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No, I don't think you understand the scale we are talking about here if this becomes a world wide common digital currency. Your political dogma is getting in

No, I don't think you understand the scale we are talking about here if this becomes a world wide common digital currency. Your political dogma is getting in the way of you understanding what Bitcoin's real potential is.

danmaz74 9y ago
Bitcoin will never become the "world wide common digital currency": it's deflationary in the long term, very volatile int he short term, and transactions are expensive and slow. Maybe some other cryptocurrency could, but not bitcoin. It could stay as a store of value though, like gold.
- pmorici 9y ago
  "it's deflationary in the long term" Whether or not you think that matters is political dogma. "very volatile int he short term" Looking at the one year time scale BTC/USD is only about 2-3x as volatile as USD/EUR. Bitcoin volatility in general has been trending DOWN since it's inception as you would expect something to become more stable as the market matures and more people adopt it. https://www.investing.com/tools/forex-volatility-calculator https://www.investing.com/tools/forex-volatility-calculator https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/volatility-index/ https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/volatility-index/ "transactions are expensive and slow" By what standard? A typical transaction costs less than a dollar and takes about 10 minutes. Once the people holding the block size hostage are out of the way you can expect the cost to return to cents and the speed to be more reliable at 10 minutes or less. Anyone who thinks Bitcoin can be a store of value like Gold w/o having utility as money is fooling themselves. You need to both.
  - danmaz74 9y ago
    > Looking at the one year time scale BTC/USD is only about 2-3x as volatile as USD/EUR Are you kidding? BTC/USD easily has 10%+ swings in a day, and 300% in a year.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  Lightning Network and thus cheap off-chain (but provably secure) transactions are probably "only" a couple of years away at this point.
  - owebmaster 9y ago
    But it may probably not be a solution or take a couple of decades, like the scalability of Elon Musk's projects.
    - vertex-four 9y ago
      I don't understand why you think Lightning Network wouldn't be a solution - the crypto side of it is very well-specced and works, and there's plenty of research papers describing various methods of finding a reasonably short path across routes between nodes. It solves specific problems Bitcoin users have today (it provides fast, cheap transactions, which Bitcoin currently doesn't), so it will gain quick adoption. It's primarily held up on Bitcoin's variant on party politics, more than anything else - there's functional payment channel code working on Litecoin's main network and Bitcoin's testnet.
      - pmorici 9y ago
        For starters the people pushing lightning are religiously opposing any increase in the block size. For lightening to even be viable on a world wide scale the block size will need to be increased.
        vertex-four 9y ago
        The point of Lightning is that transactions don't go on the blockchain until they need to be settled - payment channels could be open for months or years without being settled if there's no need to access the underlying currency. If everyone uses Lightning Network for the vast, vast majority of transactions (and there's no reason not to), the only times most people would ever have to put something on the blockchain is when the entity on the other end of their payment channel disappears, or they have more currency than they've ever had before. The issue, if anything, is exactly the opposite - that there'll be little incentive to mine without enough transactions on the chain, and the security of the network will come crashing down. Lightning Network also provides for decentralised, trustless currency exchanges - so the inflexibility of one blockchain will finally not matter much. You could pay someone in bitcoin and the other person could receive litecoin as easily as you can do similar things with a credit card today.
fapjacks 9y ago
Not in the short term, bud. I have always said about the real value of Bitcoin since I started mining in 2010: "What really is the value of money laundering, tax-less transactions and a quasi-anonymous store of value?" Bitcoin made the down payment on the car I drive every day. I know what Bitcoin is worth, but I'm telling you, we're in another speculation bubble in the short term, and it would be wise to gtfo of your position.

danmaz74 9y ago

Bitcoin will never become the "world wide common digital currency": it's deflationary in the long term, very volatile int he short term, and transactions are expensive and slow. Maybe some other cryptocurrency could, but not bitcoin. It could stay as a store of value though, like gold.

pmorici 9y ago
"it's deflationary in the long term" Whether or not you think that matters is political dogma. "very volatile int he short term" Looking at the one year time scale BTC/USD is only about 2-3x as volatile as USD/EUR. Bitcoin volatility in general has been trending DOWN since it's inception as you would expect something to become more stable as the market matures and more people adopt it. https://www.investing.com/tools/forex-volatility-calculator https://www.investing.com/tools/forex-volatility-calculator https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/volatility-index/ https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/volatility-index/ "transactions are expensive and slow" By what standard? A typical transaction costs less than a dollar and takes about 10 minutes. Once the people holding the block size hostage are out of the way you can expect the cost to return to cents and the speed to be more reliable at 10 minutes or less. Anyone who thinks Bitcoin can be a store of value like Gold w/o having utility as money is fooling themselves. You need to both.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  > Looking at the one year time scale BTC/USD is only about 2-3x as volatile as USD/EUR Are you kidding? BTC/USD easily has 10%+ swings in a day, and 300% in a year.
vertex-four 9y ago
Lightning Network and thus cheap off-chain (but provably secure) transactions are probably "only" a couple of years away at this point.
- owebmaster 9y ago
  But it may probably not be a solution or take a couple of decades, like the scalability of Elon Musk's projects.
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    I don't understand why you think Lightning Network wouldn't be a solution - the crypto side of it is very well-specced and works, and there's plenty of research papers describing various methods of finding a reasonably short path across routes between nodes. It solves specific problems Bitcoin users have today (it provides fast, cheap transactions, which Bitcoin currently doesn't), so it will gain quick adoption. It's primarily held up on Bitcoin's variant on party politics, more than anything else - there's functional payment channel code working on Litecoin's main network and Bitcoin's testnet.
    - pmorici 9y ago
      For starters the people pushing lightning are religiously opposing any increase in the block size. For lightening to even be viable on a world wide scale the block size will need to be increased.
      - vertex-four 9y ago
        The point of Lightning is that transactions don't go on the blockchain until they need to be settled - payment channels could be open for months or years without being settled if there's no need to access the underlying currency. If everyone uses Lightning Network for the vast, vast majority of transactions (and there's no reason not to), the only times most people would ever have to put something on the blockchain is when the entity on the other end of their payment channel disappears, or they have more currency than they've ever had before. The issue, if anything, is exactly the opposite - that there'll be little incentive to mine without enough transactions on the chain, and the security of the network will come crashing down. Lightning Network also provides for decentralised, trustless currency exchanges - so the inflexibility of one blockchain will finally not matter much. You could pay someone in bitcoin and the other person could receive litecoin as easily as you can do similar things with a credit card today.

fapjacks 9y ago

Not in the short term, bud. I have always said about the real value of Bitcoin since I started mining in 2010: "What really is the value of money laundering, tax-less transactions and a quasi-anonymous store of value?" Bitcoin made the down payment on the car I drive every day. I know what Bitcoin is worth, but I'm telling you, we're in another speculation bubble in the short term, and it would be wise to gtfo of your position.