there, electricity is not a factor.