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I said "You haven't replied to the majority of what I wrote." You still haven't, but instead are nitpicking on whether LEDs affect the subjective beauty of Xmas

by mrb 9y ago

I said "You haven't replied to the majority of what I wrote." You still haven't, but instead are nitpicking on whether LEDs affect the subjective beauty of Xmas lights (which I disagree with but whatever.) This further shows your argumentation in this thread is baseless and going nowhere. "It's not - comparing market cap (a total value measure) to GDP (a per-year measure) is dishonest" Yes it is. It says "it would have probably directly or indirectly increased the world's GDP by at least 0.74%" This is a percentage that relatively compares Bitcoin's production (0.74%) to the world production (100%). Bitcoin's market cap is mentioned in passing, but not part of the core argument. RTGS: of course the 2 banks part of a transaction can agree to any transaction. What I meant is the central bank or other authority (not part of the initial transaction) can reverse it at will. Most RTGS systems are operated by central banks. If a fraudulent transfer from bank A to B is made, then of course the central bank would step in and reverse it. As I said, again, irreversible digital transactions outside of cryptocurrencies don't exist.

lmm 9y ago
> instead are nitpicking on whether LEDs affect the subjective beauty of Xmas lights (which I disagree with but whatever.) This further shows your argumentation in this thread is baseless and going nowhere. Hey man, christmas lights and LEDs are your example, not mine; I'm just answering your questions. > This is a percentage that relatively compares Bitcoin's production (0.74%) to the world production (100%). No, because it doesn't give any reasoning to connect up Bitcoin production with that 0.74% figure. The only number it gives for Bitcoin is the $1T market cap number, and fundamentally it's completely implausible for something with a $1T market cap to be responsible for 0.74% of world productivity. As I said a few posts back, a $1T market cap in a mature industry corresponds to being responsible for about 0.06% of world productivity (and a $1T market cap in a growing industry corresponds to less productivity than that, as the market cap is including the growth potential). > What I meant is the central bank or other authority (not part of the initial transaction) can reverse it at will. Most RTGS systems are operated by central banks. If a fraudulent transfer from bank A to B is made, then of course the central bank would step in and reverse it. As I said, again, irreversible digital transactions outside of cryptocurrencies don't exist. Cryptocurrency transactions can be reversed by those operating the cryptocurrency - look at the Ethereum DAO fork.
- mrb 9y ago
  "Hey man, christmas lights and LEDs are your example, not mine; I'm just answering your questions." You are not answering. You still (3rd time I point this out) haven't replied to the majority of what I wrote in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442878 where I explain the utility of Bitcoin, legal protections, and 0-confirmation transactions. Should I take your silence as tacit acknowlegement? "No, because it doesn't give any reasoning to connect up Bitcoin production with that 0.74% figure." It doesn't give the reasoning, but I also don't think your estimate is correct, especially your choice of P/E 20, which is not conservative at all. Remember the world's market cap is comprised of very average companies, including companies that are so terrible they are not worth taking public: for example a small corner store, which I am sure you will agree should not be valued at a P/E of 20. In fact we can estimate a more accurate world P/E by looking at the global market cap of listed companies: $60T (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/CM.MKT.LCAP.CD http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/CM.MKT.LCAP.CD) If 1/4th of the world GDP is produced by public/listed companies and 3/4th by private/unlisted ones, then the "world's market cap" is $240T, which means the world's P/E is 3. Bitcoin being valued at $1T would be 0.42% of a $240T world market cap, so it would be reasonable and very average for it to use 0.74% of the world's energy. In fact after doing this math I am surprised how close these 2 figures are. This means Bitcoin would be even more efficient compared to other industries (eg. aluminum smelting) that use disproportionately even larger amounts of energy compared to their contribution to the world's economy/GDP. "Cryptocurrency transactions can be reversed by those operating the cryptocurrency - look at the Ethereum DAO fork." Replace "cryptocurrency" with "Bitcoin" in my sentence. Bitcoin has a 8+ year history of never reversing transactions despite many massive thefts. So, as I said, Bitcoin's irreversible property has no equivalent in other financial systems. And you were wrong that RTGS systems provide irreversibility.
  - lmm 9y ago
    > You are not answering. You still (3rd time I point this out) haven't replied to the majority of what I wrote in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442878 where I explain the utility of Bitcoin, legal protections, and 0-confirmation transactions. Should I take your silence as tacit acknowlegement? You're link goes to some random comment in an unrelated thread, so I've no idea what you're talking about. The legal system is great when you can identify a thief, but that's difficult enough for in-person theft; it's virtually impossible when operating pseudonymously over the Internet. As for 0-confirmation transactions, the bottom line that no amount of sophistry will get away from is that 0% of the shops I've been to in the real world that take bitcoin allow payment in seconds, whereas 100% of the visa-accepting ones do. > for example a small corner store, which I am sure you will agree should not be valued at a P/E of 20. Huh? It absolutely should be; that's exactly what a P/E of 20 being normal for mature businesses means. > Bitcoin has a 8+ year history of never reversing transactions despite many massive thefts. So, as I said, Bitcoin's irreversible property has no equivalent in other financial systems. And you were wrong that RTGS systems provide irreversibility. I'm sure there'll be examples of RTGS systems that have gone just as long with no reversed transactions, especially if you measure by transaction volume rather than clock time. More importantly there's no fundamental difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum that makes it impossible for the same thing to happen; indeed the 0.8 (I think?) hard fork demonstrates that the level of coordination that would be necessary to reverse a transaction already exists. The only difference from conventional RTGS is policy; Bitcoin's operators doesn't reverse fraud, whereas it sounds like some RTGS operators do. I'm not sure why any non-fraudulent business would prefer the former.

