markm
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August 05, 2012, 09:34:34 PM |
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If the price drops too far too fast, the miners will stop and the network would become less stable...that might allow for an easy 51% attack...not sure if thy would really kill Bitcoin though.
That is part of why we need ASICs. If it happens while peopel are still wondering whether to invest in ASICs it could be nasty, but once everyone and their dog has ASICs maintaining the network will be dirt cheap as far as actual running costs. -MarkM-
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Elwar
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Viva Ut Vivas
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August 06, 2012, 05:09:17 PM |
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First seastead company actually selling sea homes: Ocean Builders https://ocean.builders Of course we accept bitcoin.
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TraderTimm
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August 06, 2012, 05:59:30 PM |
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Actually it will mean bitcoin won't go anywhere as the internet will add quantum communications to its network, ensuring any kind of censorship will be rendered utterly useless. (Even more so than now with current technology.)
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fortitudinem multis - catenum regit omnia
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Piper67
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August 06, 2012, 06:35:13 PM |
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And the difference between a photon and a gold atom is probably something like the difference between throwing a baseball and throwing the Titanic... ![Cheesy](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif)
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cbeast
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Let's talk governance, lipstick, and pigs.
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August 06, 2012, 08:29:26 PM |
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A massive cash out could mean it would take many years to recover ones investment.
I think that has already happened several times, though I don't think they were voluntary cash outs. Interesting thread today on the 2 million btc that have been generated but never moved. If all sold at once, the last one would sell for a buck. That's what I mean, it would have to be hacked. Nobody would be crazy enough to sell all their Bitcoin that cheap. If that happened and the 2 million were redistributed, Bitcoin price would bounce back before too long. That event would be well publicized and show that it's not the Bitcoin network that fails, but fools and their money. I think I would sell my car and buy more Bitcoin that cheap knowing that I would buy a new 7 series in a couple months. If the price drops too far too fast, the miners will stop and the network would become less stable...that might allow for an easy 51% attack...not sure if thy would really kill Bitcoin though. Well, if the exchanges want to let Bitcoin die, then they die too.
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Any significantly advanced cryptocurrency is indistinguishable from Ponzi Tulips.
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DeathAndTaxes
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Gerald Davis
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August 06, 2012, 08:38:57 PM |
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And the difference between a photon and a gold atom is probably something like the difference between throwing a baseball and throwing the Titanic... ![Cheesy](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/cheesy.gif) Also what is commonly misunderstood in those articles is they researchers DIDN'T teleport a photon. They teleported the quantum information about a photon. It has theoretical applications in the use of cryptography. In theory if this somehow this could be done at great distances and the quantum information could be recorded it would provide for faster than light communication but so far that has been found to be impossible. However despite the name quantum teleportation has absolutely nothing to do with transporting objects having mass. Maybe someday you could use it to make an Ansible Ansible but not to have your friend Scotty "beam you up".
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Meatpile
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August 07, 2012, 06:24:33 PM |
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It depends entirely on your own personal definition of "fail"
To most people having $5000 stolen from your computer via a hacker just once would destroy all confidence. Even though its not bitcoin itself failing, you sure wont be using it anymore.
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acoindr
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August 07, 2012, 07:22:38 PM |
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It is also possible that Bitcoin never "fails" (i.e. blockchain halts or value goes to zero) but never really grows. A large portion of Bitcoin prices is speculation on future utility. If that utility/demand never materializes the price could fall massively (99.9%) without Bitcoin failing. I mean look at the scamcoins (LTC, SC, etc). No real use for them but they still hang on to sub cent prices and small volume. I don't personally thinking this is Bitcoin future but just pointing out value can go down and by a lot without a "failure".
What?!? Utility never materializes? I refer you first to this thread: Why we need Bitcoins for international transactionstl;dr: A man walks into a bank and asks for a wire transfer ... He fills a form to send 1000 USD ... the intermediate bank, for its automated process of relaying funds ... took 38.33 USD in exchange of trying to be helpful by converting funds from USD to JPY at an overpriced rate
In the end, that's 104.07 USD that went into useless currency exchange and intermediate fees.
I then refer you here: Banks to Make Customers Pay Fee for Using Debit CardsYes, that's right, banks were actually going to make people pay to use their own money. Money on deposit BTW which benefits the bank by fulfilling its reserve requirements. That article is old. Consumer backlash made banks back down from that ludicrous scheme. But the mere fact it was soon to be a reality reflects how broke and anti-user/pro-bank the current banking system is. This doesn't even get into bitcoins being a guaranteed non-inflationary currency similar to gold - a fact magnified at a time now where central banks are printing cash like crazy: ECB saves Greece from bankruptcy by securing emergency loans-paperFed’s Rosengren: Let’s Buy More BondsChina's Surprise Rate CutIt also doesn't get into the ability to use bitcoins anonymously, the ability to use them for micropayments (even fractions of pennies), the ability to store any amount of them non-physically ( relevance), etc. Utility and demand never materializes? I think not. (I say that with as little sarcasm as possible; you're probably my favorite forum poster d&t ![Smiley](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/smiley.gif) )
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tvbcof
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August 08, 2012, 04:06:00 AM |
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Everyone around me (in meatspace that is, not on the forums) tells me I shouldn't be so reckless by putting so much of my savings into BTC.
