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> But bitcoin does provide value to me. Sure, as likely did whatever tokens were used to mark participation in Ponzi's scheme;) > It is a quick and secure pay

> But bitcoin does provide value to me. Sure, as likely did whatever tokens were used to mark participation in Ponzi's scheme;) > It is a quick and secure payment channel that isn't at the mercy of any one government or bank. That alone is extremely valuable. You need to distinguish the concepts of holding the bitcoin and using a bitcoin. You do not need to hold bitcoins to use that as a payment channel. You can just buy one when you need to transact, and then the receiver can again convert the bitcoin to a stable currency. If this is the source of the demand of bitcoins, current valuation is staggering. It is something like 40 dollars on average under transaction for each and every person on the planet. (300 billion USD vs 7.6 billion people) Global GDP is 15,800 USD per capita so that would mean roughly the full global gdp would need to be under transactions that take about a day to create this demand. (If the transactions are faster, there is less demand for bitcoin). So to the Lightning solution, which says that it is enough to have the 40 dollars on each persons Lightning wallet to generate the basis for current valuation. Now, let's assume that an average person would need/want to top up or cash his Lightning wallet once a month with a proper bitcoin blockchain transaction. 7.6 billion wallets (let's be conservative and only one wallet per crawling/walking/wheelchairing person on earth) would mean about 3000 transactions per second on the blockchain. That is around three orders of magnitude more than what the current capacity is. (And not a single speculative trade included). These pieces just don't fit in my head to make sense. > All too often i've found that I can't access my own money. Keeping it in cash is a recipe for disaster, banks often close accounts, have poor business hours, and have unfortunate amounts of fraud meaning I need to get a new credit card pretty often because some vendor I gave that number to decided to charge me more, or continue charging me after our business was done. I've been stuck while traveling multiple times because my bank decided to close my card due to what they thought looked like fraud, leaving me stranded. Of course, this is highly personal and sensitive question so I definitely do not mind you not answering, but I am a bit curious whereabout in the world you are located and whether you are engaged in some kind of illegal business or is there some other reason you are targeted by financial institutions so often? What I actually do would like to get an answer for is that why would you think that is a representative state of affairs? In my neck of woods (Europe), if normal persons can't access money due to bank's fault, it is a big news. Most of my banking business I can take care of online whenever I want, and I remember precisely once that my credit card was cancelled due to some thing or another (don't remember details) and precisely twice when I have been travelling and all my credit cards have failed to give me money from an ATM. > I can spend my bitcoin anywhere that accepts it without worrying that they will double charge me, or continue charging me monthly, or lose my account info causing a hacker to be able to charge me. Again, where I am, I can call Visa and it is the burden of the vendor to prove that I actually bought the pizza twice. Those really are not worries to me. Especially if I start comparing that to the risk that someone hacks my cmputer/wallet/exchange account/whatever, and I definitely have no recourse on my money. > it will continue to have value for me because of the secure, decentralized, and fast nature of using it as a payment system. The "fast" applies only if you are willing to stomach the volatility and other risks holding bitcoin entails. And "secure" depends on the point of view. (And just to be clear, I do see that gold actually is very similar to bitcoin as an asset. And I do think that any sensible central bank should sell their gold reserves before others come to their senses, as if all central banks sold their gold reserves, gold price would be a fraction of what it currently is.)

