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I think it's incredibly interesting and the the tech / concept is extremely impressive. (We still don't even know who thought this up, do we?) That being said,

by and0 9y ago

I think it's incredibly interesting and the the tech / concept is extremely impressive. (We still don't even know who thought this up, do we?) That being said, I'm one of the people who have always mocked bitcoin. There are so many obvious problems with it, and some of the people in the cult built around it lack a hilarious amount of self-awareness. Congrats to those who speculated successfully regardless. I'm not salty about people who jumped on $AMD over a year ago, or any tulips throughout history.

rothbardrand 9y ago
Consider that those "obvious problems" (which you don't name) may be misunderstandings on your part, of the technology, or how economics works on a global scale. Bitcoin is a very well designed crypto-economic system. It took smart work from people with backgrounds and understanding in both. It's easy to mock because it's different from the standard quo and Statists seem to think that Only government can do money properly (which is kinda funny when you think about it) and so the criticism of bitcoin that I've seen has never been very good.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are extremely interesting, for sure. Technologically, they're interesting because they're a clever solution to difficult problems, and there's a lot to learn from how they work. Sociologically, they're interesting because they seem to attract a lot of "move fast and break things" people to an area where that attitude works poorly, and the result is an ongoing stream of scams, heists, and other failures. There's a lot to learn here in terms of what not to do. The technological side seems to be fairly well understood at this point, but the sociological side constantly comes up with new ways to be ridiculous, so naturally the discussion now focuses on this.
- Retric 9y ago
  The central problem is non reversible transactions and storage on PC's. Computer security means the value can drop to zero at any time and using a 3rd party to store your value means you A lose any benefit of coinX vs. WoW gold or whatever, and B run the same risks as their security can fail at any time. Now sure people can and have made (and lost) a lot of money, but in terms of actual usage it's never going to see mass adoption without first solving the computer security problem. PS: However, what I think bothers people is it promotes people pumping coinX in the same way they would time shares. That's simply a drag on any online community.
  - cloakandswagger 9y ago
    The vast majority of fiat currency are 1s and 0s stored on computers, the only difference being: 1) Bitcoin is tracked by a global, immutable ledger, whereas you have no idea what kind of potentially krufty, in-house software your bank is tracking your money with. 2) There is a finite number of Bitcoins that can ever exist, whereas 100 trillion new units of your fiat could be created at the push of a button.
    - Retric 9y ago
      My arguments are in no ways limited to bitcoin. They directly related to all crypto currency's. Anyway... 1) US federal reserve keeps track of all US currency held by banks and the transactions between banks. The banks you use are a separate layer on top of this system, but because of the FED's ledger transactions are ultimately reversible. 2) The actual number of bitcoins that currently exist is in practice not really known. If Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet did a transaction there would suddenly be a lot more bitcoins in play, devaluing the other coins. So, effectively the number of bitcoins can increase at any time. Further, the number of existing dollars means there is no meaningful way to suddenly devalue them. At worst inflation can rise, but you can swap currency before that ends up costing you 2% thus making it irrelevant.
- gnaritas 9y ago
  > and Statists Your bias is strong, it's far more likely you're the one with misunderstandings than the OP. The unbiased don't go around calling people statists; nation states are the norm in the world, they're properly just called people. As the anti-statist and the one who isn't the norm, the label more appropriately belongs on you. Humans are tribal animals, always have been and always will be, nation states are merely the current expression of this normal natural human behavior. Bitcoin is simply not attractive to the ordinary person because they don't have this anti-state bias that makes it so attractive to you. The dollar is incredibly stable, that stability comes from a central authority who actively manages the currency to keep it so, and people like it that way. As a currency, Bitcoin is terrible and doesn't come close to approaching the utility of the dollar. Bitcoin is little more than a speculative tech commodity attractive to a small minority of people who think they can either make money or escape the state. It has a place, a small one.
  - njarboe 9y ago
    Murder is also a "normal natural human behavior", especially when one has a strong tribal bonds and are dealing with those outside the tribe. Suppressing or sublimating some normal natural human behavior with culture is probably a good thing. Choose wisely.
    - gnaritas 9y ago
      No, murder is a rare human behavior practiced by a tiny tiny minority of people and is considered quite abnormal. Normal human behavior is to not murder others. Normal is a synonym for typical, does the typical person you know go around committing murder?
    - and0 9y ago
      Murder isn't really a "normal natural human behavior". Deferring to people's desire for a stable currency in a modern economy does not mean normalizing murder. Seriously: what?
      - paulmd 9y ago
- and0 9y ago
