6 ms·

Distributed Ledgers Part I: Bitcoin is dead

45 points by balnaphone 11y ago

brighton36 11y ago
This person has an adolescent understanding of blockchains. Blockchains are for regulatory arbitrage, as for permissioned ledgers, these are merely the newest round of altcoins.
williamcotton 11y ago
This is a very poorly written and poorly argued article from an author that at least admits in the first paragraph to not have very much experience with this technology. Balnaphone, why did you post this article? What is special about it? His dismissal of being able to use the Bitcoin blockchain in a 100% secure manner for digital assets is completely unfounded and the network remains incredibly resilient and secure. No one would continue to be using the currency unless it retained these properties. Without any hard evidence to the contrary, this authors opinions are unworthy of discussion.
csomar 11y ago
Sorry to be blunt, but this is a rather childish article. Here is how it goes: The author has a point of view, opinion, idea about something. He then goes to find anything that is, or seems to be an issue about it. He then makes a list of them. He then claims it's dead. So, what can kill bitcoin? The only thing that can kill bitcoin is a technological advancement that makes its security weak or vulnerable. Bitcoin is huge to many industries: 1. Extortion, Ponzi Schemes, Gambling, Lottery. 2. Drugs, Weapons, Terrorism, Out-lawed organisations (donations). 3. Tax Evasion, Money Laundering, Moving Capital Overseas. Given these huge industries (or illegal fields, doesn't matter). Annexed industries can emerge 1. Bitcoin banks, exchanges, and derivative financial services. 2. Bitcoin mining. 3. Bitcoin consulting and development services. And that assuming Bitcoin is not good for your day-to-day legal services, is unstable, and has lots of technical challenges to overcome.
- imglorp 11y ago
  I need to take exception with your first three characterizations, which imply that btc is used for these activities because it is anonymous and untraceable--it is neither. Zerocoin is those things.
  - meric 11y ago
    The characteristics of anonymous and untraceable do not have a monopoly on being the only characteristics that can help a tool perform those first three characterised tasks.
  - brighton36 11y ago
    Bitcoin is 'anonymous enough' given the current regulatory environment. As the regulation catches up, Bitcoin will evolve to be precisely as fungible as is required to support its users. You see that happening now with Gregory Maxwell's research. The protocal can and does evolve. Fungibility has opportunity costs, and Bitcoin simply hasn't needed to add these features in yet.
    - dragontamer 11y ago
      This assumption of "Bitcoin will evolve" ignores the fact that evolution requires forks. Bitcoin vs Bitcoin XT bull$$$$ is a major example. Will BTC actually be able to evolve this relatively minor technical challenge? As Bitcoin vs Bitcoin XT has shown us, it is the BTC Community that needs to evolve, not BTC protocol itself.
      - brighton36 11y ago
        I don't understand your point here. Bitcoin has changed consensus multiple times. All that was demonstrated by the Bitcoin XT proposition was that there is some support(though not much) for a change of project maintainership. If you're concerned about whether bitcoin could support changes, that's fair, it may not. Thus far it has. The opinions of the teenagers on r/bitcoin don't matter much, as very few of them are either: coders, miners, or even users.
gizi 11y ago
Bitcoin has issues. So? What real thing is there around that does not have issues? If everything that has issues is supposed to be "dead", none of us could still be around today ...
avodonosov 11y ago
Text color of #909090 is hardly readable. Why not #f0f0f0 ?
- avodonosov 11y ago
  W3C supports me: http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-contrast-contrast.html http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-contr...
kang 11y ago
http://bitcoinobituaries.com/ http://bitcoinobituaries.com/
- poopsmithe 11y ago
  ah, perfect. was just going to suggest this. moves along
rabbyte 11y ago
Just want to counter some of the negativity here to say I enjoyed the article and agree with many of the points. Bitcoin is a difficult subject for a lot of hackers to get right because when you're deeply embedded in the tech stack it can be difficult to remember humans are part of the software. Our emotions are part of the network. The purest metric for Bitcoins decline can be found in the hundreds of spiteful, insulting, censoring, excluding conversations that are replacing the hope and optimistic tinkering that started it all.
- brighton36 11y ago
  Wait, you believe bitcoin is declining in popularity because... "meanies"?
  - rabbyte 11y ago
    Toxic work environments scare away smart people. Cynicism trumps innovation. Noise obscures signal. So, yes, meanies have a measurable impact on the health of a community. If every post on HN was toxic vitriol, would you be here? This isn't a thesis. I'm not suggesting this is Bitcoins only problem but that it's a very serious problem hackers tend to overlook.