by mrb 9y ago

lmm 9y ago

> instead are nitpicking on whether LEDs affect the subjective beauty of Xmas lights (which I disagree with but whatever.) This further shows your argumentation in this thread is baseless and going nowhere. Hey man, christmas lights and LEDs are your example, not mine; I'm just answering your questions. > This is a percentage that relatively compares Bitcoin's production (0.74%) to the world production (100%). No, because it doesn't give any reasoning to connect up Bitcoin production with that 0.74% figure. The only number it gives for Bitcoin is the $1T market cap number, and fundamentally it's completely implausible for something with a $1T market cap to be responsible for 0.74% of world productivity. As I said a few posts back, a $1T market cap in a mature industry corresponds to being responsible for about 0.06% of world productivity (and a $1T market cap in a growing industry corresponds to less productivity than that, as the market cap is including the growth potential). > What I meant is the central bank or other authority (not part of the initial transaction) can reverse it at will. Most RTGS systems are operated by central banks. If a fraudulent transfer from bank A to B is made, then of course the central bank would step in and reverse it. As I said, again, irreversible digital transactions outside of cryptocurrencies don't exist. Cryptocurrency transactions can be reversed by those operating the cryptocurrency - look at the Ethereum DAO fork.

mrb 9y ago
"Hey man, christmas lights and LEDs are your example, not mine; I'm just answering your questions." You are not answering. You still (3rd time I point this out) haven't replied to the majority of what I wrote in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442878 where I explain the utility of Bitcoin, legal protections, and 0-confirmation transactions. Should I take your silence as tacit acknowlegement? "No, because it doesn't give any reasoning to connect up Bitcoin production with that 0.74% figure." It doesn't give the reasoning, but I also don't think your estimate is correct, especially your choice of P/E 20, which is not conservative at all. Remember the world's market cap is comprised of very average companies, including companies that are so terrible they are not worth taking public: for example a small corner store, which I am sure you will agree should not be valued at a P/E of 20. In fact we can estimate a more accurate world P/E by looking at the global market cap of listed companies: $60T (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/CM.MKT.LCAP.CD http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/CM.MKT.LCAP.CD) If 1/4th of the world GDP is produced by public/listed companies and 3/4th by private/unlisted ones, then the "world's market cap" is $240T, which means the world's P/E is 3. Bitcoin being valued at $1T would be 0.42% of a $240T world market cap, so it would be reasonable and very average for it to use 0.74% of the world's energy. In fact after doing this math I am surprised how close these 2 figures are. This means Bitcoin would be even more efficient compared to other industries (eg. aluminum smelting) that use disproportionately even larger amounts of energy compared to their contribution to the world's economy/GDP. "Cryptocurrency transactions can be reversed by those operating the cryptocurrency - look at the Ethereum DAO fork." Replace "cryptocurrency" with "Bitcoin" in my sentence. Bitcoin has a 8+ year history of never reversing transactions despite many massive thefts. So, as I said, Bitcoin's irreversible property has no equivalent in other financial systems. And you were wrong that RTGS systems provide irreversibility.
- lmm 9y ago
  > You are not answering. You still (3rd time I point this out) haven't replied to the majority of what I wrote in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442878 where I explain the utility of Bitcoin, legal protections, and 0-confirmation transactions. Should I take your silence as tacit acknowlegement? You're link goes to some random comment in an unrelated thread, so I've no idea what you're talking about. The legal system is great when you can identify a thief, but that's difficult enough for in-person theft; it's virtually impossible when operating pseudonymously over the Internet. As for 0-confirmation transactions, the bottom line that no amount of sophistry will get away from is that 0% of the shops I've been to in the real world that take bitcoin allow payment in seconds, whereas 100% of the visa-accepting ones do. > for example a small corner store, which I am sure you will agree should not be valued at a P/E of 20. Huh? It absolutely should be; that's exactly what a P/E of 20 being normal for mature businesses means. > Bitcoin has a 8+ year history of never reversing transactions despite many massive thefts. So, as I said, Bitcoin's irreversible property has no equivalent in other financial systems. And you were wrong that RTGS systems provide irreversibility. I'm sure there'll be examples of RTGS systems that have gone just as long with no reversed transactions, especially if you measure by transaction volume rather than clock time. More importantly there's no fundamental difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum that makes it impossible for the same thing to happen; indeed the 0.8 (I think?) hard fork demonstrates that the level of coordination that would be necessary to reverse a transaction already exists. The only difference from conventional RTGS is policy; Bitcoin's operators doesn't reverse fraud, whereas it sounds like some RTGS operators do. I'm not sure why any non-fraudulent business would prefer the former.