  I didn't name the obvious problems because they've been talked over to death at this point, typically in that most-upvoted first post you mentioned initially. I think the largest issue with Bitcoin is precisely what you probably admire it for, judging by your description of its detractors: I don't think the average consumer wants an unregulated currency. People like having a central authority that enforces laws around their currency. People enjoy the benefits of a dollar that doesn't fluctuate wildly in value. People enjoy the conveniences of modern banking systems. There's a tendency for libertarians to ignore very obvious examples of contradictions in their world view, because any of these examples can be dismissed using random ideological purity tests. Namely, the idea that the market is entirely separate from the government, or that a government formed by (often very imperfect) representative democracy or even brute force is any less pure of a "force" than market forces. Modern financial systems developed largely because people wanted them. Consumer protections laws were implemented because people voted for them and would be very upset if they were taken away. People who step into voting booths are still "rational actors". People who disagree with your world view (just about literally everyone) are still rational actors. At the end of the day advocates of cryptocurrency have tried everything to get people to start using or accepting Bitcoin and no one has, despite no real government intervention. Hell, the whole point of your original post was to lament that the most popular opinion is that cryptocurrency is dumb. The market has said no, why have you not started listening? (Also: Mining is massively wasteful. Transactions are expensive. It's overtly complicated and unpleasant to handle. A lot of people lose all their money because sites get hacked. Also, all the issues brought up by this whole forking incident.)
  - wyldfire 9y ago
    > I don't think the average consumer wants an unregulated currency. Ok, so it will continue to apply to just the niche that's okay w/unregulated currency. > People like having a central authority that enforces laws around their currency. I will concede that this is a risk. Every time a theft occurs, there's temptation to try to "solve" the problem of thefts. Once a powerful state endorses a black/grey list of coins tainted by theft (even if it's offered as a "hey this is opt-in, we won't legislate this list"), it will start us on a slippery slope towards centralization and perhaps prohibition/censorship. > People enjoy the benefits of a dollar that doesn't fluctuate wildly in value. Yes, bitcoin may continue to be stuck in a niche like equities or something other than currency. > People enjoy the conveniences of modern banking systems. Yes, and bridging the gap between human/trust/legally secured systems with mathematical ones like bitcoin is a challenge. And yet, businesses have arisen to handle this challenge. Ultimately, the "but it's not really suited for what that guy Fred said it could do" arguments are orthogonal. It doesn't matter that what Fred said was an exaggeration or completely false. Bitcoin will keep churning out new blocks regardless. And yes, people may eventually say to themselves "oh hey if it will never do that then I should sell!" And the value will drop. But what if it were back to USD parity? Would that be bad? Or just the new norm? I contend it's the latter.
- lz400 9y ago
  I don't know about others but to me anyone that uses a term like "statist", "cuck", "libtard" and stuff like that automatically makes me disconnect.
  - cloakandswagger 9y ago
    Note to other readers: The comment in question only used the term "statist", this poster just implied the usage of the 4chan ad hominems for increased effect.
    - lz400 9y ago
      Yeah, statist carries the same kind of close minded biased teenage baggage as "cuck", at least to me.
wyldfire 9y ago
> That being said, I'm one of the people who have always mocked bitcoin. There are so many obvious problems with it, and some of the people in the cult built around it lack a hilarious amount of self-awareness. Don't lump supporters in with a "cult." Just observe: it's been here for a long time and if there were a way to turn it off it would've happened by now. IMO it's never going away. ICOs will come and go. Altcoins will come and go. Bitcoin is here to stay. It's not tulips, it's not a ponzie scheme. Will it obsolete credit cards or cash? No, that's unlikely. Will it obsolete precious metals? No, that seems unlikely, too. Will its value stabilize against fiat currency and become a real safe store of money? That's unlikely to happen soon IMO but maybe in some decade or two? Bitcoin is new and the use cases don't completely 100% overlap with cash, credit cards, bearer bonds, stocks, precious metals, contracts. But it does line up really well with some uses of each. The defeat of bitcoin would only happen if its mathematical or functional model collapsed. For example: transactions execute Too Slowly, disk space required for node operation became Too Large, node operation became Too Expensive, hashing algorithm no longer considered Safe. Transaction speed, disk space, computation -- for the most part these are all fairly negotiable/reconsiderable by the humans who see some value from bitcoin's continued operation. If global changes make these things not work, the market will find a balance. See all of the recent pushback regarding transaction speed/cost and how best to solve the problem. Even if we end up with Bitcoin[0], Bitcoin[1], Bitcoin[2], I would argue that each of them Are Bitcoin and individually and collectively continue to illustrate bitcoin's success. EDIT: actually one huge risk could be united global censorship by treaty -- this would destroy a lot of its value and utility (but the network would never stop, it would serve the black market exclusively).
- leereeves 9y ago
  > but the network would never stop, it would serve the black market exclusively All the computers required to keep Bitcoin running would be an easy target for law enforcement.
  - wyldfire 9y ago
    shrug, difficulty adjusts, asics get smaller, cooler, enclosures designed differently, miners hide them in drywall or wherever we hide prohibited stuff these days.
smokeyj 9y ago
> or any tulips throughout history. Not salty huh LOL This must be infuriating to you. All these ideologically driven libertarians, creating the future of finance and trade, while making a ton of money - and totally not caring what Statists think. #WINNING Edit: Crypto works because people opt-in. People see value in voluntary trade that can cross borders without being shaken down. The petro-dollar works as long as the US has a gun big enough to threaten the world with. That won't last forever.