45 points by balnaphone 11y ago

This person has an adolescent understanding of blockchains. Blockchains are for regulatory arbitrage, as for permissioned ledgers, these are merely the newest round of altcoins.

williamcotton 11y ago

This is a very poorly written and poorly argued article from an author that at least admits in the first paragraph to not have very much experience with this technology. Balnaphone, why did you post this article? What is special about it? His dismissal of being able to use the Bitcoin blockchain in a 100% secure manner for digital assets is completely unfounded and the network remains incredibly resilient and secure. No one would continue to be using the currency unless it retained these properties. Without any hard evidence to the contrary, this authors opinions are unworthy of discussion.

csomar 11y ago

Sorry to be blunt, but this is a rather childish article. Here is how it goes: The author has a point of view, opinion, idea about something. He then goes to find anything that is, or seems to be an issue about it. He then makes a list of them. He then claims it's dead. So, what can kill bitcoin? The only thing that can kill bitcoin is a technological advancement that makes its security weak or vulnerable. Bitcoin is huge to many industries: 1. Extortion, Ponzi Schemes, Gambling, Lottery. 2. Drugs, Weapons, Terrorism, Out-lawed organisations (donations). 3. Tax Evasion, Money Laundering, Moving Capital Overseas. Given these huge industries (or illegal fields, doesn't matter). Annexed industries can emerge 1. Bitcoin banks, exchanges, and derivative financial services. 2. Bitcoin mining. 3. Bitcoin consulting and development services. And that assuming Bitcoin is not good for your day-to-day legal services, is unstable, and has lots of technical challenges to overcome.

imglorp 11y ago
I need to take exception with your first three characterizations, which imply that btc is used for these activities because it is anonymous and untraceable--it is neither. Zerocoin is those things.
- meric 11y ago
  The characteristics of anonymous and untraceable do not have a monopoly on being the only characteristics that can help a tool perform those first three characterised tasks.
- brighton36 11y ago
  Bitcoin is 'anonymous enough' given the current regulatory environment. As the regulation catches up, Bitcoin will evolve to be precisely as fungible as is required to support its users. You see that happening now with Gregory Maxwell's research. The protocal can and does evolve. Fungibility has opportunity costs, and Bitcoin simply hasn't needed to add these features in yet.
  - dragontamer 11y ago
    This assumption of "Bitcoin will evolve" ignores the fact that evolution requires forks. Bitcoin vs Bitcoin XT bull$$$$ is a major example. Will BTC actually be able to evolve this relatively minor technical challenge? As Bitcoin vs Bitcoin XT has shown us, it is the BTC Community that needs to evolve, not BTC protocol itself.
    - brighton36 11y ago
      I don't understand your point here. Bitcoin has changed consensus multiple times. All that was demonstrated by the Bitcoin XT proposition was that there is some support(though not much) for a change of project maintainership. If you're concerned about whether bitcoin could support changes, that's fair, it may not. Thus far it has. The opinions of the teenagers on r/bitcoin don't matter much, as very few of them are either: coders, miners, or even users.

gizi 11y ago

Bitcoin has issues. So? What real thing is there around that does not have issues? If everything that has issues is supposed to be "dead", none of us could still be around today ...

avodonosov 11y ago

Text color of #909090 is hardly readable. Why not #f0f0f0 ?

avodonosov 11y ago
W3C supports me: http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-contrast-contrast.html http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-contr...

kang 11y ago

http://bitcoinobituaries.com/ http://bitcoinobituaries.com/

poopsmithe 11y ago
ah, perfect. was just going to suggest this. moves along

rabbyte 11y ago

Just want to counter some of the negativity here to say I enjoyed the article and agree with many of the points. Bitcoin is a difficult subject for a lot of hackers to get right because when you're deeply embedded in the tech stack it can be difficult to remember humans are part of the software. Our emotions are part of the network. The purest metric for Bitcoins decline can be found in the hundreds of spiteful, insulting, censoring, excluding conversations that are replacing the hope and optimistic tinkering that started it all.

brighton36 11y ago
Wait, you believe bitcoin is declining in popularity because... "meanies"?
- rabbyte 11y ago
  Toxic work environments scare away smart people. Cynicism trumps innovation. Noise obscures signal. So, yes, meanies have a measurable impact on the health of a community. If every post on HN was toxic vitriol, would you be here? This isn't a thesis. I'm not suggesting this is Bitcoins only problem but that it's a very serious problem hackers tend to overlook.