But really - what are the real risks here? Under what scenario could bitcoin possibly fail?
Seems to me that the answer depends a great deal on the definitions of 'success' and 'failure', though it sounds like success to you means that you won't lose your savings. To me the most likely cause of failure (in my definition of it) would be, paradoxically, 'success'. I say that because I can see no other way to cope with the load but to significantly change the nature of the solution to one with has some ugly parallels to today's system of banking. That is to say, the 'peers' are by necessity powerful and well situated entities who have the ability to exploit the users...and thus they probably will. My fallback hope for Bitcoin is simply that I get unbelievably rich from them. The most like 'failure' here is that Bitcoin is ignored by 'the powers that be'. If Bitcoin is molested by said then I suspect it will both limit the solution's availability and drive the solution into hiding and hardening. That would (I theorize) extend it's lifetime in something like the current form and the increase the value to those who find such a solution useful...and I believe there are many entities who fall into that category. In another respect I believe that success of Bitcoin will be in demonstrating proof of concept and providing inspiration to a variety of similar solutions and I think that Bitcoin has probably already achieved this goal. Time will tell.
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sig spam anywhere and self-moderated threads on the pol&soc board are for losers.
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BkkCoins
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August 08, 2012, 06:41:05 AM |
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It's interesting that when the banks fail the government steps in to prop them up.
But when Bitcoin fails it's the users that step in to prop it up.
Which has more merit?
Bitcoin already failed once and is now on it's way to renewed success. They say in life there is no such thing as failure. You just get up and keep going. I think Bitcoin now is stronger and more resilient than it has ever been. The slower it grows the more solid it's foundation.
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Akka
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August 08, 2012, 06:51:01 AM |
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If you look at this: https://blockchain.info/nodes-globe?series=topBlockRelay --> nodes which fund the most blocks in the past 24 Hours you see (with a very nice graphic :-) ) that there only about 6 servers that need to be shut down to nearly "kill" bitcoin. So as long solo mining or services lice p2pool are not getting a significant amount of hashpower, Bitcoin is very vulnerable.
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All previous versions of currency will no longer be supported as of this update
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BkkCoins
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August 08, 2012, 07:03:16 AM |
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If you look at this: https://blockchain.info/nodes-globe?series=topBlockRelay --> nodes which fund the most blocks in the past 24 Hours you see (with a very nice graphic :-) ) that there only about 6 servers that need to be shut down to nearly "kill" bitcoin. So as long solo mining or services lice p2pool are not getting a significant amount of hashpower, Bitcoin is very vulnerable. I don't think that would work for longer than a few hours as all those miners would spread out to far more pools or even move to p2p fairly quickly.
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FreeMoney
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August 08, 2012, 08:03:55 AM |
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A massive cash out could mean it would take many years to recover ones investment.
I think that has already happened several times, though I don't think they were voluntary cash outs. Interesting thread today on the 2 million btc that have been generated but never moved. If all sold at once, the last one would sell for a buck. That's what I mean, it would have to be hacked. Nobody would be crazy enough to sell all their Bitcoin that cheap. If that happened and the 2 million were redistributed, Bitcoin price would bounce back before too long. That event would be well publicized and show that it's not the Bitcoin network that fails, but fools and their money. I think I would sell my car and buy more Bitcoin that cheap knowing that I would buy a new 7 series in a couple months. If the price drops too far too fast, the miners will stop and the network would become less stable...that might allow for an easy 51% attack...not sure if thy would really kill Bitcoin though. Difficulty used to be 1 and there was no 51% attack. If a drop in price makes miners drop out it will also reduce the incentive to preform the attack.
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Play Bitcoin Poker at sealswithclubs.eu. We're active and open to everyone.
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Micon
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August 08, 2012, 09:26:17 AM |
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1) Full disclosure, I am a site pro at SealsWithClubs.eu - the only bitcoin poker site - and I am heavily invested on Bitcoin working long term.
2) I tell everyone that I introduce to BTC that IMO there is a 25%+ chance of total technical fail. A list of possible ways this can go down, and of course I cannot conceive even half the reasons:
-- massive cracking of the "uncrackable" public / private key cryptography - "It's cryptography that can't be hacked!" scares the shit out of me. Possible solution: massive team of dedicated, super-smart programmers on this shit 24/7 and working for good. Need Linus Torvolds and shit.
-- massive technical fail of the blockchain - real world weed-induced 1-of-a-possible-100000 scenarios: China starts to hate BTC b/c it frees their citizens and lets them gamble and get drugs and shit. China likely controls a super-duper headshot botnet - likely more valuable than nukes at this point in human history - and they decide to take out Bitcoin. They can likely get that shit done by 3pm the next week. uber-botnet, brute force 3x the current nodes and start to corrupt the blockchain. without much technical know-how on how the blockchain works i'll just bet theoretically china could fuck up our awesome distributed DB if they tried hard enough. So could USA, and so could Isreal & a handful of other countries. N. Korea has even been getting in the game recently, and seem to be good enough to fuck up a S. Korea bank recently.