by and0 9y ago

rothbardrand 9y ago

Consider that those "obvious problems" (which you don't name) may be misunderstandings on your part, of the technology, or how economics works on a global scale. Bitcoin is a very well designed crypto-economic system. It took smart work from people with backgrounds and understanding in both. It's easy to mock because it's different from the standard quo and Statists seem to think that Only government can do money properly (which is kinda funny when you think about it) and so the criticism of bitcoin that I've seen has never been very good.

mikeash 9y ago
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are extremely interesting, for sure. Technologically, they're interesting because they're a clever solution to difficult problems, and there's a lot to learn from how they work. Sociologically, they're interesting because they seem to attract a lot of "move fast and break things" people to an area where that attitude works poorly, and the result is an ongoing stream of scams, heists, and other failures. There's a lot to learn here in terms of what not to do. The technological side seems to be fairly well understood at this point, but the sociological side constantly comes up with new ways to be ridiculous, so naturally the discussion now focuses on this.
Retric 9y ago
The central problem is non reversible transactions and storage on PC's. Computer security means the value can drop to zero at any time and using a 3rd party to store your value means you A lose any benefit of coinX vs. WoW gold or whatever, and B run the same risks as their security can fail at any time. Now sure people can and have made (and lost) a lot of money, but in terms of actual usage it's never going to see mass adoption without first solving the computer security problem. PS: However, what I think bothers people is it promotes people pumping coinX in the same way they would time shares. That's simply a drag on any online community.
- cloakandswagger 9y ago
  The vast majority of fiat currency are 1s and 0s stored on computers, the only difference being: 1) Bitcoin is tracked by a global, immutable ledger, whereas you have no idea what kind of potentially krufty, in-house software your bank is tracking your money with. 2) There is a finite number of Bitcoins that can ever exist, whereas 100 trillion new units of your fiat could be created at the push of a button.
  - Retric 9y ago
    My arguments are in no ways limited to bitcoin. They directly related to all crypto currency's. Anyway... 1) US federal reserve keeps track of all US currency held by banks and the transactions between banks. The banks you use are a separate layer on top of this system, but because of the FED's ledger transactions are ultimately reversible. 2) The actual number of bitcoins that currently exist is in practice not really known. If Satoshi Nakamoto's wallet did a transaction there would suddenly be a lot more bitcoins in play, devaluing the other coins. So, effectively the number of bitcoins can increase at any time. Further, the number of existing dollars means there is no meaningful way to suddenly devalue them. At worst inflation can rise, but you can swap currency before that ends up costing you 2% thus making it irrelevant.
gnaritas 9y ago
> and Statists Your bias is strong, it's far more likely you're the one with misunderstandings than the OP. The unbiased don't go around calling people statists; nation states are the norm in the world, they're properly just called people. As the anti-statist and the one who isn't the norm, the label more appropriately belongs on you. Humans are tribal animals, always have been and always will be, nation states are merely the current expression of this normal natural human behavior. Bitcoin is simply not attractive to the ordinary person because they don't have this anti-state bias that makes it so attractive to you. The dollar is incredibly stable, that stability comes from a central authority who actively manages the currency to keep it so, and people like it that way. As a currency, Bitcoin is terrible and doesn't come close to approaching the utility of the dollar. Bitcoin is little more than a speculative tech commodity attractive to a small minority of people who think they can either make money or escape the state. It has a place, a small one.
- njarboe 9y ago
  Murder is also a "normal natural human behavior", especially when one has a strong tribal bonds and are dealing with those outside the tribe. Suppressing or sublimating some normal natural human behavior with culture is probably a good thing. Choose wisely.
