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To be honest I'm a bit baffled. Are you claiming that once these flaws are revealed, the perceived value in Bitcoin will be destroyed? If no, what purpose does

To be honest I'm a bit baffled. Are you claiming that once these flaws are revealed, the perceived value in Bitcoin will be destroyed? If no, what purpose does the word "fatal" serve? If yes, couldn't you answer my original question? As an aside, the phrase "rhetorical question" has a special meaning, but the adjective "rhetorical" just means anything relating to discussion. I was trying to say that you veered off into a meta-argument about the words we were using, which unfortunately I'm now continuing.

pedrocr 9y ago
It seems like you're nitpicking terminology but in case my original intent wasn't clear I'll try again. I'm saying that bitcoin has fatal flaws to work as a global currency at scale (I've estimated what that means) that aren't fatal flaws to work as a niche currency (it's present scale). So the answer to your original question is that surviving at it's present scale forever would not be surprising. Scaling and then revealing its flaws would indeed be fatal as there's no going back to being a niche once it scales and fails to work properly.
guscost 9y ago
Do you have an example of a flaw in all existing cryptocurrencies? I've heard about the current scaling challenges with Bitcoin.
- pedrocr 9y ago
  >"a cryptocurrency where the founder owns 5% of all the currency that will ever exist and deflation is builtin and fixed seems like it fails some fairly basic things we know about standard economics" This is the flaw I was pointing at. Others have said that while there's some research there doesn't seem to be a solution for it. A cryptocurrency that scales it's size in rough proportion to its trading and thus keeps prices in check with maybe slight inflation would be interesting. It's almost surely difficult to accomplish given the restrictions in what you can do in a distributed consensus type of setup. I'm not convinced it even matters though. Of all the important things we need solutions for in the world cryptocurrency doesn't seem to help any than I can see.
  - guscost 9y ago
    > A cryptocurrency that scales it's size in rough proportion to its trading and thus keeps prices in check with maybe slight inflation would be interesting. These already exist, with all kinds of incentive schemes and target inflation rates. If you're saying that deflationary Bitcoins can't possibly "win" in the long term, but something else could, I guess it's plausible and I don't know a lot about that. I do know that Bitcoin was started partly in protest of inflationary Fed policy.

pedrocr 9y ago

It seems like you're nitpicking terminology but in case my original intent wasn't clear I'll try again. I'm saying that bitcoin has fatal flaws to work as a global currency at scale (I've estimated what that means) that aren't fatal flaws to work as a niche currency (it's present scale). So the answer to your original question is that surviving at it's present scale forever would not be surprising. Scaling and then revealing its flaws would indeed be fatal as there's no going back to being a niche once it scales and fails to work properly.

guscost 9y ago

Do you have an example of a flaw in all existing cryptocurrencies? I've heard about the current scaling challenges with Bitcoin.

pedrocr 9y ago
>"a cryptocurrency where the founder owns 5% of all the currency that will ever exist and deflation is builtin and fixed seems like it fails some fairly basic things we know about standard economics" This is the flaw I was pointing at. Others have said that while there's some research there doesn't seem to be a solution for it. A cryptocurrency that scales it's size in rough proportion to its trading and thus keeps prices in check with maybe slight inflation would be interesting. It's almost surely difficult to accomplish given the restrictions in what you can do in a distributed consensus type of setup. I'm not convinced it even matters though. Of all the important things we need solutions for in the world cryptocurrency doesn't seem to help any than I can see.
- guscost 9y ago
  > A cryptocurrency that scales it's size in rough proportion to its trading and thus keeps prices in check with maybe slight inflation would be interesting. These already exist, with all kinds of incentive schemes and target inflation rates. If you're saying that deflationary Bitcoins can't possibly "win" in the long term, but something else could, I guess it's plausible and I don't know a lot about that. I do know that Bitcoin was started partly in protest of inflationary Fed policy.