Klathmon 9y ago
To start off, I'm really enjoying this conversation! It's not often that I get to talk to someone about this that doesn't instantly resort to insults. So thanks for that! >You can just buy one when you need to transact, and then the receiver can again convert the bitcoin to a stable currency. But then you are just using fiat currency with an extra step. The bank can still disable your card used to buy bitcoin, the bank can still decide it doesn't like you selling cryptocurrency and freeze your account. The bank still has garbage business hours and poor customer service. The benefits only work when you keep your "spending money" in bitcoin. > Now, let's assume that an average person would need/want to top up or cash his Lightning wallet once a month with a proper bitcoin blockchain transaction. That's the secret, you wouldn't need a "proper bitcoin transaction". You'd open a channel with someone like coinbase, and then use that forever. Generally the only time you would ever need to close a channel, is to force payment from a party that is no longer participating for whatever reason. And, it can be even less than that. If you have a channel open with me, and I have a channel open with coinbase, you can buy from coinbase and route the payment through me to you without needing to open a second channel. And the whole system is trustless, so I can't backstab you and try to steal your money, and much like how you can take hundreds of routes between 2 IP addresses, you could take hundreds of different routes between lightning channels. Combine that with other new possible features in the future like schnorr signatures (which allow, oversimplified, multiple transactions' signatures to be combined into one signature, making most transactions be the minimum size on the blockchain). Everyone agrees that bitcoin's blocksize will need to scale eventually, but the idea is to have it follow the size of harddrives, and not outpace them. Bitcoin won't have 7.6 billion users tomorrow, or next year, or within the next 5 years. So writing it off because it can't currently run at that scale is pointless when there are plans in place to hopefully one day get there. Whether you or I think those plans will eventually materialize is up to each of us. >I am a bit curious whereabout in the world you are located and whether you are engaged in some kind of illegal business or is there some other reason you are targeted by financial institutions so often? I'm in the US, and it often happens when I go out of state, and especially out of the country. If I don't notify my bank that I'm going somewhere ahead of time, they will most likely shut my card off due to fraud alerts. In one case they even shut it off because I used it twice at the same gas station near my house within 5 minutes (the first pump was broken, I pulled forward and tried it again, and like an hour later my card was locked). I'm not doing anything illegal, or even borderline illegal (no online gambling or anything frowned upon by banks), but simply using a credit card in the US in Pennsylvania on monday, and at a gas station in Florida on wednesday is enough to get my account closed and a new card shipped to my house in Pennsylvania (which is the last place I need it when i'm in Florida for another 5 days...) >Again, where I am, I can call Visa and it is the burden of the vendor to prove that I actually bought the pizza twice. Those really are not worries to me. Especially if I start comparing that to the risk that someone hacks my cmputer/wallet/exchange account/whatever, and I definitely have no recourse on my money. Where I live, I need to monitor my own card, as the longer I let a charge go without contesting it the less likely it is that my bank will believe me and refund it. Not to mention the amount of time I'd need to spend on the phone contesting the charge, getting mail about the contesting, following up to ensure I won't be re-charged by visa if they side with the other party, and in one case having to file a police report before they would refund my money. And while the risk of being your own bank is difficult and risky in some ways (hacking, etc...), Bitcoin gives you the choice. You can use a custodial service if you want (AKA a bank which will insure your money in the event of a hack or fraud), or you can be your own bank. Both still let you use bitcoin with all of it's benefits. It's obviously not for everyone, and Bitcoin is absolutely a risky "asset" to be involved with right now, but as adoption grows that volatility will begin to level out. It already has compared to the early days of bitcoin with 50%+ swings in a single day in many cases. I'm putting what I can afford to lose into it, as I really believe in the technology and what it provides, and I do genuinely think it's a better form of currency than anything else that has widespread use. It's not perfect, but it's ability to change and improve over time means that it will continue to get better, and as new usecases pop up, it can adapt and change to work with them. If Bitcoin's value halves tomorrow, I'd be upset as a lot of potential value will never materialize for me, but I'd still use and support bitcoin, as would many others, due to the benefits it provides, and not just because of it's valuation. And that right there is why I know that it's not a ponzi scheme. This "pop" already happened once, it went from $1000 to $200 and stayed there for quite a while, but I and many others never stopped using it, and if it happens again I'll continue as well this time.