  - gnaritas 9y ago
    No, murder is a rare human behavior practiced by a tiny tiny minority of people and is considered quite abnormal. Normal human behavior is to not murder others. Normal is a synonym for typical, does the typical person you know go around committing murder?
  - and0 9y ago
    Murder isn't really a "normal natural human behavior". Deferring to people's desire for a stable currency in a modern economy does not mean normalizing murder. Seriously: what?
    - paulmd 9y ago
and0 9y ago
I didn't name the obvious problems because they've been talked over to death at this point, typically in that most-upvoted first post you mentioned initially. I think the largest issue with Bitcoin is precisely what you probably admire it for, judging by your description of its detractors: I don't think the average consumer wants an unregulated currency. People like having a central authority that enforces laws around their currency. People enjoy the benefits of a dollar that doesn't fluctuate wildly in value. People enjoy the conveniences of modern banking systems. There's a tendency for libertarians to ignore very obvious examples of contradictions in their world view, because any of these examples can be dismissed using random ideological purity tests. Namely, the idea that the market is entirely separate from the government, or that a government formed by (often very imperfect) representative democracy or even brute force is any less pure of a "force" than market forces. Modern financial systems developed largely because people wanted them. Consumer protections laws were implemented because people voted for them and would be very upset if they were taken away. People who step into voting booths are still "rational actors". People who disagree with your world view (just about literally everyone) are still rational actors. At the end of the day advocates of cryptocurrency have tried everything to get people to start using or accepting Bitcoin and no one has, despite no real government intervention. Hell, the whole point of your original post was to lament that the most popular opinion is that cryptocurrency is dumb. The market has said no, why have you not started listening? (Also: Mining is massively wasteful. Transactions are expensive. It's overtly complicated and unpleasant to handle. A lot of people lose all their money because sites get hacked. Also, all the issues brought up by this whole forking incident.)
- wyldfire 9y ago
  > I don't think the average consumer wants an unregulated currency. Ok, so it will continue to apply to just the niche that's okay w/unregulated currency. > People like having a central authority that enforces laws around their currency. I will concede that this is a risk. Every time a theft occurs, there's temptation to try to "solve" the problem of thefts. Once a powerful state endorses a black/grey list of coins tainted by theft (even if it's offered as a "hey this is opt-in, we won't legislate this list"), it will start us on a slippery slope towards centralization and perhaps prohibition/censorship. > People enjoy the benefits of a dollar that doesn't fluctuate wildly in value. Yes, bitcoin may continue to be stuck in a niche like equities or something other than currency. > People enjoy the conveniences of modern banking systems. Yes, and bridging the gap between human/trust/legally secured systems with mathematical ones like bitcoin is a challenge. And yet, businesses have arisen to handle this challenge. Ultimately, the "but it's not really suited for what that guy Fred said it could do" arguments are orthogonal. It doesn't matter that what Fred said was an exaggeration or completely false. Bitcoin will keep churning out new blocks regardless. And yes, people may eventually say to themselves "oh hey if it will never do that then I should sell!" And the value will drop. But what if it were back to USD parity? Would that be bad? Or just the new norm? I contend it's the latter.
lz400 9y ago
I don't know about others but to me anyone that uses a term like "statist", "cuck", "libtard" and stuff like that automatically makes me disconnect.
- cloakandswagger 9y ago
  Note to other readers: The comment in question only used the term "statist", this poster just implied the usage of the 4chan ad hominems for increased effect.
  - lz400 9y ago
    Yeah, statist carries the same kind of close minded biased teenage baggage as "cuck", at least to me.

