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A side note is I find it a little odd that bitcoin often gets "hate" from inside some tech circles. From a technology standpoint I was amazed because I was able

A side note is I find it a little odd that bitcoin often gets "hate" from inside some tech circles. From a technology standpoint I was amazed because I was able to set up a wallet, set up a twitter account and get people to send me bitcoin in legal and ethical ways in a very short amount of time. People can actually tweet you "money" very easily with no hassle of setting up bank account or waiting etc. I was able to spend it on things as well. Sure its not the most convenient thing to buy most things with yet but its still very new. I am not some bitcoin advocate or anything but just the ability to do something like that I thought was very useful.

pjc50 10y ago
But how often do people tweet you money anyway?
- Mendenhall 10y ago
  Depends on how creative you are and how much effort you put into it. I have over $1000 in bitcoin just through using twitter and never sinking 1 penny in. I also consider what I did just playing and testing it out. I have some more serious ideas for later when I have time because I just love the concept.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    .. such as posting what kind of things? Could you link said twitter account? I'm very skeptical of this because I remember changetip.
    - Mendenhall 10y ago
      Wont link, but will say changetip was a part. Most was done through me providing something in digital form and people sending coin direct to my account number which I used to display on my twitter. Sometimes random people would just send coin to your number so I used to display it. Did not mean to imply that I just tweeted and people sent me money, although that did happen frequently enough.
- seangrogg 10y ago
  It's pretty common to see people using Paypal, Venmo, or Facebook to move funds around between social circles. I'm personally exhausted of people recommending I install the "next money transfer app" but I don't carry cash, so... yeah.
Frondo 10y ago
Hate? No, not from me. But I am wary of bitcoin advocates' desire for it to become widespread because it is an anti-democratic currency. Like all currencies, it's got assumptions baked into it (fixed supply leads to deflation, etc) that influence its spenders' lives, but unlike government-sponsored currencies, there's no way for its users to have a meaningful say in those decisions. With dollars, I get to vote regularly for people, and those people appoint someone to call the shots on "how dollars work". So does everyone else (well, registered voters, but you get my drift). They don't need to be versed in printing or ACH or whatever to have their voice heard. With bitcoin, if I'm not happy, where do I go to have my voice heard? Saying "code up your changes and get 51% of the network on board" isn't the same, not even same ballpark, or neighborhood, as "here's your ballot, citizen". So that's my beef with bitcoin.
- microcolonel 10y ago
  Isn't the only difference from "here's your ballot, citizen" that it's actually fair this time, instead of cross-your-fingers hopefully fair? Shouldn't a majority vote reflect the will of the majority?
  - Nursie 10y ago
    How is "the people who can buy the most hashing power have the most votes" fair? That's the bitcoin majority...
    - Natanael_L 10y ago
      The hashing power follows the economic majority, not the other way around.
  - tdb7893 10y ago
    "majority vote" (i.e. the vote of a few large mining organizations)
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  > it is an anti-democratic currency I guess that's true, but that's because there's no commons that needs to be regulated. You don't need to vote on Bitcoin because anyone can just do whatever they want with it. Your neighbor's use of it has zero effect on you. If you don't like it, you can just ignore it and use some other currency, crypto- or not-. It's similar to spoons. Spoons aren't democratic. No one can vote to ensure that your spoons must be a certain way. Spoons are just a thing you can choose to participate in or not. I wouldn't exactly call that anti-democratic so much as there's-no-need-to-vote-because-there's-no-commons.
st3v3r 10y ago
"A side note is I find it a little odd that bitcoin often gets "hate" from inside some tech circles." It's not the tech itself that gets the hate; it's the community around it that gets the hate. The ones who have drunken the Kool-Aid are not only some of the least knowledgable about monetary and fiscal policy, but they are soooooo smug about it. And the persecution complex they make up rivals that of American Christians around Christmastime.
Nursie 10y ago
I'm not sure about hate, but I dislike it for a variety of reasons. It's basically been a huge goldrush, the community has involved some very shady characters and certainly still involves a lot of digital goldbugs. It gets pushed as a universal method of payment, for which it is ill suited at present die to blocksize concerns, as an investment (you aren't really 'investing' in anything, IMHO), as a currency-replacement (with a fixed amount? Hullo gold standard) and all sorts of things. It also burns through an absolute ton of electricity, as the tradeoff for decentralisation. Personally, I'm not actually terrified of centralised banks and managed currency...

pjc50 10y ago

But how often do people tweet you money anyway?

