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"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

by 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.
- mrb 9y ago
  The correct link is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442877 Prosecuting a thief who orders online a package to be shipped is as hard/easy if he used Bitcoin or a fraudulent CC. I would like to remind you you argued there were zero legal countermeasures for Bitcoin fraud, and this is clearly untrue. 0-conf txs are a thing, see the link. Although uncommon, they are becoming a bit more used as people demand faster transactions. But the reality is in most cases waiting 10-60 min doesn't matter (eg. wouldn't prevent a package ordered online from arriving in 2 days.) As to the P/E, I have demonstrated to you why the average P/E of the average company is probably closer to 3 than 20. On average, it's companies that are better than average that are taken public. So it makes sense that private companies have a worse P/E. "I'm sure there'll be examples of RTGS systems that have gone just as long with no reversed transactions" Still doesn't mean RTGS provide irreversibility, as you incorrectly claimed. I am repeating myself again, but Bitcoin's irreversibility is one of the biggest differentiator it has over non-cryptocurrencies. Seeing you refuse to acknowledge this is silly. "I'm not sure why any non-fraudulent business would prefer the former." I already told you: literally 1 in 2 persons involved in a transaction (the recipient) would prefer irreversibility. Is it so hard for you to understand why a legitimate non-fraudulent recipient would prefer the sender not have the ability to take the money back?

by mrb 9y ago

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.

mrb 9y ago
The correct link is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442877 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14442877 Prosecuting a thief who orders online a package to be shipped is as hard/easy if he used Bitcoin or a fraudulent CC. I would like to remind you you argued there were zero legal countermeasures for Bitcoin fraud, and this is clearly untrue. 0-conf txs are a thing, see the link. Although uncommon, they are becoming a bit more used as people demand faster transactions. But the reality is in most cases waiting 10-60 min doesn't matter (eg. wouldn't prevent a package ordered online from arriving in 2 days.) As to the P/E, I have demonstrated to you why the average P/E of the average company is probably closer to 3 than 20. On average, it's companies that are better than average that are taken public. So it makes sense that private companies have a worse P/E. "I'm sure there'll be examples of RTGS systems that have gone just as long with no reversed transactions" Still doesn't mean RTGS provide irreversibility, as you incorrectly claimed. I am repeating myself again, but Bitcoin's irreversibility is one of the biggest differentiator it has over non-cryptocurrencies. Seeing you refuse to acknowledge this is silly. "I'm not sure why any non-fraudulent business would prefer the former." I already told you: literally 1 in 2 persons involved in a transaction (the recipient) would prefer irreversibility. Is it so hard for you to understand why a legitimate non-fraudulent recipient would prefer the sender not have the ability to take the money back?