-- I hope the above ramblings at least illustrate the point that there are such numerous ways this can all go boom instantly.
I just hope those dedicated neckbeards are working for good, and working 'round the clock. I just read somewhere this was the largest distributed software something - either largest network or largest software project. I hope some bill gates types or warren buffets or Soros or someone comes in and tries to help legitimize us before they kill us - we need those nerds and beards and scientists and software engineers on that client and defending against the constant shots ppl are taking at it and developing the solutions for shit like "satoshi dice just made the blockchain 20% bigger" and other scalability issues we must face quickly. Anyone got metric for how many programmers on the sourceforge project? is it well taken care of?
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dissipate
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August 08, 2012, 09:40:27 AM |
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1) Full disclosure, I am a site pro at SealsWithClubs.eu - the only bitcoin poker site - and I am heavily invested on Bitcoin working long term.
2) I tell everyone that I introduce to BTC that IMO there is a 25%+ chance of total technical fail. A list of possible ways this can go down, and of course I cannot conceive even half the reasons:
-- massive cracking of the "uncrackable" public / private key cryptography - "It's cryptography that can't be hacked!" scares the shit out of me. Possible solution: massive team of dedicated, super-smart programmers on this shit 24/7 and working for good. Need Linus Torvolds and shit.
-- massive technical fail of the blockchain - real world weed-induced 1-of-a-possible-100000 scenarios: China starts to hate BTC b/c it frees their citizens and lets them gamble and get drugs and shit. China likely controls a super-duper headshot botnet - likely more valuable than nukes at this point in human history - and they decide to take out Bitcoin. They can likely get that shit done by 3pm the next week. uber-botnet, brute force 3x the current nodes and start to corrupt the blockchain. without much technical know-how on how the blockchain works i'll just bet theoretically china could fuck up our awesome distributed DB if they tried hard enough. So could USA, and so could Isreal & a handful of other countries. N. Korea has even been getting in the game recently, and seem to be good enough to fuck up a S. Korea bank recently.
-- I hope the above ramblings at least illustrate the point that there are such numerous ways this can all go boom instantly.
I just hope those dedicated neckbeards are working for good, and working 'round the clock. I just read somewhere this was the largest distributed software something - either largest network or largest software project. I hope some bill gates types or warren buffets or Soros or someone comes in and tries to help legitimize us before they kill us - we need those nerds and beards and scientists and software engineers on that client and defending against the constant shots ppl are taking at it and developing the solutions for shit like "satoshi dice just made the blockchain 20% bigger" and other scalability issues we must face quickly. Anyone got metric for how many programmers on the sourceforge project? is it well taken care of?
Messing up the blockchain would only work for so long. All that would have to be done is the blockchain becomes 'frozen' at some point in time and then ported to a new client that plugs up the vulnerabilities. Everyone gets their coins back (or whatever coins they had at the freeze point). As for the crypto being broken, that's a whole other issue. Folks, I cannot stress this enough. The blockchain is not going to blow up. Even if the Satoshi client blew up at some point due to scalability issues or some other reason, the blockchain isn't going anywhere. There is now $100 million in that blockchain. Those who have Bitcoins have a significant vested interest in having the blockchain survive. It will survive anything short of the cryptography itself being broken.
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Phinnaeus Gage
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Bitcoin: An Idea Worth Spending
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August 08, 2012, 09:41:03 AM |
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I have yet to read this thread, but the following image is in response to the title of this thread. ![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn2.listsoplenty.com%2Flistsoplenty-cdn%2Fpix%2Fuploads%2F2010%2F05%2FA-falling-house-of-cards.jpg&t=665&c=Xmhasf3FSci3Zw)
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DeathAndTaxes
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August 08, 2012, 12:37:28 PM |
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What?!?
Utility never materializes?
The key word was IF. I believe in the potential of Bitcoin. I wouldn't be here if I didn't and I certainly wouldn't have started a company to explore ecommerce using bitcoins if I thought it had no potential. Still potential =/= tangible utility. Assuming it does and thus price is supported by current utility is a fallacy. BRACE YOURSELF: Bitcoin "may" never live up to that potential. Regulatory, technical, or social issues may prevent it. Once again keyword is "may". The OP was about Bitcoin failing. I think Bitcoin failing is very unlikely but Bitcoin stagnating and becoming a niche technology with a much smaller valuation is certainly a "possibility". Bitcoin doesn't need to fail in order for the future valuation to be much much lower.
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cbeast
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August 08, 2012, 02:07:14 PM |
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It's also possible (since we are talking hypotheticals now) that official currencies will all fail (or become unattractive) due to inflation and over-regulation. Black market trade will then fill the void. Don't overestimate government competence. In a world with no official currency, is there anything better than gold and Bitcoin?
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Any significantly advanced cryptocurrency is indistinguishable from Ponzi Tulips.
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DeathAndTaxes
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August 08, 2012, 02:08:03 PM |
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Maybe bullets.
Bitcoin, bullion, and bullets sounds about right.
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