Klathmon 9y ago

To start off, I'm really enjoying this conversation! It's not often that I get to talk to someone about this that doesn't instantly resort to insults. So thanks for that! >You can just buy one when you need to transact, and then the receiver can again convert the bitcoin to a stable currency. But then you are just using fiat currency with an extra step. The bank can still disable your card used to buy bitcoin, the bank can still decide it doesn't like you selling cryptocurrency and freeze your account. The bank still has garbage business hours and poor customer service. The benefits only work when you keep your "spending money" in bitcoin. > Now, let's assume that an average person would need/want to top up or cash his Lightning wallet once a month with a proper bitcoin blockchain transaction. That's the secret, you wouldn't need a "proper bitcoin transaction". You'd open a channel with someone like coinbase, and then use that forever. Generally the only time you would ever need to close a channel, is to force payment from a party that is no longer participating for whatever reason. And, it can be even less than that. If you have a channel open with me, and I have a channel open with coinbase, you can buy from coinbase and route the payment through me to you without needing to open a second channel. And the whole system is trustless, so I can't backstab you and try to steal your money, and much like how you can take hundreds of routes between 2 IP addresses, you could take hundreds of different routes between lightning channels. Combine that with other new possible features in the future like schnorr signatures (which allow, oversimplified, multiple transactions' signatures to be combined into one signature, making most transactions be the minimum size on the blockchain). Everyone agrees that bitcoin's blocksize will need to scale eventually, but the idea is to have it follow the size of harddrives, and not outpace them. Bitcoin won't have 7.6 billion users tomorrow, or next year, or within the next 5 years. So writing it off because it can't currently run at that scale is pointless when there are plans in place to hopefully one day get there. Whether you or I think those plans will eventually materialize is up to each of us. >I am a bit curious whereabout in the world you are located and whether you are engaged in some kind of illegal business or is there some other reason you are targeted by financial institutions so often? I'm in the US, and it often happens when I go out of state, and especially out of the country. If I don't notify my bank that I'm going somewhere ahead of time, they will most likely shut my card off due to fraud alerts. In one case they even shut it off because I used it twice at the same gas station near my house within 5 minutes (the first pump was broken, I pulled forward and tried it again, and like an hour later my card was locked). I'm not doing anything illegal, or even borderline illegal (no online gambling or anything frowned upon by banks), but simply using a credit card in the US in Pennsylvania on monday, and at a gas station in Florida on wednesday is enough to get my account closed and a new card shipped to my house in Pennsylvania (which is the last place I need it when i'm in Florida for another 5 days...) >Again, where I am, I can call Visa and it is the burden of the vendor to prove that I actually bought the pizza twice. Those really are not worries to me. Especially if I start comparing that to the risk that someone hacks my cmputer/wallet/exchange account/whatever, and I definitely have no recourse on my money. Where I live, I need to monitor my own card, as the longer I let a charge go without contesting it the less likely it is that my bank will believe me and refund it. Not to mention the amount of time I'd need to spend on the phone contesting the charge, getting mail about the contesting, following up to ensure I won't be re-charged by visa if they side with the other party, and in one case having to file a police report before they would refund my money. And while the risk of being your own bank is difficult and risky in some ways (hacking, etc...), Bitcoin gives you the choice. You can use a custodial service if you want (AKA a bank which will insure your money in the event of a hack or fraud), or you can be your own bank. Both still let you use bitcoin with all of it's benefits. It's obviously not for everyone, and Bitcoin is absolutely a risky "asset" to be involved with right now, but as adoption grows that volatility will begin to level out. It already has compared to the early days of bitcoin with 50%+ swings in a single day in many cases. I'm putting what I can afford to lose into it, as I really believe in the technology and what it provides, and I do genuinely think it's a better form of currency than anything else that has widespread use. It's not perfect, but it's ability to change and improve over time means that it will continue to get better, and as new usecases pop up, it can adapt and change to work with them. If Bitcoin's value halves tomorrow, I'd be upset as a lot of potential value will never materialize for me, but I'd still use and support bitcoin, as would many others, due to the benefits it provides, and not just because of it's valuation. And that right there is why I know that it's not a ponzi scheme. This "pop" already happened once, it went from $1000 to $200 and stayed there for quite a while, but I and many others never stopped using it, and if it happens again I'll continue as well this time.