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Serious question: why would one buy Bitcoin except for holding on to it? That seems like a very unhealthy reason imho...

by steeve 9y ago

arcticfox 9y ago
That's all there is to it at this point. Other cryptos are vastly better if you actually want to do anything with it.
- lwansbrough 9y ago
  Indeed, 7 day moving average of confirmation time is currently 107 minutes. This has gotten as high as 440 minutes, making Bitcoin utterly useless as a transactional currency. It's basically just e-gold now.
  - makomk 9y ago
    Of course, the reason the Bitcoin confirmation time is so high is because it's processing more transactions than every cryptocurrency except Etherium...
    - lwansbrough 9y ago
      Ethereum is fast too, and what it comes down to is the fact that the majority of people who use Bitcoin today are invested in it as an investment and not as a currency. Which means any efforts to fix the problem are met with pitchforks because it could disrupt the market and kill the value of their gold.
nikanj 9y ago
One might buy it, to sell it to a greater fool before the price crashes
fjarlq 9y ago
Money laundering and terrorist financing are two potential uses (risks) explored by the Financial Action Task Force in this report: http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/Guidance-RBA-Virtual-Currencies.pdf http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/Guidan...
- nlperguiy 9y ago
  Money laundering and terrorist financing can be done and is done with fiat currencies too. Bitcoin is also not a private coin, ledger is public and anyone can analyze the flow of money. The only private coin I know of is Monero (XMR). Analyzing Monero ledger is like looking at random data, there's no amounts, there's no receivers, there's no senders. Everything is fully, by default, encrypted. Even receivers can't know who the sender was.
  - paulpauper 9y ago
    mixers can hide the trail
  - TrickyRick 9y ago
    How does a private coin work with blockchain tech? If you can't know who the sender and receiver are how can you verify transactions?
    - nlperguiy 9y ago
      There's an optionable Payment ID you can attach (also encrypted), so receiver can confirm that the payment received was for a particular purpose. Let's say payment id is user id + product id, so receiver could easily confirm that transaction was from a particular user for a particular product.
scotty79 9y ago
I'd take pay in bitcoin as payment for work anytime over last 5 years because of stupidly high cost of international money transfers. Unfortunately nobody wanted to pay me like that because apparently it was harder for accounting.
- steeve 9y ago
  Would you have spent it?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - scotty79 9y ago
    If I didn't have money and I needed it then definitely.
- grover_hartmann 9y ago
  Use Bitwage.
__s 9y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AecPrwqjbGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AecPrwqjbGw For me, buying BTC is buying out of fiat. Being able to have autonomous control of the currency I have the private keys to. I've been thinking lately: the rich invest their fiat into stores of value, while paying the poor in fiat which is soon to be worthless. This reinforces the current inequality Just plucking some thoughts from the aether of my mind. I'm currently holding because I can't spend, but technologies are going to be emerging which enable Steam et al to efficiently accept BTC, & I don't feel BTC is something to be sold-- only spent The growth rate will stabilize once the market settles on what the true value of this currency is. Then it'll just be a non deflating store of value which is also liquid
- steeve 9y ago
  Thank you for the detailed answer. I have some follow up questions. How can it settle on a value when there is a limited amount of Bitcoins Also, why would you spend it if it can double in value 2 months later?
  - __s 9y ago
    I'm going to describe this in terms of gold; as a metaphor, you can replace gold with any other non deflating asset. There's a limited amount of gold. If you could atomically store your cash as gold yet still pay with it directly through debit, then you don't really need cash. But man does not survive on gold; so you must spend the currency By settle in value I don't mean settle on a precise fiat price. Because I'm thinking post-fiat. This may be idealistic, I know, but try to think from that perspective. By stable I mean the value of BTC shouldn't double every two months. Unless the goods it buys are becoming twice as cheap due to technological advancement There may be weird implications of having your mortgage be in terms of an asset that's non deflating, where if the economy is causing wages to go down as cost of living decreases it can become infeasible to pay for one's house in a year. Two things: banks can come up with a bank-coin which should inflate in order to stimulate long term loans, & maybe people should avoid debt. I personally live with my only debt being my mortgage So maybe BTC isn't a good currency to take out a loan for, but in that case if you can have the bank agree to a dogecoin loan it work outs. I only mention doge because it's an inflating cryptocurrency originally based on BTC, but ideally the inflating currency would be segwit so that one can make atomic payments to that currency with their BTC. Kind of going on a tangent here in this stream of consciousness but the core of this idea is that you can pay with BTC for something in a different unit, currently loans are in the unit of USD, but perhaps in the future loans will be in terms of a 'platonic housing price according to some index' unit

