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I don't know if it's a trough or if it's a conclusion. It's been 8 years now and the use cases for Bitcoin / CC haven't changed. You can buy illegal things and

I don't know if it's a trough or if it's a conclusion. It's been 8 years now and the use cases for Bitcoin / CC haven't changed. You can buy illegal things and an incredibly small number of real things you can also buy with real money. There is nothing you can do with Bitcoin / CC that you can't do with real money. Nothing you can do that you couldn't do 5 years ago. Nothing new on the horizon. The only reason Bitcoin exists is because if you google "bitcoin price" it says a big number. There is nothing in the ecosystem except that number, and anyone whose entire ego isn't directly tied to that number has no interest in it.

lostmsu 9y ago
Sure it doesn't. Except you can use it to transfer value without first consulting your potentially totalitarian government without much effort for the first time in the entire history.
- zzalpha 9y ago
  ROFL, "the first time in the entire history". Gold would like to have a word with you... And seashells. And giant stone coins. And on and on and on. In fact, as far as history goes, government backed fiat currency is a very recent invention.
  - tootie 9y ago
    Government-backed fiat currency is also by far the most successful and most useful. People object on abstract principle but it's been nothing short of miraculous for human development.
  - lostmsu 9y ago
    You forgot about effort and risk.
  - betterunix2 9y ago
    Fiat currency was the first currency, developed in Mesopotamia as an accounting system run by the temple-governments of their city-states. Accounts were recorded in clay ledgers, and withdrawals could be made in the form of clay tokens that could be traded within cities and between cities (i.e. accepted for deposit by the temple of another city-state). A large trading network developed based on that money. The entire system was backed by the authority of the governments to levy taxes (mandatory offerings to the temples), collect debts, and resolve disputes (the same things that back our modern fiat currencies).
- blibble 9y ago
  that's funny, I don't remember consulting my government this morning when I paid for a cup of coffee with cash
  - maneesh 9y ago
    Did you pay with cash or credit card?
  - SolarNet 9y ago
    You must live in: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire or Oregon. (Or be oblivious) States where the sale of a cup of coffee doesn't involve a tax.
    - jshaqaw 9y ago
      When you grow up and have kids (ie you aren’t 11 anymore) you may appreciate things like schools, safe roads, etc... that come with those sales tax dollars instead of viewing it as totalitarian expropriation.
      - mehrdada 9y ago
        Interestingly not all places with high tax rates actually have good schools, safe roads, etc. Rather, there are countries to invade, bankers to bail out, old-school industries to sustain.
        s73ver_ 9y ago
        Sales tax isn't going to any of those.
        mehrdada 9y ago
        The point is much more abstract. The point is it’s not an obviously non-controversial point of view that being 12 magically solves, as the post pertains it to be. While we are at it, yes, disenfranchisement of young voters who are mostly single definitely makes tax dollars more favorable to married folks and people with children. It’s not like most societies need to subsidize overpopulation, yet they do. Some food for thought.
- XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
  Performing economic actions that your govt doesn't approve of is illegal. Bitcoin is great for people that want to use it for illegal purposes. If that's the only use case for CC they will always have a place in human history, but I'm not sure they're really worth ~100B USD at this point, if there's no other major use case.
- nradov 9y ago
  Nothing new there. The hawala system has been doing the same thing since the 8th century.
VMG 9y ago
Illegal things are real. Real money is in your control, money on an account not necessarily.
- kijin 9y ago
  A bunch of numbers stored in your SSD are no more real than some other numbers stored in a bank's mainframe. If I wanted a store of value that's really real and keep it under my control, I would much rather store up on gold, canned food, and bullets. Even among these three, only one (food) has any intrinsic value and everything else is social convention.
jraines 9y ago
So you have no interest in it yet confidently state there's "nothing new on the horizon". Look, I don't know if you're wrong in the large -- maybe it does all come crashing down or die with a whimper -- but you're definitely wrong about that. Innovation is coming quickly, and I don't mean some dumb ICO(s)
- XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
  What do you mean? I think in terms of new technical details there are lots of cool stuff. Atomic cross chain transfers are starting in earnest, LN is looking more and more real, zcash style tx might land in ETH. In technical terms that's all awesome, but new use cases do those allow? They typically just allow the same use cases, but slightly better and cheaper. Those aren't the things that are holding back new use cases.
  - jraines 9y ago
    Yeah, I'm mainly referring to those you mentioned. But smart contracts in general allow tons of new use cases, which are furthered by those types of ground-level advancements. It will take years to sort out, there will be scams and useless schemes that repeat the mistakes of history as the article claims, but then there will be others. If predicting that unimaginable benefits will flow from this space, analagous to the early days of the web when people's understandable first ideas were to put newsletters & mail-order catalogs online, makes me sound like a naive blockchain cultist, so be it; but then again, what forum am I on right now?
    - imustbeevil 9y ago
      > If predicting that unimaginable benefits will flow from this space...makes me sound like a naive blockchain cultist, so be it. Yes, that is what belief without reason looks like.
      - jraines 9y ago
        "The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law"--which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants--becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's."
XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
I agree. I feel like the biggest thing that ethereum has made so far is an even easier way to make an ICO scam. I personally think that there will be innovation soon. In the next couple years there'll be a CC that establishes a storage market, once there is a robust storage market we could start to see serious attempts at selling compute time for something useful. It's possible normal tx could be disrupted by CCs at some point, but that day is very far away. Even in legal cash only markets we haven't seen businesses adopt CCs.
bhaak 9y ago
Just a little remark. I noticed you seem to focus on Bitcoin whereas the ones replying to you talk about cryptocurrencies in general. Bitcoin's scope is deliberately limited and focused on being a currency. Other cryptocurrencies have a wider scope and more potential utility.