Mendenhall 10y ago
Depends on how creative you are and how much effort you put into it. I have over $1000 in bitcoin just through using twitter and never sinking 1 penny in. I also consider what I did just playing and testing it out. I have some more serious ideas for later when I have time because I just love the concept.
- pjc50 10y ago
  .. such as posting what kind of things? Could you link said twitter account? I'm very skeptical of this because I remember changetip.
  - Mendenhall 10y ago
    Wont link, but will say changetip was a part. Most was done through me providing something in digital form and people sending coin direct to my account number which I used to display on my twitter. Sometimes random people would just send coin to your number so I used to display it. Did not mean to imply that I just tweeted and people sent me money, although that did happen frequently enough.
seangrogg 10y ago
It's pretty common to see people using Paypal, Venmo, or Facebook to move funds around between social circles. I'm personally exhausted of people recommending I install the "next money transfer app" but I don't carry cash, so... yeah.

Frondo 10y ago

Hate? No, not from me. But I am wary of bitcoin advocates' desire for it to become widespread because it is an anti-democratic currency. Like all currencies, it's got assumptions baked into it (fixed supply leads to deflation, etc) that influence its spenders' lives, but unlike government-sponsored currencies, there's no way for its users to have a meaningful say in those decisions. With dollars, I get to vote regularly for people, and those people appoint someone to call the shots on "how dollars work". So does everyone else (well, registered voters, but you get my drift). They don't need to be versed in printing or ACH or whatever to have their voice heard. With bitcoin, if I'm not happy, where do I go to have my voice heard? Saying "code up your changes and get 51% of the network on board" isn't the same, not even same ballpark, or neighborhood, as "here's your ballot, citizen". So that's my beef with bitcoin.

microcolonel 10y ago
Isn't the only difference from "here's your ballot, citizen" that it's actually fair this time, instead of cross-your-fingers hopefully fair? Shouldn't a majority vote reflect the will of the majority?
- Nursie 10y ago
  How is "the people who can buy the most hashing power have the most votes" fair? That's the bitcoin majority...
  - Natanael_L 10y ago
    The hashing power follows the economic majority, not the other way around.
- tdb7893 10y ago
  "majority vote" (i.e. the vote of a few large mining organizations)
erikpukinskis 10y ago
> it is an anti-democratic currency I guess that's true, but that's because there's no commons that needs to be regulated. You don't need to vote on Bitcoin because anyone can just do whatever they want with it. Your neighbor's use of it has zero effect on you. If you don't like it, you can just ignore it and use some other currency, crypto- or not-. It's similar to spoons. Spoons aren't democratic. No one can vote to ensure that your spoons must be a certain way. Spoons are just a thing you can choose to participate in or not. I wouldn't exactly call that anti-democratic so much as there's-no-need-to-vote-because-there's-no-commons.

st3v3r 10y ago

"A side note is I find it a little odd that bitcoin often gets "hate" from inside some tech circles." It's not the tech itself that gets the hate; it's the community around it that gets the hate. The ones who have drunken the Kool-Aid are not only some of the least knowledgable about monetary and fiscal policy, but they are soooooo smug about it. And the persecution complex they make up rivals that of American Christians around Christmastime.

Nursie 10y ago

I'm not sure about hate, but I dislike it for a variety of reasons. It's basically been a huge goldrush, the community has involved some very shady characters and certainly still involves a lot of digital goldbugs. It gets pushed as a universal method of payment, for which it is ill suited at present die to blocksize concerns, as an investment (you aren't really 'investing' in anything, IMHO), as a currency-replacement (with a fixed amount? Hullo gold standard) and all sorts of things. It also burns through an absolute ton of electricity, as the tradeoff for decentralisation. Personally, I'm not actually terrified of centralised banks and managed currency...