Serious question: why would one buy Bitcoin except for holding on to it? That seems like a very unhealthy reason imho...

by steeve 9y ago

Serious question: why would one buy Bitcoin except for holding on to it? That seems like a very unhealthy reason imho...

arcticfox 9y ago

That's all there is to it at this point. Other cryptos are vastly better if you actually want to do anything with it.

lwansbrough 9y ago
Indeed, 7 day moving average of confirmation time is currently 107 minutes. This has gotten as high as 440 minutes, making Bitcoin utterly useless as a transactional currency. It's basically just e-gold now.
- makomk 9y ago
  Of course, the reason the Bitcoin confirmation time is so high is because it's processing more transactions than every cryptocurrency except Etherium...
  - lwansbrough 9y ago
    Ethereum is fast too, and what it comes down to is the fact that the majority of people who use Bitcoin today are invested in it as an investment and not as a currency. Which means any efforts to fix the problem are met with pitchforks because it could disrupt the market and kill the value of their gold.

nikanj 9y ago

One might buy it, to sell it to a greater fool before the price crashes

fjarlq 9y ago

Money laundering and terrorist financing are two potential uses (risks) explored by the Financial Action Task Force in this report: http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/Guidance-RBA-Virtual-Currencies.pdf http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/Guidan...

nlperguiy 9y ago
Money laundering and terrorist financing can be done and is done with fiat currencies too. Bitcoin is also not a private coin, ledger is public and anyone can analyze the flow of money. The only private coin I know of is Monero (XMR). Analyzing Monero ledger is like looking at random data, there's no amounts, there's no receivers, there's no senders. Everything is fully, by default, encrypted. Even receivers can't know who the sender was.
- paulpauper 9y ago
  mixers can hide the trail
- TrickyRick 9y ago
  How does a private coin work with blockchain tech? If you can't know who the sender and receiver are how can you verify transactions?
  - nlperguiy 9y ago
    There's an optionable Payment ID you can attach (also encrypted), so receiver can confirm that the payment received was for a particular purpose. Let's say payment id is user id + product id, so receiver could easily confirm that transaction was from a particular user for a particular product.

scotty79 9y ago

I'd take pay in bitcoin as payment for work anytime over last 5 years because of stupidly high cost of international money transfers. Unfortunately nobody wanted to pay me like that because apparently it was harder for accounting.

steeve 9y ago
Would you have spent it?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- scotty79 9y ago
  If I didn't have money and I needed it then definitely.
grover_hartmann 9y ago
Use Bitwage.

__s 9y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AecPrwqjbGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AecPrwqjbGw For me, buying BTC is buying out of fiat. Being able to have autonomous control of the currency I have the private keys to. I've been thinking lately: the rich invest their fiat into stores of value, while paying the poor in fiat which is soon to be worthless. This reinforces the current inequality Just plucking some thoughts from the aether of my mind. I'm currently holding because I can't spend, but technologies are going to be emerging which enable Steam et al to efficiently accept BTC, & I don't feel BTC is something to be sold-- only spent The growth rate will stabilize once the market settles on what the true value of this currency is. Then it'll just be a non deflating store of value which is also liquid

steeve 9y ago
Thank you for the detailed answer. I have some follow up questions. How can it settle on a value when there is a limited amount of Bitcoins Also, why would you spend it if it can double in value 2 months later?
- __s 9y ago
  I'm going to describe this in terms of gold; as a metaphor, you can replace gold with any other non deflating asset. There's a limited amount of gold. If you could atomically store your cash as gold yet still pay with it directly through debit, then you don't really need cash. But man does not survive on gold; so you must spend the currency By settle in value I don't mean settle on a precise fiat price. Because I'm thinking post-fiat. This may be idealistic, I know, but try to think from that perspective. By stable I mean the value of BTC shouldn't double every two months. Unless the goods it buys are becoming twice as cheap due to technological advancement There may be weird implications of having your mortgage be in terms of an asset that's non deflating, where if the economy is causing wages to go down as cost of living decreases it can become infeasible to pay for one's house in a year. Two things: banks can come up with a bank-coin which should inflate in order to stimulate long term loans, & maybe people should avoid debt. I personally live with my only debt being my mortgage So maybe BTC isn't a good currency to take out a loan for, but in that case if you can have the bank agree to a dogecoin loan it work outs. I only mention doge because it's an inflating cryptocurrency originally based on BTC, but ideally the inflating currency would be segwit so that one can make atomic payments to that currency with their BTC. Kind of going on a tangent here in this stream of consciousness but the core of this idea is that you can pay with BTC for something in a different unit, currently loans are in the unit of USD, but perhaps in the future loans will be in terms of a 'platonic housing price according to some index' unit