lostmsu 9y ago

Sure it doesn't. Except you can use it to transfer value without first consulting your potentially totalitarian government without much effort for the first time in the entire history.

zzalpha 9y ago
ROFL, "the first time in the entire history". Gold would like to have a word with you... And seashells. And giant stone coins. And on and on and on. In fact, as far as history goes, government backed fiat currency is a very recent invention.
- tootie 9y ago
  Government-backed fiat currency is also by far the most successful and most useful. People object on abstract principle but it's been nothing short of miraculous for human development.
- lostmsu 9y ago
  You forgot about effort and risk.
- betterunix2 9y ago
  Fiat currency was the first currency, developed in Mesopotamia as an accounting system run by the temple-governments of their city-states. Accounts were recorded in clay ledgers, and withdrawals could be made in the form of clay tokens that could be traded within cities and between cities (i.e. accepted for deposit by the temple of another city-state). A large trading network developed based on that money. The entire system was backed by the authority of the governments to levy taxes (mandatory offerings to the temples), collect debts, and resolve disputes (the same things that back our modern fiat currencies).
blibble 9y ago
that's funny, I don't remember consulting my government this morning when I paid for a cup of coffee with cash
- maneesh 9y ago
  Did you pay with cash or credit card?
- SolarNet 9y ago
  You must live in: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire or Oregon. (Or be oblivious) States where the sale of a cup of coffee doesn't involve a tax.
  - jshaqaw 9y ago
    When you grow up and have kids (ie you aren’t 11 anymore) you may appreciate things like schools, safe roads, etc... that come with those sales tax dollars instead of viewing it as totalitarian expropriation.
    - mehrdada 9y ago
      Interestingly not all places with high tax rates actually have good schools, safe roads, etc. Rather, there are countries to invade, bankers to bail out, old-school industries to sustain.
      - s73ver_ 9y ago
        Sales tax isn't going to any of those.
        mehrdada 9y ago
        The point is much more abstract. The point is it’s not an obviously non-controversial point of view that being 12 magically solves, as the post pertains it to be. While we are at it, yes, disenfranchisement of young voters who are mostly single definitely makes tax dollars more favorable to married folks and people with children. It’s not like most societies need to subsidize overpopulation, yet they do. Some food for thought.
XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
Performing economic actions that your govt doesn't approve of is illegal. Bitcoin is great for people that want to use it for illegal purposes. If that's the only use case for CC they will always have a place in human history, but I'm not sure they're really worth ~100B USD at this point, if there's no other major use case.
nradov 9y ago
Nothing new there. The hawala system has been doing the same thing since the 8th century.

VMG 9y ago

Illegal things are real. Real money is in your control, money on an account not necessarily.

kijin 9y ago
A bunch of numbers stored in your SSD are no more real than some other numbers stored in a bank's mainframe. If I wanted a store of value that's really real and keep it under my control, I would much rather store up on gold, canned food, and bullets. Even among these three, only one (food) has any intrinsic value and everything else is social convention.

jraines 9y ago

So you have no interest in it yet confidently state there's "nothing new on the horizon". Look, I don't know if you're wrong in the large -- maybe it does all come crashing down or die with a whimper -- but you're definitely wrong about that. Innovation is coming quickly, and I don't mean some dumb ICO(s)

XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
What do you mean? I think in terms of new technical details there are lots of cool stuff. Atomic cross chain transfers are starting in earnest, LN is looking more and more real, zcash style tx might land in ETH. In technical terms that's all awesome, but new use cases do those allow? They typically just allow the same use cases, but slightly better and cheaper. Those aren't the things that are holding back new use cases.
- jraines 9y ago
  Yeah, I'm mainly referring to those you mentioned. But smart contracts in general allow tons of new use cases, which are furthered by those types of ground-level advancements. It will take years to sort out, there will be scams and useless schemes that repeat the mistakes of history as the article claims, but then there will be others. If predicting that unimaginable benefits will flow from this space, analagous to the early days of the web when people's understandable first ideas were to put newsletters & mail-order catalogs online, makes me sound like a naive blockchain cultist, so be it; but then again, what forum am I on right now?
  - imustbeevil 9y ago
    > If predicting that unimaginable benefits will flow from this space...makes me sound like a naive blockchain cultist, so be it. Yes, that is what belief without reason looks like.
    - jraines 9y ago
      "The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law"--which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants--becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's."

XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago

I agree. I feel like the biggest thing that ethereum has made so far is an even easier way to make an ICO scam. I personally think that there will be innovation soon. In the next couple years there'll be a CC that establishes a storage market, once there is a robust storage market we could start to see serious attempts at selling compute time for something useful. It's possible normal tx could be disrupted by CCs at some point, but that day is very far away. Even in legal cash only markets we haven't seen businesses adopt CCs.

bhaak 9y ago

Just a little remark. I noticed you seem to focus on Bitcoin whereas the ones replying to you talk about cryptocurrencies in general. Bitcoin's scope is deliberately limited and focused on being a currency. Other cryptocurrencies have a wider scope and more potential utility.