wyldfire 9y ago

> That being said, I'm one of the people who have always mocked bitcoin. There are so many obvious problems with it, and some of the people in the cult built around it lack a hilarious amount of self-awareness. Don't lump supporters in with a "cult." Just observe: it's been here for a long time and if there were a way to turn it off it would've happened by now. IMO it's never going away. ICOs will come and go. Altcoins will come and go. Bitcoin is here to stay. It's not tulips, it's not a ponzie scheme. Will it obsolete credit cards or cash? No, that's unlikely. Will it obsolete precious metals? No, that seems unlikely, too. Will its value stabilize against fiat currency and become a real safe store of money? That's unlikely to happen soon IMO but maybe in some decade or two? Bitcoin is new and the use cases don't completely 100% overlap with cash, credit cards, bearer bonds, stocks, precious metals, contracts. But it does line up really well with some uses of each. The defeat of bitcoin would only happen if its mathematical or functional model collapsed. For example: transactions execute Too Slowly, disk space required for node operation became Too Large, node operation became Too Expensive, hashing algorithm no longer considered Safe. Transaction speed, disk space, computation -- for the most part these are all fairly negotiable/reconsiderable by the humans who see some value from bitcoin's continued operation. If global changes make these things not work, the market will find a balance. See all of the recent pushback regarding transaction speed/cost and how best to solve the problem. Even if we end up with Bitcoin[0], Bitcoin[1], Bitcoin[2], I would argue that each of them Are Bitcoin and individually and collectively continue to illustrate bitcoin's success. EDIT: actually one huge risk could be united global censorship by treaty -- this would destroy a lot of its value and utility (but the network would never stop, it would serve the black market exclusively).

leereeves 9y ago
> but the network would never stop, it would serve the black market exclusively All the computers required to keep Bitcoin running would be an easy target for law enforcement.
- wyldfire 9y ago
  shrug, difficulty adjusts, asics get smaller, cooler, enclosures designed differently, miners hide them in drywall or wherever we hide prohibited stuff these days.

smokeyj 9y ago

> or any tulips throughout history. Not salty huh LOL This must be infuriating to you. All these ideologically driven libertarians, creating the future of finance and trade, while making a ton of money - and totally not caring what Statists think. #WINNING Edit: Crypto works because people opt-in. People see value in voluntary trade that can cross borders without being shaken down. The petro-dollar works as long as the US has a gun big enough to threaten the world with. That won't last forever.